Time poems
/ page 332 of 792 /An Epistle To Joseph Hill, Esq.
© William Cowper
Dear Joseph,-- five and twenty years ago--
Alas! how time escapes -- 'tis even so!--
Childhood. (From The Danish)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There was a time when I was very small,
When my whole frame was but an ell in height;
Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,
And therefore I recall it with delight.
Above The Storm
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THE winds of the winter have breathed their dirges
Far over the wood and the leaf-strown plain;
They have passed, forlorn, by the mountain verges
Down to the shores of the moaning main;
Deniall
© George Herbert
When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears;
Then was my heart broken, as was my verse:
My breast was full of fears
And disorder:
The Little Lady Of The Bullock Cart
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Now is the time when India is gay
With wedding parties; and the radiant throngs
Seem like a scattered rainbow taking part
In human pleasures. Dressed in bright array,
They fling upon the bride their wreaths of songs-
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
Fairy Sketch
© William Lisle Bowles
SCENE--NETLEY ABBEY.
There was a morrice on the moonlight plain,
Coquette [Among The Family Portraits.]
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Therefore, sweet flesh and blood, I trust
That, ere ye passed to senseless dust,
Your beauty played a worthier part--
The love-rôle of the loyal heart.
. . . . .
Seven Years
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Seven years have flown like seven days,
Like seven days of shining weather,
Since we, forsaking single ways,
Trod earth and faced the skies together.
The Grave Of Howard
© William Lisle Bowles
Spirit of Death! whose outstretched pennons dread
Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread;
Stanzas Subjoined To The Yearly Bill Of Mortality Of The Parish Of All-Saints, Northampton. Anno Dom
© William Cowper
Could I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,
As I can number in my punctual page,
And item down the victims of the past;
Turning Forty by Kevin Griffith: American Life in Poetry #13 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
Birthdays, especially those which mark the passage of a decade, are occasions not only for celebration, but for reflection. In "Turning Forty," Ohio poet Kevin Griffith conveys a confusion of sentiments. The speaker feels a sense of peace at forty, but recalls a more powerful, more confident time in his life.
The Dog and the Water Lily. No Fable
© William Cowper
The noon was shady, and soft airs
Swept Ouses silent tide,
Explanation Of An Ancient Woodcut
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soon as the spring-sun meets his view,
Repose begets him labour anew;
He feels that he holds within his brain
A little world, that broods there amain,
And that begins to act and to live,
Which he to others would gladly give.
The Tower of the Dream
© Charles Harpur
But not thus always are our dreams benign;
Oft are they miscreationsgloomier worlds,
Crowded tempestuously with wrongs and fears,
More ghastly than the actual ever knew,
And rent with racking noises, such as should
Go thundering only through the wastes of hell.
The Charnel Rose: A Symphony
© Conrad Aiken
And a silent star slipped golden down the darkness,
Down the great wall, leaving no trace in the sky,
And years went with it, and worlds. And he dreamed still
Of a fleeter shadow among the shadows running,
Foam into foam, without a gesture or cry,
Leaving him there, alone, on a lonely hill.