Respect poems
/ page 35 of 43 /Paul's Wife
© Robert Frost
To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
"How is the wife, Paul?"--and he'd disappear.
Some said it was because be bad no wife,
The Death of the Hired Man
© Robert Frost
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
The Parish Register - Part II: Marriages
© George Crabbe
made.
Yet now, would Phoebe her consent afford,
Her slave alone, again he'd mount the board;
With her should years of growing love be spent,
And growing wealth;--she sigh'd and look'd consent.
Now, through the lane, up hill, and 'cross the
The Thorn Forest
© Dante Alighieri
Then dark with dripping blood it gave a howl
and cried again: "Our damaged branches ache!
Your pillage maims me! Can't you feel at all?
The Drunkard's Funeral
© Vachel Lindsay
"You are right, little sister," I said to myself,
"You are right, good sister," I said.
"Though you wear a mussy bonnet
On your little gray head,
You are right, little sister," I said.
The Booker Washington Trilogy
© Vachel Lindsay
His fist was an enormous size
To mash poor niggers that told him lies:
He was surely a witch-man in disguise.
But he went down to the Devil.
The Stealing Of The Mare - VII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when they had lit the fire, while Alia watched the kindling, behold, her fear was great, and her eyes looked to the right and to the left hand, because that Abu Zeyd had promised her that he would return to the camp; and while she was in this wise, suddenly she saw Abu Zeyd standing in the midst of the Arabs who were around her. And he was in disguisement as a dervish, or one of those who ask alms. And he saw that she was about to speak. But he signed to her that she should be silent: as it were he would say, ``Fear not, for I am here.'' And when she was sure that it was indeed he Abu Zeyd and none other, then smiled she on him very sweetly, and said, ``Thine be the victory, and I will be thy ransom. Nor shall thy enemies prevail against thee.'' But he answered with a sign, ``Of a surety thou shalt see somewhat that shall astonish thee.'' And this he said as the flames of the fire broke forth.
Now the cause of the coming of Abu Zeyd to the place was in this wise. After that he had gone away, and had taken with him the mare, and that his mind had entered into its perplexity as to what might befall Alia from her father, lest he should seize on her and inquire what had happened, and why she had cared nothing for her own people or for her wounded brother, and why she had cried to Abu Zeyd, then said he to himself, ``Of a surety I must return to her, and ascertain the event.'' And looking about him, he made discovery of a cave known as yet to no man, and he placed in it the mare, and gathered grass for her, and closed the door of the cave with stones. Then clothing himself as a dervish, he made his plan how he should return to the tents of Agheyl. And forthwith he found Alia in the straits already told, and he made his thought known to her by signs, and by signs she gave him to understand her answers.
And at this point the Narrator began again to sing, and it was in the following verses:
The Prarie Battlements
© Vachel Lindsay
Alice has a prarie grave.
The King and Queen lie low,
And aged Grandma Silver Dreams,
Four toombstones in a row.
But still in snow and sunshine
Stands our ancestral hall.
The Whistle by Kathy Mangan : American Life in Poetry #242 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
There are lots of poems in which a poet expresses belated appreciation for a parent, and if you don’t know Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” you ought to look it up sometime. In this lovely sonnet, Kathy Mangan, of Maryland, contributes to that respected tradition.
The Whistle
To Thomas Atkins
© Rudyard Kipling
I have made for you a song
And it may be right or wrong,
But only you can tell me if it's true.
I have tried for to explain
Both your pleasure and your pain,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
To T. A.
© Rudyard Kipling
I have made for you a song,
And it may be right or wrong,
But only you can tell me if it's true;
I have tried for to explain
Both your pleasure and your pain,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
An Occasional Prologue, Delivered Previous To The Performance Of 'The Wheel Of Fortune' At A Private
© George Gordon Byron
Since the refinement of this polish'd age
Has swept irnmortal raillery from the stage;
Since taste has now expunged licentious wit,
Which stamp'd disgrace on all an author writ;
A Poem On The Last Day - Book III
© Edward Young
Each gesture mourns, each look is black with care,
And every groan is loaden with despair.
Reader, if guilty, spare the Muse, and find
A truer image pictured in thy mind.
To The Recluse, Wei Pa
© Du Fu
Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen and
Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets. What lucky
chance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light of
this same lamp? Youth and vigor last but a little time. -- Each of us now has
The Rhyme of the Three Greybeards
© Henry Lawson
He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat",
His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote",
In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote.
The Borough. Letter XII: Players
© George Crabbe
DRAWN by the annual call, we now behold
Our Troop Dramatic, heroes known of old,
And those, since last they march'd, enlisted and
Welsh Incident
© Robert Graves
'But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.'
'What were they? Mermaids? dragons? ghosts?'
'Nothing at all of any things like that.'
The White Doe Of Rylstone, Or, The Fate Of The Nortons - Canto Sixth
© William Wordsworth
WHY comes not Francis?--From the doleful City
He fled,--and, in his flight, could hear
The death-sounds of the Minster-bell:
That sullen stroke pronounced farewell
A Destiny
© Caroline Norton
And his two sons in careless beauty grew,
Like wild-flowers in his path: he mark'd them not,
Nor reck'd he what they needed, learnt, or knew,
Or what might be on earth their future lot;
But they died young--which is a thought of rest!
Unscorn'd, untempted, undefiled--so best.
The Doctor Of The Heart
© Anne Sexton
Take away your knowledge, Doktor.
It doesn't butter me up.You say my heart is sick unto.
You ought to have more respect!you with the goo on the suction cup.
You with your wires and electrodesfastened at my ankle and wrist,