Mom poems
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Bury Me In My Shades
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
In a pad with no heat, up on Sullivan Street,
The last of the hipsters lay dyin'.
Wearin' his shades, so like no one could tell
Like whether or not he was cryin'.
The Avalanche
© Alaric Alexander Watts
'Tis Night; and Silence with unmoving wings
Broods o'er the sleeping waters;ânot a sound
The Battle Of Kings Mountain
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
OFTTIMES an old man's yesterdays o'er his frail vision pass,
Dim as the twilight tints that touch a dusk-enshrouded glass;
But, ah! youth's time and manhood's prime but grow more brave, more bright,
As still the lengthening shadows steal toward the rayless night.
Three Men Of Truro
© Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Aloft with us! And while another stone
Swings to its socket, haste with trowel and hod!
Win the old smile a moment ere, alone,
Soars the great soul to bear report to God.
Night falls; but thou, dear Captain, from thy star
Look down, behold how bravely goes the war!
Song From The Spanish Of Iglesias
© William Cullen Bryant
Alexis calls me cruel;
The rifted crags that hold
The gathered ice of winter,
He says, are not more cold.
Grass From The Battle-Field
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
Small sheaf
Of withered grass, that hast not yet revealed
Thy story, lo! I see thee once more green
And growing on the battle-field,
On that last day that ever thou didst grow!
A Ballad, Shewing How An Old Woman Rode Double, And Who Rode Before Her
© Robert Southey
The Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said,
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale,
And sicken'd and went to her bed.
In New Orleans
© Eugene Field
'Twas in the Crescent City not long ago befell
The tear-compelling incident I now propose to tell;
So come, my sweet collector friends, and listen while I sing
Unto your delectation this brief, pathetic thing-
No lyric pitched in vaunting key, but just a requiem
Of blowing twenty dollars in by nine o'clock a.m.
The Chameleon
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I KNOW that I'm like, yet I am not, a snake!
'Tis true that I glisten by boil and by brake,
That I dart out and in, can glide, quiver and coil
As swift as the lightning, but softer than oil,
Yet a creature more innocent never was drawn
From the gray of cool shadows to bask in the dawn!
At the Edge of Town by Don Welch: American Life in Poetry #56 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
When I complained about some of the tedious jobs I had as a boy, my mother would tell me, Ted, all work is honorable. In this poem, Don Welch gives us a man who's been fixing barbed wire fences all his life.
At the Edge of Town
Hard to know which is more gnarled,
the posts he hammers staples into
or the blue hummocks which run
across his hands like molehills.
Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 2
© Christopher Smart
LET PETER rejoice with the MOON FISH who keeps up the life in the waters by night.
Let Andrew rejoice with the Whale, who is array'd in beauteous blue and is a combination of bulk and activity.
Elegy V
© Henry James Pye
Thee, sad Melpomene, I once again
Invoke, nor ask the idly plaintive verse:
The Botanic Garden (Part VI)
© Erasmus Darwin
"Born in yon blaze of orient sky,
"Sweet MAY! thy radiant form unfold;
"Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye,
"And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.
On A Very Old Woman
© William Makepeace Thackeray
And thou wert once a maiden fair,
A blushing virgin warm and young:
With myrtles wreathed in golden hair,
And glossy brow that knew no care
Upon a bridegroom's arm you hung.
The Ghetto
© Lola Ridge
Cool, inaccessible air
Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights,
But no breath stirs the heat
Leaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto
And most on Hester street…
On The Death Of A Believer
© John Newton
In vain my fancy strives to paint
The moment after death
The glories that surround the saint,
When yielding up its breath.
The Ghost Ship.
© Robert Crawford
Behold her on the silent sea,
Yon vessel like a spirit there!
Moved in a dream's reality,
As if she trod the air.
Despair
© Ada Cambridge
O what is life, if we must hold it thus
As wind-blown sparks hold momentary fire?
What are these gifts without the larger boon?
O what is art, or wealth, or fame to us
Who scarce have time to know what we desire?
O what is love, if we must part so soon?
