Peace poems
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Peace
© Patrick Kavanagh
Upon a headland by a whinny hedge
A hare sits looking down a leaf-lapped furrow
There's an old plough upside-down on a weedy ridge
And someone is shouldering home a saddle-harrow.
Out of that childhood country what fools climb
To fight with tyrants Love and Life and Time?
The Remonstrance
© Walter de la Mare
I was at peace until you came
And set a careless mind aflame;
I lived in quiet; cold, content;
All longing in safe banishment,
Until your ghostly lips and eyes
Made wisdom unwise.
The Ghost
© Walter de la Mare
Peace in thy hands,
Peace in thine eyes,
Peace on thy brow;
Flower of a moment in the eternal hour,
Peace with me now.
The Victory of Patience
© Helen Hunt Jackson
Armed of the gods! Divinest conqueror!
What soundless hosts are thine! Nor pomp, nor state,
Nor token, to betray where thou dost wait.
All Nature stands, for thee, ambassador;
A Calendar of Sonnets: March
© Helen Hunt Jackson
Month which the warring ancients strangely styled
The month of war,--as if in their fierce ways
Were any month of peace!--in thy rough days
I find no war in Nature, though the wild
A Calendar of Sonnets: January
© Helen Hunt Jackson
O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
A Calendar of Sonnets: August
© Helen Hunt Jackson
Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects' aimless industry.
The Distant Winter
© Philip Levine
The sour daylight cracks through my sleep-caked lids.
"Stephan! Stephan!" The rattling orderly
Comes on a trot, the cold tray in his hands:
Toast whitening with oleo, brown tea,
House Of Silence
© Philip Levine
The winter sun, golden and tired,
settles on the irregular army
of bottles. Outside the trucks
jostle toward the open road,
The Manuscript of Saint Alexius
© Augusta Davies Webster
But, when my father thought my words took shape
of other than boy's prattle, he grew grave,
and answered me "Alexius, thou art young,
and canst not judge of duties; but know this
thine is to serve God, living in the world."
Late Light
© Philip Levine
Rain filled the streets
once a year, rising almost
to door and window sills,
battering walls and roofs
Patriotism 02 Nelson, Pitt, Fox
© Sir Walter Scott
TO mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
Lochinvar
© Sir Walter Scott
So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall,
Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers and all:
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)
"O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
Jock of Hazeldean
© Sir Walter Scott
Why weep ye by the tide, ladie?
Why weep ye by the tide?
I'll wed ye to my youngest son,
And ye sall be his bride:
Translation From the Gull Language
© Thomas Moore
'Twas grav'd on the Stone of Destiny,
In letters four, and letters three;
And ne'er did the King of the Gulls go by
But those awful letters scar'd his eye;
They May Rail at this Life
© Thomas Moore
They may rail at this life -- from the hour I began it
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this.
The Song of Fionnuala
© Thomas Moore
Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter
Tell's to the night-star her tale of woes.
The Meeting of the Waters
© Thomas Moore
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
The Donkey and His Panniers
© Thomas Moore
A Donkey, whose talent for burdens was wondrous,
So much that you'd swear he rejoic'd in a load,
One day had to jog under panniers so pond'rous,
That -- down the poor Donkey fell smack on the road!
My Gentle Harp
© Thomas Moore
My gentle Harp, once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
And now in tears we meet again.
