Peace poems
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The King Of Brentfords Testament
© William Makepeace Thackeray
The noble King of Brentford
Was old and very sick,
He summon'd his physicians
To wait upon him quick;
They stepp'd into their coaches
And brought their best physick.
A Day on the Big Branch
© Howard Nemerov
Still half drunk, after a night at cards,
with the grey dawn taking us unaware
Five Visions of Captain Cook
© Kenneth Slessor
Two chronometers the captain had,
One by Arnold that ran like mad,
One by Kendal in a walnut case,
Poor devoted creature with a hangdog face.
Interim
© Margaret Widdemer
I HAVE a little peace today,
And I can pause and see
How life is filled with golden things
And gracious things for me;
My Mother-Land
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Death! What of death?--
Can he who once drew honorable breath
In liberty's pure sphere,
Foster a sensual fear,
When death and slavery meet him face to face,
All Quiet Along the Potomac
© Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers
"All quiet along the Potomac to-night!"
Except here and there a stray picket
Years Of The Modern
© Walt Whitman
YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform'd!
Your horizon rises-I see it parting away for more august dramas;
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry: American Life in Poetry #17 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Nearly all of us spend too much of our lives thinking about what has happened, or worrying about what's coming next. Very little can be done about the past and worry is a waste of time. Here the Kentucky poet Wendell Berry gives himself over to nature.
The Peace of Wild Things
Elegy (“Who keeps the owl’s breath?”)
© David St. John
—Tacitus
Who keeps the owl’s breath? Whose eyes desire?
Why do the stars rhyme? Where does
The flush cargo sail? Why does the daybook close?
Ode For September
© Robert Laurence Binyon
On that long day when England held her breath,
Suddenly gripped at heart
And called to choose her part
Between her loyal soul and luring sophistries,
"Weep You No More, Sad Fountains"
© Pierre Reverdy
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
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.
Address To Thought
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
OH thou! the musing, wakeful pow'r,
That lov'st the silent, midnight hour,
Thy lonely vigils then to keep,
And banish far the angel, sleep,
I Shall not Care
© Sara Teasdale
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
On my First Son
© Benjamin Jonson
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
The Night Of The Lion
© Alfred Noyes
"_And that a reply be received before midnight._"
_British Ultimatum_.
Illumination
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Is it joy, or is it peace,
Senses' magical release,
That triumphant swells my heart
Where I walk the fields apart?
