Epitaph For Our Children

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1. "Houses" so the Wise Men tell me “Houses” so the Wise Men tell me “Mansions”! Mansions must be warm! Mansions cannot let the tears in, Mansions must exclude the storm! “Many Mansions,” by “his Father,” I don’t know him; snugly built! Could the Children find the way there Some, would even trudge tonight!...
2. Children of Lir WE woke from our sleep in the bosom where cradled together we lay: The love of the dark hidden Father went with us upon our way. And gay was the breath in our being, and never a sorrow or fear Was on us as, singing together, we flew from the infinite Lir. Through nights lit […]...
3. Squatter's Children On the unbreathing sides of hills They play, a specklike girl and boy, Alone, but near a specklike house. The Sun’s suspended eye Blinks casually, and then they wade Gigantic waves of light and shade. A dancing yellow spot, a pup, Attends them. Clouds are piling up; A storm piles up behind the house. The […]...
4. Epitaph For A Romantic Woman She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running. Always in the heart she loved Others had lived, she heard their laughter. She lies where none has lain before, Where certainly none will follow after....
5. A Tombless Epitaph ‘Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise, And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,) ‘Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of elder times, he hated to excess, With […]...
6. The Children's Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day’s occupation, That is know as the children’s hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study […]...
7. 77. Epitaph on John Dove, Innkeeper HERE lies Johnie Pigeon; What was his religion? Whae’er desires to ken, To some other warl’ Maun follow the carl, For here Johnie Pigeon had nane! Strong ale was ablution, Small beer persecution, A dram was memento mori; But a full-flowing bowl Was the saving his soul, And port was celestial glory....
8. A Toast to the Men Here’s to the men! Since Adam’s time They’ve always been the same; Whenever anything goes wrong, The woman is to blame. From early morn to late at night, The men fault-finders are; They blame us if they oversleep, Or if they miss a car. They blame us if, beneath the bed, Their collar buttons roll; […]...
9. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
10. Epitaph for Maria Wentworth And here the precious dust is laid; Whose purely-temper’d clay was made So fine that it the guest betray’d. Else the soul grew so fast within, It broke the outward shell of sin, And so was hatch’d a cherubin. In height, it soar’d to God above; In depth, it did to knowledge move, And spread […]...
11. When the Children Come Home On a lonely selection far out in the West An old woman works all the day without rest, And she croons, as she toils ‘neath the sky’s glassy dome, ‘Sure I’ll keep the ould place till the childer come home.’ She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs, She drives the old horse […]...
12. Enoch Dunlap How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause? Sometimes because you were ill; Or your grandmother was ill; Or you drank too much and fell asleep; Or […]...
13. The Leader I wanna be the leader I wanna be the leader Can I be the leader? Can I? I can? Promise? Promise? Yippee I’m the leader I’m the leader OK what shall we do?...
14. 308. The Epitaph on Captain Matthew Henderson STOP, passenger! my story’s brief, And truth I shall relate, man; I tell nae common tale o’ grief, For Matthew was a great man. If thou uncommon merit hast, Yet spurn’d at Fortune’s door, man; A look of pity hither cast, For Matthew was a poor man. If thou a noble sodger art, That passest […]...
15. We say we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to louts We’re sick of all this fuss We say blame the teachers Or the preachers They’re all the same to us […]...
16. Epitaph on a Hare Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue, Nor swiftewd greyhound follow, Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew, Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’, Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, Who, nurs’d with tender care, And to domestic bounds confin’d, Was still a wild Jack-hare. Though duly from my hand he took His pittance ev’ry night, He […]...
17. Our Guardian Angels and Their Children Where a river roars in rapids And doves in maples fret, Where peace has decked the pastures Our guardian angels met. Long they had sought each other In God’s mysterious name, Had climbed the solemn chaos tides Alone, with hope aflame: Amid the demon deeps had wound By many a fearful way. As they beheld […]...
18. The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar 1 The children of the Czar Played with a bouncing ball In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden, Tossing it back and forth. It fell among the flowerbeds Or fled to the north gate. A daylight moon hung up In the Western sky, bald white. Like Papa’s face, said Sister, Hurling the white ball […]...
19. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
20. An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester This rich Marble doth enterr The honour’d Wife of Winchester, A Vicounts daughter, an Earls heir, Besides what her vertues fair Added to her noble birth, More then she could own from Earth. Summers three times eight save one She had told, alas too soon, After so short time of breath, To house with darknes, […]...
21. The Children Look At The Parents We being so hidden from those who Have quietly borne and fed us, How can we answer civilly Their innocent invitations? How can we say “we see you As but-for-God’s-grace-ourselves, as Our caricatures (we yours), with Time’s telescope between us”? How can we say “you presumed on The accident of kinship, Assumed our friendship coatlike, […]...
22. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
23. Epitaph On A Disturber Of His Times We expected the violin’s finger on the upturned nerve; Its importunate cry, too laxly curved: And you drew us an oboe-outline, clean and acute; Unadorned statement, accurately carved. We expected the screen, the background for reverie Which cloudforms usefully weave: And you built the immaculate, adamant, blue-green steel Arch of a balanced wave. We expected […]...
24. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
25. Follow Me 'ome There was no one like ‘im, ‘Orse or Foot, Nor any o’ the Guns I knew; An’ because it was so, why, o’ course ‘e went an’ died, Which is just what the best men do. So it’s knock out your pipes an’ follow me! An’ it’s finish up your swipes an’ follow me! Oh, […]...
26. Children's Party May I join you in the doghouse, Rover? I wish to retire till the party’s over. Since three o’clock I’ve done my best To entertain each tiny guest. My conscience now I’ve left behind me, And if they want me, let them find me. I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats, I kept them […]...
27. Among Children I walk among the rows of bowed heads The children are sleeping through fourth grade So as to be ready for what is ahead, The monumental boredom of junior high And the rush forward tearing their wings Loose and turning their eyes forever inward. These are the children of Flint, their fathers Work at the […]...
28. Against Writing about Children When I think of the many people Who privately despise children, I can’t say I’m completely shocked, Having been one. I was not Exceptional, uncomfortable as that is To admit, and most children are not Exceptional. The particulars of Cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large, Memory gnawing it like A fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss […]...
29. Other Children “Little child of my five senses And of my tenderness.” Let us cradle our loves, We will have good children. Well cared for, We will fear nothing on earth, Happiness, good fortune, prudence, Our loves And this leap from age to age, From the order of a child to that of an old man, Will […]...
30. The Poor Children Take heed of this small child of earth; He is great; he hath in him God most high. Children before their fleshly birth Are lights alive in the blue sky. In our light bitter world of wrong They come; God gives us them awhile. His speech is in their stammering tongue, And his forgiveness in […]...
31. The Cry Of The Children Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The […]...
32. Children Come to me, O ye children! For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away. Ye open the eastern windows, That look towards the sun, Where thoughts are singing swallows And the brooks of morning run. In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, In your […]...
33. Among School Children I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and histories, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way – the children’s eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling […]...
34. Good and Bad Children Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places […]...
35. Before the Birth of One of Her Children All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joys attend; No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death’s parting blow are sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh, inevitable. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How […]...
36. In Reference to Her Children I had eight birds hatched in one nest, Four cocks there were, and hens the rest. I nursed them up with pain and care, Nor cost, nor labour did I spare, Till at the last they felt their wing, Mounted the trees, and learned to sing; Chief of the brood then took his flight To […]...
37. The Children's Song Puck of Poock’s Hills Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be; When we are grown and take our place As men and women with our race. Father in Heaven who lovest all, Oh, help Thy children when they call; That they may build from age […]...
38. The Return of the Children “They” Traffics and Discoveries Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused: “Ah, please will you let us go home?” Over the jewelled floor, nigh […]...
39. To a Lady and Her Children O’erwhelming sorrow now demands my song: From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung. What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest? What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent’s breast? The brother weeps, the hapless sisters join Th’ increasing woe, and swell the crystal brine; The poor, who once his gen’rous bounty fed, Droop, and bewail […]...
40. The Dream of the Children THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming While earth lay dewy and still: They followed the rill in its gleaming To the heart-light of the hill. Its sounds and sights were forsaking The world as they faded in sleep, When they heard a music breaking Out from the heart-light deep. It ran where the rill in […]...