Life poems
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The Black Rock
© John Gould Fletcher
Off the long headland, threshed about by round-backed breakers,
There is a black rock, standing high at the full tide;
Off the headland there is emptiness,
And the moaning of the ocean,
And the black rock standing alone.
Music
© Stephen Vincent Benet
My friend went to the piano; spun the stool
A little higher; left his pipe to cool;
On The Site Of A Mulberry-Tree; Planted by Wm. Shakspeare; felled by the Rev. F. Gastrell
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
THIS tree, here fall'n, no common birth or death
Shared with its kind. The world's enfranchised son,
The King Of The Plow
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THE sword is re-sheathed in its scabbard,
The rifle hangs safe on the wall;
No longer we quail at the hungry
Hot rush of the ravenous ball,
(To James R. Lawson) 1946
© John Gould Fletcher
Over the scattered trees, over the sunbrowned meadow,
The bells wove their rhythm of delicate, proud, airborne music;
Hunted Down
© Henry Kendall
Two years had the tiger, whose shape was that of a sinister man,
Been out since the night of escape - two years under horror and ban.
Karen
© Celia Thaxter
At her low quaint wheel she sits to spin,
Deftly drawing the long, light rolls
Of carded wool through her finders thin,
By the fireside at the Isles of Shoals.
The Last Rose Of Summer
© Charles Wolfe
That strain again? It seems to tell
Of something like a joy departed;
I love its mourning accents well,
Like voice of one, ah! broken-hearted.
King Harald's Trance
© George Meredith
Sword in length a reaping-hook amain
Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank:
'Mid the swathes of slain,
First at moonrise drank.
Song Of The Broad-Axe
© Walt Whitman
Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes-masculine trades,
sights and sounds;
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music;
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great
organ.
OShea
© Alice Guerin Crist
OShea was a big railway ganger, clean-hearted, and clean-limbed and shy,
With a glint of grey hair at his temples, and smile in his Irish blue eye;
Hed but one speech for every occasion, as you told him the news of the day,
And I know I will shock pious people-but poor Tim meant no harm when hes say.
Aw! glong, go-to-hell, go-to-hell now! In a mildly expostulant way.
Ballade Of Barren Roses
© Gertrude Bartlett
O Mystic Rose, the heart of Jesu, fair
Creative source from which all beauty flows,
Ever transfusing Love, hear now my prayer:
Resume for Love's own sake one barren rose.
I had no time to hate, because
© Emily Dickinson
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
Dante To Beatrice
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
I SEE thee, gliding towards me with slow pace
Across the azure fields of Paradise,
Where thine each footstep makes a star arise.
So from this heart's once void but infinite space
A True Hymne
© George Herbert
My joy, my life, my crown!
My heart was meaning all the day,
Somewhat it fain would say:
And still it runneth mutt'ring up and down
With only this, My joy, my life, my crown.
Quia Nominor Leo: Sonnets
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
I.
WHAT part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,
Meadowlarks
© Sara Teasdale
IN the silver light after a storm,
Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
Consummatum Est
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I'VE done with all the world can give,
Whate'er its kind or measure.
(O Christ! what paltry lives we live
If toil be lord, or pleasure!).
