Life poems
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Fatherland
© Sir Henry Parkes
The brave old land of deed and song,
Of gentle hearts and spirits strong,
Sonnet. "Away, away! bear me away, away"
© Frances Anne Kemble
Away, away! bear me away, away,
Into the boundless void, thou mighty wind!
An Epistle To An Editor
© Henry Austin Dobson
"We, that are very old" (the phrase
Is STEELE'S, not mine!), in former days,
Have seen so many "new Reviews"
Arise, arraign, absolve, abuse;--
Proclaim their mission to the top
(Where there's still room!), then slowly drop,
Pastorals
© George Meredith
How sweet on sunny afternoons,
For those who journey light and well,
To loiter up a hilly rise
Which hides the prospect far beyond,
And fancy all the landscape lying
Beautiful and still;
"O Lord, the hope of Israel"
© Henry Vaughan
O Lord, the hope of Israel, all they that forsake
Thee shall be ashamed ; and they that depart from
Fameless Graves
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I WALKED the ancient graveyard's ample round,
Yet found therein not one illustrious name
Wedded by Death to Fame.
The Potato Eaters by Leonard E. Nathan: American Life in Poetry #7 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20
© Ted Kooser
Leonard Nathan is a master of short poems in which two or three figures are placed on what can be seen to be a stage, as in a drama. Here, as in other poems like it, the speaker's sentences are rich with implications. This is the title work from Nathan's book from Orchises Press (1999):
The Potato Eaters
Sometimes, the naked taste of potato
reminds me of being poor.
Brothers, And A Sermon
© Jean Ingelow
“What, chorus! are you dumb? you should have cried,
‘So good comes out of evil;’” and with that,
As if all pauses it was natural
To seize for songs, his voice broke out again:
Drink Out Thy Glass
© Carl Michael Bellman
Drink out thy glass! See, on thy threshold, nightly,
Staying his sword, stands Death, awaiting thee.
Dumbness
© Thomas Traherne
Sure Man was born to meditate on things,
And to contemplate the eternal springs
War
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ambition, power, and avarice, now have hurled
Death, fate, and ruin, on a bleeding world.
See! on yon heath what countless victims lie,
Hark! what loud shrieks ascend through yonder sky;
Meditations Upon A Candle
© John Bunyan
Man's like a candle in a candlestick,
Made up of tallow and a little wick;
Intima (Intimate)
© Delmira Agustini
Yo te diré los sueños de mi vida
En lo más hondo de la noche azul…
Mi alma desnuda temblará en tus manos,
Sobre tus hombros pesará mi cruz.
Halloween
© Virna Sheard
Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away--
The dead, forgotten this many a day!
Third Sunday After Trinity
© John Keble
O hateful spell of Sin! when friends are nigh,
To make stern Memory tell her tale unsought,
And raise accusing shades of hours gone by,
To come between us and all kindly thought!
Shui Tiao Ko Tou
© Su Tung-po
Will a moon so bright ever arise again?
Drink a cupful of wine and ask of the sky.
