Sympathy poems
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To Mrs. M. A. at Parting
© Katherine Philips
I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.
Millennium
© Ellis Parker Butler
Son, the millennium is at hand!
What though Armenians be mashed flat?
The world is getting just perfectly grand,
For the Turk has bought him a derby hat.
Bird Nesting
© Ellis Parker Butler
O wonderful! In sport we climbed the tree,
Eager and laughing, as in all our play,
To see the eggs where, in the nest, they lay,
But silent fell before the mystery.
A Study In Feeling
© Ellis Parker Butler
To be a great musician you must be a man of moods,
You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes.
To execute pianos and to fiddle with success,
With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce;
It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang,
And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel OLang.
Mutual Forbearance : Necessary to the Happiness of the Married State
© William Cowper
The lady thus address'd her spouse--
What a mere dungeon is this house!
Respondez!
© Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completedthe price is paidthe title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Behavior.
© Walt Whitman
BEHAVIORfresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself,
Nature and the Soul expressedAmerica and freedom expressedIn it the finest
art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance,
Unfolded Out of the Folds.
© Walt Whitman
UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to
come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest
man of the earth;
Poem of Joys.
© Walt Whitman
1
O TO make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Walt Whitman.
© Walt Whitman
1
I CELEBRATE myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.
Condolence
© Dorothy Parker
And when I smiled, they told me I was brave,
And they rejoiced that I was comforted,
And left to tell of all the help they gave.
But I had smiled to think how you, the dead,
So curiously preoccupied and grave,
Would laugh, could you have heard the things they said.
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
© André Breton
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Le Maudit
© William Langland
He sits alone in the firelight
And on either side drifts by
Sleep, like a torrent whirling,
Profound, wrinkled and dumb.
Paradise Lost: Book X
© Patrick Kavanagh
So having said, he thus to Eve in few:
"Say, Woman, what is this which thou hast done?"
To whom sad Eve, with shame nigh overwhelm'd,
Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge
Bold or loquacious, thus abash'd replied,
"The Serpent me beguil'd, and I did eat."
I Sing the Body Electric
© Walt Whitman
1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Portrait of a Lady
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
"I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
from The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time
© André Breton
Not uselessly employ'd,
I might pursue this theme through every change
Of exercise and play, to which the year
Did summon us in its delightful round.
The Columbiad: Book VIII
© Joel Barlow
On fame's high pinnacle their names shall shine,
Unending ages greet the group divine,
Whose holy hands our banners first unfurl'd,
And conquer'd freedom for the grateful world.
