Poetry poems
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School Rhymes
© James Clerk Maxwell
O academic muse that hast for long
Charmed all the world with thy disciples song,
As myrtle bushes must give place to trees,
Our humbler strains can now no longer please.
Look down for once, inspire me in these lays.
In lofty verse to sing our Rector's praise.
To The Painter Preparing To Draw M.M.H.
© James Shirley
Be not too forward, painter; 'tis
More for thy fame, and art, to miss
An Elegy Upon The Death Of Dr. Donne, Dean Of Paul's
© Thomas Carew
Here lies a king, that rul'd as he thought fit
The universal monarchy of wit;
Here lie two flamens, and both those, the best,
Apollo's first, at last, the true God's priest.
Not Knowing Why by Ann Struthers : American Life in Poetry #253 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
Animals are incapable of reason, or so we’ve been told, but we imaginative humans keep talking to our dogs and cats as if they could do algebra. In this poem, Ann Struthers looks into the mystery of instinctive behavior.
In Memory Of The Unknown Poet, Robert Boardman Vaughn
© Donald Justice
It was his story. It would always be his story.
It followed him; it overtook him finally
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
Family Album by Diane Thiel: American Life in Poetry #41 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Those photos in family albums, what do they show us about the lives of people, and what don't they tell? What are they holding back? Here Diane Thiel, who teaches in New Mexico, peers into one of those pictures.
Family Album
I like old photographs of relatives
in black and white, their faces set like stone.
They knew this was serious business.
My favorite album is the one that's filled
with people none of us can even name.
Autumn Plaint
© Stéphane Mallarme
Since Maria left me to go to another star - which one, Orion, Altair - or
you green Venus? - I have always loved solitude. How many long days I have passed alone with my cat. By alone I mean without a material being, and my cat is a mystic companion, a spirit. I can say then that I have passed long days alone with my cat and alone with one of the last authors of the Roman decadence; for since the white creature is no more I have loved, uniquely and strangely, everything summed up in the word: fall. So, in the year, my favourite season is the last slow part of summer that just precedes autumn, and, in the day, the hour when I walk is when the sun hesitates before vanishing, with rays of yellow bronze over the grey walls, and rays of red copper over the tiles. Literature, also, from which my spirit asks voluptuousness, that will be the agonised poetry of Romes last moments, so long as it does not breathe a breath of the reinvigorated stance of the Barbarians or stammer in childish Latin like Christian prose. I was reading then one of those dear poems (whose flakes of rouge have more charm for me than young flesh), and dipping a hand into the pure animal fur, when a street organ sounded languishingly and sadly under my window. It was playing in the great alley of poplars whose leaves, even in spring, seem mournful to me since Maria passed by them, on her last journey, lying among candles. The instrument of sadnesses, yes, certainly: the piano flashes, the violin gives off light from its torn fibres, but the street organ in memorys half-light made me dream despairingly. Now it murmured a delightfully common song that filled the faubourgs with joy, an old, banal tune: why did its words pierce my soul and make me cry, like any romantic ballad? I savoured it slowly and did not throw a coin through the window for fear of troubling my spirit and discovering that not only the instrument was playing.
TO Mr. Samuel Brooke
© John Donne
O THOU which to search out the secret parts
Of the India, or rather Paradise
Work Shy by Alex Phillips: American Life in Poetry #79 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The news coverage of Hurricane Katrina gave America a vivid look at our poor and powerless neighbors. Here Alex Phillips of Massachusetts condenses his observations of our country's underclass into a wise, tough little poem.
Earbud by Bill Holm : American Life in Poetry #213 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Bill Holm, one of the most intelligent and engaging writers of our northern plains, died on February 25th. He will be greatly missed. He and I were of the same generation and we shared the same sense of wonder, amusement, and skepticism about the course of technology. I don't yet own an Earbud, but I won't need to, now that we have Bill's poem.
Earbud
To Helen - 1848
© Edgar Allan Poe
I saw thee once &mdash once only &mdash years ago:
I must not say how many &mdash but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Madhushala (The Tavern)
© Harivansh Rai Bachchan
Seeking wine, the drinker leaves home for the tavern.
Perplexed, he asks, "Which path will take me there?"
People show him different ways, but this is what I have to say,
"Pick a path and keep walking. You will find the tavern."
Turning Forty by Kevin Griffith: American Life in Poetry #13 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
Birthdays, especially those which mark the passage of a decade, are occasions not only for celebration, but for reflection. In "Turning Forty," Ohio poet Kevin Griffith conveys a confusion of sentiments. The speaker feels a sense of peace at forty, but recalls a more powerful, more confident time in his life.
Dim by Jim Daniels: American Life in Poetry #34 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
In this poem by Pittsburgh resident Jim Daniels, a father struggles to heal his son’s grief after an incident at school. The poem reminds us that when we’re young little things can hurt in a big way.
To ------
© Thomas Parnell
Your best endeavours on ye law bestow
Rough as it is 'tis proffitable too
Cowel & Blunt have words & Cook ye way
to keep the wrangling sons of earth in play
then if your books you use your Clients pay
To ------ On The Various Styles Of Poetry
© Thomas Parnell
I hate ye vulgar with untunefull ears
Soules uninspird & negligent of verse
Hence ye prophane be farr removd away
While to my powr I woud my friend repay
The Four Seasons : Summer
© James Thomson
From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
He comes attended by the sultry Hours,
The Wind-Struck Music
© Robinson Jeffers
Ed Stiles and old Tom Birnam went up to their cattle on the
bare hills
