Life poems
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The Withdrawal
© Robert Lowell
This week the house went on the market
suddenly I woke up among strangers;
when I go into a room, it moves
with embarrassment, and joins another room.
The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket
© Robert Lowell
(For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and
the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth,
and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
History
© Robert Lowell
History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had--
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Dolphin
© Robert Lowell
My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,
a captive as Racine, the man of craft,
drawn through his maze of iron composition
by the incomparable wandering voice of Ph?dre.
For the Union Dead
© Robert Lowell
The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.
What I have learned
© David Holbrook
As I walked through life I've realized
Not everyone truly lives, but in the end we all must die
The Prophecy Of St. Oran: Part I
© Mathilde Blind
"Earth, earth on the mouth of Oran, that he may blab no more." Gaelic Proverb.
Winter in the Country
© Claude McKay
Sweet life! how lovely to be here
And feel the soft sea-laden breeze
Strike my flushed face, the spruce's fair
Free limbs to see, the lesser trees'
The White City
© Claude McKay
I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch
I bear it nobly as I live my part.
The Tired Worker
© Claude McKay
O whisper, O my soul! The afternoon
Is waning into evening, whisper soft!
Peace, O my rebel heart! for soon the moon
From out its misty veil will swing aloft!
The Night-Fire
© Claude McKay
No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.
The Castaways
© Claude McKay
The vivid grass with visible delight
Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth,
The butterflies, and sparrows in brief flight
Chirping and dancing for the season's birth,
Selfish
© Edgar Albert Guest
I am selfish in my wishin' every sort o' joy for you;
I am selfish when I tell you that I'm wishin' skies o' blue
Bending o'er you every minute, and a pocketful of gold,
An' as much of love an' gladness as a human heart can hold.
Coz I know beyond all question that if such a thing could be
As you cornerin' life's riches you would share 'em all with me.
Green Grow The Rashes
© Robert Burns
Chorus: Green grow the rashes, O!
Green grow the rashes, O!
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent amang the lasses, O!
Polarity
© Claude McKay
Nay, why reproach each other, be unkind,
For there's no plane on which we two may meet?
Let's both forgive, forget, for both were blind,
And life is of a day, and time is fleet.
Outcast
© Claude McKay
For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
The Dancer Of The Daughters Of Herodias
© Arthur Symons
Is it the petals falling from the rose?
For in the silence I can hear a sound
S I W
© Wilfred Owen
I will to the King,
And offer him consolation in his trouble,
For that man there has set his teeth to die,
And being one that hates obedience,
Discipline, and orderliness of life,
I cannot mourn him.
