Time poems
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Nostalgia
© Billy Collins
The 1790s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.
A Shropshire Lad XXXI: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble
© Alfred Edward Housman
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
On Virtue
© Phillis Wheatley
O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive
To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare
Haverhill
© John Greenleaf Whittier
O river winding to the sea!
We call the old time back to thee;
From forest paths and water-ways
The century-woven veil we raise.
The Bridal of the Year
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Yes! the Summer is returning,
Warmer, brighter beams are burning
To Robin Redbreast
© George Meredith
Merrily 'mid the faded leaves,
O Robin of the bright red breast!
January 22nd, Missolonghi
© Lord Byron
On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
Fresh Air
© Kenneth Koch
3
Summer in the trees! “It is time to strangle several bad poets.”
The yellow hobbyhorse rocks to and fro, and from the chimney
Drops the Strangler! The white and pink roses are slightly agitated by the struggle,
But afterwards beside the dead “poet” they cuddle up comfortingly against their vase. They are safer now, no one will compare them to the sea.
The Selvage
© Michael Rosen
So door to door among the shotgun
shacks in Cullowhee and Waynesville in
our cleanest shirts and ma’am
and excuse me were all but second
—?To Science by Edgar Allan Poe">Sonnet—?To Science
© Edgar Allan Poe
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Night Without Sleep
© Robinson Jeffers
The world’s as the world is; the nations rearm and prepare to change; the age of tyrants returns;
The greatest civilization that has ever existed builds itself higher towers on breaking foundations.
Recurrent episodes; they were determined when the ape’s children first ran in packs, chipped flint to an edge.
Sydney Harbour
© Henry Kendall
Where Hornby, like a mighty fallen star,
Burns through the darkness with a splendid ring
"The Foresters"
© William Watson
Clear as of old the great voice rings to-day,
While Sherwood's oak-leaves twine with Aldworth's bay:
Frederick and Alice
© Sir Walter Scott
Frederick leaves the land of France,
Homeward hastes his steps to measure,
Careless casts the parting glance
On the scene of former pleasure.
Canada To England
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
If destiny is writ on night's dusk scroll,
Then youngest stars are dropping from the hand
Of the Creator, sowing on the sky
My name in seeds of light. Ages will watch
Those seeds expand to suns, such as the tree
Bears on its boughs, which grows in Paradise.
Sonnet XIX: Devouring Time, Blunt thou the Lion's Paws
© William Shakespeare
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Spider
© Sylvia Plath
Anansi, black busybody of the folktales,
You scuttle out on impulse
Blunt in self-interest
As a sledge hammer, as a man's bunched fist,
