Life poems
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Aspirations
© Mathilde Blind
I.
I SAW thee in the streets, so wan and pale;
My heart, it shivered at the saddening sight;
Like a thin cloud thou wert, that though the sky doth sail,
And threatens to dissolve, each moment, on its flight.
Child-Songs
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Still linger in our noon of time
And on our Saxon tongue
The echoes of the home-born hymns
The Aryan mothers sung.
The Sleepers
© Walt Whitman
I WANDER all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and
stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.
Ultimum
© Francis Thompson
Now in these last spent drops, slow, slower shed,
Love dies, Love dies, Love dies--ah, Love is dead!
To A Rich Vulgarian
© Sappho
Thou fool that thou shouldst plume thyself
On rich attire, on jewel-hoard,
The New World
© Robert Laurence Binyon
To the People of the United States
Now is the time of the splendour of Youth and Death.
A Singing Bird In The City
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Golden-throated, hath God sent thee for our comfort in the city?
Sweet, sweet! singing, singing all the day.
Earths Moments Of Gloom
© Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
Liftlift up thy sinking heart, pilgrim of life!
A sure spell there is for thy spirits sad strife;
Tis not to be found in the well-springs of earth,
Oh! no, tis of higher and holier birth.
Love's Chastening
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Once Love grew bold and arrogant of air,
Proud of the youth that made him fresh and fair;
The Lion For Real
© Allen Ginsberg
I came home and found a lion in my living room
Rushed out on the fire escape screaming Lion! Lion!
Two stenographers pulled their brunnette hair and banged the window shut
I hurried home to Patterson and stayed two days
Sonnet. "Thou poisonous laurel leaf, that in the soil"
© Frances Anne Kemble
Thou poisonous laurel leaf, that in the soil
Of life, which I am doomed to till full sore,
The Days Of Our Youth
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
These are the days of our youth, our days of glory and honour.
Pleasure begotten of strength is ours, the sword in our hand.
Wisdom bends to our will, we lead captivity captive,
Kings of our lives and love, receiving gifts from men.
Dives In Torment
© Robert Norwood
THIS was my failure, who thought that the feast
Rivalled the rapture of bird on the wing;
Rivalled the lily all robed like a priest;
Smoke of the pollen when Rose-censers swing.
A Poem. For the AMA at New York, 1853
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
FOR THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
AT NEW YORK, MAY 5, 1853
'Broken Axletree'
© Henry Lawson
Oh, the pub at Devils Crossing! and the woman that he sent!
And the hell for which we bartered horse and trap and traps and tent!
And the black Since Thenthe chances that we never more may see
Ah! the two lives that were ruined for a broken axletree!
The Duellist - Book I
© Charles Churchill
The clock struck twelve; o'er half the globe
Darkness had spread her pitchy robe:
Elegy II. On The Death Of The University Beadle At Cambridge (Translated From Milton)
© William Cowper
Thee, whose refulgent staff and summons clear,
Minerva's flock longtime was wont t'obey,
Although thyself an herald, famous here,
The last of heralds, Death, has snatch'd away.
He calls on all alike, nor even deigns
To spare the office that himself sustains.
On The Pilots Who Destroyed Germany In The Spring Of 1945
© Stephen Spender
I stood on a roof top and they wove their cage
Their murmuring throbbing cage, in the air of blue crystal.
I saw them gleam above the town like diamond bolts
Conjoining invisible struts of wire,
Carrying through the sky their geometric cage
Woven by senses delicate as a shoal of flashing fish.
