Mom poems
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Gilbert
© Charlotte Bronte
I. THE GARDEN.ABOVE the city hung the moon,
Right o'er a plot of ground
Where flowers and orchard-trees were fenced
With lofty walls around:
Preference
© Charlotte Bronte
NOT in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.
Winter Stores
© Charlotte Bronte
WE take from life one little share,
And say that this shall be
A space, redeemed from toil and care,
From tears and sadness free.
The Letter
© Charlotte Bronte
What is she writing? Watch her now,
How fast her fingers move !
How eagerly her youthful brow
Is bent in thought above !
Mementos
© Charlotte Bronte
I scarcely think, for ten long years,
A hand has touched these relics old;
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears,
The growth of green and antique mould.
Snapshot of a Lump
© Kelli Russell Agodon
My breast is pressed flat - a torpedo,
a pyramid, a triangle, a rocket on this altar;
this can't be good for anyone.
Georgic on Memory
© Erin Belieu
Make your daily monument the Ego,
use a masochist's epistemology
of shame and dog-eared certainty
that others less exacting might forgo.
Wonderment
© Siegfried Sassoon
Then a wind blew;
And he who had forgot he moved
Lonely amid the green and silver morning weather,
Suddenly grew
Vision
© Siegfried Sassoon
I love all things that pass: their briefness is
Music that fades on transient silences.
Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall
They fling delight across the world; they call
Storm and Sunlight
© Siegfried Sassoon
IIn barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw,
Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion
Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic
With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap
Fight to a Finish
© Siegfried Sassoon
The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers whod refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest. (So they thought.)
The Old Huntsman
© Siegfried Sassoon
Id have been prosperous if Id took a farm
Of fifty acres, drove my gig and haggled
At Monday markets; now Ive squandered all
My savings; nigh three hundred pound I got
As testimonial when Id grown too stiff
And slow to press a beaten fox.
Picture-Show
© Siegfried Sassoon
And still they come and go: and this is all I know
That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show,
Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way,
With glad or grievous hearts Ill never understand
Because Time spins so fast, and theyve no time to stay
Beyond the moments gesture of a lifted hand.
A Working Party
© Siegfried Sassoon
Three hours ago, he stumbled up the trench;
Now he will never walk that road again:
He must be carried back, a jolting lump
Beyond all needs of tenderness and care.
A Poplar and the Moon
© Siegfried Sassoon
There stood a Poplar, tall and straight;
The fair, round Moon, uprisen late,
Made the long shadow on the grass
A ghostly bridge twixt heaven and me.
When I was a Bird
© Katherine Mansfield
I climbed up the karaka tree
Into a nest all made of leaves
But soft as feathers.
I made up a song that went on singing all by itself
Voices of the Air
© Katherine Mansfield
But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.
Sleeping Together
© Katherine Mansfield
Was it a thousand years ago?
I woke in your arms--you were sound asleep--
And heard the pattering sound of sheep.
Softly I slipped to the floor and crept
To the curtained window, then, while you slept,
I watched the sheep pass by in the snow.
Firelight
© Katherine Mansfield
Playing in the fire and twilight together,
My little son and I,
Suddenly--woefully--I stoop to catch him.
"Try, mother, try!"
