The River of Life

Related poetry:

1. What Is Life? Resembles Life what once was held of Light, Too ample in itself for human sight? An absolute Self an element ungrounded All, that we see, all colours of all shade [Image]By encroach of darkness made? Is very life by consciousness unbounded? And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, A war-embrace of wrestling Life […]...
2. Life's Tragedy It may be misery not to sing at all, And to go silent through the brimming day; It may be misery never to be loved, But deeper griefs than these beset the way. To sing the perfect song, And by a half-tone lost the key, There the potent sorrow, there the grief, The pale, sad […]...
3. The best days of my life What is it about Bryan Adams and his song ‘Summer of 69’? Why do the lyrics linger? Was it 90° in the shade and the harbinger of the end Of the golden weather, or the impending closure Of a glorious decade? He should have called it ‘The best days of my life’, it would have […]...
4. Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord, Then, I am ready to go! Just a look at the Horses Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side So I shall never fall For we must ride to the Judgment And it’s partly, down Hill But never I mind the steeper And […]...
5. Later life Something this foggy day, a something which Is neither of this fog nor of today, Has set me dreaming of the winds that play Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach, And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray: Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away, So out of reach while quite within my […]...
6. Life “What is this world?­thy school, O misery! “Our only lesson is to learn to suffer.” – YOUNG. LOVE, thou sportive fickle boy, Source of anguish, child of joy, Ever wounding­ever smiling, Soothing still, and still beguiling; What are all thy boasted treasures, Tender sorrows, transient pleasures? Anxious hopes, and jealous fears, LAUGHING HOURS, and MOURNING […]...
7. The Witch's Life When I was a child There was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story Window From behind the wrinkled curtains And sometimes she would open the window And yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp And a voice like […]...
8. Stream Of Life The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day Runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth In numberless blades of grass And breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same […]...
9. Madam Life's a Piece in Bloom Madam Life’s a piece in bloom Death goes dogging everywhere: She’s the tenant of the room, He’s the ruffian on the stair. You shall see her as a friend, You shall bilk him once or twice; But he’ll trap you in the end, And he’ll stick you for her price. With his kneebones at your […]...
10. Life CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst. Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your […]...
11. Life LIFE, believe, is not a dream So dark as sages say; Oft a little morning rain Foretells a pleasant day. Sometimes there are clouds of gloom, But these are transient all; If the shower will make the roses bloom, O why lament its fall? Rapidly, merrily, Life’s sunny hours flit by, Gratefully, cheerily, Enjoy them […]...
12. This Chasm, Sweet, upon my life This Chasm, Sweet, upon my life I mention it to you, When Sunrise through a fissure drop The Day must follow too. If we demur, its gaping sides Disclose as ’twere a Tomb Ourself am lying straight wherein The Favorite of Doom. When it has just contained a Life Then, Darling, it will close And […]...
13. Wash of Cold River Wash of cold river In a glacial land, Ionian water, Chill, snow-ribbed sand, Drift of rare flowers, Clear, with delicate shell – Like leaf enclosing Frozen lily-leaf, Camellia texture, Colder than a rose; Wind-flower That keeps the breath Of the north-wind These and none other; Intimate thoughts and kind Reach out to share The treasure […]...
14. The River In my first sleep I came to the river And looked down Through the clear water – Only in dream Water so pure, Laced and undulant Lines of flow On its rocky bed Water of life Streaming for ever. A house was there Beside the river And I, arrived, An expected guest About to explore […]...
15. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
16. Life's Progress How gayly is at first begun Our Life’s uncertain Race! Whilst yet that sprightly Morning Sun, With which we just set out to run Enlightens all the Place. How smiling the World’s Prospect lies How tempting to go through! Not Canaan to the Prophet’s Eyes, From Pisgah with a sweet Surprize, Did more inviting shew. […]...
17. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
18. Human Life If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom Swallow up life’s brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul […]...
19. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
20. A Song Of Life In the rapture of life and of living, I lift up my head and rejoice, And I thank the great Giver for giving The soul of my gladness a voice. In the glow of the glorious weather, In the sweet-scented, sensuous air, My burdens seem light as a feather – They are nothing to bear. […]...
21. Growing Old What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not for this alone. Is it to feel our strength – Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow […]...
22. Each Life Converges to some Centre Each Life Converges to some Centre Expressed or still Exists in every Human Nature A Goal Embodied scarcely to itself it may be Too fair For Credibility’s presumption To mar Adored with caution as a Brittle Heaven To reach Were hopeless, as the Rainbow’s Raiment To touch Yet persevered toward sure for the Distance How […]...
23. This Life My friend tells me A man in my house jumped off the roof The roof is the eighth floor of this building The roof door was locked how did he manage? His girlfriend had said goodbye I’m leaving He was 22 His mother and father were hurrying At that very moment From upstate to help […]...
24. The Poetry Of Life “Who would himself with shadows entertain, Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain, Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true? Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwell In the large empire of the possible, This workday life with iron […]...
25. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
26. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
27. The River Scamander I’M now disposed to give a pretty tale; Love laughs at what I’ve sworn and will prevail; Men, gods, and all, his mighty influence know, And full obedience to the urchin show. In future when I celebrate his flame, Expressions not so warm will be my aim; I would not willingly abuses plant, But rather […]...
28. Youth and Calm ‘Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here, And ease from shame, and rest from fear. There’s nothing can dismarble now The smoothness of that limpid brow. But is a calm like this, in truth, The crowning end of life and youth, And when this boon rewards the dead, Are all debts paid, has all been […]...
29. Life All in the dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there is gain in this. We do not always win the race, By only running right, We have to tread the mountain’s base Before we reach its height. The Christs alone no errors made; […]...
30. Penance My lover died a century ago, Her dear heart stricken by my sland’rous breath, Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know The peace of death. Men pass my grave, and say, “‘Twere well to sleep, Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!” How should they know the vigils that I keep, The tears […]...
31. The River Of Bees In a dream I returned to the river of bees Five orange trees by the bridge and Beside two mills my house Into whose courtyard a blind man followed The goats and stood singing Of what was older Soon it will be fifteen years He was old he will have fallen into his eyes I […]...
32. Human Life's Mystery We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the house where we may rest, And then, at moments, suddenly, We look up to the great wide sky, Inquiring wherefore we were born… For earnest or for jest? The senses folding thick and dark About the stifled soul within, We guess diviner things beyond, […]...
33. A Poet's Death is His Life IV The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens. There in the suburb stood an old hut heavily laden with snow […]...
34. Death And Life ‘Twas in the grave-yard’s gruesome gloom That May and I were mated; We sneaked inside and on a tomb Our love was consummated. It’s quite all right, no doubt we’ll wed, Our sin will go unchidden. . . Ah! sweeter than the nuptial bed Are ecstasies forbidden. And as I held my sweetheart close, And […]...
35. Koening Of The River Koening knew now there was no one on the river. Entering its brown mouth choking with lilies And curtained with midges, Koenig poled the shallop Past the abandoned ferry and the ferry piles Coated with coal dust. Staying aboard, he saw, up In a thick meadow, a sand-colored mule, Untethered, with no harness, and no […]...
36. At Thirty-Five Three score and ten, the psalmist saith, And half my course is well-nigh run; I’ve had my flout at dusty death, I’ve had my whack of feast and fun. I’ve mocked at those who prate and preach; I’ve laughed with any man alive; But now with sobered heart I reach The Great Divide of Thirty-five. […]...
37. Property The red-roofed house of dream design Looks three ways on the sea; For fifty years I’ve made it mine, And held it part of me. The pines I planted in my youth Triumpantly are tall. . . Yet now I know with sorry sooth I have to leave it all. Hard-hewn from out the living […]...
38. The Ideal And The Actual Life Forever fair, forever calm and bright, Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light, For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb, And ‘mid the universal ruin, bloom The rosy days of Gods With man, the choice, Timid and anxious, hesitates between The sense’s pleasure and the soul’s content; While […]...
39. O Me! O Life! O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless-of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light-of the objects mean-of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results […]...
40. He Sendeth Sun, He Sendeth Shower He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower, Alike they’re needful for the flower: And joys and tears alike are sent To give the soul fit nourishment. As comes to me or cloud or sun, Father! thy will, not mine, be done! Can loving children e’er reprove With murmurs whom they trust and love? Creator! I would […]...