Life poems
/ page 621 of 844 /
A Sad State Of Freedom
© Nazim Hikmet
You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others--
you are free to make the rich richer.
The Moment I Knew My Life Had Changed
© Maria Mazziotti Gillan
It was not until later
that I knew, recognized the moment
for what it was, my life before it,
a gray landscape, shapeless and misty;
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XXIV
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
THE SAME CONTINUED
Give me thy soul, Juliet, give me thy soul!
I am a bitter sea, which drinketh in
The sweetness of all waters, and so thine.
Once We Played
© Mathilde Blind
ONCE we played at love together--
Played it smartly, if you please;
Lightly, as a windblown feather,
Did we stake a heart apiece.
In Autumn
© Alice Meynell
The leaves are many under my feet,
And drift one way.
Their scent of death is weary and sweet.
A flight of them is in the grey
Where sky and forest meet.
To Marry Or Not To Marry?
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Mother says, "Be in no hurry,
Marriage oft means care and worry."
Auntie says, with manner grave,
"Wife is synonym for slave."
Limerick: There was an Old Man on some rocks,
© Edward Lear
There was an Old Man on some rocks,
Who shut his wife up in a box;
When she said, 'Let me out!'
He exclaimed, 'Without doubt,
You will pass all your life in that box.'
The Maid's Lament
© Walter Savage Landor
I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
To Mr. John Bartlett
© James Russell Lowell
Fit for an Abbot of Theleme,
For the whole Cardinals' College, or
The Pope himself to see in dream
Before his lenten vision gleam.
He lies there, the sogdologer!
At Vaucluse
© Alfred Austin
By Avignon's dismantled walls,
Where cloudless mid-March sunshine falls,
Rhone, through broad belts of green,
Flecked with the light of almond groves,
Upon itself reverting, roves
Reluctant from the scene.
Acon and Rhodope
© Walter Savage Landor
Fathers have given life, but virgin heart
They never gave; and dare they then control
Or check it harshly? dare they break a bond
Girt round it by the holiest Power on high?
The Old Man's Funeral
© William Cullen Bryant
Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled,
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky,
In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled,
Sinks where his islands of departure spread
O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head.
To The Fates
© Friedrich Hölderlin
Grant me just one summer, powerful ones,
And just one autumn for ripe songs,
That my heart, filled with that sweet
Music, may more willingly die within me.
Summer Wind
© William Cullen Bryant
It is a sultry day; the sun has drank
The dew that lay upon the morning grass,
Mild is the Parting Year
© Walter Savage Landor
Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.
The Creation
© James Weldon Johnson
And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely -
I'll make me a world."
A New Forest Ballad
© Charles Kingsley
Oh she tripped over Ocknell plain,
And down by Bradley Water;
And the fairest maid on the forest side
Was Jane, the keeper's daughter.
Jemmy Dawson
© William Shenstone
Come listen to my mournful tale,
Ye tender hearts and lovers dear!
Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh,
Nor need you blush to shed a tear.
