Learning poems
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The Keys of Morning
© Walter de la Mare
While at her bedroom window once,
Learning her task for school,
Little Louisa lonely sat
In the morning clear and cool,
From The Ladies Defence
© Lady Mary Chudleigh
Melissa: I've still rever'd your Order [she is responding to a Parson] as Divine;
And when I see unblemish'd Virtue shine,
When solid Learning, and substantial Sense,
Are joyn'd with unaffected Eloquence;
Passing Out
© Philip Levine
The doctor fingers my bruise.
"Magnificent," he says, "black
at the edges and purple
cored." Seated, he spies for clues,
gingerly probing the slack
flesh, while I, standing, fazed, pull
The Manuscript of Saint Alexius
© Augusta Davies Webster
But, when my father thought my words took shape
of other than boy's prattle, he grew grave,
and answered me "Alexius, thou art young,
and canst not judge of duties; but know this
thine is to serve God, living in the world."
The Pearl
© George Herbert
The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man,
seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one,
sold all that he had and bought it.Matthew 13.45
The School Boy
© William Blake
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.
Epitaph On Miss Stanley, In Holyrood Church, Southampton
© James Thomson
E. S.
Once a lively image of human nature,
Morning News
© Marilyn Hacker
Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread
and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,
repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.
A cinder-block wall shared by two houses
The Defence of Guenevere
© William Morris
But, learning now that they would have her speak,
She threw her wet hair backward from her brow,
Her hand close to her mouth touching her cheek,
Song VIII: While Ye Deemed Him A-Sleeping
© William Morris
Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping,
There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet;
His touch it was that would bring you to weeping,
When the summer was deepest and music most sweet:
A Death Song
© William Morris
What cometh here from west to east awending?
And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?
We bear the message that the rich are sending
Aback to those who bade them wake and know.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.
The White Cliffs
© Alice Duer Miller
Yet I have loathed those voices when the sense
Of what they said seemed to me insolence,
As if the dominance of the whole nation
Lay in that clear correct enunciation.
The Inauguration of the University College
© William Topaz McGonagall
Good people of Dundee, your voices raise,
And to Miss Baxter give great praise;
Rejoice and sing and dance with glee,
Because she has founded a College in Bonnie Dundee.
Room 5: The Concert Singer
© Robert William Service
I'm one of these haphazard chaps
Who sit in cafes drinking;
A most improper taste, perhaps,
Yet pleasant, to my thinking.
Tom
© Robert William Service
That Tom was poor was sure a pity,
Such guts for learning had the lad;
He took to Greek like babe to titty,
And he was mathematic mad.
Innocence
© Robert William Service
The height of wisdom seems to me
That of a child;
So let my ageing vision be
Serene and mild.
My Library
© Robert William Service
Like prim Professor of a College
I primed my shelves with books of knowledge;
And now I stand before them dumb,
Just like a child that sucks its thumb,
And stares forlorn and turns away,
With dolls or painted bricks to play.
The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk
© Rabindranath Tagore
O mad, superbly drunk;
If you kick open your doors and
play the fool in public;
If you empty your bag in a night,
Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book
© John Milton
Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
