The Day's Work

Related poetry:

1. Days I am a Day. . . My sky is grey, My wind is wild, My sea high-piled: In year of days the first In misery. . . Oh pity me! I am a Day Accurst. “Sweet Day, not curst but blest: Behold upon my breast My baby born Your early morn. Safe in my arms […]...
2. Decorations My only medals are the scars I’ve won in weary, peacetime wars, A-fighting for my little brood, To win them shelter, shoon and food; But most of all to give them faith In God’s good mercy unto death. My sons have medals gleaming bright, Proud trophies won in foreign fight; But though their crosses bravely […]...
3. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
4. Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered […]...
5. To One In Bedlam With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, […]...
6. In the Days of the Golden Rod Across the meadow in brooding shadow I walk to drink of the autumn’s wine­ The charm of story, the artist’s glory, To-day on these silvering hills is mine; On height, in hollow, where’er I follow, By mellow hillside and searing sod, Its plumes uplifting, in light winds drifting, I see the glimmer of golden-rod. In […]...
7. In The Days When The World Was Wide The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side And tired of all is the spirit that sings Of the days when […]...
8. The City of Sleep “The Brushwood Boy” The Day’s Work Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we pity us! Oh, pity […]...
9. A British-Roman Song (A. D. 406) “A Centurion of the Thirtieth” Puck of Pook’s Hill My father’s father saw it not, And I, belike, shall never come To look on that so-holly spot That very Rome Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might, The equal work of Gods and Man, City beneath whose oldest height The Race […]...
10. In the Droving Days “Only a pound,” said the auctioneer, “Only a pound; and I’m standing here Selling this animal, gain or loss Only a pound for the drover’s horse? One of the sort that was ne’er afraid, One of the boys of the Old Brigade; Thoroughly honest and game, I’ll swear, Only a little the worse for wear; […]...
11. How Heavy The Days How heavy the days are. There’s not a fire that can warm me, Not a sun to laugh with me, Everything bare, Everything cold and merciless, And even the beloved, clear Stars look desolately down, Since I learned in my heart that Love can die....
12. No Beer, No Work The shades of night was fallin’ slow As through New York a guy did go And nail on ev’ry barroom door A card that this here motter bore: “No beer, no work.” His brow was sad, his mouth was dry; It was the first day of July, And where, all parched and scorched it hung, […]...
13. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
14. Wars IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires. In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not Yet dreamed out in the heads of men. In the old wars clutches of short swords and […]...
15. Soldier, Soldier “Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don’t you march with my true love?” “We’re fresh from off the ship an’ ‘e’s maybe give the slip, An’ you’d best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an’ you’d better dry […]...
16. The Widow at Windsor ‘Ave you ‘eard o’ the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on ‘er ‘ead? She ‘as ships on the foam she ‘as millions at ‘ome, An’ she pays us poor beggars in red. (Ow, poor beggars in red!) There’s ‘er nick on the cavalry ‘orses, There’s ‘er mark on the medical stores An’ […]...
17. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...
18. As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, (For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal! Against vast odds, having gloriously won, Now thou stridest on-yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers, Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all […]...
19. Days Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, […]...
20. Tipperary Days Oh, weren’t they the fine boys! You never saw the beat of them, Singing all together with their throats bronze-bare; Fighting-fit and mirth-mad, music in the feet of them, Swinging on to glory and the wrath out there. Laughing by and chaffing by, frolic in the smiles of them, On the road, the white road, […]...
21. Virginity My mother she had children five and four are dead and gone; While I, least worthy to survive, persist in living on. She looks at me, I must confess, sometimes with spite and bitterness. My mother is three-score and ten, while I am forty-three, You don’t know how it hurts me when we go somewhere […]...
22. In Three Days I. So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn. See how I come, unchanged, unworn! Feel, where my life broke off from thine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine, – Only a touch and we combine! II. Too […]...
23. Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days She gives him his eyes, she found them Among some rubble, among some beetles He gives her her skin He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists […]...
24. The Tombstone-Maker He primmed his loose red mouth and leaned his head Against a sorrowing angel’s breast, and said: ‘You’d think so much bereavement would have made ‘Unusual big demands upon my trade. ‘The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk; ‘Unless the fighting stops I’ll soon be broke.’ He eyed the Cemetery across the road. […]...
25. Sonnet XVIII: To This Our World To the Celestial Numbers To this our world, to Learning, and to Heav’n, Three Nines there are, to every one a Nine, One number of the Earth, the other both divine; One woman now makes three odd numbers ev’n. Nine Orders first of Angels be in Heav’n, Nine Muses do with Learning still frequent: These […]...
26. Fi-Fi In Bed Up into the sky I stare; All the little stars I see; And I know that God is there O, how lonely He must be! Me, I laugh and leap all day, Till my head begins to nod; He’s so great, He cannot play: I am glad I am not God. Poor kind God upon […]...
27. Kim Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised, With idiot moons and stars retracting stars? Creep thou between thy coming’s all unnoised. Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars. Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fray (By Adam’s, fathers’, own, sin bound alway); Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say Which […]...
28. Dreams of better days At break of day we rested, the contest of our wills Declined to wrest the peace away and where The foreign powers held sway a quiet was in abundance; A ghostly calm entranced the crowd shrouded In the shadow dance we left them, proud and unafraid, We fled the play, we fled the crowd, we […]...
29. Two Men (J. L. And R. B.) In the Northland there were three Pukka Pliers of the pen; Two of them had Fame in fee And were loud and lusty men; By them like a shrimp was I – Yet alas! they had to die. Jack was genius through and through. Who his future could foretell? What we sweated blood to do […]...
30. The Moon of Other Days Beneath the deep veranda’s shade, When bats begin to fly, I sit me down and watch alas! Another evening die. Blood-red behind the sere ferash She rises through the haze. Sainted Diana! can that be The Moon of Other Days? Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith, Sweet Saint of Kensington! Say, was it ever thus […]...
31. Kinship IN summer time, with high imaginings Of proud Crusaders and of Paynim kings, The children crowned themselves with famous names, And fought there, building up their merry games, Their mimic war, from old majestic things. There was no bitter hate then in the fight, For ancient law ruled victory and flight, And, victory and defeat […]...
32. Twilight From vales of dawn hath Day pursued the Night Who mocking fled, swift-sandalled, to the west, Nor ever lingered in her wayward flight With dusk-eyed glance to recompense his quest, But over crocus hills and meadows gray Sped fleetly on her way. Now when the Day, shorn of his failing strength, Hath fallen spent before […]...
33. Cuchulan's Fight With The Sea A man came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.’ Then Emer cast the web upon the floor, And raising arms all […]...
34. Little Brother Wars have been and wars will be Till the human race is run; Battles red by land and sea, Never peace beneath the sun. I am old and little care; I’ll be cold, my lips be dumb: Brother mine, beware, beware. . . Evil looms the wrath to come. Eastern skies are dark with strife, […]...
35. South of my Days South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country, Rises that tableland, high delicate outline Of bony slopes wincing under the winter, Low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite – Clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced, Willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple Branching over and under, blotched with a […]...
36. Work Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom, In roaring market-place or tranquil room; Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, “This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; “Of all who live, I […]...
37. What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
38. Peace When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows Alarms of wars, the […]...
39. Work And Joy Each day I live I thank the Lord I do the work I love; And in it find a rich reward, All price and praise above. For few may do the work they love, The fond unique employ, That fits them as a hand a glove, And gives them joy. Oh gentlefolk, do you and […]...
40. Work I caught rumours of some internal hearing Then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes, Hands scrunched up like a child’s, rice paper skin. That work mates complained was a big surprise As you were office sunshine, shafted no-one, And turned your quick mind to the broadest cause. But there you were, a whisper finished…gone, […]...