Life poems
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Brown Of Ossawatomie
© John Greenleaf Whittier
John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day:
"I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.
But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free,
With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!"
Niobe
© Alfred Noyes
How like the sky she bends above her child,
One with the great horizon of her pain!
The Phoenix
© George Darley
O Blest unfabled Incense Tree,
That burns in glorious Araby,
With red scent chalicing the air,
Till earth-life grow Elysian there!
An Address to the Steam Washing Company and Letter of Remonstrance from Bridget Jones to the Nobleme
© Thomas Hood
An Address to the Steam Washing Company
"For shamelet the linen alone!" M. W. of Windsor.
Mr. ScrubMr. Slopor whoever you be!
Life and Art
© Emma Lazarus
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
The Reunion
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The gulf of seven and fifty years
We stretch our welcoming hands across;
The distance but a pebble's toss
Between us and our youth appears.
Sonnet XLI: I Thank All
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,
With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all
On the Building of Springfield
© Vachel Lindsay
Let not our town be large, remembering
That little Athens was the Muses' home,
That Oxford rules the heart of London still,
That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome.
The Waiter At The Camp
© Edgar Albert Guest
The officers' friend is the waiter at camp.
In the night air 'twas cold and was bitterly damp,
And they asked me to dine, which I readily did,
For at dining I've talents I never keep hid.
Then a bright-eyed young fellow came in with the meat,
And straightway the troop of us started to eat.
Spirit Fear.
© Robert Crawford
I look with half unfriendly eyes
Into the casual eyes I meet,
As if my spirit feared surprise,
Dim-memoried with some old defeat.
The Illinois Village
© Vachel Lindsay
O you who lose the art of hope,
Whose temples seem to shrine a lie,
Whose sidewalks are but stones of fear,
Who weep that Liberty must die,
Don Juan: Canto The Fifteenth
© George Gordon Byron
Ah!--What should follow slips from my reflection;
Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be
The Beggar's Valentine
© Vachel Lindsay
Kiss me and comfort my heart
Maiden honest and fine.
I am the pilgrim boy
Lame, but hunting the shrine;
Not Waving but Drowning
© Stevie Smith
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
The Two Blackbirds
© George Meredith
A blackbird in a wicker cage,
That hung and swung 'mid fruits and flowers,
Had learnt the song-charm, to assuage
The drearness of its wingless hours.
