All Poems
/ page 721 of 3210 /
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: XCVI
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
ON THE SHORTNESS OF TIME
If I could live without the thought of death,
Forgetful of time's waste, the soul's decay,
I would not ask for other joy than breath
Another on Eurymedon
© Theocritus
Prove, traveller, now, that you honour the brave
Above the poltroon, when he's laid in the grave,
By murmuring 'Peace to Eurymedon dead.'
The turf should lie light on so sacred a head.
Epitaph
© George Gordon Byron
Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler--
In The Louvre
© Harriet Monroe
Queen Karomana, slim you stand,
In bronze with little flecks of gold
Queen Karomana.
O royal lady, lift your hand,
Shatter the stone museum cold,
Queen Karomana.
The World Is Too Much With Us
© William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
The Great Chance
© Katharine Tynan
NOW strikes the hour upon the clock
The black sheep may rebuild the years
May lift the father's pride he broke
And wipe away his mother's tears.
Pussy-cat sits by the fire
© Beatrix Potter
Pussy-cat sits by the fire;
How should she be fair?
In walks the little dog,
Says "Pussy! are you there?"
The Will To Live
© Edith Nesbit
Not to desire, to admit, to adore,
Casting the robe of the soul that you wore
Just as the soul casts the body's robe down.
This is man's destiny, this is man's crown.
This is the splendour, the end of the feast;
This is the light of the Star in the East.
The True Heaven
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THE bliss for which our spirits pine,
That bliss we feel shall yet be given,
Somehow, in some far realm divine,
Some marvellous state we call a heaven.
The Fallen Leaves
© Caroline Norton
I.
WE stand among the fallen leaves,
Young children at our play,
And laugh to see the yellow things
The Unhappy Lot Of Mr. Knott
© James Russell Lowell
My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,
From business snug withdrawn,
Was much contented with a lot
That would contain a Tudor cot
'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot,
And twelve feet more of lawn.
The Lovers Of Marchaid
© Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
Dominic came riding down, sworded, straight and splendid,
Drave his hilt against her door, flung a golden chain.
Said: "I'll teach your lips a song sweet as his that's ended,
Ere the white rose call the bee, the almond flower again."
I Was Always Leaving by Jean Nordhaus : American Life in Poetry #224 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
When we're young, it seems there are endless possibilities for lives we might lead, and then as we grow older and the opportunities get fewer we begin to realize that the life we've been given is the only one we're likely to get. Here's Jean Nordhaus, of the Washington, D.C. area, exploring this process.
I Was Always Leaving
I was always leaving, I was
Sticky Fingers
© Edgar Albert Guest
Wife says that I should be ashamed
To wear such garments as I do,
The Old Flame
© Robert Lowell
My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill -
Lyonnesse
© Sylvia Plath
No use whistling for Lyonnesse!
Sea-cold, sea-cold it certainly is.
Take a look at the white, high berg on his forehead-
Trafalgar Square
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Slowly the dawn a magic paleness drew
From windows dim; the Pillar high in air
Over dark statues and dumb fountains, threw
A shadow on the solitary square.
Change
© Boris Pasternak
I used to glorify the poor,
Not simply lofty views expressing:
Their lives alone, I felt, were true,
Devoid of pomp and window-dressing.
