Life poems
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The Way To Behave.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THOUGH tempers are bad and peevish folks swear,
Remember to ruffle thy brows, friend, ne'er;
And let not the fancies of women so fair
E'er serve thy pleasure in life to impair.
A Promise. "In the dark, lonely night"
© Frances Anne Kemble
In the dark, lonely night,
When sleep and silence keep their watch o'er men;
Rules For Monarchs.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
IF men are never their thoughts to employ,
Take care to provide them a life full of joy;
But if to some profit and use thou wouldst bend them,
Take care to shear them, and then defend them.
Lamp Of Love
© Rabindranath Tagore
Misery knocks at thy door,
and her message is that thy lord is wakeful,
and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.
Elegy IV. Anno Aet. 18. To My Tutor, Thomas Young, Chaplain Of The English Merchants Resident At Ham
© William Cowper
Hence, my epistle--skim the Deep--fly o'er
Yon smooth expanse to the Teutonic shore!
Long Marriage by Gerald Fleming: American Life in Poetry #208 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
To have a helpful companion as you travel through life is a marvelous gift. This poem by Gerald Fleming, a long-time teacher in the San Francisco public schools, celebrates just such a relationship.
Long Marriage
Tempura Mutantur
© James Russell Lowell
The world turns mild; democracy, they say,
Rounds the sharp knobs of character away,
Rubaiyat 30
© Shams al-Din Hafiz
I spent my life chasing my wishes
What benefits fate furnishes?
Whomever to I said I loved you,
Turned to my foe, why my luck ravishes?
June.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soon between us rise to sight
Valleys cool, with bushes light,
Streams and meadows; next appear
Trilogy of Passion: I. TO WERTHER.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The farewell sunbeams bless'd our ravish'd view;
Fate bade thee go,--to linger here was mine,--
Going the first, the smaller loss was thine.
The Fool's Epilogue.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
MANY good works I've done and ended,
Ye take the praise--I'm not offended;
For in the world, I've always thought
Each thing its true position hath sought.
I. The Pariah's Prayer
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
DREADED Brama, lord of might!All proceed from thee alone;
Thou art he who judgeth right!Dost thou none but Brahmins own?
Do but Rajahs come from thee?None but those of high estate?Didst not thou the ape create,
Aye, and even such as we?We are not of noble kind,For with woe our lot is rife;
A Woman's Question
© Adelaide Anne Procter
Before I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
The God And The Bayadere.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This very fine Ballad was also first given in the Horen.]
(MAHADEVA is one of the numerous names of Seeva, the destroyer,--
the great god of the Brahmins.)
To Lida.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Far from thee, in life's turmoils nought I see
Save a thin veil, through which thy form I view,
As though in clouds; with kindly smile and true,
The Morning of Love
© Thomas Love Peacock
O! The spring-time of life is the season of blooming,
And the morning of love is the season of joy;
Addressed To A Young Man Of Fortune Who Abandoned Himself To An Indolent And Causeless Melancholy
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Anacreon's Grave.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
HERE where the roses blossom, where vines round the laurels are
twining,Where the turtle-dove calls, where the blithe cricket is heard,
Say, whose grave can this be, with life by all the ImmortalsBeauteously planted and deck'd?--Here doth Anacreon sleep
Spring and summer and autumn rejoiced the thrice-happy minstrel,And from the winter this mound kindly hath screen'd him at last. 1789.*
Lines On Seeing Schiller's Skull.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This curious imitation of the ternary metre
of Dante was written at the age of 77.]WITHIN a gloomy charnel-house one dayI view'd the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were grey.Close pack'd they stand, that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones, that to the death contended,Are lying cross'd,--to lie for ever, fated.
