Children poems
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Ruins of Rome, by Bellay
© Edmund Spenser
1 Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest,
But not your praise, the which shall never die
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest;
Cartoon Physics, Part 1
© Nick Flynn
Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies
Threnody
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
Hamatreya
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.
Dæmonic Love
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Concord Hymn
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
1Later revised to "Donder and Blitzen" by Clement Clarke
Moore when he took credit for the poem in Poems (New York: Bartlett
and Welford, 1844).
On A Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window
© Eamon Grennan
She's stopped in her southern tracks
Brought haply to this hard knock
When she shoots from the tall spruce
And snaps her neck on the glass.
To the Recluse, Wei Pa
© Tu Fu
Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen and
Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets. What lucky
chance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light of
this same lamp? Youth and vigor last but a little time. --- Each of us now has
Moonlit Night
© Tu Fu
Tonight at Fu-chou, this moon she watches
Alone in our room. And my little, far-off
Children, too young to understand what keeps me
Away, or even remember Chang'an. By now,
Ballad of the Army Carts
© Tu Fu
The carts squeak and trundle, the horses whinny, the conscripts go by, each
with a bow and arrows at his waist. Their fathers, mothers, wives, and children
run along beside them to see them off. The Hsien-yang Bridge cannot be seen for
dust. They pluck at the men's clothes, stamp their feet, or stand in the way
Redbud Trail - Winter
© James Lee Jobe
Once up on the ridge, the view takes me,
Brushy Sky High Mountain looms above
like an overanxious parent, the creek sings
old songs for the valley oaks, for the deer grass.
Less muddy, I kick my boots a little cleaner
on a rock that is maybe as old as the earth.
Moon In Virgo
© James Lee Jobe
You are not beaten. The simple music rises up,
children's voices in the air, sound floating out
Courtship
© Mark Strand
There is a girl you like so you tell her
your penis is big, but that you cannot get yourself
to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say,
even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow,
briefly, inconspicuously in the dark.
The New Poetry Handbook
© Mark Strand
21 If a man finishes a poem,
he shall bathe in the blank wake of his passion
and be kissed by white paper.
Saltbush Bill, J.P.
© Andrew Barton Paterson
That Edward Rex, confiding in
His known integrity,
By hand and seal on parchment skin
Had made hiim a J.P.
Under the Shadow of Kiley's Hill
© Andrew Barton Paterson
This is the place where they all were bred;
Some of the rafters are standing still;
Now they are scattered and lost and dead,
Every one from the old nest fled,
Out of the shadow of Kiley's Hill.
Our Mat
© Andrew Barton Paterson
It came from the prison this morning,
Close-twisted, neat-lettered, and flat;
It lies the hall doorway adorning,
A very good style of a mat.
With the Cattle
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The drought is down on field and flock,
The river-bed is dry;
And we must shift the starving stock
Before the cattle die.
An answer to Various Bards
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp,
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp;
