Learning poems
/ page 40 of 41 /
To The Students Of The Workers' And Peasants' Faculty
© Bertolt Brecht
So there you sit. And how much blood was shed
That you might sit there. Do such stories bore you?
Well, don't forget that others sat before you
who later sat on people. Keep your head!
An Essay On Criticism
© Alexander Pope
But you who seek to give and merit Fame,
And justly bear a Critick's noble Name,
Be sure your self and your own Reach to know.
How far your Genius, Taste, and Learning go;
Launch not beyond your Depth, but be discreet,
And mark that Point where Sense and Dulness meet.
Hymn 4 part 2
© Isaac Watts
Questions and doubts be heard no more,
Let Christ and joy be all our theme;
His Spirit seals his gospel sure,
To every soul that trusts in him.
Learning the Trees
© Howard Nemerov
Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That's done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.
Lion & Honeycomb
© Howard Nemerov
He asked himself, poor moron, because he had
Nobody else to ask. The others went right on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.
Learning by Doing
© Howard Nemerov
They're taking down a tree at the front door,
The power saw is snarling at some nerves,
Whining at others. Now and then it grunts,
And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds.
September, The First Day Of School
© Howard Nemerov
My child and I hold hands on the way to school,
And when I leave him at the first-grade door
He cries a little but is brave; he does
Let go. My selfish tears remind me how
I cried before that door a life ago.
I may have had a hard time letting go.
Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die,
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.
Departed -- to the Judgment --
© Emily Dickinson
Departed -- to the Judgment --
A Mighty Afternoon --
Great Clouds -- like Ushers -- learning --
Creation -- looking on --
In Harbor
© Constantine Cavafy
A young man, twenty eight years old, on a vessel from Tenos,
Emes arrived at this Syrian harbor
with the intention of learning the perfume trade.
But during the voyage he was taken ill. And as soon
Ithaka
© Constantine Cavafy
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)
© Ezra Pound
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start --
E.P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre
© Ezra Pound
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start--
The Master
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
A flying word from here and there
Had sown the name at which we sneered,
To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared--
Flammonde
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
The man Flammonde, from God knows where,
With firm address and foreign air
With news of nations in his talk
And something royal in his walk,
The Pilot
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
From the Past and Unavailing
Out of cloudland we are steering:
After groping, after fearing,
Into starlight we come trailing,
Veteran Sirens
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
The ghost of Ninon would be sorry now
To laugh at them, were she to see them here,
So brave and so alert for learning how
To fence with reason for another year.
The Deserted Village
© Oliver Goldsmith
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
