Smile poems
/ page 310 of 369 /
Sonnet V
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
IN yonder grim, funereal forest lies
A foul lagoon, o'erfilmed by dust and slime,
Hidden and ghastly, like it thought of crime
In some stern soul kept secret from men's eyes:
The Spooniad
© Edgar Lee Masters
[The late Mr. Jonathan Swift Somers, laureate of Spoon River, planned The Spooniad as an epic in twenty-four books, but unfortunately did not live to complete even the first book. The fragment was found among his papers by William Marion Reedy and was for the first time published in Reedy's Mirror of December 18th, 1914.]
Of John Cabanis' wrath and of the strife
Of hostile parties, and his dire defeat
Who led the common people in the cause
The Emigrant Mother
© William Wordsworth
Once having seen her clasp with fond embrace
This Child, I chanted to myself a lay,
Endeavouring, in our English tongue, to trace
Such things as she unto the Babe might say:
And thus, from what I heard and knew, or guessed,
My song the workings of her heart expressed.
The Evening Company
© James Whitcomb Riley
Within the sitting-room, the company
Had been increased in number. Two or three
Young couples had been added: Emma King,
Ella and Mary Mathers--all could sing
Like veritable angels--Lydia Martin, too,
And Nelly Millikan.--What songs they knew!--
Portrait Of A Barmaid
© Dame Edith Sitwell
Metallic waves of people jar
Through crackling green toward the bar
Gigolo
© Sylvia Plath
Pocket watch, I tick well.
The streets are lizardly crevices
Sheer-sided, with holes where to hide.
It is best to meet in a cul-de-sac,
That There Dog O' Mine
© Henry Lawson
Macquarie the shearer had met with an accident. To tell the truth, he had been in a drunken row at a wayside shanty, from which he had escaped with three fractured ribs, a cracked head, and various minor abrasions. His dog, Tally, had been a sober but savage participator in the drunken row, and had escaped with a broken leg.
Macquarie afterwards shouldered his swag and staggered and struggled along the track ten miles to the Union-Town Hospital. Lord knows how he did it. He didn't exactly know himself. Tally limped behind all the way on three legs. The doctors examined the man's injuries and were surprised at his endurance.
Reuben Pantier
© Edgar Lee Masters
Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,
Your love was not all in vain.
I owe whatever I was in life
To your hope that would not give me up,
Daisy Fraser
© Edgar Lee Masters
Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon
Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received
For supporting candidated for office?
Or for writing up the canning factory
A Mother's Wail
© Henry Timrod
My babe! my tiny babe! my only babe!
My single rose-bud in a crown of thorns!
My lamp that in that narrow hut of life,
Whence I looked forth upon a night of storm!
Burned with the lustre of the moon and stars!
Thursos Landing
© Robinson Jeffers
In the night Reave dreamed that Helen
Lay with him in the deep grave, he awoke loathing her,
But when the weak moment between sleep and waking
Was past, his need of her and his judgment of her
Knew their suspended duel; and he heard her breathing,
Irregularly, gently in the dark.
Chords
© Madison Julius Cawein
When love delays, when love delays and Joy
Steals a strange shadow o'er the happy hills,
And Hope smiles from To-morrow, nor fulfills
One promise of To-day, thy sight would cloy
This soul with loved despair
By seeing thee so fair.
Hamlet Micure
© Edgar Lee Masters
In a lingering fever many visions come to you:
I was in the little house again
With its great yard of clover
Running down to the board-fence,
Roy Butler
© Edgar Lee Masters
If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois
Got at the secret of every case
As well as it does a case of rape
It would be the greatest court in the world.
Hannah Armstrong
© Edgar Lee Masters
I wrote him a letter asking him for old times' sake
To discharge my sick boy from the army;
But maybe he couldn't read it.
Then I went to town and had James Garber,
Oh That I Were As In Months Past!
© John Newton
Sweet was the time when first I felt
The Saviour's pard'ning blood
Applied, to cleanse my soul from guilt,
And bring me home to God.
Cassius Hueffer
© Edgar Lee Masters
They have chiseled on my stone the words:
'His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him
That nature might stand up and say to all the world,
This was a man.'
Fletcher McGee
© Edgar Lee Masters
She took my strength by the minutes,
She took my life by hours,
She drained me like a fevered moon
That saps the spinning world.
A Comrade
© Augusta Davies Webster
"I AM Joy," she said; but her voice was low,
Too low for laughter;
