Life poems
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The Sacrifice of Er-Heb
© Rudyard Kipling
Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
Comes westward o'er the peaks to India.
Rimini
© Rudyard Kipling
Marching Song of a Roman Legion of the Later Empire Enlarged From "Puck of Pook's Hill"
When I left Rome for Lalage's sake,
By the Legions' Road to Rimini,
She vowed her heart was mine to take
The Rhyme of the Three Sealers
© Rudyard Kipling
Away by the lands of the Japanee
Where the paper lanterns glow
And the crews of all the shipping drink
In the house of Blood Street Joe,
Bond Street
© Arthur Henry Adams
Its glittering emptiness it brings -
This little lane of useless things.
Here peering envy arm in arm
With ennui takes her saunterings.
Gold Egg: A Dream-Fantasy
© James Russell Lowell
I swam with undulation soft,
Adrift on Vischer's ocean,
And, from my cockboat up aloft,
Sent down my mental plummet oft
In hope to reach a notion.
A Recantation
© Rudyard Kipling
What boots it on the Gods to call?
Since, answered or unheard,
We perish with the Gods and all
Things made--except the Word.
The Worlds Greatest Smoke Off
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
Hashishes from Morocco
Hemp smokers from Peru
And the Shashnicks from Bagoon, who smoke the deadly Pugaroo
And those who call it 'Light of Life'
And those that call it 'Boo'
Aubade
© Philip Larkin
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
The Queen's Men
© Rudyard Kipling
They did not stay to ask
What prize should crown their task--
Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
But passed into eclipse,
Her kiss upon their lips--
Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!
Public Waste
© Rudyard Kipling
By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass
That only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,
Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein he must pass;
Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowledge is great.
Prelude
© Rudyard Kipling
I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
In deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.
The Ages Of Man
© Henry Howard
Laid in my quiet bed, in study as I were,
I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear,
To His Coy Love
© Michael Drayton
I pray thee leave, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me.
To James Freeman Clarke
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
I BRING the simplest pledge of love,
Friend of my earlier days;
Mine is the hand without the glove,
The heart-beat, not the phrase.
Pagett, M.P.
© Rudyard Kipling
The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where eath tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.
Outsong in the Jungle
© Rudyard Kipling
For the sake of him who showed
One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,
Keep the Law the Man-Pack make
For thy blind old Baloo's sake!
The Outlaws
© Rudyard Kipling
Through learned and laborious years
They set themselves to find
Fresh terrors and undreamed-of fears
To heap upon mankind.
Confession
© Boris Pasternak
Life returned with a cause-the way
Some strange chance once interrupted it.
Just as on that distant summer day,
I am standing in the same old street.
