Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise. And when lights begin to […]
Poems in History
Old Tunes by Sara Teasdale
Old Tunes by Sara Teasdale As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose, Float in the garden when no wind blows, Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows; So the old tunes float in my mind, And go from me leaving no trace behind, Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind. […]
Spoils of the Dead by Robert Frost
Spoils of the Dead by Robert Frost Two fairies it was On a still summer day Came forth in the woods With the flowers to play. The flowers they plucked They cast on the ground For others, and those For still others they found. Flower-guided it was That they came as they ran On something […]
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; […]
On Imagination by Phillis Wheatley
On Imagination by Phillis Wheatley Thy various works, imperial queen, we see, How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee! Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand, And all attest how potent is thine hand. From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend, Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend: To tell her glories with a […]
The West Wind by William Cullen Bryant
The West Wind by William Cullen Bryant It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils. It’s a fine land, the […]
William Shakespeare Sonnet VIII
Sonnet VIII by William Shakespeare Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly, Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do […]
The Hero by Siegfried Sassoon
The Hero by Siegfried Sassoon “Jack fell as he’d have wished,” the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she’d read. “The Colonel writes so nicely.” Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She half looked up. “We mothers are so proud Of our dead soldiers.” Then her face was […]
The Letter by Amy Lowell
The Letter by Amy Lowell Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper Like draggled fly’s legs, What can you tell of the flaring moon Through the oak leaves? Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor Spattered with moonlight? Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them Of blossoming hawthorns, And this […]
Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot I observe: “Our sentimental friend the moon! Or possibly (fantastic, I confess) It may be Prester John’s balloon Or an old battered lantern hung aloft To light poor travellers to their distress.” She then: “How you digress!” And I then: “Some one frames upon the keys That exquisite nocturne, […]
Upstream by Carl Sandburg
Upstream by Carl Sandburg The strong men keep coming on. They go down shot, hanged, sick, broken. They live on, fighting, singing, lucky as plungers. The strong men … they keep coming on. The strong mothers pulling them from a dark sea, a great prairie, a long mountain. Call hallelujah, call amen, call deep thanks. […]
March by H. P. Lovecraft
March by H. P. Lovecraft Let other bards with nobler talents sing The beauties of the mild, maturer spring. My rustic Muse on bleaker times must dwell, When Earth, but new-escap’d from winter’s spell, Uncloth’d, unshelter’d, unadorn’d, is seen; Stript of white robes, nor yet array’d in green. Hard blows the breeze, but with a […]
THE LAMB by William Blake
? ?THE LAMB by William Blake ???? Little Lamb, who made thee ???? Dost thou know who made thee, ?? Gave thee life, and bid thee feed ?? By the stream and o’er the mead; ?? Gave thee clothing of delight, ?? Softest clothing, woolly, bright; ?? Gave thee such a tender voice, ?? Making […]
The Send-off by Wilfred Owen
The Send-off by Wilfred Owen Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay. Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray As men’s are, dead. Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp Stood staring hard, Sorry to miss them from […]
The Past-Present by Walt Whitman
The Past-Present by Walt Whitman I was looking a long while for the history of the past for myself, and for these chants and now I have found it. It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject;) It is no more in the legends than in all […]