Life poems

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Love's Ordeal

© George MacDonald

In a lovely garden walking
Two lovers went hand in hand;
Two wan, worn figures, talking
They sat in the flowery land.

The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
In a dim library, just behind the chair
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
A song about some Lovers at a Fair,
Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling
That rhymes were beastly things and never there.

Niobe In Distress For Her Children Slain By Apollo, From Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book VI. And Fro

© Phillis Wheatley

Apollo's wrath to man the dreadful spring

Of ills innum'rous, tuneful goddess, sing!

Smoke-Rings

© Robert Graves

Most venerable and learned sir,
Tall and true Philosopher,
These rings of smoke you blow all day
With such deep thought, what sense have they?

In Memoriam

© Henry Van Dyke

The record of a faith sublime,

And hope, through clouds, far-off discerned;

At Set of Sun

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

If we sit down at set of sun,

And count the things that we have done,

Lay not reproach at the drunkard's door

© Shams al-Din Hafiz

LAY not reproach at the drunkard's door
Oh Fanatic, thou that art pure of soul;
Not thine on the page of life to enrol
The faults of others! Or less or more

To Robert Nichols

© Robert Graves

(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: I am just finishing my Fauns Holiday. I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.)
Here by a snowbound river
In scrapen holes we shiver,
And like old bitterns we

Stray Birds 81 - 90

© Rabindranath Tagore

81
WHAT is this unseen flame of darkness
whose sparks are the stars?
82

The Oak

© Alfred Tennyson

Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Not Understood

© Thomas Bracken

Not understood, we move along asunder;
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep
Not understood.

Antara

© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Though thou thy fair face concealest still in thy veil from me,
yet am I he that hath captured horse--riders how many!
Give me the praise of my fair deeds. Lady, thou knowest it,
kindly am I and forbearing, save when wrong presseth me.
Only when evil assaileth, deal I with bitterness;
then am I cruel in vengeance, bitter as colocynth.

Escape

© Robert Graves

August 6, 1916.Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)
but I was dead, an hour or more.
I woke when Id already passed the door
That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road

A Fallen Yew

© Francis Thompson

It seemed corrival of the world's great prime,
Made to un-edge the scythe of Time,
And last with stateliest rhyme.

When I'm Killed

When Im killed, dont think of me
Buried there in Cambrin Wood,
Nor as in Zion think of me
With the Intolerable Good.
And theres one thing that I know well,
Im damned if Ill be damned to Hell!

The Leap Of Roushan Beg. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth)

Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet,
His chestnut steed with four white feet,
Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou,
Son of the road and bandit chief,
Seeking refuge and relief,
Up the mountain pathway flew.

Sonnet XXI: If Beauty Thus Be Clouded

If Beauty thus be clouded with a frown,

That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,

Antonio Melidori

SCENE I.
[A place not far from the summit of Mount Psiloriti, in the Isle of Candia. Philota discovered with a basket of grapes upon her head; she looks eagerly upward. Time, a little before sunset.]
PHILOTA.

At Twenty-Eight by Amy Fleury: American Life in Poetry #59 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006

© Ted Kooser

Contrary to the glamorized accounts we often read about the lives of single women, Amy Fleury, a native of Kansas, presents us with a realistic, affirmative picture. Her poem playfully presents her life as serendipitous, yet she doesn't shy away from acknowledging loneliness.

At Twenty-Eight