Poems

Just Some of My Favorite Poems 

- there are many more

Eden Rock by Charles Causley 

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:

My father, twenty-five, in the same suit

Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack

Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress

Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,

Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.

Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight

From an old H.P. Sauce bottle, a screw

Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out

The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.

My mother shades her eyes and looks my way

Over the drifted stream. My father spins

A stone along the water. Leisurely,

They beckon to me from the other bank.

I hear them call, 'See where the stream-path is!

Crossing is not as hard as you might think.'

I had not thought that it would be like this.

Yet If His Majesty Our Sovereign Lord 

by Tomas Ford

Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord
   Should of his own accord
   Friendly himself invite,
   And say "I'll be your guest to-morrow night."
   How should we stir ourselves, call and command
   All hands to work! "Let no man idle stand.
   Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall,
   See they be fitted all;
   Let there be room to eat,
  And order taken that there want no meat.
  See every sconce and candlestick made bright,
  That without tapers they may give a light.
  Look to the presence: are the carpets spread,
  The dazie o'er the head,
  The cushions in the chairs,
  And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
  Perfume the chambers, and in any case
  Let each man give attendance in his place."
  Thus if the king were coming would we do,
  And 'twere good reason too;
  For 'tis a duteous thing
  To show all honour to an earthly king,
  And after all our travail and our cost,
  So he be pleas'd, to think no labour lost.
  But at the coming of the King of Heaven
  All's set at six and seven:
  We wallow in our sin,
  Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
  We entertain him always like a stranger,
  And as at first still lodge him in the manger.

This poem is included as a tribute to my Father who used to love quoting it.

The mists be on the river bed

By Reginald Arkell

The mists be on the river bed

The roses all be gone;

And here be I about to die,

With harvest coming on.

Dear Lord I've traipsed some weary miles,

I’ll be main glad to rest awhile

The folk’ll soon be in the fields

A-getting in the grain;

For most of those, the time you’ve chose

Be awkward in the main.

Though not so bad, ‘tis sure, for they

As be a-working by the day.

September be a better month

For all the carter men;

So when I die don't signify

So let I bide till then:

The wagons’ll be standing by,

And there’ll be time to bury I.

The Buriel of Sir John Moore

Thomas Wolfe

Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, 

as his corpse to the rampart we hurried; 

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 

O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night, 

The sods with our bayonets turning; 

By the struggling moonbeam's misty light 

And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast, 

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; 

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest 

With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said, 

And we spoke not a word of sorrow; 

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, 

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed 

And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, 

And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone 

And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,

But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on 

In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done 

When the clock struck the hour for retiring: 

And we heard the distant and random gun 

That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; 

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, 

But left him alone with his glory.

High Flight

John Gillespie McGee

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds,  and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of  wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or ever eagle flew 

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveler, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could 

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just asfair, 

And having perhaps the better claim 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear, 

Though  as for that the passing there 

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay 

In  leaves no step had trodden black. 

Oh, I marked the first for another day! 

Yet knowing how way leads on to way 

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, 

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference.

BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS

A E Housman

Into my heart an air that kills 

From yon far country blows: 

What are those blue remembered hills, 

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content, 

I see it shining plain, 

The happy highways where I went 

And cannot come again.

 

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH

By Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle nought availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back through creeks and inlets making,

Came, silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright.

To Lucasta, going to the Wars

Richard Lovelace

TELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind, 

That from the nunnery 

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field; 

And with a stronger faith embrace 

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As thou too shalt adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

John Donne Excerpt From his Sermon XV

... They shall awake as Jacob did, and say as Jacob said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven

And into that gate they shall enter, 

and in that house they shall dwell, 

where there shall be no Cloud nor Sun, 

no darknesse nor dazzling, 

but one equall light, 

no noyse nor silence, 

but one equall musick, 

no fears nor hopes, 

but one equal possession, 

no foes nor friends, 

but an equall communion and Identity, 

no ends nor beginnings; 

but one equall eternity

The Place Where We Are Right

by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right 

Flowers will never grow 

In the spring.

The place where we are right 

Is hard and trampled 

Like a yard.

But doubts and loves 

Dig up the world 

Like a mole, a plow. 

And a whisper will be heard in the place Where the ruined 

House once stood.

The Golden Road to Samarkand

James Elroy Flecker

 THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN 

But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes, 

You dirty-bearded, blocking up the way?

 THE PILGRIMS

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go 

Always a little further: it may be 

Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow, 

Across that angry or that glimmering sea, 

White on a throne or guarded in a cave 

There lives a prophet who can understand 

Why men were born: but surely we are brave, 

Who make the Golden Road to Samarkand

The Life That I Have

Leo Marks

The Life That I Have

Is all that I have 

And the life that I have 

Is yours 

The love that I have

Of the life that I have 

Is yours and yours and yours. 

A sleep I shall have

A rest I shall have 

Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years 

In the long green grass 

Will be yours and yours and yours. 

 

To my Dear and Loving Husband

Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee;

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me ye women if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole Mines of Gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.

Then while we live, in love lets so persevere,

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

This World is not Conclusion

Emily Dickinson

This World is not Conclusion.

A Species stands beyond

Invisible, as Music

But positive, as Sound

It beckons, and it baffles

Philosophy don’t know

And through a Riddle, at the last

Sagacity, must go

To guess it, puzzles scholars

To gain it, Men have borne

Contempt of Generations

And Crucifixion, shown

Faith slips and laughs, and rallies

Blushes, if any see

Plucks at a twig of Evidence

And asks a Vane, the way

Much Gesture, from the Pulpit

Strong Hallelujahs roll

Narcotics cannot still the Tooth

That nibbles at the soul

Love Poem

John Frederick Nims

My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,

At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,

Whose palms are bulls in china, burrs in linen,

And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill at ease fidgeting people:

The refugee uncertain at the door

You make at home; deftly do you steady

The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,

Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime

Yet leaping before red apoplectic streetcars--

Misfit in any space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and solar system. Only

With words and people and love you move at ease.

In traffic of wit expertly manoeuvre

And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,

Your lipstick grinning on our coat,

So gaily in love's unbreakable heaven

Our souls on glory of split bourbon float.

Be with me darling early and late. Smash glasses--

I will study wry music for your sake.

For should your hands drop white and empty

All the toys of the world would break.

A PRAYER.

Anne Bronte

My God (oh, let me call Thee mine,

Weak, wretched sinner though I be),

My trembling soul would fain be Thine;

My feeble faith still clings to Thee.

Not only for the Past I grieve,

The Future fills me with dismay;

Unless Thou hasten to relieve,

Thy suppliant is a castaway." 

"I cannot say my faith is strong,

I dare not hope my love is great;

But strength and love to Thee belong;

Oh, do not leave me desolate!" 

"I know I owe my all to Thee;

Oh, TAKE the heart I cannot give!

Do Thou my strength my Saviour be,

And MAKE me to thy glory live.