Life poems
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Self-Portrait At 28
© David Berman
If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf and Turf.
Not To The Staring Day
© William Ernest Henley
Not to the staring Day,
For all the importunate questionings he pursues
The Patriot Engineer
© George Meredith
'Sirs! may I shake your hands?
My countrymen, I see!
I've lived in foreign lands
Till England's Heaven to me.
A hearty shake will do me good,
And freshen up my sluggish blood.'
Lines Written During The Castlereagh Administration
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
Corpses are cold in the tomb;
Stones on the pavement are dumb;
Abortions are dead in the womb,
And their mothers look palelike the death-white shore
Of Albion, free no more.
Ego Dominus Tuus
© William Butler Yeats
Hic. On the grey sand beside the shallow stream
Under your old wind-beaten tower, where still
Third Avenue In Sunlight
© Anthony Evan Hecht
Now he confides to a stranger, "I was first scout,
And kept my glimmers peeled till after dark.
Our outfit had as its sign a bloody knout,
We met behind the museum in Central Park.
Witness
© Anthony Evan Hecht
Against the enormous rocks of a rough coast
The ocean rams itself in pitched assault
And spastic rage to which there is no halt;
Foam-white brigades collapse; but the huge host
A Hill
© Anthony Evan Hecht
In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur,
I had a vision once - though you understand
It was nothing at all like Dante's, or the visions of saints,
And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends,
A Worldly Death-Bed
© Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
Hush! speak in accents soft and low,
And treat with careful stealth
Watching Unto God In The Night Season
© William Cowper
Sleep at last has fled these eyes,
Nor do I regret his flight,
More alert my spirits rise,
And my heart is free and light.
Lizards And Snakes
© Anthony Evan Hecht
On the summer road that ran by our front porch
Lizards and snakes came out to sun.
It was hot as a stove out there, enough to scorch
A buzzard's foot. Still, it was fun
A Hymn To My God
© Sir Henry Wotton
OH thou great Power, in whom I move,
For whom I live, to whom I die,
The Same, Expanded.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
And people then will alter their mind.
If courage is gone--then all is gone!
'Twere better that thou hadst never been born.
Decaying Lambskins
© Robinson Jeffers
After all, we also stand on a height. Our blood and our culture
have passed the flood-marks of any world
Three Palinodias.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beginning, rudely, I admit,
To treat the lady with a text.
To this she hearken'd not at all,
But hasten'd to his principal:
"None are so wise, they say, as you,--
Is not the world enough for two?
November
© John Keble
Red oer the forest peers the setting sun;
The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crownd the eastern copse; and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief November day.
The Country Schoolmaster.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"I feel new life in every limb!"
Our traveller cried in ecstasy.
"Who art thou who thus gladden'st me?
May Heaven such blessings ever send!
Ne'er may I want a jovial friend!"
The Consecrated Spot.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHEN in the dance of the Nymphs, in the moonlight so holy assembled,Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret descending,
Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their numbers enthralling,Here doth he watch their silent dances' mysterious measure.
All that is glorious in Heaven, and all that the earth in her beautyEver hath brought into life, the dreamer awake sees before him;
All he repeats to the Muses, and lest the gods should be anger'd,How to tell of secrets discreetly, the Muses instruct him. 1789.*
