Peace poems
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Paraphrase Of The First Psalm
© Robert Burns
The man, in life wherever plac'd,
Hath happiness in store,
Who walks not in the wicked's way,
Nor learns their guilty lore!
Egypt, Tobago
© Derek Walcott
There is a shattered palm
on this fierce shore,
its plumes the rusting helm-
et of a dead warrior.
The Star-Apple Kingdom
© Derek Walcott
There were still shards of an ancient pastoral
in those shires of the island where the cattle drank
their pools of shadow from an older sky,
surviving from when the landscape copied such objects as
In The Virgins
© Derek Walcott
You can't put in the ground swell of the organ
from the Christiansted, St.Croix, Anglican Church
behind the paratrooper's voice: "Turned cop
after Vietnam. I made thirty jumps."
Bankside: (Home Of Edmund Quincy Dedham)
© James Russell Lowell
I
I christened you in happier days, before
A Far Cry From Africa
© Derek Walcott
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
The Temple Tank
© Govinda Krishna Chettur
Here, by this pool, where herons stand and wait,
In quietness I cannot imitate:
For A Thirteenth Birthday
© Lisel Mueller
You have read War and Peace.
Now here is Sister Carrie,
not up to Tolstoy; still
it will second the real world:
Repentance
© William Wordsworth
THE fields which with covetous spirit we sold,
Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day,
Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold,
Could we but have been as contented as they.
The Fourth Shepherd
© Joyce Kilmer
O Whiteness, whiter than the fleece
Of new-washed sheep on April sod!
O Breath of Life, O Prince of Peace,
O Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!
Lady, The Fates Command
© Thibaut de Champagne
Lady, the fates command, and I must go,--
Leaving the pleasant land so dear to me:
The Cathedral of Rheims
© Joyce Kilmer
(From the French of Emile Verhaeren)He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
Father Gerard Hopkins, S. J.
© Joyce Kilmer
Why didst thou carve thy speech laboriously,
And match and blend thy words with curious art?
For Song, one saith, is but a human heart
Speaking aloud, undisciplined and free.
As Winds That Blow Against A Star
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Aline)Now by what whim of wanton chance
Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
Walk weary and laborious ways?
Memorial Day
© Joyce Kilmer
"Dulce et decorum est"The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The Twelve-Forty-Five
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Edward J. Wheeler)Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head,
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
Pennies
© Joyce Kilmer
A few long-hoarded pennies in his hand
Behold him stand;
A kilted Hedonist, perplexed and sad.
The joy that once he had,
Queen Mab: Part VII.
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
'Even the murderer's cheek
Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips
Scarce faintly uttered-"O almighty one,
I tremble and obey!"
A Cry In The World
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Kine, kine, in the meadows, why do you low so piteously?
High is the grass to your knees and wet with the dew of the morn,
Old Poets
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Robert Cortez Holliday)If I should live in a forest
And sleep underneath a tree,
No grove of impudent saplings
Would make a home for me.
