Life poems
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Things Of Clay
© Gamaliel Bradford
Sing a little, play a little,
Laugh a little; for
Life is so extremely brittle,
Who would think of more?
Myrtilla
© Washington Allston
"Ah me! how sad," Myrtilla cried,
"To waste alone my years!"
While o'er a streamlet's flow'ry side
She pensive hung, and watch'd the tide
That dimpled with her tears.
Strife and Peace
© Jean Ingelow
The yellow poplar-leaves came down
And like a carpet lay,
No waftings were in the sunny air
To flutter them away;
And he stepped on blithe and debonair
That warm October day.
Auri Sacra Fames
© George Essex Evans
Gone are the mists of old in the light of the larger day!
Gone is the foolish hope, the trust in a Power above!
Science has swept the heavens and brushed religion away!
What need we hope or fear? Warfare is clothed like Love!
Priestcraft is but a tradesouls can be bought and sold!
Why should we seek for a godnow that our god is Gold?
Dickens
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
METHINKS the air
Throbs with the tolling of harmonious bells,
Rung by the bands of spirits; everywhere
We feel the presence of a soft despair
And thrill to voices of divine farewells.
Lines Written At The King's-Arms, Ross, Formerly The House Of The 'Man Of Ross'
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Richer than misers o'er their countless hoards,
Nobler than kings, or king-polluted lords,
Here dwelt the man of Ross! O trav'ller, hear,
Departed merit claims a reverent tear.
Ballade Of Blind Love
© Andrew Lang
Queen, when the clay is my coverlet,
When I am dead, and when you are grey,
Vow, where the grass of the grave is wet,
"I shall never forget till my dying day!"
The Angel In The House. Book II. Canto X.
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
I
At Church, in twelve hours more, we meet!
This, Dearest, is our last farewell.
Oh, Felix, do you love me? Sweet,
Why do you ask? I cannot tell.
A Pastoral
© Nicholas Breton
On a hill there grows a flower,
Fair befall the dainty sweet!
By that flower there is a bower
Where the heavenly Muses meet.
An Evening Prayer
© George MacDonald
I am a bubble
Upon thy ever-moving, resting sea:
Oh, rest me now from tossing, trespass, trouble!
Take me down into thee.
Sonnet VIII: What Can I Give Thee Back
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
Absence
© James Russell Lowell
Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so;
But Absence is the bitter self of Death,
And, you away, Life's lips their red forego,
Parched in an air unfreshened by your breath.
Choriambics
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
What strange faces of dreams, voices that called, hands that were raised to wave,
Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to the sunless grave?
Buried To-Day
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
BURIED to-day.
When the soft green buds are bursting out,
And up on the south wind comes a shout
Of village boys and girls at play
In the mild spring evening gray.
To Olinthus Gregory, On Hearing Of The Death Of His Eldest Son, Who Was Drowned As He Was Returning
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
IS there a spot where Pity's foot,
Although unsandalled, fears to tread,
A silence where her voice is mute,
Where tears, and only tears, are shed?
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: XCII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
WRITTEN IN DISTRESS
We sometimes sit in darkness. I long while
Have sat there, in a shadow as of death.
My friends and comforters no longer smile,
The Banks Of Wye - Book IV
© Robert Bloomfield
Here ivy'd fragments, lowering, throw
Broad shadows on the poor below,
Who, while they rest, and when they die,
Sleep on the rock-built shores of WYE.
Fences by Pat Mora: American Life in Poetry #192 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Class, status, privilege; despite all our talk about equality, they're with us wherever we go. In this poem, Pat Mora, who grew up in a Spanish speaking home in El Paso, Texas, contrasts the lives of rich tourists with the less fortunate people who serve them. The titles of poems are often among the most important elements, and this one is loaded with implication.
Fences
Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.
Jealousy
© Rupert Brooke
When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
