Work poems
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Hymn II
© John Greenleaf Whittier
O HOLY FATHER! just and true
Are all Thy works and words and ways,
And unto Thee alone are due
Thanksgiving and eternal praise!
Elegy VIII. He Describes His Early Love of Poetry, and Its Consequences
© William Shenstone
Ah me! what envious magic thins my fold?
What mutter'd spell retards their late increase?
Such lessening fleeces must the swain behold,
That e'er with Doric pipe essays to please.
A Story Of Doom: Book VIII.
© Jean Ingelow
Then one ran, crying, while Niloiya wrought,
"The Master cometh!" and she went within
To adorn herself for meeting him. And Shem
Went forth and talked with Japhet in the field,
And said, "Is it well, my brother?" He replied,
"Well! and, I pray you, is it well at home?"
Moonset
© Sir Henry Newbolt
Past seven o'clock: time to be gone;
Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up:
A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup,
Down to the door, and there is Coachman John.
A Manchester Poem
© George MacDonald
'Tis a poor drizzly morning, dark and sad.
The cloud has fallen, and filled with fold on fold
The chimneyed city; and the smoke is caught,
And spreads diluted in the cloud, and sinks,
A black precipitate, on miry streets.
And faces gray glide through the darkened fog.
The Wisdom Of Merlyn
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
These are the time--words of Merlyn, the voice of his age recorded,
All his wisdom of life, the fruit of tears in his youth, of joy in his manhood hoarded,
All the wit of his years unsealed, to the witless alms awarded.
O, Vrba, Happy Village, My Old Hme
© France Preseren
O, Vrba, happy village, my old home -
My father's cottage stands there to this day.
The lure of learning beckoned me away.
Its serpent wiles enticing me to roam,
Friar Pedro's Ride
© Francis Bret Harte
It was the morning season of the year;
It was the morning era of the land;
Hymn For The Inauguration Of The Statue Of Governor Andrew
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known!
It lives once more in changeless stone;
So looked in mortal face and form
Our guide through peril's deadly storm.
Virtues That Pay
© Joseph Furphy
You argue as sympathy governs your bias
That Wisdom distributes the capon and crust,
Indulging the sinful, and stinting the pious,
Or starving the wicked, and fattening the just.
You are wrong to the Evil One; hear what I say
There are ruinous virtues, and virtues that pay.
The Columbiad: Book III
© Joel Barlow
His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
Resigns his charge within the temple wall;
In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,
The functions grave of priesthood and of law,
To The Memory Of Thomas Shipley
© John Greenleaf Whittier
GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest!
The flowers of Eden round thee blowing,
And on thine ear the murmurs blest
Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!
Of The Son of Man
© George MacDonald
I. I honour Nature, holding it unjust
To look with jealousy on her designs;
Creative Work
© Valery Yaklovich Bryusov
The shadow of uncreated creatures
Flickers in sleep,
Like palm fronds
On an enamel wall.
Insomnia by Rynn Williams: American Life in Poetry #145 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
I try floating out along the long O of lone,
to where it flattens to loss, and just stay there
disconnecting the dots of my night sky
as one would take apart a house made of sticks,
carefully, last addition to first,
like sheep leaping backward into their pens.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2007 by Rynn Williams, whose most recent book of poetry is âAdonis Garage,â? University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Poem reprinted from âColumbia Poetry Review,â? no. 20, Spring 2007, by permission of Rynn Williams. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
