Smile poems
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Aside
© Karl Shapiro
Mail-day, and over the world in a thousand drag-nets
The bundles of letters are dumped on the docks and beaches,
And all that is dear to the personal conscious reaches
Around us again like filings around iron magnets,
And war stands aside for an hour and looks at our faces
Of total absorption that seem to have lost their places.
The Jailer
© Sylvia Plath
My night sweats grease his breakfast plate.
The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into position
With the same trees and headstones.
Is that all he can come up with,
The rattler of keys?
Idyll XXXI. Loves
© Theocritus
Ah for this the most accursed, unendurable of ills!
Nigh two months a fevered fancy for a maid my bosom fills.
Fair she is, as other damsels: but for what the simplest swain
Claims from the demurest maiden, I must sue and sue in vain.
Russia -- America
© John Galsworthy
A wind in the world! The dark departs;
The chains now rust that crushed men's flesh and bones,
Feet tread no more the mildewed prison stones,
And slavery is lifted from your hearts.
The Deer-Stone
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
And in a hollowed stone it shed
Its milk so warm and white,
And then, all timid, stood apart
To watch the babe's delight.
Worship
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken,
And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan
Round fane and altar overthrown and broken,
O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone.
Sonnet VI: Fair Is My Love
© Samuel Daniel
Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair;
Her brow shades frowns, although her eyes are sunny;
The Visionary Portrait
© Caroline Norton
Therefore he thought of one who might
For ever in his presence stay;
Whose dream should be of him by night,
Whose smile should be for him by day;
And the sweet vision, vague and far,
Rose on his fancy like a star.
On Hearing Of The Intention Of A Gentleman To Purchase The Poet's Freedom
© George Moses Horton
When on life's ocean first I spread my sail,
I then implored a mild auspicious gale;
And from the slippery strand I took my flight,
And sought the peaceful haven of delight.
White CanoeA Legend Of Niagara Falls
© Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
A CANTATA.
MINAHITA, Indian Maiden.
OREIKA, Her Friend.
TOLONGA, Minahitas Father.
DOLBREKA, Indian Chief.
From 'The Hills Of Life'
© Albert Durrant Watson
ERE yet the dawn
Pushed rosy fingers up the arch of day
And smiled its promise to the voiceless prime,
Love sat and patterns wove at life's great loom.
A Congratulatory Poem
© Aphra Behn
All that is Wit, all that is Eloquence.
The Births of finest Thought and Noblest Sense,
Easie and Natural from your Language break,
The Sky-Blue Smiles Above The Roof
© Paul Verlaine
The sky-blue smiles above the roof
Its tenderest;
A green tree rears above the roof
Its waving crest.
The Country Ride
© Kenneth Slessor
EARTH which has known so many passages
Of April air, so many marriages
Of strange and lovely atoms breeding light,
Never may find again that lost delight.
Peripeteia
© Anthony Evan Hecht
Of course, the familiar rustling of programs,
My hair mussed from behind by a grand gesture
A Country Nosegay
© Alfred Austin
Where have you been through the long sweet hours
That follow the fragrant feet of June?
By the dells and the dingles gathering flowers,
Ere the dew of the dawn be sipped by noon.
Magnolia Gardens
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
YES, found at last,--the earthly paradise!
Here by slow currents of the silvery stream
It smiles, a shining wonder, a fair dream,
A matchless miracle to mortal eyes:
Sweet Marie
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
You were very fair to meet once, Marie,
With your eyes like some blue hiding flower,
