Does the Mother of Nations draw the sword
To rescue her children oppressed ?
They have all that the richest lands afford;
They sit content at an ample board
As safe as a bird in its nest.

Meg's Curse

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

The sun rode high in a cloudless sky

Of a perfect summer morn.

Monna Lisa

© James Russell Lowell

She gave me all that woman can,
Nor her soul's nunnery forego,
A confidence that man to man
Without remorse can never show.

A poor clerk I, 'Arnaut the less' they call me,
And because I have small mind to sit
Day long, long day cooped on a stool
A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Polin,
I ha' taken to rambling the South here.

Morning On The Lievres

© Archibald Lampman

Far above us where a jay

Screams his matins to the day,

Memory

© Zora Bernice May Cross

Late, late last night, when the whole world slept,

Along to the garden of dreams I crept.

My Corn-Cob Pipe

© Paul Laurence Dunbar

Men may sing of their Havanas, elevating to the stars
The real or fancied virtues of their foreign-made cigars;
But I worship Nicotina at a different sort of shrine,
And she sits enthroned in glory in this corn-cob pipe of mine.

My Hometown by Donal Heffernan : American Life in Poetry #276 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20

© Ted Kooser

I live in Nebraska, where we have a town named Homer. Such a humble, homely name and, as it happens, the poet Donal Heffernan is from Homer, and heres his hymn to the town and its history. Long live Homer. And while were celebrating Nebraska towns, lets throw in Edgar, too.