Teacher poems
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Two Schools
© Henry Van Dyke
I put my heart to school
In the world, where men grow wise,
"Go out," I said, "and learn the rule;
Come back when you win a prize."
Nightmare At Noon
© Stephen Vincent Benet
But do not call it loud. There is plenty of time.
There is plenty of time, while the bombs on London fall
And turn the world to wind and water and fire.
There is time to sleep while the fire-bombs fall on London,
They are stubborn people in London.
"Sed Nos Qui Vivimus"
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
How beautiful is life--the physical joy of sense and breathing;
The glory of the world which has found speech and speaks to us;
The robe which summer throws in June round the white bones of winter;
The new birth of each day, itself a life, a world, a sun!
Christmas Shopping in Cactus Center
© Arthur Chapman
Women's scarce in Cactus Center, and there ain't no bargain stores
Fer to start them Monday rushes that break down the stoutest doors;
But we had some Christmas shoppin' that the town ain't over yet,
Jest because of one small woman and a drug store toilet set.
The Penalty Of Genius
© James Whitcomb Riley
"When little 'Pollus Morton he's
A-go' to speak a piece, w'y, nen
The Teacher smiles an' says 'at she's
Most proud, of all her little men
An' women in her school--'cause 'Poll
He allus speaks the best of all.
Tale XV
© George Crabbe
transgress'd,
And while the anger kindled in his breast,
The pain must be endured that could not be
The Sleepers
© Walt Whitman
I WANDER all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and
stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.
An Instance Of Dyspepsia
© Eli Siegel
I
There is a man of fifty-four years;
He has dyspepsia, it appears;
He chooses his food carefully,
The Children Of The Lord's Supper. (From The Swedish Of Bishop Tegner)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Closed was the Teacher's task, and with heaven in their hearts and their faces,
Up rose the children all, and each bowed him, weeping full sorely,
Downward to kiss that reverend hand, but all of them pressed he
Moved to his bosom, and laid, with a prayer, his hands full of blessings,
Now on the holy breast, and now on the innocent tresses.
Maha-Bharata, The Epic Of Ancient India - Book IX - Drona-Badha (Fall Of Drona)
© Romesh Chunder Dutt
On the fall of Bhishma the Brahman chief Drona, preceptor of the Kuru
and Pandav princes, was appointed the leader of the Kuru forces. For
The Complacent Slacker
© Edgar Albert Guest
When he was just a lad in school,
He used to sit around and fool
The Author Asserts The Vast Intellectual Superiority Of The Germans To Americans
© Charles Godfrey Leland
DERE'S a liddle fact in hishdory vitch few hafe oondershtand,
Deutschers are, de jure, de owners of dis land,
Und I brides mineslf oonshpeak-barly dat I foorst make be-known,
De primordial cause dat Columbus vas derivet from Cologne.
Upon The Lark and The Fowler
© John Bunyan
Thou simple bird, what makes thou here to play?
Look, there's the fowler, pr'ythee come away.
Spirit of Song
© James Brunton Stephens
Where is thy dwelling-place? Echo of sweetness,
Seraph of tenderness, where is thy home?
Elegy: Walking the Line
© Edgar Bowers
Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line,
The limit and the boundary. Past the sweet gum
Superb above the cabin, along the wall
Stones gathered from the level field nearby
The Animals are Leaving by Charles Harper Webb: American Life in Poetry #203 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet L
© Ted Kooser
To read in the news that a platoon of soldiers has been killed is a terrible thing, but to learn the name of just one of them makes the news even more vivid and sad. To hold the name of someone or something on our lips is a powerful thing. It is the badge of individuality and separateness. Charles Harper Webb, a California poet, takes advantage of the power of naming in this poem about the steady extinction of animal species.
The Animals are Leaving
One by one, like guests at a late party
They shake our hands and step into the dark:
Arabian ostrich; Long-eared kit fox; Mysterious starling.
Misgivings
© William Matthews
"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,
A Notable Dinner
© Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
Once the nation's chief was honored by the company of one,
Who to lift a fallen people had a work of worth begun,
Lofty things had he accomplished for a race so long despised,
In a land where naught but color by the whites are ever prized.
Moonlight
© John Kenyon
Not alway from the lessons of the schools,
Taught evermore by those who trust them not,
