Life poems
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Bold Jack Donahoe (1)
© Anonymous
'Twas of a valiant highwayman and outlaw of disdain
Who'd scorn to live in slavery or wear a convicts chain;
"After Our Likeness"
© Ada Cambridge
Before me now a little picture lies-
A little shadow of a childish face,
Childishly sweet, yet with the dawning grace
Of thought and wisdom on her lips and eyes.
Reunion by Jeff Daniel Marion: American Life in Poetry #76 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
I'd guess we've all had dreams like the one portrayed in this wistful poem by Tennessee poet Jeff Daniel Marion. And I'd guess that like me, you too have tried to nod off again just to capture a few more moments from the past.
A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet IV
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Behold the deed is done. Here endeth all
That bound my grief to its ancestral ways.
I have passed out, as from a funeral,
From my dead home, and in the great world's gaze
The Meeting Of The Centuries
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
A CURIOUS vision, on mine eyes unfurled
In the deep night. I saw, or seemed to see,
Two Centuries meet, and sit down vis-a-vis,
Across the great round table of the world.
Night Dive by Samuel Green: American Life in Poetry #170 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
we don't inflate our vests, but let the scrubbed cheeks
of rocks slide past in amniotic calm.
At sixty feet we douse our lights, cemented
by the weight of the dark, of water, the grip
of the sea's absolute silence. Our groping
Muscadines
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
SOBER September, robed in gray and dun,
Smiled from the forest in half-pensive wise;
A misty sweetness shone in her mild eyes,
And on her cheek a shy flush went and came,
Lady Kathleen
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Fair Lady Kathleen in her tower
Bowed her head like a wounded flower;
Shovel And Tongs
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
The Poker proposed to the shovel
That they should be man and wife,
"I think," said he, "that we could agree
As we journey along through life."
The Scout Toward Aldie
© Herman Melville
Nine Blue-coats went a-nutting
Slyly in Tennessee-
Not for chestnuts - better than that-
Hugh, you bumble-bee!
Nutting, nutting -
All through the year there's nutting!
The Angel In The House. Book II. Canto IX.
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
III Disappointment
The bliss which woman's charms bespeak,
I've sought in many, found in none!
In many 'tis in vain you seek
What can be found in only one.
Age To Youth
© Edith Nesbit
Sunrise is in your eyes, and in your heart
The hope and bright desire of morn and May.
My eyes are full of shadow, and my part
Of life is yesterday.
Questions And Answers
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
WHERE, oh where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning,
Down the back entry of time.
Invocation
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old,
Formless and void the dead earth rolled;
Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind
To the great lights which o'er it shined;
No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,--
A dumb despair, a wandering death.
Alone
© Edgar Albert Guest
Strange thoughts come to the man alone;
'Tis then, if ever, he talks with God,
Nature At Ease
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I FEEL the kisses of this lingering breeze,
Warm, close, and ardent as the lips of love,
I quaff the sunshine streaming from above,
Like mellow wine of antique vintages;
The Garrison of Cape Ann
© John Greenleaf Whittier
From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span
Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann.
Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down,
And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing town.
Eudoxia. Second Picture
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
O DEAREST my sister, my sister who sits by the hearth,
With lids softly drooping, or lifted up saintly and calm,
With household hands folded, or opened for help and for balm,
And lips, ripe and dewy, or ready for innocent mirth,--
