Business poems
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Essay on Man
© Alexander Pope
The First EpistleAwake, my ST. JOHN!(1) leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.
Let us (since Life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
EPISTLE II: TO A LADY (Of the Characters of Women)
© Alexander Pope
NOTHING so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
© Alexander Pope
From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,
And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
The Sick Stockrider
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
Ah! those days and nights we squandered at the Logans' in the glen --
The Logans, man and wife, have long been dead.
Elsie's tallest girl seems taller than your little Elsie then;
And Ethel is a woman grown and wed.
Decalogue
© Ambrose Bierce
Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.No images nor idols make
For Roger Ingersoll to break.Take not God's name in vain: select
A time when it will have effect.Work not on Sabbath days at all,
So Many Blood-Lakes
© Robinson Jeffers
We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were
slipped in. We have levelled the powers
Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and
dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming.
Psalm 127
© Isaac Watts
If God succeed not, all the cost
And pains to build the house are lost;
If God the city will not keep,
The watchful guards as well may sleep.
Psalm 119 part 6
© Isaac Watts
Lord, I esteem thy judgments right,
And all thy statutes just;
Thence I maintain a constant fight
With every flatt'ring lust.
Hymn 40
© Isaac Watts
"What happy men, or angels, these,
That all their robes are spotless white?
Whence did this glorious troop arrive
At the pure realms of heav'nly light?"
Rain
© Charles Bukowski
a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm,
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats under the trees
The Wind didn't come from the Orchard -- today
© Emily Dickinson
The Wind didn't come from the Orchard -- today --
Further than that --
Nor stop to play with the Hay --
Nor joggle a Hat --
He's a transitive fellow -- very --
Rely on that --
I cautious, scanned my little life
© Emily Dickinson
I cautious, scanned my little life --
I winnowed what would fade
From what would last till Heads like mine
Should be a-dreaming laid.
A little bread -- a crust -- a crumb
© Emily Dickinson
A little bread -- a crust -- a crumb --
A little trust -- a demijohn --
Can keep the soul alive --
Not portly, mind! but breathing -- warm --
Conscious -- as old Napoleon,
The night before the Crown!
If I could bribe them by a Rose
© Emily Dickinson
If I could bribe them by a Rose
I'd bring them every flower that grows
From Amherst to Cashmere!
I would not stop for night, or storm --
Or frost, or death, or anyone --
My business were so dear!
I Years had been from Home
© Emily Dickinson
I Years had been from Home
And now before the Door
I dared not enter, lest a Face
I never saw before
I got so I could take his name
© Emily Dickinson
I got so I could take his name --
Without -- Tremendous gain --
That Stop-sensation -- on my Soul --
And Thunder -- in the Room --
Wallace Stevens On His Way To Work
© David Wagoner
He would leave early and walk slowly
As if balancing books
On the way to school, already expecting
To be tardy once again and heavy
The Widening Spell Of Leaves
© Larry Levis
--The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
--for my brotherOnce, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
InheritanceHis
© Audre Lorde
Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?
