Morning poems
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When Mother Made An Angel Cake
© Edgar Albert Guest
When mother baked an angel cake we kids would gather round
An' watch her gentle hands at work, an' never make a sound;
We'd watch her stir the eggs an' flour an' powdered sugar, too,
An' pour it in the crinkled tin, an' then when it was through
She'd spread the icing over it, an' we knew very soon
That one would get the plate to lick, an' one would get the spoon.
We Are Children
© William Cosmo Monkhouse
CHILDREN indeed are wechildren that wait
Within a wondrous dwelling, while on high
Lines Occasioned By A Visit To Whittlebury Forest, Northamptonshire, In August, 1800
© Robert Bloomfield
Genius of the Forest Shades!
Lend thy pow'r, and lend thine ear!
Second Class wait here
© Henry Lawson
At suburban railway stations--you may see them as you pass--
there are signboards on the platform saying "Wait here second class,"
Reply to a Friend
© Mao Zedong
White clouds are sailing above the Mountain Jiuyi;
Riding the wind, the Princesses descend the green hills.
The Banks Of Wye - Book IV
© Robert Bloomfield
Here ivy'd fragments, lowering, throw
Broad shadows on the poor below,
Who, while they rest, and when they die,
Sleep on the rock-built shores of WYE.
Fences by Pat Mora: American Life in Poetry #192 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Class, status, privilege; despite all our talk about equality, they're with us wherever we go. In this poem, Pat Mora, who grew up in a Spanish speaking home in El Paso, Texas, contrasts the lives of rich tourists with the less fortunate people who serve them. The titles of poems are often among the most important elements, and this one is loaded with implication.
Fences
Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.
Morning Rain
© Du Fu
A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light.
I hear it among treetop leaves before mist
Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and,
Windblown, follows clouds away. Deepened
From Allan Cunningham, To George Borrow, On His Proposing To Translate The Kiaepe Viser
© George Borrow
Sing, sing, my friend; breathe life again
Through Norways song and Denmarks strain:
Aspects Of The Pines
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,
Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,
As if from realms of mystical despairs.
Vision of Columbus Book 3
© Joel Barlow
Now, twice twelve years, the children of the skies
Beheld in peace their growing empire rise;
Morning At Sea In The Tropics
© George Gordon McCrae
Night waned and wasted, and the fading stars
Died out like lamps that long survived a feast,
And the moon, pale with watching, sank to rest
Behind the cloud-piled ramparts of the main.
At Noey's House
© James Whitcomb Riley
Behind the kitchen, then, with special pride
Noey stirred up a terrapin inside
The rain-barrel where he lived, with three or four
Little mud-turtles of a size not more
In neat circumference than the tiny toy
Dumb-watches worn by every little boy.
L'amour Par Terre
© Paul Verlaine
The wind the other night blew down the Love
That in the dimmest corner of the park
So subtly used to smile, bending his arc,
And sight of whom did us so deeply move
Dream With Clam-Diggers
© Sylvia Plath
This dream budded bright with leaves around the edges,
Its clear air winnowed by angels; she was come
Back to her early sea-town home
Scathed, stained after tedious pilgrimages.
The Book-Worm
© Thomas Parnell
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred Altar here;
Hold, Boy, thy Hand out-run thy Wit,
You reach'd the Plays that D---s writ;
You reach'd me Ph---s rustick Strain;
Pray take your mortal Bards again.
Hymn To The Naiads
© Mark Akenside
ARGUMENT. The Nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at day-break, in honor of their several functions, and of the relations which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of nature; according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning the generation of the gods and the rise of things. They are then successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting summer-breezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation; as contributing to the fullness of navigable rivers, and consequently to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means, to the maritime part of military power. Next is represented their favourable influence upon health, when assisted by rural exercise: which introduces their connection with the art of physic, and the happy effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true inspiration which temperance only can receive: in opposition to the enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.
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