Mom poems
/ page 129 of 212 /
Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.
Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi.
"O Cæsar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.
An Opium Fantasy
© Maria White Lowell
SOFT hangs the opiate in the brain,
And lulling soothes the edge of pain,
Till harshest sound, far off or near,
Sings floating in its mellow sphere.
Futility in Key West
© Mark Strand
I was stretched out on the couch, about to doze off, when I imagined a small figure asleep on a couch identical to mine
Dawn
© Louise Gluck
Years and years — that’s how much time passes.
All in a dream. But the duck —
no one knows what happened to that.
I Wasn’t One of the Six Million: And What Is My Life Span? Open Closed Open
© John Wesley
3
And what is my life span? I’m like a man gone out of Egypt:
the Red Sea parts, I cross on dry land,
two walls of water, on my right hand and on my left.
Pharaoh’s army and his horsemen behind me. Before me the desert,
perhaps the Promised Land, too. That is my life span.
Gareth And Lynette
© Alfred Tennyson
To whom the mother said,
'True love, sweet son, had risked himself and climbed,
And handed down the golden treasure to him.'
Detroit, Tomorrow
© Philip Levine
Newspaper says the boy killed by someone,
don’t say who. I know the mother, waking,
gets up as usual, washes her face
in cold water, and starts the coffee pot.
A Complaint
© William Wordsworth
A well of love-it may be deep-
I trust it is,-and never dry:
What matter? if the waters sleep
In silence and obscurity.
-Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.
Faringdon Hill. Book II
© Henry James Pye
The sultry hours are past, and Phbus now
Spreads yellower rays along the mountain's brow:
I Know an Aged Man Constrained to Dwell
© William Wordsworth
I know an aged Man constrained to dwell
In a large house of public charity,
Where he abides, as in a Prisoner's cell,
With numbers near, alas! no company.
Elegy II
© Henry James Pye
Now the brown woods their leafy load resign
And rage the tempests with resistless force?
Prayer for the Dead by Stuart Kestenbaum: American Life in Poetry #181 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Stuart Kestenbaum, the author of this week's poem, lost his brother Howard in the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We thought it appropriate to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, by sharing this poem. The poet is the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine.
Prayer for the Dead
To The Right Honble. The Lady Dowager Torrington,
© Mary Barber
When you command, the Muse obeys,
Proud to present her humble Lays.
Of writing I'll no more repent,
Nor think my Time unwisely spent;
If Verse the Happiness procures
Of pleasing such a Soul as yours.
Pharsalia - Book VI: The Fight Near Dyrhachium. Scaeva's Exploits. The Witch Of Thessalia.
© Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Now that the chiefs with minds intent on fight
Had drawn their armies near upon the hills
