Time poems
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Concord Hymn
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
Days
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
Song
© Eamon Grennan
At her Junior High School graduation,
she sings alone
in front of the lot of us--
To the Recluse, Wei Pa
© Tu Fu
Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen and
Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets. What lucky
chance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light of
this same lamp? Youth and vigor last but a little time. --- Each of us now has
Dreaming of Li Po
© Tu Fu
After the separation of death one can eventually swallow back one's grief, but
the separation of the living is an endless, unappeasable anxiety. From
pestilent Chiang-nan no news arrives of the poor exile. That my old friend
should come into my dream shows how constantly he is in my thoughts. I fear
Ballad of the Old Cypress
© Tu Fu
In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches
are like green bronze; its roots like rocks; around its great girth of forty
spans its rimy bark withstands the washing of the rain. Its jet-colored top
rises two thousand feet to greet the sky. Prince and statesman have long since
What I Did In The Moonlight
© James Lee Jobe
I planted my grief
in freshly turned earth
A tree grows there now
You should see the size of it
So You Say
© Mark Strand
It is all in the mind, you say, and has
nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold,
the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world.
You take my arm and say something will happen,
The Dreadful Has Already Happened
© Mark Strand
The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.
They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel
them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air.
Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.
The Remains
© Mark Strand
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.
A Piece Of The Storm
© Mark Strand
For Sharon HorvathFrom the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed.
The Story Of Our Lives
© Mark Strand
1
We are reading the story of our lives
which takes place in a room.
The room looks out on a street.
The Quest Eternal
© Andrew Barton Paterson
In the march of the boys through Palestine when the noontide fervour glowed,
Over the desert in thirsty line our sunburnt squadrons rode.
They looked at the desert lone and drear, stone ridges and stunted scrub,
And said, "We should have had Ginger here, I bet he'd have found a pub!"
The Pannikin Poet
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There's nothing here sublime,
But just a roving rhyme,
Run off to pass the time,
With nought titanic in.
The Rhyme of the O'Sullivan
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"For many years I led
The people's onward march;
I was the 'Fountain Head',
The 'Democratic Arch'.
The Old Timer's Steeplechase
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There was never a fence the tracks to guard, --
Some straggling posts defined 'em:
And the day was hot, and the drinking hard,
Till none of the stewards could see a yard
Before nor yet behind 'em!
The Two Devines
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas a wether flock that had come to hand,
Great struggling brutes, that shearers shirk,
For the fleece was filled with the grass and sand,
And seventy sheep was a big day's work.
"At a pound a hundred it's dashed hard lines
To shear such sheep," said the two Devines.
The Lay of the Motor-Car
© Andrew Barton Paterson
We're away! and the wind whistles shrewd
In our whiskers and teeth;
And the granite-like grey of the road
Seems to slide underneath.
The Gundaroo Bullock
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There came a low informer to the Grabben Gullen side,
And he said to Smith the squatter, "You must saddle up and ride,
For your bullock's in the harness-cask of Morgan Donahoo --
He's the greatest cattle-stealer in the whole of Gundaroo."
The Federal Bus Conductor and the Old Lady
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Now, don't go trudgin' on alone, but get aboard the trap;
That basket, labelled "Capital", you take it in your lap!
It's nearly time we made a start, so let's 'ave no more talk:
You 'urry up and get aboard, or else stop out and walk.
We've got a flag; we've got a band; out 'orses travels fast;
Ho! Right away, Bill! Let 'em go! The old 'un's come at last!
