Smile poems
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Hugging the Jukebox
© Naomi Shihab Nye
They’ve tried putting him to bed, but he sings in bed.
Even in Spanish—and he doesn’t speak Spanish!
Sings and screams, wants to go back to the jukebox.
O mama I was born with a trumpet in my throat
spent all these years tryin’ to cough it up …
Poems On Beauty
© Rabindranath Tagore
Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony
which is in the universal being;
truth the perfect comprehension of the universal mind.
Ode to Duty
© André Breton
Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim"
"I am no longer good through deliberate intent, but by long habit have reached a point where I am not only able to do right, but am unable to do anything but what is right."
(Seneca, Letters 120.10)
Equations of the Light
© Dana Gioia
Turning the corner, we discovered it
just as the old wrought-iron lamps went on—
a quiet, tree-lined street, only one block long
resting between the noisy avenues.
AN ELEGY Upon Mrs. Kirk unfortunately drowned in Thames
© Henry King
For all the Ship-wracks, and the liquid graves
Lost men have gain'd within the furrow'd waves,
The Sea hath fin'd and for our wrongs paid use,
When its wrought foam a Venus did produce.
Two Pictures
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
SHE stood beneath the vine-leaves flushed and fair;
The dimpling smiles around her tender mouth,
Seemed born of mellow sunshine of the South;
A light breeze trembled in her unbound hair;
Early Affection
© George Moses Horton
I lov’d thee from the earliest dawn,
When first I saw thy beauty’s ray,
The Loehrs And The Hammonds
© James Whitcomb Riley
"Hey, Bud! O Bud!" rang out a gleeful call,--
"_The Loehrs is come to your house!_" And a small
The Safecracker
© Linda Pastan
On nights when the moon seems impenetrable—
a locked porthole to space;
The Yarn of the Nancy Bell
© William Schwenck Gilbert
'Twas on the shores that round our coast
From Deal to Ramsgate span,
That I found alone on a piece of stone
An elderly naval man.
The Dream
© Caroline Norton
Ah! bless'd are they for whom 'mid all their pains
That faithful and unalter'd love remains;
Who, Life wreck'd round them,--hunted from their rest,--
And, by all else forsaken or distress'd,--
Claim, in one heart, their sanctuary and shrine--
As I, my Mother, claim'd my place in thine!
Out Of The Day
© Edgar Albert Guest
OUT of the day you have taken what,
Crown of laurels and wreath of bay?
Milken Time
© William Barnes
'Twer when the busy birds did vlee,
Wi' sheenèn wings, vrom tree to tree,
Tristram And Iseult
© Matthew Arnold
Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure
Prop me upon the pillows once again
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.
Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!
What lights will those out to the northward be?
The Sun-Dial
© Henry Austin Dobson
'Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain;
In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom,
Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain,
And white in winter like a marble tomb.
The Idols
© Robert Laurence Binyon
I.2
The Forests of the Night awaken blind in heat
Of black stupor; and stirring in its deep retreat,
I hear the heart of Darkness slowly beat and beat.
Lohengrin
© Emma Lazarus
THE holy bell, untouched by human hands,
Clanged suddenly, and tolled with solemn knell.
Between the massive, blazoned temple-doors,
Thrown wide, to let the summer morning in,
To Help the Monkey Cross the River
© Thomas Lux
which he must
cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts,
Life
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Acrust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
