Society poems
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Hymn To The Naiads
© Mark Akenside
ARGUMENT. The Nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at day-break, in honor of their several functions, and of the relations which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of nature; according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning the generation of the gods and the rise of things. They are then successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting summer-breezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation; as contributing to the fullness of navigable rivers, and consequently to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means, to the maritime part of military power. Next is represented their favourable influence upon health, when assisted by rural exercise: which introduces their connection with the art of physic, and the happy effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true inspiration which temperance only can receive: in opposition to the enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.
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The Prairie States
© Walt Whitman
A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
Adventure of a Poet
© Robert Fuller Murray
As I was walking down the street
A week ago,
Near Henderson's I chanced to meet
A man I know.
The Flower-Garden
© Richard Monckton Milnes
O pensive Sister! thy tear--darkened gaze
I understand, whene'er thou look'st upon
The Garden's gilded green and colour'd blaze,
The gay society of flowers and sun.
Sonnet 67: "Ah wherefore with infection should he live..."
© William Shakespeare
Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
Another Feeling by Ruth Stone: American Life in Poetry #4 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
None of us can fix the past. Mistakes we've made can burden us for many years, delivering their pain to the present as if they had happened just yesterday. In the following poem we join with Ruth Stone in revisiting a hurried decision, and we empathize with the intense regret of being unable to take that decision back, or any other decision, for that matter.
Another Feeling
Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria
© Langston Hughes
LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
new Waldorf-Astoria:
Song Of The Redwood-Tree
© Walt Whitman
A prophecy and indirection-a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing-or hamadryads departing;
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.
The Country Schoolmaster.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"I feel new life in every limb!"
Our traveller cried in ecstasy.
"Who art thou who thus gladden'st me?
May Heaven such blessings ever send!
Ne'er may I want a jovial friend!"
The Dilettante And The Critic.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A BOY a pigeon once possess'd,
In gay and brilliant plumage dress'd;
He loved it well, and in boyish sport
Its food to take from his mouth he taught,
And in his pigeon he took such pride,
That his joy to others he needs must confide.
Hero And Leander. The Third Sestiad
© George Chapman
New light gives new directions, fortunes new,
To fashion our endeavours that ensue.
The Never-Never Country
© Henry Lawson
By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track --
By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
The Ghost
© Henry Lawson
Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide,
Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side --
Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,
So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company.
Said the Shade: `At finer feelings let your lip in scorn be curled,
`Self and Pelf', my friend, has ever been the motto for the world.'
Best Society
© Philip Larkin
When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Last Instructions to a Painter
© Andrew Marvell
Here, Painter, rest a little, and survey
With what small arts the public game they play.
For so too Rubens, with affairs of state,
His labouring pencil oft would recreate.
Thoughts in a Garden
© Andrew Marvell
HOW vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crown'd from some single herb or tree,
The Garden
© Andrew Marvell
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes;
And their uncessant Labours see
Crown'd from some single Herb or Tree,
