Mom poems
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The World as It is by Carolyn Miller : American Life in Poetry #269 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2
© Ted Kooser
It is enough for me as a reader that a poem take from life a single moment and hold it up for me to look at. There need not be anything sensational or unusual or peculiar about that moment, but somehow, by directing my attention to it, our attention to it, the poet bathes it in the light of the remarkable. Here is a poem like this by Carolyn Miller, who lives in San Francisco.
The Trumpeter, an Old English Tale
© Mary Darby Robinson
It was in the days of a gay British King
(In the old fashion'd custom of merry-making)
The Palace of Woodstock with revels did ring,
While they sang and carous'd--one and all:
The Poor Singing Dame
© Mary Darby Robinson
Beneath an old wall, that went round an old Castle,
For many a year, with brown ivy o'erspread;
A neat little Hovel, its lowly roof raising,
Defied the wild winds that howl'd over its shed:
The Mistletoe (A Christmas Tale)
© Mary Darby Robinson
This Farmer, as the tale is told--
Was somewhat cross, and somewhat old!
His, was the wintry hour of life,
While summer smiled before his wife;
A contrast, rather form'd to cloy
The zest of matrimonial joy!
The Fortune-Teller, a Gypsy Tale
© Mary Darby Robinson
STEPHEN had long in secret sigh'd;
And STEPHEN never was deny'd:
Now, LUBIN was a modest swain,
And therefore, treated with disdain:
For, it is said, in Love and War ,--
The boldest, most successful are!
The Dream of Man
© William Watson
To the eye and the ear of the Dreamer
This Dream out of darkness flew,
Through the horn or the ivory portal,
But he wist not which of the two.
The Hueless Love
© George Meredith
Unto that love must we through fire attain,
Which those two held as breath of common air;
The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere;
Whom Honour was untroubled to restrain.
May, 1917
© John Jay Chapman
THE earth is damp: in everything
I taste the bitter breath of pallid spring.
Oberon to the Queen of the Fairies
© Mary Darby Robinson
My OBERON, with ev'ry sprite
"That gilds the vapours of the night,
"Shall dance and weave the verdant ring
"With joy that mortals thus can sing;
Edmund's Wedding
© Mary Darby Robinson
By the side of the brook, where the willow is waving
Why sits the wan Youth, in his wedding-suit gay!
Now sighing so deeply, now frantickly raving
Beneath the pale light of the moon's sickly ray.
To Harriet -- It Is Not Blasphemy To Hope That Heaven
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven
More perfectly will give those nameless joys
Which throb within the pulses of the blood
And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth
Reverie, with Fries
© Marilyn L. Taylor
Straight-spined girlyes, you of the glinting earrings,
amber skin and sinuous hair: what happened?
youve no business lunching with sticky children
here at McDonalds.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VIII - Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis
© Robert Browning
(Virgil, now, should not be too difficult
To Cinoncino,say the early books . . .
Pen, truce to further gambols! Poscimur!)
The Lights of London
© Louise Imogen Guiney
Her booths begin to flare; and gases bright
Prick door and window; all her streets obscure
Sparkle and swarm with nothing true or sure,
Full as a marsh of mist and winking light;
Heaven thickens over, Heaven that cannot cure
Her tear by day, her fevered smile by night.
Storm and Calm
© Henry Timrod
Sweet are these kisses of the South,
As dropped from woman's rosiest mouth,
And tenderer are those azure skies
Than this world's tenderest pair of eyes!
Elle avait pris ce pli ...
© Victor Marie Hugo
Elle avait pris ce pli dans son âge enfantin
De venir dans ma chambre un peu chaque matin;
Je l'attendais ainsi qu'un rayon qu'on espère;
Elle entrait, et disait: Bonjour, mon petit père ;
The Birch-Tree at Loschwitz
© Amy Levy
At Loschwitz above the city
The air is sunny and chill;
The birch-trees and the pine-trees
Grow thick upon the hill.
Sinfonia Eroica
© Amy Levy
(To Sylvia.)
My Love, my Love, it was a day in June,
A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon;
And all the eager people thronging came
