Life poems
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Item
© Richard Lovelace
Ictu non potuit primo Cato solvere vitam;
Defecit tanto vulnere victa manus:
Altius inseruit digitos, qua spiritus ingens
Exiret, magnum dextera fecit iter.
Opposuit fortuna moram, involvitque, Catonis
Scires ut ferro plus valuisse manum.
Stars and the Soul
© Henry Van Dyke
"Two things," the wise man said, "fill me with awe:
The starry heavens and the moral law."
Nay, add another wonder to thy roll, -
The living marvel of the human soul!
Disenchanted
© Augusta Davies Webster
Alas, I thought this forest must be true,
And would not change because of my changed eyes;
The Romane Monarchy, being the fourth and last, beginningAnno Mundi , 3213.
© Anne Bradstreet
prologue
After some dayes of rest, my restless heart
For Zimmer
© Friedrich Hölderlin
The lines of life are various,
Like roads, and the borders of mountains.
What we are here, a god can complete there,
With harmonies, undying reward, and peace.
An Old Memory
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
How sweet the music sounded
That summer long ago,
When you were by my side, love,
To list its gentle flow.
Sea Dreams
© Alfred Tennyson
`Not fearful; fair,'
Said the good wife, `if every star in heaven
Can make it fair: you do but bear the tide.
Had you ill dreams?'
The Mother Mary
© George MacDonald
Mary, to thee the heart was given
For infant hand to hold,
And clasp thus, an eternal heaven,
The great earth in its fold.
An Account Of The Greatest English Poets
© Joseph Addison
Blest Man! whose spotless Life and Charming Lays
Employ'd the Tuneful Prelate in thy Praise:
Blest Man! who now shall be for ever known
In Sprat's successful Labours and thy own.
The Circumcision Of Christ
© John Keble
The year begins with Thee,
And Thou beginn'st with woe,
To let the world of sinners see
That blood for sin must flow.
By The Stream
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
BY the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens pass,
Jesus, by Whose Grace I Live
© Augustus Montague Toplady
Jesus, by whose grace I live,
From the fear of evil kept,
Thou has lengthen'd my reprieve,
Held in being while I slept.
With the day my heart renew;
Let me wake thy will to do.
Camping Out by Edwin Grant Burrows: American Life in Poetry #23 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
In this fine poem about camping by Washington poet E. G. Burrows, vivid memories of the speaker's father, set down one after another, move gracefully toward speculation about how experiences cling to us despite any efforts to put them aside. And then, quite suddenly, the father is gone, forever. But life goes on, the coffee is hot, and the bird that opens the poem is still there at its close, singing for life.
Camping Out
I watched the nesting redstart
when we camped by Lake Winnepesaukee.
The tent pegs pulled out in soft soil.
Rain made pawprints on the canvas.
Amaryllis by Connie Wanek: American Life in Poetry #84 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Many of this column's readers have watched an amaryllis emerge from its hard bulb to flower. To me they seem unworldly, perhaps a little dangerous, like a wild bird you don't want to get too close to. Here Connie Wanek of Duluth, Minnesota, takes a close and playful look at an amaryllis that looks right back at her.
Amaryllis
A flower needs to be this size
to conceal the winter window,
and this color, the red
of a Fiat with the top down,
to impress us, dull as we've grown.
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 10:
© Conrad Aiken
From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.
Our Hero
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Onward to her destination,
O'er the stream the Hannah sped,
When a cry of consternation
Smote and chilled our hearts with dread.
Absence
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
GOODNIGHT, my love, for I have dreamed of thee,
In walking dreams, until my soul is lost
Quest For God
© Swami Vivekananda
O'ver hill and dale and mountain range,
In temple, church, and mosque,
In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran
I had searched for Thee in vain.
The Return
© Edith Nesbit
Then I beat on the window, and called, and cried.
No one heard me, and none replied.
The golden silence lay warm and deep,
And I wept as the dead, forgotten, weep;
And there was no one to hear or see -
To comfort me, to have pity on me.
