Life poems

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The Botanic Garden( Part III)

© Erasmus Darwin

  -HERE her sad Consort, stealing through the gloom
  Of
  Hangs in mute anguish o'er the scutcheon'd hearse,
  Or graves with trembling style the votive verse.

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She rose to his requirement, dropped

© Emily Dickinson

She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.

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Divided Destinies

© Rudyard Kipling

It was an artless Bandar, and he danced upon a pine,
And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine,
And many, many other things, till, o'er my morning smoke,
I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamt that Bandar spoke.

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The Derelict

© Rudyard Kipling

And reports the derelict Mary Pollock still at sea.
SHIPPING NEWS.

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A Death-Bed

© Rudyard Kipling

1918
This is the State above the Law.
The State exists for the State alone."
[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,
And an answering lump by the collar-bone.],

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The Dead King

© Rudyard Kipling


Who in the Realm to-day lays down dear life for the sake of a land more dear?
And, unconcerned for his own estate, toils till the last grudged sands have run?
Let him approach. It is proven here
Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself, has done.

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Danny Deever

© Rudyard Kipling

"What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade.
"To turn you out, to turn you out", the Colour-Sergeant said.
"What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.
"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said.

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The Comforters

© Rudyard Kipling

Until thy feet have trod the Road
Advise not wayside folk,
Nor till thy back has borne the Load
Break in upon the broke.

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A Code of Morals

© Rudyard Kipling

Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,
And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught
His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.

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Cleared

© Rudyard Kipling

Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

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Farewell

© Harry Kemp

Tell them, O Sky-born, when I die
With high romance to wife,
That I went out as I had lived,
Drunk with the joy of life.

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Christmas in India

© Rudyard Kipling

Dim dawn behind the tamerisks -- the sky is saffron-yellow --
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.

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Morning Lament

© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

OH thou cruel deadly-lovely maiden,
Tell me what great sin have I committed,
That thou keep'st me to the rack thus fasten'd,
That thou hast thy solemn promise broken?

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A Charm

© Rudyard Kipling

These shall cleanse and purify
Webbed and inward-turning eye;
These shall show thee treasure hid,
Thy familiar fields amid;
And reveal (which is thy need)
Every man a King indeed!

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Chant-Pagan

© Rudyard Kipling

Me that 'ave been what I've been --
Me that 'ave gone where I've gone --
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen --
'Ow can I ever take on

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Certain Maxims Of Hafiz

© Rudyard Kipling

I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"

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Night in Day by Joseph Stroud : American Life in Poetry #220 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200

© Ted Kooser

One of the privileges of being U.S. Poet Laureate was to choose two poets each year to receive a $10,000 fellowship, funded by the Witter Bynner Foundation. Joseph Stroud, who lives in California, was one of my choices. This poem is representative of his clear-eyed, imaginative poetry.

Night in Day

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The Letter L

© Jean Ingelow

We sat on grassy slopes that meet
  With sudden dip the level strand;
The trees hung overhead—­our feet
  Were on the sand.

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Cain and Abel

© Rudyard Kipling

Cain and Abel were brothers born.
(Koop-la! Come along, cows!)
One raised cattle and one raised corn.
(Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!)