All Poems
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The Song Of Hiawatha II: The Four Winds
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Honor be to Mudjekeewis!"
Cried the warriors, cried the old men,
L'ABBICHINO DE LE DONNE (Womens Abacus)
© Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli
La donna, inzino ar venti, si è contenta
Mamma, l'anni che ttiè ssempre li canta:
Ne cresce uno oggni cinque inzino ar trenta,
Eppoi se ferma lì ssino a quaranta.
Love still has something of the sea
© Sir Charles Sedley
Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his Mother rose;
No time his slaves from doubt can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose.
Rubaiyat 51
© Omar Khayyám
The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it
Three Wives Of A Mandarin
© Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
There is still some wine left in the chalice,
And the plate thats served is nests of the swallows.
Since the birth of time, the legal spouse
Is respected by her mandarin-husband.
The Wind on the Hills
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Go not to the hills of Erin
When the night winds are about,
Put up your bar and shutter,
And so keep the danger out.
Occasionally
© Franklin Pierce Adams
Now and then there's a couple whose conjugal life
Is happy as happy can be;
Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart.
© Samuel Johnson
Thou who survey'st these walls with curious eye,
Pause at this tomb where Hanmer's ashes lie;
Everybody by Marie Sheppard Williams : American Life in Poetry #243 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2
© Ted Kooser
Lots of contemporary poems are anecdotal, a brief narration of some event, and what can make them rise above anecdote is when they manage to convey significance, often as the poem closes. Here is an example of one like that, by Marie Sheppard Williams, who lives in Minneapolis.
Everybody
I stood at a bus corner
Beautifying The Flag
© Edgar Albert Guest
To us the Flag has little meant.
Each glorious stripe of red
Thick-Headed Thoughts: Part 2
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
A man is independent of the world,
And little recks of strife or angry brawl,
Ode - On the Death of a Young Lady
© John Logan
The peace of Heaven attend thy shade,
My early friend, my favourite maid!
When life was new, companions gay,
We hail'd the morning of our day.
Perle Des Jardins
© Madison Julius Cawein
What am I, and what is he
Who can cull and tear a heart,
As one might a rose for sport
In its royalty?
In Hospital
© Boris Pasternak
They stood, almost blocking the pavement,
As though at a window display;
The stretcher was pushed in position,
The ambulance started away.
Tale Of A Tub
© Sylvia Plath
The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
Sonnet LXXVII: Soul's Beauty
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Dans le jardin
© Victor Marie Hugo
Jeanne et Georges sont là. Le noir ciel orageux
Devient rose, et répand l'aurore sur leurs jeux ;
Ô beaux jours ! Le printemps auprès de moi s'empresse ;
Tout verdit ; la forêt est une enchanteresse ;
Fragment
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
SO here confin'd, and but to female Clay,
ARDELIA's Soul mistook the rightful Way:
The Peace Of Europe
© John Greenleaf Whittier
"GREAT peace in Europe! Order reigns
From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!"
So say her kings and priests; so say
The lying prophets of our day.
