The Bread-Knife Ballad

Related poetry:

1. Our Daily Bread “Give me my daily bread. It seems so odd, When all is done and said, This plea to God. To pray for cake might be The thing to do; But bread, it seems to me, Is just our due. “Give me my daily toil,” I ought to say – (If from life’s cursed coil I’d […]...
2. Sonnet 24 – Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife, Shut in upon itself and do no harm In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm, And let us hear no sound of human strife After the click of the shutting. Life to life- I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm, And feel as safe […]...
3. Mack The Knife Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear And he shows them pearly white. Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear And he keeps it out of sight. When the shark bites with his teeth, dear Scarlet billows start to spread. Fancy gloves, though, wears Macheath, dear So there’s not a trace of red. On the […]...
4. The Ballad Of Salvation Bill ‘Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night, I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can, Imagine my emotions of amazement and delight When I bumped into that Missionary Man. He was lying lost and dying in the moon’s unholy leer, And frozen from his toes to finger-tips’ The famished wolf-pack […]...
5. A little bread a crust a crumb A little bread a crust a crumb A little trust a demijohn Can keep the soul alive Not portly, mind! but breathing warm Conscious as old Napoleon, The night before the Crown! A modest lot A fame petite A brief Campaign of sting and sweet Is plenty! Is enough! A Sailor’s business is the shore! […]...
6. Knife Something Just now Moved through my heart Like the thinnest of blades As that red-tail pumped Once with its great wings And flew above the gray, cracked Rock wall. It wasn’t About the bird, it was Something about the way Stone stays Mute and put, whatever Goes flashing by. Sometimes, When I sit like this, […]...
7. Litany You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine… – Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass And the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, And the marsh […]...
8. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
9. Most she touched me by her muteness Most she touched me by her muteness Most she won me by the way She presented her small figure Plea itself for Charity Were a Crumb my whole possession Were there famine in the land Were it my resource from starving Could I such a plea withstand Not upon her knee to thank me Sank […]...
10. Ape You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, Who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers. I’ve had enough monkey, cried father. You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the Trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother. I’ll just nibble on its forehead, and then I’ve had […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. The Little Big Man I am small because I am a little child. I shall be big when I am As old as my father is. My teacher will come and say, “It is late, bring your slate And your books.” I shall tell him, ” Do you not know I am as big as father? And I must […]...
13. The Record Fearing that she might go one day With some fine fellow of her choice, I called her from her childish play, And made a record of her voice. And now that she is truly gone, I hear it sweet and crystal clear From out my wheezy gramophone: “I love you, Daddy dear.” Indeed it’s true […]...
14. Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread&quot EVEN the shrewd and bitter, Gnarled by the old world’s greed, Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need. Shelter and patient hearing, These were their gifts to him, To the minstrel chanting, begging, As the sunset-fire grew dim. The rich said “you are welcome.” Yea, even the rich were good. How strange that in […]...
15. 25. My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O, And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O; He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O; For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O. Then out into the world my course I did […]...
16. Wolf Knife In the mid August, in the second year Of my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter Almost upon us, Kantiuk and I Attempted to dash the sledge Along Crispin Bay, searching again for relics Of the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew, And we turned back, and we struggled slowly In snow, […]...
17. The Ballad of Rudolph Reed Rudolph Reed was oaken. His wife was oaken too. And his two good girls and his good little man Oakened as they grew. “I am not hungry for berries. I am not hungry for bread. But hungry hungry for a house Where at night a man in bed “May never hear the plaster Stir as […]...
18. The Ballad Of Gum-Boot Ben He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim. He asked me for a grubstake, and the same I gave to him. He hinted of a hidden trove, and when I made so bold To question his veracity, this is the tale he told. “I do not seek the copper streak, nor yet […]...
19. BALLAD OF THE BANISHED AND RETURNING COUNT [Goethe began to write an opera called Lowenstuhl, Founded upon the old tradition which forms the subject of this Ballad, But he never carried out his design.] OH, enter old minstrel, thou time-honour’d one! We children are here in the hall all alone, The portals we straightway will bar. Our mother is praying, our father […]...
20. At the door I thought myself indeed secure, So fast the door, so firm the lock; But, lo! he toddling comes to lure My parent ear with timorous knock. My heart were stone could it withstand The sweetness of my baby’s plea, That timorous, baby knocking and “Please let me in, it’s only me.” I threw aside the […]...
21. God Gave To Me A Child In Part GOD gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the kindly feel of home. […]...
22. The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding-House ‘T was Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house, Where sailor-men reside, And there were men of all the ports From Mississip to Clyde, And regally they spat and smoked, And fearsomely they lied. They lied about the purple Sea That gave them scanty bread, They lied about the Earth beneath, The Heavens overhead, For they had looked too […]...
23. 548. The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad DIRE was the hate at old Harlaw, That Scot to Scot did carry; And dire the discord Langside saw For beauteous, hapless Mary: But Scot to Scot ne’er met so hot, Or were more in fury seen, Sir, Than ‘twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job, Who should be the Faculty’s Dean, Sir. This […]...
24. 39. Ballad on the American War WHEN Guilford good our pilot stood An’ did our hellim thraw, man, Ae night, at tea, began a plea, Within America, man: Then up they gat the maskin-pat, And in the sea did jaw, man; An’ did nae less, in full congress, Than quite refuse our law, man. Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes, I […]...
25. The Ballad Of The Harp-Weaver “Son,” said my mother, When I was knee-high, “you’ve need of clothes to cover you, And not a rag have I. “There’s nothing in the house To make a boy breeches, Nor shears to cut a cloth with, Nor thread to take stitches. “There’s nothing in the house But a loaf-end of rye, And a […]...
26. The Ballad Of The Leather Medal Only a Leather Medal, hanging there on the wall, Dingy and frayed and faded, dusty and worn and old; Yet of my humble treasures I value it most of all, And I wouldn’t part with that medal if you gave me its weight in gold. Read the inscription: For Valour – presented to Millie MacGee. […]...
27. The Ballad of East and West Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth! Kamal […]...
28. The delectable ballad of the waller lot Up yonder in Buena Park There is a famous spot, In legend and in history Yclept the Waller Lot. There children play in daytime And lovers stroll by dark, For ‘t is the goodliest trysting-place In all Buena Park. Once on a time that beauteous maid, Sweet little Sissy Knott, Took out her pretty doll […]...
29. Bastard The very skies wee black with shame, As near my moment drew; The very hour before you cam I felt I hated you. But now I see how fair you are, How divine your eyes, It seems I step upon a star To leap to Paradise. What care I who your father was: (‘Twas better […]...
30. Fairy Bread Come up here, O dusty feet! Here is fairy ready to eat. Here in my retiring room, Children, you may dine On the golden smell of broom And the shade of pine; And when you have eaten well, Fairy stories hear and tell....
31. My Future “Let’s make him a sailor,” said Father, “And he will adventure the sea.” “A soldier,” said Mother, “is rather What I would prefer him to be.” “A lawyer,” said Father, “would please me, For then he could draw up my will.” “A doctor,” said Mother, “would ease me; Maybe he could give me a pill.” […]...
32. The Unlucky Apple ‘Twas the apple that in Eden Caused our father’s primal fall; And the Trojan War, remember ‘Twas an apple caused it all. So for weeks I’ve hesitated, You can guess the reason why, For I want to tell my darling She’s the apple of my eye....
33. The Knife Can I explain this to you? Your eyes Are entrances the mouths of caves I issue from wonderful interiors Upon a blessed sea and a fine day, From inside these caves I look and dream. Your hair explicable as a waterfall In some black liquid cooled by legend Fell across my thought in a moment […]...
34. The Ballad Of Father O'Hart Good Father John O’Hart In penal days rode out To a Shoneen who had free lands And his own snipe and trout. In trust took he John’s lands; Sleiveens were all his race; And he gave them as dowers to his daughters. And they married beyond their place. But Father John went up, And Father […]...
35. An Old Story (Retold in Rhyme) They threw him in a prison cell; He moaned upon his bed. And when he crept from coils of hell: “Last night you killed,” they said. “last night in drunken rage you slew A being brave with breath; A radiant soul, because of you Lies dark in death.” “last night I killed,” […]...
36. Ballad of the Old Cypress In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches Are like green bronze; its roots like rocks; around its great girth of forty Spans its rimy bark withstands the washing of the rain. Its jet-colored top Rises two thousand feet to greet the sky. Prince and statesman have long […]...
37. A Ballad upon a Wedding I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen, O, things without compare! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground, Be it at wake or fair. At Charing Cross, hard by the way Where we, thou know’st, do sell our hay, There is a […]...
38. The Ballad Of Hank The Finn Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow; “Let’s leave,” says he, “the lousy sea, and give the land a show. I’m fed up to the molar mark with wallopin’ the brine; I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin’ on me spine. Let’s hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are […]...
39. The Ballad of the King's Mercy Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told. His mercy fills the Khyber hills his grace is manifold; He has taken toll of the North and the South his glory reacheth far, And they tell the tale of his charity from Balkh to Kandahar. Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and […]...
40. The Ballad Of Pious Pete “The North has got him.” Yukonism. I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did. I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid. I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could; I swore to prevail; I camped […]...