Work poems
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Yard Work by Don Thompson : American Life in Poetry #272 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Whether we like it or not, we live with the awareness that death is always close at hand, and in this poem by Don Thompson, a Californian, a dead blackbird can’t be pushed out of the awareness of the speaker, nor can it escape the ants, who have their own yard work to do.
Yard Work
My leaf blower lifted the blackbird-
Ormuzd And Ahriman. Part I
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
YE interstellar spaces, serene and still and clear.
Above, below, around!
Ye gray unmeasured breadths of ether, sphere on sphere!
We listen, but no sound
Rings from your depths profound.
Xantippe(A Fragment)
© Amy Levy
What, have I waked again? I never thought
To see the rosy dawn, or ev'n this grey,
Doctor Rabelais
© Eugene Field
Once -- it was many years ago.
In early wedded life,
Ere yet my loved one had become
A very knowing wife,
Shakuntala Act II
© Kalidasa
ACT II
SCENE A PLAIN, with royal pavilions on the skirt of the forest.
The Lost House
© George MacDonald
Out of thy door I run to do the thing
That calls upon me. Straight the wind of words
Whoops from mine ears the sounds of them that sing
About their work, "My God, my father-king!"
Tom Johnson's Quit
© James Whitcomb Riley
A passel o' the boys last night--
An' me amongst 'em--kindo got
We Must Not Fail
© Thomas Osborne Davis
We must not fail, we must not fail,
However fraud or force assail;
By honour, pride, and policy,
By Heaven itself!--we must be free.
Handy Man
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
Well on a Monday I'll be slingin' hash Tuesday I'll be collectin' trash
And on a Wednesday I might be tendin' bar
Thursday I'll be the guy who parks your car
On a Friday I might be teachin' school a Saturday finds me hustlin' pool
I got a whole lotta talents in demand that's why they call me Handy Man
Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot The Tyrant
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
'Choose Reform or Civil War,
When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort-Queen shall hunt a King with hogs,
Riding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'
Nature and Art For an Album
© John Henry Newman
"Man goeth forth" with reckless trust
Upon his wealth of mind,
As if in self a thing of dust
Creative skill might find;
He schemes and toils; stone, wood and ore
Subject or weapon of His power.
Execution, The: A Sporting Anecdote Hon. Mr. Sucklethumbkin's Story
© Richard Harris Barham
My Lord Tomnoddy got up one day;
It was half after two,
He had nothing to do,
So his Lordship rang for his cabriolet.
Windsor Forest
© Alexander Pope
Thy forests, Windsor! and thy green retreats,
At once the Monarch's and the Muse's seats,
Book Second [School-Time Continued]
© William Wordsworth
THUS far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace
Don Juan: Canto The First
© George Gordon Byron
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
The Loss Is Not So Great
© Edgar Albert Guest
It is better as it is: I have failed but I can sleep;
Though the pit I now am in is very dark and deep
I can walk to-morrow's streets and can meet to-morrow's men
Unashamed to face their gaze as I go to work again.
