This Life

Related poetry:

1. The going from a world we know The going from a world we know To one a wonder still Is like the child’s adversity Whose vista is a hill, Behind the hill is sorcery And everything unknown, But will the secret compensate For climbing it alone?...
2. 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 […]...
3. A Country Life A bird that I don’t know, Hunched on his light-pole like a scarecrow, Looks sideways out into the wheat The wind waves under the waves of heat. The field is yellow as egg-bread dough Except where (just as though they’d let It live for looks) a locust billows In leaf-green and shade-violet, A standing mercy. […]...
4. The Breathing An absolute Patience. Trees stand Up to their knees in Fog. The fog Slowly flows Uphill. White Cobwebs, the grass Leaning where deer Have looked for apples. The woods From brook to where The top of the hill looks Over the fog, send up Not one bird. So absolute, it is No other than Happiness […]...
5. Rhythm of Life The clock is silent Nowadays clocks no longer Need to make That rhythmic sound of life. We have moved on And everything is changed I am no longer sad I don’t weep for you. In still moments I see you solitary, reflective- Running with the wind along the waterfront With your Walkman on. Radiowaves carry […]...
6. 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. […]...
7. "Daddy" Warbucks In Memoriam What’s missing is the eyeballs In each of us, but it doesn’t matter Because you’ve got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks. You let me touch them, fondle the green faces Lick at their numbers and it lets you be My “Daddy!” “Daddy!” and though I fought all alone With molesters and crooks, […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. Modern Love IV: All Other Joys of Life All other joys of life he strove to warm, And magnify, and catch them to his lip: But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, And gazed upon him sallow from the storm. Or if Delusion came, ’twas but to show The coming minute mock the one that went. Cold as a mountain in its […]...
10. Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
11. My Earlier Life I’ve been home a long time among the vast porticos, Which the mariner sun has tinged with a million fires, Whose grandest pillars, upright, majestic and cold Render them the same, this evening, as caves with basalt spires. The swells’ overwhelming accords of rich music, Heaving images of heaven to the skies, Mingle in a […]...
12. Pretty Halcyon Days How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to sit on the beach […]...
13. MOUNTAIN LIFE IN summer dusk the valley lies With far-flung shadow veil; A cloud-sea laps the precipice Before the evening gale: The welter of the cloud-waves grey Cuts off from keenest sight The glacier, looking out by day O’er all the district, far away, And crowned with golden light. But o’er the smouldering cloud-wrack’s flow, Where gold […]...
14. A Poem For Myself (or Blues for a Mississippi Black Boy) I was born in Mississippi; I walked barefooted thru the mud. Born black in Mississippi, Walked barefooted thru the mud. But, when I reached the age of twelve I left that place for good. My daddy chopped cotton And he drank his liquor straight. Said my daddy chopped […]...
15. Life Is Fine I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, So I jumped in and sank. I came up once and hollered! I came up twice and cried! If that water hadn’t a-been so cold I might’ve sunk and died. But it was Cold in that water! […]...
16. A Brand New Life 1/ My dearest child, my dearest love Come to Ayah, who has just come My dearest star, my brightest sun Your loudest cries, my sweetest songs Your merry laughter, my constant prayer My dearest child, whenever you come Be you a son, be you a daughter Ayah’s been waiting here at home In quiet moments […]...
17. Ignorant Before The Heavens Of My Life Ignorant before the heavens of my life, I stand and gaze in wonder. Oh the vastness Of the stars. Their rising and descent. How still. As if I didn’t exist. Do I have any Share in this? Have I somehow dispensed with Their pure effect? Does my blood’s ebb and flow Change with their changes? […]...
18. December Night The cold slope is standing in darkness But the south of the trees is dry to the touch The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers I came to watch these White plants older at night The oldest Come first to the ruins And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon The water […]...
19. The Thread of Life I The irresponsive silence of the land, The irresponsive sounding of the sea, Speak both one message of one sense to me: Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band Of inner solitude; we bind not thee; But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free? What heart […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens Last night I dreamed of chickens, There were chickens everywhere, They were standing on my stomach, They were nesting in my hair, They were pecking at my pillow, They were hopping on my head, They were ruffling up their feathers As they raced about my bed. They were on the chairs and tables, They were […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Up Life's Hill with my my little Bundle Up Life’s Hill with my my little Bundle If I prove it steep If a Discouragement withhold me If my newest step Older feel than the Hope that prompted Spotless be from blame Heart that proposed as Heart that accepted Homelessness, for Home...
24. 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 […]...
25. Ready to step into life This morning, coffee in hand, standing at the kitchen Window thinking of things that need to be done I contemplated the post with a lean at the front gate Which I should right one day – and wondered why; I like it that way, trying to take a first step, Embark on a journey perhaps, […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. As You Go Through Life Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life; And even when you find them, It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind And look for the virtue behind them. For the cloudiest night has a hint of light Somewhere in its shadows hiding; It is better by far to hunt for a […]...
28. Life Let me but live my life from year to year, With forward face and unreluctant soul; Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal; Not mourning for the things that disappear In the dim past, nor holding back in fear From what the future veils; but with a whole And happy heart, that pays its […]...
29. The Triumph of Life Swift as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth. The smokeless altars of the mountain snows Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth Of light, the Ocean’s orison arose To which the […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. NEW LOVE, NEW LIFE [Written at the time of Goethe’s connection With Lily.] HEART! my heart! what means this feeling? What oppresseth thee so sore? What strange life is o’er me stealing! I acknowledge thee no more. Fled is all that gave thee gladness, Fled the cause of all thy sadness, Fled thy peace, thine industry Ah, why suffer […]...
32. My Philosophy of Life Just when I thought there wasn’t room enough For another thought in my head, I had this great idea Call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly, It involved living the way philosophers live, According to a set of principles. OK, but which ones? That was the hardest part, I admit, but I […]...
33. Life As late I journey’d o’er the extensive plain Where native Otter sports his scanty stream, Musing in torpid woe a Sister’s pain, The glorious prospect woke me from the dream. At every step it widen’d to my sight – Wood, Meadow, verdant Hill, and dreary Steep, Following in quick succession of delight, – Till all […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
36. Joy-Bells Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells To the green-vista’d gladness of the past That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. What means this metal in windy belfries hung When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells Whose tones are tuned […]...
37. The Exorcists And I solemnly swear On the chill of secrecy That I know you not, this room never, The swollen dress I wear, Nor the anonymous spoons that free me, Nor this calendar nor the pulse we pare and cover. For all these present, Before that wandering ghost, That yellow moth of my summer bed, I […]...
38. The Goblet of Life Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim; And though my eyes with tears are dim, I see its sparkling bubbles swim, And chant a melancholy hymn With solemn voice and slow. No purple flowers, no garlands green, Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick […]...
39. More Life went out when He went More Life went out when He went Than Ordinary Breath Lit with a finer Phosphor Requiring in the Quench A Power of Renowned Cold, The Climate of the Grave A Temperature just adequate So Anthracite, to live For some an Ampler Zero A Frost more needle keen Is necessary, to reduce The Ethiop within. Others […]...
40. The Two Guides Of Life – The Sublime And The Beautiful Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee; Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee? With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty, And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty. With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto […]...