Life poems
/ page 81 of 844 /
The Story Of Grumble Tone
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
There was a boy named Grumble Tone, who ran away to sea.
"I'm sick of things on land," he said, "as sick as I can be,
A life upon the bounding wave is just the life for me!"
But the seething ocean billows failed to stimulate his mirth,
For he did not like the vessel or the dizzy rolling berth,
And he thought the sea was almost as unpleasant as the earth.
Too Late
© Alfred Austin
Had you but shown me living what you show,
Now I am gone, to keep my grave-plot green,
Strada's Nightingale
© William Cowper
The shepherd touch'd his reed; sweet Philomel
Essay'd, and oft essay'd to catch the strain,
And treasuring, as on her ear they fell,
The numbers, echod note for note again.
My name came from. . . by Emmett Tenorio Melendez: American Life in Poetry #180 Ted Kooser, U.S. Po
© Ted Kooser
What's in a name? All of us have thought at one time or another about our names, perhaps asking why they were given to us, or finding meanings within them. Here Emmett Tenorio Melendez, an eleven-year-old poet from San Antonio, Texas, proudly presents us with his name and its meaning.
My name came from. . .
Slow Dancing on the Highway:the Trip North by Elizabeth Hobbs: American Life in Poetry #112 Ted Koos
© Ted Kooser
Not only do we have road rage, but it seems we have road love, too. Here Elizabeth Hobbs of Maine offers us a two-car courtship. Be careful with whom you choose to try this little dance.
Slow Dancing on the Highway:
the Trip North
You follow close behind me,
for a thousand miles responsive to my movements.
I signal, you signal back. We will meet at the next exit.
In Your Absence by Judith Harris: American Life in Poetry #157 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
From your school days you may remember A. E. Housman's poem that begins, âLoveliest of trees, the cherry now/ Is hung with bloom along the bough.â? Here's a look at a blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet Judith Harris.
In Your Absence
Not yet summer,
but unseasonable heat
pries open the cherry tree.
If You But Knew
© Mathilde Blind
Ah, if you knew how soon and late
My eyes long for a sight of you,
Sometimes in passing by my gate
You'd linger until fall of dew,
If you but knew!
Disappointment
© Ovid
But oh, I suppose she was ugly; she wasn't elegant;
I hadn't yearned for her often in my prayers.
Yet holding her I was limp, and nothing happened at all:
I just lay there, a disgraceful load for her bed.
Virginia--The West
© Walt Whitman
The noble sire fallen on evil days,
I saw with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,
(Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance,)
The insane knife toward the Mother of All.
A Triptych
© Arthur Symons
II. ISOTTA TO THE ROSE: RIMINI
The little country girl who plucks a rose
Goes barefoot through the sunlight to the sea,
And singing of Isotta as she goes.
Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum
© William Gay
O steep and rugged Life, whose harsh ascent
Slopes blindly upward through the bitter night!
Awakening
© Edward Dowden
With brain oerworn, with heart a summer clod,
With eye so practised in each form around,
William Bede Dalley
© Henry Kendall
The clear, bright atmosphere through which he looks
Is one by no dim, close horizon bound;
The power shed as flame from noble books
Hath made for him a larger world around.
To Ellen Terry
© Alfred Austin
Nay, bring forth none but daughters: daughters young,
The doubles of yourself; with face as fair,
Home
© James Montgomery
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven, o'er all the world beside;
War
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
Shake, shake the earth with giant tread,
Thou red-maned Titian bold;
The Growth Of Love XI
© Archibald Lampman
Belovèd, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Mother And Child
© Robert Laurence Binyon
By old blanched fibres of gaunt ivy bound,
The hollow crag towers under noon's blue height.
Ribbed ledges, lizard--haunted crannies white,
Cushioned with stone--crop and with moss embrowned,
His Wife And Baby
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
'He sings a plenty things
Just watch him wash his wings!
He says Papa will march to-day with drums home through the city.
Here, birdie, here's my cup.
You drink the milk all up;
I'll kiss you, birdie, now you're washed like baby clean and pretty.'
