Who loves a gardenFinds within his soulLife’s whole;He hears the anthem of the soilWhile ingrates toil;And sees beyond his little sphereThe waving fronds of heaven, clear.– Louise Seymour Jones from The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Hazel Felleman, ed. Garden City Books, Garden City, New York. 1936.
Let the fragrant summer breeze,And the leaves of locust trees, And the apple-buds and -blossoms, and the wings of honey bees,All palpitate with glee,Till the happy harmonyBrings back each childish joy to you and me from “A Song of Long Ago,” in Riley Farm-Rhymes with Country Pictures by James Whitcomb Riley (1883)
Turn your speakers up all the way. The Days Gone by! O the days gone by!The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quailAs he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was
’Tis the human touchin this world that counts,The touch of your hand and mine,Which means far moreto the fainting heartThan shelter and bread and wine.For shelter is gonewhen the night is o’er,And bread lasts only a day.But the touch of the handAnd the sound of the voiceSing on in the soul alway. Spencer Michael Free
To the Dandelion As found in Poems of Lowell ( James Russell Lowell, Brander Matthews, ed., P.F. Collier & Son, New York City, 1902.) Continue reading “To the Dandelion” at All Poetry.
My lovely living boy, | My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy. Guillaume de Salluste (1544-1590), Divine Weeks and Works, Second Week, Fourth day, pt. 2 My fair son! | My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! Wm. Shakespeare (1564-1616), King John, act III, sc. iv, l. 103
I’m sorry to say I wasn’t able to find this volume online and capture a screen shot. And I did not want to break the book’s spine flattening it out too much. More… Why should we read poetry? We might as well ask why birds should sing… . “The taste for poetry is as natural
Originally published January 3, 2015. Funny. I had that One Hundred and One Famous Poems with a Prose Supplement laying on my desk for a few weeks and almost every time I picked it up, I read this poem. Why am I quoting so much poetry, you may wonder. Two reasons. 1) That’s just the
from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Random House, 1947 printing; original, 11th century; first English trans. by Fitzgerald, 1858) Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried | Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide | “Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?” | And– “A blind Understanding!” Heav’n replied. Then to this earthen Bowl did
Instapoets “have completely knocked all literary classics” from their perches on the bookstore shelves. “Homer, the Beowulf poet, Rumi, John Milton, and Dante — all poets who have been celebrated and studied by scholars for hundreds of years — have been bested by the powers of Instagram.” Kira Harkonen at Booknet Canada via Solway at
Whole sweet little crappy old book to read or borrow for free here. That infallible source tells me that Stanton, hailing from, and always living in Georgia, was sometimes called the James Whitcomb Riley of The South. Indeed, they were pals! Stanton was named poet laureate of Georgia– the first southern state to have a
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said: “This is my own, my native land!”Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,As home his footsteps he hath turn’d From wandering on a foreign strand!If such there breathe, go, mark him well;For him no Minstrel raptures swell;High though his titles,
Be Strong Be strong! We are not here to play, to dream, to drift; We have hard work to do, and loads to lift; Shun not the struggle– face it; ’tis God’s gift. Be strong! Say not, “The days are evil. Who’s to blame?” And fold the hands and acquiesce– oh shame! Stand up, speak
And, no. I did not pay $5.98 for it. The shopping trip was right successful. Little ‘Phen will be the main beneficiary of my success, but I scored, too! First we have The Penguin Book of Limericks, E.O. Parrott, ed. Bloomsbury Books, London, 1991. 800+ limericks! The limerick is furtive and mean;You must keep her in close
When we hear Uncle Sidney tellAbout the long-agoAn’ old, old friends he loved so wellWhen he was young–My-oh!–Us childern all wish we’d ‘a’ binA-livin’ then with Uncle,–soWe could a-kindo’ happened inOn them old friends he used to know!–The good, old-fashioned people–The hale, hard-working people–The kindly country people‘At Uncle used to know! They was God’s people,
Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness; And those of youth, a seeming length, Proportion’d to their sweetness. final stanza of Thomas Campbell’s, “The River of Life,” as found in Book Fourth of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury (Longmans, Green, green, and Co. (1905) Lines chosen while perusing because I can’t believe November’s almost over, and because I
No One to Wipe Your Nose by Winston Cochran Of all the lessons we must learn, The hardest one of all Is that we stay objective when Our offspring take a fall. The first impulse that seizes us Each time they stub their toes Is to run and pick them up And gently wipe their
Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895) A Baptist clergyman and poet, very properly Boston born and Harvard educated, completed his postgraduate work at Andover Theological Seminary. Smith wrote many hymns, but he would have slipped anonymously into the honorable past, except for one verse which he composed while still at Andover, 1831. My country, ’tis of thee,
It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Guest Somebody said that it couldn’t be done But he with a chuckle replied That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid
The Tree-Toad James Whitcomb Riley “‘S cur’ous-like,” said the tree-toad, “I’ve twittered fer rain all day; And I got up soon, And hollered tel noon– But the sun, hit blazed away, Tell I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole, Weary at hart, and sick at soul! “Dozed away fer an hour, And I tackled the