Life poems
/ page 588 of 844 /
The Mountain Splitter
© Henry Lawson
HE WORKS in the glen where the waratah grows,
And the gums and the ashes are tall,
Neath cliffs that re-echo the sound of his blows
When the wedges leap in from the mawl.
Greeting
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I spread a scanty board too late;
The old-time guests for whom I wait
Come few and slow, methinks, to-day.
Ah! who could hear my messages
Across the dim unsounded seas
On which so many have sailed away!
Ode To The Philistines
© George Essex Evans
Six days shalt thou swindle and lie!
On the sevenththo it soundeth odd
In the odour of sanctity
Thou shalt offer the Lord, thy God,
A threepenny bit, a doze, a start, and an unctuous smile,
And a hurried prayer to prosper another six days of guile.
Her Memories
© Augusta Davies Webster
NOT by her grave: thither I bid them take
Fresh garlands of the flowers that pleased her best,
The Animals are Leaving by Charles Harper Webb: American Life in Poetry #203 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet L
© Ted Kooser
To read in the news that a platoon of soldiers has been killed is a terrible thing, but to learn the name of just one of them makes the news even more vivid and sad. To hold the name of someone or something on our lips is a powerful thing. It is the badge of individuality and separateness. Charles Harper Webb, a California poet, takes advantage of the power of naming in this poem about the steady extinction of animal species.
The Animals are Leaving
One by one, like guests at a late party
They shake our hands and step into the dark:
Arabian ostrich; Long-eared kit fox; Mysterious starling.
An Emblem of Life
© Caroline Norton
Oh! Life is like the summer rill, where weary daylight dies;
We long for morn to rise again, and blush along the skies:
If He dissolvethenthere is nothing
© Emily Dickinson
Would but some Godinform Him
Or it be too late!
Saythat the pulse just lisps
The Chariots wait
Life Returning
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
O LIFE, dear life, with sunbeam finger touching
This poor damp brow, or flying freshly by
On wings of mountain wind, or tenderly
In links of visionary embraces clutching
Me from the yawning grave--
Can I believe thou yet hast power to save?
His Dream Of The Skyland
© Li Po
The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss,
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves.
But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say,
May be seen through cracks of the glimmering cloud.
This land of the sky stretches across the leagues of heaven;
It rises above the Five Mountains and towers over the Scarlet Castle,
Choriambics -- I
© Rupert Brooke
Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring
Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring;
The Empty Quatrain
© Henry Van Dyke
A flawless cup: how delicate and fine
The flowing curve of every jewelled line!
Look, turn it up or down, 't is perfect still,-
But holds no drop of life's heart-warming wine.
Song Of The Jade Cup
© Li Po
A jade cup was broken because old age came
too soon to give fulfilment to hopes; after drinking
three cups of wine I wiped my sword and
started to dance under an autumn moon first
Chiang Chin Chiu
© Li Po
See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! See at the mirror
in the High Hall Aged men bewailing white locks - In the morning, threads of silk, In the evening flakes of snow. Snatch the joys
of life as they come and use them to the full; Do not leave the silver cup idly glinting at the moon. The things that Heaven made
Man was meant to use; A thousand guilders scattered to the wind may come back again. Roast mutton and sliced beef will only
The Old Dust
© Li Po
The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home.
One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth,
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.
Time's Shadow
© Mathilde Blind
This hour alone Hope's broken pledges mar,
And joy now gleams before, now in our rear,
Like mirage mocking in some waste afar,
Dissolving into air as we draw near.
Beyond our steps the path is sunny-clear,
The shadow lying only where we are.
To Arthur Upson
© William Stanley Braithwaite
How placidly this silent river rolls
Under the midnight stars before our feet,
On Hearing The News From Venice
© George Meredith
(The Death Of Robert Browning)
Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak,
The Sea-Limits
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
CONSIDER the sea's listless chime:
Time's self it is, made audible,
