The Stolen Child

Related poetry:

1. The Earth-Child in the Grass In the very early morning Long before Dawn time I lay down in the paddock And listened to the cold song of the grass. Between my fingers the green blades, And the green blades pressed against my body. “Who is she leaning so heavily upon me?” Sang the grass. “Why does she weep on my […]...
2. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...
3. Child The young child, Christ, is straight and wise And asks questions of the old men, questions Found under running water for all children And found under shadows thrown on still waters By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled. Found to the eyes of children alone, untold, Singing a low song in the loneliness. And […]...
4. I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their hearts desire: Jingle pockets full of gold, Marry when they’re seven years old. Every fairy child may keep Two ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; […]...
5. The Child Is Father To The Man ‘The child is father to the man.’ How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: ‘The child is father to the man.’ No; what the poet did write ran, ‘The man is father to the child.’ ‘The child is father to the man!’ How can he be? The […]...
6. The Happy Child I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick But not one like the child did pick. I heard the packhounds in green park But no dog like the child heard bark. I heard this day bird after bird But not one like the child has heard. A hundred butterflies saw I But not one like […]...
7. 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. […]...
8. Little Popeet – the Lost Child Near by the silent waters of the Mediterranean, And at the door of an old hut stood a coloured man, Whose dress was oriental in style and poor with wear, While adown his furrowed cheeks ran many a tear. And the poor coloured man seemed very discontent, And his grief overcame him at this moment; […]...
9. The Child Dying Unfriendly friendly universe, I pack your stars into my purse, And bid you so farewell. That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt, My father says, is the miracle. You are so great, and I so small: I am nothing, you are all: Being nothing, I can take […]...
10. A Child in the Garden When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, […]...
11. A Child Asleep How he sleepeth! having drunken Weary childhood’s mandragore, From his pretty eyes have sunken Pleasures, to make room for more – Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before. Nosegays! leave them for the waking: Throw them earthward where they grew. Dim are such, beside the breaking Amaranths he looks unto – […]...
12. A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I […]...
13. A Sea Child The lover of child Marjory Had one white hour of life brim full; Now the old nurse, the rocking sea, Hath him to lull. The daughter of child Marjory Hath in her veins, to beat and run, The glad indomitable sea, The strong white sun....
14. The Legend of St. Austin and the Child St. Austin, going in thought Along the sea-sands gray, Into another world was caught, And Carthage far away. He saw the City of God Hang in the saffron sky; And this was holy ground he trod, Where mortals come not nigh. He saw pale spires aglow, Houses of heavenly sheen; All in a world of […]...
15. To a Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know […]...
16. Spring & Fall: To A Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By & by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep & know […]...
17. Robin Hood, A Child It was the pleasant season yet, When the stones at cottage doors Dry quickly, while the roads are wet, After the silver showers. The green leaves they looked greener still, And the thrush, renewing his tune, Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill Into the bright blue noon. Robin Hood’s mother looked out, and […]...
18. A Child's Laughter ALL the bells of heaven may ring, All the birds of heaven may sing, All the wells on earth may spring, All the winds on earth may bring All sweet sounds together – Sweeter far than all things heard, Hand of harper, tone of bird, Sound of woods at sundawn stirred, Welling water’s winsome word, […]...
19. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
20. The Child on the Curbstone The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced, Stared down on that golden river. I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak Of a boy who could not shiver. His father’s hand forced him to stand, The traffic thundered slaughter; One foot he thrust in the whirling dust As it were running water. As in a dream […]...
21. The Sea-Child Into the world you sent her, mother, Fashioned her body of coral and foam, Combed a wave in her hair’s warm smother, And drove her away from home In the dark of the night she crept to the town And under a doorway she laid her down, The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown. […]...
22. Gacela of the Dead Child Each afternoon in Granada, Each afternoon, a child dies. Each afternoon the water sits down And chats with its companions. The dead wear mossy wings. The cloudy wind and the clear wind Are two pheasants in flight through the towers, And the day is a wounded boy. Not a flicker of lark was left in […]...
23. TO A CHILD Dear child! how radiant on thy mother’s knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles, Whose figures grace, With many a grotesque form and face. The ancient chimney of thy nursery! The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing girl, the grave bashaw With bearded lip and chin; And, leaning […]...
24. Carrowmore IT’S a lonely road through bogland to the lake at Carrowmore, And a sleeper there lies dreaming where the water laps the shore; Though the moth-wings of the twilight in their purples are unfurled, Yet his sleep is filled with music by the masters of the world. There’s a hand is white as silver that […]...
25. A Child's Grace HERE a little child I stand Heaving up my either hand; Cold as paddocks though they be, Here I lift them up to Thee, For a benison to fall On our meat and on us all. Amen....
26. A Child of the Snows There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim, And never before or again, When the nights are strong with a darkness long, And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow, The place where the great fires are, That the midst of the earth is a […]...
27. The Trout Naughty little speckled trout, Can’t I coax you to come out? Is it such great fun to play In the water every day? Do you pull the Naiads’ hair Hiding in the lilies there? Do you hunt for fishes’ eggs, Or watch tadpoles grow their legs? Do the little trouts have school In some deep […]...
28. TO HIS SAVIOUR, A CHILD;A PRESENT, BY A CHILD Go, pretty child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon his bib or stomacher; And tell him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of […]...
29. The Child-Angel They clamour and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end To their wrangling. Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my Child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence. They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like Hidden knives thirsting for blood. Go […]...
30. Yes, the Fish Music A trout-colored wind blows Through my eyes, through my fingers, And I remember how the trout Used to hide from the dinosaurs When they came to drink at the river. The trout hid in subways, castles, And automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away....
31. Lord Ullin's Daughter A chieftain, to the Highlands bound, Cries, ”Boatman, do not tarry! And I’ll give thee a silver pound To row us o’er the ferry!” ”Now, who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, This dark and stormy weather?” ”O, I’m the chief of Ulva’s isle, And this, Lord Ullin’s daughter. ”And fast before her father’s men Three […]...
32. Come hither, child Come hither, child who gifted thee With power to touch that string so well? How darest thou rouse up thoughts in me, Thoughts that I would but cannot quell? Nay, chide not, lady; long ago I heard those notes in Ula’s hall, And had I known they’d waken woe I’d weep their music to recall. […]...
33. The Weeping I have shut my windows. I do not want to hear the weeping. But from behind the grey walls. Nothing is heard but the weeping. There are few angels that sing. There are few dogs that bark. A thousand violins fit in the palm of the hand. But the weeping is an immense angel. The […]...
34. Face Stolen From a Bird Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. I don’t know who you’re hiding Behind your mask, Your face stolen from a bird, Imprisoned by red ashes. I will love you the way one dies. I will keep you For years to come, You will be so tame, So unbelievable, My strange animal, With your […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
37. Loon Point Softly the water ripples Against the canoe’s curving side, Softly the birch trees rustle Flinging over us branches wide. Softly the moon glints and glistens As the water takes and leaves, Like golden ears of corn Which fall from loose-bound sheaves, Or like the snow-white petals Which drop from an overblown rose, When Summer ripens […]...
38. Hayeswater A region desolate and wild. Black, chafing water: and afloat, And lonely as a truant child In a waste wood, a single boat: No mast, no sails are set thereon; It moves, but never moveth on: And welters like a human thing Amid the wild waves weltering. Behind, a buried vale doth sleep, Far down […]...
39. Dave Lilly There’s a brook on the side of Greylock that used To be full of trout, But there’s nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished Out. I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago, And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so. There was […]...
40. There was a Child Once There was a child once. He came to play in my garden; He was quite pale and silent. Only when he smiled I knew everything about him, I knew what he had in his pockets, And I knew the feel of his hands in my hands And the most intimate tones of his voice. I […]...