Life poems
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The Four Ages of Man
© Anne Bradstreet
1.1 Lo now! four other acts upon the stage,
1.2 Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age.
1.3 The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water,
1.4 Unstable, supple, moist, and cold's his Nature.
The House Delirious
© Leon Gellert
These corridors! These corridors and halls!
This change of light and gathered mystery:
These whisperings; this silent dust that palls
The buried gone are mine-a solemn property.
Spirit
© Anne Bradstreet
Be still, thou unregenerate part,
Disturb no more my settled heart,
For I have vow'd (and so will do)
Thee as a foe still to pursue,
Of the Four Ages of Man
© Anne Bradstreet
Lo, now four other act upon the stage,
Childhood and Youth, the Many and Old age:
The first son unto phlegm, grandchild to water,
Unstable, supple, cold and moist's his nature
In Reference to Her Children
© Anne Bradstreet
I had eight birds hatched in one nest,
Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.
I nursed them up with pain and care,
Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,
Epitaphs
© Anne Bradstreet
Her Mother's EpitaphHere lies
A worthy matron of unspotted life,
A loving mother and obedient wife,
A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor,
Tangerine by Ruth L. Schwartz: American Life in Poetry #54 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Poet Ruth L. Schwartz writes of the glimpse of possibility, of something sweeter than we already have that comes to us, grows in us. The unrealizable part of it causes bitterness; the other opens outward, the cycle complete. This is both a poem about a tangerine and about more than that.
Tangerine
Another (II)
© Anne Bradstreet
As loving hind that (hartless) wants her deer,
Scuds through the woods and fern with hark'ning ear,
Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry,
Her dearest deer, might answer ear or eye;
Another
© Anne Bradstreet
Phoebus make haste, the day's too long, be gone,
The silent night's the fittest time for moan;
But stay this once, unto my suit give ear,
And tell my griefs in either hemisphere.
A Letter to Her Husband
© Anne Bradstreet
Absent upon Public Employment My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more,
My joy, my magazine, of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?
The Flesh and the Spirit
© Anne Bradstreet
In secret place where once I stood
Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood,
I heard two sisters reason on
Things that are past and things to come.
Contemplations
© Anne Bradstreet
1 Sometime now past in the Autumnal Tide,
2 When Ph{oe}bus wanted but one hour to bed,
3 The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
4 Were gilded o're by his rich golden head.
A Dialogue between Old England and New
© Anne Bradstreet
New England. 1 Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best,
2 With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest,
3 What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms,
4 And sit i' the dust to sigh these sad alarms?
The Old Gentleman With The Amber Snuff-Box
© Alfred Noyes
His nephew, that engaging politician,
Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked
His epitaph should be "Snuffed Out." The clubs
Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew._
Yussouf
© James Russell Lowell
A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent,
Saying, 'Behold one outcast and in dread,
Against whose life the bow of power is bent,
Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head;
I come to thee for shelter and for food,
To Yussouf, called through all our tribes "The Good."
Superhero Pregnant Woman by Jessy Randall: American Life in Poetry #137 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea
© Ted Kooser
Dill pickles with strawberry jam? Pregnant women are known to go for late night meals like that. And the senses can go haywire. Here Jessy Randall, of Colorado Springs, gives us a look at one such woman.
Superhero Pregnant Woman
Her sense of smell is ten times stronger.
And so her husband smells funny;
she rolls away from him in the bed.
She even smells funny to herself,
but cannot roll away from that.
Alchemy
© Sara Teasdale
I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.
Prayer In Time Of War
© Edith Nesbit
Now Death is near, and very near,
In this wild whirl of horror and fear,
When round the vessel of our State
Roll the great mountain waves of hate.
God! We have but one prayer to-day -
O Father, teach us how to pray.
Mind Games
© Dimitris Varos
I am a waterfall in the desert.
A rain from a cloudless sky.
A well known but unborn child.
An insistence experience
that you never had.
