Month: January 2022

Smiles and laughter are an essential part of our lives. When we laugh, we truly live. Here is a selection of poems about smiles and laughter. Let it lift your spirits! Read touching and sweet poems and do not forget to smile and enjoy every moment of your life.

«A Beautiful Smile» by Francis Duggan

Perhaps she is one who is not free of guile
But she is one who has such a beautiful smile
And a beautiful smile carries one a long way
It does more for one than words can ever say,
No doubt she’s not perfect we all have our flaws
The feline who often purrs is known to use her claws
But a smile from a stranger just in passing by
Can bring to your day a small flutter of joy,
On my cares and worries i did silently brood
As i walked down the street in an out of sorts mood
But a beautiful smile and a warm hello
From a lovely young woman one i did not know
Helped for to bring a little joy to my day
For the best things in life we do not need to pay.

***

«A Reason To Smile» by Lisa French

A reason to smile
Is that it looks better than a frown
It makes you feel happy
With no sense of feeling down

A reason to smile
Is that your smiles so bright
You could replace our sun
Your smiles full of light

A reason to smile
Is you’ll always look your best
Even though you always do
You’ll feel more blessed

A reason to smile
Is others look up to you
They want to be the same
Someone who is true

A reason to smile
Is that it shows who you are
So go on and smile
And shine like a star

***

«A Smile» by Daniel C. Colesworthy

A smile! – who will refuse a smile,
The sorrowing breast to cheer,
And turn to love the heart of guile,
And check the falling tear

It speaks of kindness and of love,
A generous sympathy;
And lifts, on golden wings above,
The child of penury.

A pleasant smile for every face
Oh, ’tis a blessed thing!
It will the lines of care erase,
And spots of beauty bring.

‘Twill calm the passions, and subdue
The ingrate’s fiercest rage;
With buds and blossoms sweetly strew
The path of youth and age.

***

«Awake To Smile » by Robert William Service

When I blink sunshine in my eyes
And hail the amber morn,
Before the rosy dew-drop dries
With sparkle on the thorn;
When boughs with robin rapture ring,
And bees hum in the may,–
Then call me young, with heart of Spring,
Though I be grey.

But when no more I know the joy
And urgence of that hour,
As like a happy-hearted boy
I leap to land aflower;
When gusto I no longer feel,
To rouse with glad hooray,–
Then call me old and let me steal
From men away.

Let me awaken with a smile
And go to garden glee,
For there is such a little while
Of living left to me;
But when star-wist I frail away,
Lord, let the hope beguile
That to Ecstatic Light I may
Awake to smile.

***

«Baby Picture» by Anne Sexton

It’s in the heart of the grape
where that smile lies.
It’s in the good-bye-bow in the hair
where that smile lies.
It’s in the clerical collar of the dress
where that smile lies.
What smile?
The smile of my seventh year,
caught here in the painted photograph.

It’s peeling now, age has got it,
a kind of cancer of the background
and also in the assorted features.
It’s like a rotten flag
or a vegetable from the refrigerator,
pocked with mold.
I am aging without sound,
into darkness, darkness.

Anne,
who are you?

I open the vein
and my blood rings like roller skates.
I open the mouth
and my teeth are an angry army.
I open the eyes
and they go sick like dogs
with what they have seen.
I open the hair
and it falls apart like dust balls.
I open the dress
and I see a child bent on a toilet seat.
I crouch there, sitting dumbly
pushing the enemas out like ice cream,
letting the whole brown world
turn into sweets.

Anne,
who are you?

Merely a kid keeping alive.

***

«Beauty’s Song» by Charles Lamb

What’s Life still changing ev’ry hour?
Tis all the seasons in a Day!
The Smile, the Tear, the Sun, the Shows
Tis now December, now tis May
At morn we hail some envied Queen;
At eve she sinks some Cottage guest;
Yet if contentment gilds the scene
Contentment makes the Cottage blest.


Who more than I, this truth can feel?
I feel it yet am charm’d to find
While thus I turn the spinning-wheel
The station humbles not the mind.
Ah no! in days of youth and health
Nature will smile tho’ fortune frown
Be this my song Content is wealth’
And duty ev’ry toil shall crown.

***

«It Starts With A Smile» by Catherine Pulsifer

It starts with a smile then a chuckle
Before you know it laughter explodes like a bubble
From the bottom of your toes
Laughter rises up to your nose.

Laughter when heard
Causes smiles inward
And when children laugh
It can double you in half.

A good laugh can cure
Any little old sore
It can make you feel happy and glad
A much better feeling than being sad.

Laughter is good for you
It will help in all you do.
Spread it around and see
People will be more happy!

***

«It’s Better To Smile» by David V. Bush

Lose temper, and all must perish;
Smile, and you’ll put er through!
An angry frown puts your true self down –
So smile, and dare, and do!

When your rage seems too hot to smother.
And the world bears a crimson hue,
Don’t play the fool – take a moment to cool –
Just smile, and you’ll push ‘er through!

When you feel like tearing and rending.
Just pause for a saner view.
There is naught to gain from your wrathful pain-
So smile, and you’ll push ‘er through!

Lose your temper, and you are vanquished:
Smile, and you’ll put ‘er through;
For anger’s the first of your foes – and worst –
So smile, and dare, and do!

***

«Keep On Smiling» by Alexandra Skiathitis

If at times you feel you want to cry
And life seems such a trial,
Above the clouds there’s a bright blue sky,
So make your tears a smile.

As you travel on life’s way
With its many ups and downs,
Remember it’s quite true to say
One smile is worth a dozen frowns.

Among the world’s expensive things,
A smile is very cheap.
And when you give a smile away,
You get one back to keep.

Happiness comes at times to all,
But sadness comes unbidden,
And sometimes a few tears must fall
Among the laughter hidden.

So when friends have sadness on their face
And troubles round them piled,
The world will seem a better place
And all because you smiled.

***

«Laughter» by Edgar A. Guest

Laughter sort o’ settles breakfast better than digestive pills;
Found it, somehow in my travels, cure for every sort of ills;
When the hired help have riled me with their slipshod, careless ways,
An’ I’m bilin’ mad an’ cussin’ an’ my temper’s all ablaze,
If the calf gets me to laughin’ while they’re teachin’ him to feed
Pretty soon I’m feelin’ better, ’cause I’ve found the cure I need.

Like to start the day with laughter; when I’ve had a peaceful night,
An’ can greet the sun all smilin’, that day’s goin’ to be all right.
But there’s nothing goes to suit me, when my system’s full of bile;
Even horses quit their pullin’ when the driver doesn’t smile,
But they’ll buckle to the traces when they hear a glad giddap,
Just as though they like to labor for a cheerful kind o’ chap.

Laughter keeps me strong an’ healthy. You can bet I’m all run down,
Fit for doctor folks an’ nurses when I cannot shake my frown.
Found in farmin’ laughter’s useful, good for sheep an’ cows an’ goats;
When I’ve laughed my way through summer, reap the biggest crop of oats.
Laughter’s good for any business, leastwise so it seems to me
Never knew a smilin’ feller but was busy as could be.

Sometimes sit an’ think about it, ponderin’ on the ways of life,
Wonderin’ why mortals gladly face the toil an care an’ strife,
Then I come to this conclusion–take it now for what it’s worth
It’s the joy of laughter keeps us plodding on this stretch of earth.
Men the fun o’ life are seeking–that’s the reason for the calf
Spillin’ mash upon his keeper–men are hungry for a laugh.

***

«Let’s Be Clowns» by Wilhelmina Stitch

Chalk-white faces, spangled gowns,
Airs and graces, capering clowns!
Noses painted (reds and browns);
Look! they’ve fainted; foolish clowns!
East and west, cities, towns, clap with zest circus clowns.
Speak no word – verbs or nouns.

Quite absurd, much-loved clowns.
What a fall! Smiles, no frowns.
Best of all- these agile clowns.
Daddy roars, so does mother.
That clown scores, smacks his brother.
Life must bring ups and downs.

In life’s ring let’s be clowns!
Learn their way to make folk smile;
Dullest day, hardest mile.
In life’s ring let’s be clowns;
Laugh and sing at ups and downs!

***

«Mona Lisa’s Smile» by Marilyn Lott

She has a mysterious smile
Folks wonder what it means
It’s been written in the text books
And envisioned in some dreams

Nat King Cole crooned a song
About Mona Lisa’s smile
Folks have wondered curiously
And studied her awhile

Did she smile because of love?
That wistful little grin
A thought perhaps in her mind
As she remembered him?

Did her face appear in a dream
Her talented artist had one night?
Or was it, in fact, the face of the man
Who sketched his own mirrored sight?

Of course no one will ever know
The true story of the smile
But it’s great fun, don’t you think?
For she truly could beguile!

***

«My Adorable Friend» by Sonali Ganguly

a friend so loving, adorable and rare;
a heart so tender, full of care.
special is the relation which we do share;
which returned smile to my every single tear.
lets the bond be strong, so time may not dare;
to kill it into pieces and break it ever.
relations never die being far or near;
let us promise to be friends forever.
affectionate as ever you have been;
such a pure soul had i never seen.
lost those smile you’ll regain;
may life shower on you a joyous rain.
may the starts ever shine upon you;
filling your life with a golden hue.
to make the pages of life complete and fine;
lucky i’m to have you as friend of mine.

***

«November» by William Cullen Bryant

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds ran,
Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue Gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skim the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

***

«Only A Smile» by Mathilde Blind

No butterfly whose frugal fare
Is breath of heliotrope and clove,
And other trifles light as air,
Could live on less than doth my love.

That childlike smile that comes and goes
About your gracious lips and eyes,
Hath all the sweetness of the rose,
Which feeds the freckled butterflies.

I feed my love on smiles, and yet
Sometimes I ask, with tears of woe,
How had it been if we had met,
If you had met me long ago,

Before the fast, defacing years
Had made all ill that once was well?
Ah, then your smiling breeds such tears
As Tantalus may weep in hell.

***

«Reason To Smile» by Lendl Ian Servillon

How can one smile such sweet smiles,
When one is so saddened by sorrows for miles,
How can I smile the same smiles,
When life brings me nothing but tears,

I wondered for so long,
What reason you had to smile that long,
To keep smiling though troubles come,
And still remain sweet and silently overcome,

It’s such a mystery to me,
Your smiles from heaven with glee,
I adore and yet envy thee,
But I’d rather you smile those at me,

I feel happy when I see you smile,
Even if I’m sad and lonely,
Your smiles bring me somewhere,
I don’t even know where,

But it was you,
You gave me the reason to smile,
To smile with no reason,
To smile for a smile,

I guess life is just like that,
We need not a reason to smile,
For a smile is the reason itself,
To rejoice and open-heartedly give thanks,

I learned to smile because of you,
Because your smiles bring me joy when blue,
It proves how well and powerful,
A simple sweet smile can become so beautiful,

Smile for the sake of a smile,
Smile for the sake of happiness,
Smile for the sake of life,
Smile because of hope left in life,

Smile my friends,
Smile for me my Love,
Smile those same sweet smiles,
Smile so the world can be a peaceful dove…

***

«Smile At Me» by Ernestine Northover

Can’t you just smile back at me
When I send a smile to you,
Why is it that your lips are tight
And seem so frosty blue,
Can’t you let your mouth just raise
Both sides a little bit,
Or is it that my face just doesn’t,
In your mind, quite fit.
If you would smile, your face would be
A very handsome one,
And I believe that you and I
Could have a lot of fun,
But until you give a welcome grin,
There’s nothing I can do,
Except, when you look across at me,
I’ll keep smiling back at you.

***

«Smile, Smile, Smile» by Walterrean Salley

A smile will pick you up
When you are down.
It’ll make you feel better—
Turn your day around.
So get yourself a smile,
And get rid of the frown.
Smile. Smile. Smile.

Smile at the sky,
Smile at the sun.
Smile at the flowers
Just for fun.
Smile if you’re dragging
Or on the run.
Smile. Smile. Smile.

Smile when you’re happy
And when you are sad.
Smile when you’re grumpy,
It’ll make you feel glad.
It could be the best day
You’ve ever had
If you Smile. Smile. Smile.

Smile at the sky,
Smile at the sun.
Smile at the flowers
Just for fun.
Smile if you’re dragging
Or on the run.
Smile. Smile. Smile.
Do yourself a favor and smile

***

«Smiles» by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Smile a little, smile a little,
As you go along,
Not alone when life is pleasant,
But when things go wrong.
Care delights to see you frowning,
Loves to hear you sigh;
Turn a smiling face upon her –
Quick the dame will fly.

Smile a little, smile a little,
All along the road;
Every life must have its burden,
Every heart its load.
Why sit down in gloom and darkness
With your grief to sup?
As you drink Fate’s bitter tonic,
Smile across the cup.

Smile upon the troubled pilgrims
Whom you pass and meet;
Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms
Oft for weary feet.
Do not make the way seem harder
By a sullen face;
Smile a little, smile a little,
Brighten up the place.

Smile upon your undone labour;
Not for one who grieves
O’er his task waits wealth or glory;
He who smiles achieves.
Though you meet with loss and sorrow
In the passing years,
Smile a little, smile a little,
Even through your tears.

***

«Sunshine Of Your Smile» by David Harris

Everyday that I wake
something wonderful waits for me
the sunshine of your smile,
that I what I wake to see.
Outside maybe gloomy,
dark clouds may mar the blue,
but then I look around,
and what do I see,
the sunshine of your smile,
that warms the heart of me.
No tears of sorrow,
at what tomorrow might bring,
because your face is lit up,
with the sunshine of your smile.

***

«The Cost Of A Smile» by Catherine Pulsifer

Can you put a dollar on
Can you pretend and con
Can you just turn the dial
And bring on a common smile.

Priceless is a smile or a grin
For someone whose life feels dim
Money can never replace
That common smile on your face.

What has never gone out of style
Why it is that common smile.
It cost you nothing to give
So smile, grin, laugh and live!

***

«The Gladness Of Nature» by William Cullen Bryant

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.

There’s a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There’s a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There’s a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he’ll smile thy gloom away.

***

«The Made To Order Smile» by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When a woman looks up at you with a twist about her eyes,
And her brows are half uplifted in a nicely feigned surprise
As you breathe some pretty sentence, though she hates you all the while,
She is very apt to stun you with a made to order smile.

It’s a sublte combination of a sneer and a caress,
With a dash of warmth thrown in to relieve its iciness,
And she greets you when she meets you with that look as if a file
Had been used to fix and fashion out the made to order smile.

I confess that I’m eccentric and am not a woman’s man,
For they seem to be constructed on the bunko fakir plan,
And it somehow sets me thinking that her heart is full of guile
When a woman looks up at me with a made to order smile.

Now, all maidens, young and aged, hear the lesson I would teach:
Ye who meet us in the ballroom, ye who meet us at the beach,
Pray consent to try and charm us by some other sort of wile
And relieve us from the burden of that made to order smile.

***

«The Moon Is A Painter» by Vachel Lindsay

He coveted her portrait.
He toiled as she grew gay.
She loved to see him labor
In that devoted way.

And in the end it pleased her,
But bowed him more with care.
Her rose-smile showed so plainly,
Her soul-smile was not there.

That night he groped without a lamp
To find a cloak, a book,
And on the vexing portrait
By moonrise chanced to look.

The color-scheme was out of key,
The maiden rose-smile faint,
But through the blessed darkness
She gleamed, his friendly saint.

The comrade, white, immortal,
His bride, and more than bride—
The citizen, the sage of mind,
For whom he lived and died.

***

«The Service Of Smiles» by W. C. Martin

Go smiling through this world of care,
And make the days more bright and fair.
So much the clouds o’erspread the sky,
So many hopes and comforts die,
And we can all some cheer impart
To soothe a dull and careworn heart.
He serves the Lord who thus beguiles
The gloom from souls with sunny smiles.

Go smiling through this world of care;
‘Twill easy make the loads to bear,
And bring some rest and sweet relief
To souls borne down by care and grief.
In each one’s heart some sadness lies,
And tears have bathed all human eyes.
He serves the Master who beguiles
The gloom away with sunny smiles.

Go smiling all the way along,
And fill the days with joy and song;
Go speak a word of hope and cheer
To every soul that passes near:
For each of them as well as thee
That blood was shed on Calvary.
Ah, Christlike he is who beguiles
Away both care and grief with smiles.

***

«The Smile» by William Blake

There is a Smile of Love 

And there is a Smile of Deceit 

And there is a Smile of Smiles

In which these two Smiles meet 

And there is a Frown of Hate 

And there is a Frown of disdain 

And there is a Frown of Frowns

Which you strive to forget in vain 

For it sticks in the Hearts deep Core 

And it sticks in the deep Back bone 

And no Smile that ever was smild 

But only one Smile alone

That betwixt the Cradle & Grave

It only once Smild can be 

But when it once is Smild 

Theres an end to all Misery 

***

«The Transformation» by G. Luther Weibel

When the clouds obscure the sky,
And the world seems all awry;
And the rain comes pouring down,
And there’s trouble all around;
When someone speaks a word unkind,
And worries seem to fill the mind;
When my thoughts are very blue
Because there’s so much to do;
I place a smile upon my face
And note the change that’s taking place.
The clouds just seem to fade away,
The world and all around seems gay;
The rains have washed the face of earth,
Revealing much that is of worth;
And other faces seem to shine
Into the smiling face of mine;
The task that seemed so hard to do
Was quickly done, and better, too;
The world seemed happier to be
Because there was a smile on me.

***

«The Vital Accompaniment» by Strickland Gillilan

The wise admonition goes deeper, they say,
If you smile when you give it.
Your righteous life lures other feet to the Way
If you smile while you live it.
The word of good cheer finds the heart you had meant –
Sinks into the spirit to which it was sent –
Lends all of the help it was meant to have lent
If you smile when you give it.

The money you handed that brother in need –
Did you smile when you gave it?
His pride may have hurt till it made his heart bleed –
Nought but smiling could save it.
Not an impudent smirk or a meaningless grin,
Not a smile just as deep as your outermost skin –
But a love-laden smile, with sweet confidence in –
That will help him to brave it.

***

«Times When I Smile» by Sandra Osborne

You may not even know me,
Or know what I mean,
Understand my world,
Or hear me when I scream.

You may not ever see me,
Or ever touch my mind,
Because all that is real
Are only dreams in time.

Don’t try to fit me in
To your ridged mold,
All the world is free,
At least, thats what I’m told.

So please, don’t scream and worry
Or cry for me at night.
No matter how I’m different,
I will win my fight.

I will be the victor
Of all my many trials,
Because all that’s real are dreams,
And times when I smile.

***

«To The Evening Star» by William Blake

Thou fair-haired angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wing sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares through the dun forest.
The fleeces of our flocks are covered with
Thy sacred dew; protect with them with thine influence.

***

«Value It Brings» by Catherine Pulsifer

Value it brings to everyone
It is like a little burst of sun.
Never underestimate the thing
That a friendly smile will bring.

You may think that little grin
Could start a smile within
It’s like a chuckle for the fellow
Who breaks into a laugh and bellows

Smiles have a value you see
And even better they are free
So give one of yours away
And brighten someone else’s day!

***

«Worth Its Weight in Gold» by Catherine Pulsifer

Is a smile is worth its weight in gold
It is something that can’t be bought or sold.
A smile is worth so much more
It is a facial expression we adore.

Is a smile worth going the extra mile for
When your smilin’ you won’t be bored
A smile given in forgiveness is pure
To stop an argument it can cure.

A smile is worth opening the door
You’ll be amazed at what is in store
You see a smile is worth its weight in gold
It is welcome and never old.

***

«Worth While» by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.

It is easy enough to be prudent,
When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
Is luring your soul away;
But it’s only a negative virtue
Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honor of earth
Is the one that resists desire.

By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
Who had no strength for the strife,
The world’s highway is cumbered to-day;
They make up the sum of life.
But the virtue that conquers passion,
And the sorrow that hides in a smile,
It is these that are worth the homage on earth
For we find them but once in a while.

***

«Your Beautiful Smile» by Freespirit Juneja

Your Beautiful Smile

Life is a mystical winding
Woven around happy and sad things
It flows like ripples of water
Turned me into perpetual carter
Mirth & peace play games of guile
But I never realized
It’s next to me, your beautiful smile

Rarely, blink my eye on odd notion
Life’s filled with dreary commotion
Whole year seems concised in a day
My own shadow made me partying bay
Happiness seemed to be so labile
But I never realized,
It’s always next to me, your beautiful smile


The Smile
Beautifully unzips around your face
Annihilate griefs without trace
Arouse me to pinnacle of elation
Embraces me this beautiful creation
Melodramatic life made me fragile
Protected and cared by your beautiful smile

The stars have fascinated poets for centuries. It is a fundamental, beautiful, and unexplored mystery. What we are able to see from Earth gives us no idea of it. The stars have played an enormous role throughout history. They have been grouped into constellations and used in astrology. The creators of the first calendars also drew their theories from the night sky. Poets beautifully and romantically describe these celestial decorations in these lines.

«A Fragment» by Oscar Wilde

Beautiful star with the crimson lips
And flagrant daffodil hair,
Come back, come back, in the shaking ships
O’er the much-overrated sea,
To the hearts that are sick for thee
With a woe worse than mal de mer-
O beautiful stars with the crimson lips
And the flagrant daffodil hair. –
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea,
Neath the flag of the wan White Star,
Thou bringest a brighter star with thee
From the land of the Philistine,
Where Niagara’s reckoned fine
And Tupper is popular-
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea,
Neath the flag of the wan White Star.

***

«A Song Of Eternity In Time» by Sidney Lanier

Once, at night, in the manor wood
My Love and I long silent stood,
Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
My Love, in aimless love and grief,
Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

A star that had remarked her pain
Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
“Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tear
Some one hath wept ‘twixt hope and fear,
Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”

***

«A Star in a Stoneboat» by Robert Frost

Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.

Some laborer found one faded and stone-cold,
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold,

He noticed nothing in it to remark.
He was not used to handling stars thrown dark
And lifeless from an interrupted arc.

He did not recognize in that smooth coal
The one thing palpable besides the soul
To penetrate the air in which we roll.

He did not see how like a flying thing
It brooded ant eggs, and bad one large wing,
One not so large for flying in a ring,

And a long Bird of Paradise’s tail
(Though these when not in use to fly and trail
It drew back in its body like a snail);

Nor know that be might move it from the spot—
The harm was done: from having been star-shot
The very nature of the soil was hot

And burning to yield flowers instead of grain,
Flowers fanned and not put out by all the rain
Poured on them by his prayers prayed in vain.

He moved it roughly with an iron bar,
He loaded an old stoneboat with the star
And not, as you might think, a flying car,

Such as even poets would admit perforce
More practical than Pegasus the horse
If it could put a star back in its course.

He dragged it through the plowed ground at a pace
But faintly reminiscent of the race
Of jostling rock in interstellar space.

It went for building stone, and I, as though
Commanded in a dream, forever go
To right the wrong that this should have been so.

Yet ask where else it could have gone as well,
I do not know—I cannot stop to tell:
He might have left it lying where it fell.

From following walls I never lift my eye,
Except at night to places in the sky
Where showers of charted meteors let fly.

Some may know what they seek in school and church,
And why they seek it there; for what I search
I must go measuring stone walls, perch on perch;

Sure that though not a star of death and birth,
So not to be compared, perhaps, in worth
To such resorts of life as Mars and Earth—

Though not, I say, a star of death and sin,
It yet has poles, and only needs a spin
To show its worldly nature and begin

To chafe and shuffle in my calloused palm
And run off in strange tangents with my arm,
As fish do with the line in first alarm.

Such as it is, it promises the prize
Of the one world complete in any size
That I am like to compass, fool or wise.

***

«Aeolian Harp» by William Allingham

O pale green sea,
With long, pale, purple clouds above –
What lies in me like weight of love ?
What dies in me
With utter grief, because there comes no sign
Through the sun-raying West, or the dim sea-line ?

O salted air,
Blown round the rocky headland still,
What calls me there from cove and hill?
What calls me fair
From thee, the first-born of the youthful night,
Or in the waves is coming through the dusk twilight ?

O yellow Star,
Quivering upon the rippling tide –
Sendest so far to one that sigh’d?
Bendest thou, Star,
Above, where the shadows of the dead have rest
And constant silence, with a message from the blest?

***

«Blue-Eyed Grass of May» by Annette Wynne

Star, high star, far in the blue,
I have stars more near than you,
Shining from the blue-eyed grass,
Peeping at me as I pass.

Star, high star, far in the blue,
I wish that I could pick you, too,
I know I’d love you better, star,
If you were not so high and far.

My little friendly stars are found
Right close to me upon the ground;
You shine all night, they shine all day-
They are the blue-eyed grass of May!

***

«Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art» by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—

         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

         Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

         Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

         Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

***

«Daisies» by Frank Dempster Sherman

At evening when I go to bed
I see the stars shine overhead;
They are the little daisies white
That dot the meadow of the Night.

And often while I’m dreaming so,
Across the sky the Moon will go;
It is a lady, sweet and fair,
Who comes to gather daisies there.

For, when at morning I arise,
There’s not a star left in the skies;
She’s picked them all and dropped them down
Into the meadows of the town.

***

«Evening Star» by William Blake

Thou fair hair’d angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains light,
Thy bright torch of love; Thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and when thou drawest the
Blue curtains, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full, soon,
Dost thou withdraw; Then, the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro’ the dun forest.
The fleece of our flocks are covered with
Thy sacred dew; Protect them with thine influence.

***

«Fall Of The Evening Star» by Kenneth Patchen

Speak softly; sun going down
Out of sight. Come near me now.

Dear dying fall of wings as birds
complain against the gathering dark…

Exaggerate the green blood in grass;
the music of leaves scraping space;

Multiply the stillness by one sound;
by one syllable of your name…

And all that is little is soon giant,
all that is rare grows in common beauty

To rest with my mouth on your mouth
as somewhere a star falls

And the earth takes it softly, in natural love…
Exactly as we take each other…
and go to sleep…

***

«From Sunset To Star Rise» by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:
I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,
A silly sheep benighted from the fold,
A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.
Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,
Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;
Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,
Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.
For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,
I live alone, I look to die alone:
Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,
Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,
My heart goes sighing after swallows flown
On sometime summer’s unreturning track.

***

«Go And Catch A Falling Star» by John Donne

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

***

«Hymn to the North Star» by William Cullen Bryant

The sad and solemn night
Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light
Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Day, too, hath many a star
To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:
Through the blue fields afar,
Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,
Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,
Thou keep’st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join’st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp’st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn’s rosy birth,
Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve, that round the earth
Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;
There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven’s azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,
The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High towards the star-lit sky
Towns blaze—the smoke of battle blots the sun—
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud—
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze
The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,
And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,
Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold
A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

***

«I Go Out On The Road Alone» by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

Alone I set out on the road;
The flinty path is sparkling in the mist;
The night is still. The desert harks to God,
And star with star converses.

The vault is overwhelmed with solemn wonder
The earth in cobalt aura sleeps. . .
Why do I feel so pained and troubled?
What do I harbor: hope, regrets?

I see no hope in years to come,
Have no regrets for things gone by.
All that I seek is peace and freedom!
To lose myself and sleep!

But not the frozen slumber of the grave…
I’d like eternal sleep to leave
My life force dozing in my breast
Gently with my breath to rise and fall;

By night and day, my hearing would be soothed
By voices sweet, singing to me of love.
And over me, forever green,
A dark oak tree would bend and rustle.

***

«Influence» by Emma Lazarus

The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep,
Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square,
The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air,
The revelation of the star-strewn deep,
World above world, and heaven over heaven.
Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight
Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light,
High in the tower, an earthly star of even.
Hers is the faith in saints’ and angels’ power,
And mediating love–she breathes a prayer
For yon tired watcher in the gray old tower.
He the shrewd, skeptic poet unaware
Feels comforted and stilled, and knows not whence
Falls this unwonted peace on heart and sense.

***

«It Isn’t Only Flakes That Fall» by Annette Wynne

It isn’t only flakes that fall
On the street and roof and all,
All the day and evening hours,
But white and shining stars and flowers.

A million, million tiny stars,
Dropping from the cloudy bars,
Falling softly all around,
On my sleeve and on the ground.

A million, million flowers white,
Falling softly day and night—
But not a leaf or stem at all—
It isn’t only flakes that fall.

***

«Japanese Lullaby» by Eugene Field

Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,–
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging–
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.

Away out yonder I see a star,–
Silvery star with a tinkling song;
To the soft dew falling I hear it calling–
Calling and tinkling the night along.

In through the window a moonbeam comes,–
Little gold moonbeam with misty wings;
All silently creeping, it asks, “Is he sleeping–
Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?”

Up from the sea there floats the sob
Of the waves that are breaking upon the shore,
As though they were groaning in anguish, and moaning–
Bemoaning the ship that shall come no more.

But sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,–
Little blue pigeon with mournful eyes;
Am I not singing?–see, I am swinging–
Swinging the nest where my darling lies.

***

«Love Lies Sleeping» by Elizabeth Bishop

Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
From the window I see

an immense city, carefully revealed,
made delicate by over-workmanship,
detail upon detail,
cornice upon facade,

reaching up so languidly up into
a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
(Where it has slowly grown
in skies of water-glass

from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
the little chemical “garden” in a jar
trembles and stands again,
pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)

The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
Then, in the West, “Boom!” and a cloud of smoke.
“Boom!” and the exploding ball
of blossom blooms again.

(And all the employees who work in a plants
where such a sound says “Danger,” or once said “Death,”
turn in their sleep and feel
the short hairs bristling

on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.
A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
Along the street below
the water-wagon comes

throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
peelings and newspapers. The water dries
light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
of the cool watermelon.

I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
scattered or grouped cascades,
alarms for the expected:

queer cupids of all persons getting up,
whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
you will dine well
on his heart, on his, and his,

so send them about your business affectionately,
dragging in the streets their unique loves.
Scourge them with roses only,
be light as helium,

for always to one, or several, morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
whose face is turned
so that the image of

the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted. No. I mean
distorted and revealed,
if he sees it at all.

***

«Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck» by William Shakespeare

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.

***

«Song of the Stars» by William Cullen Bryant

When the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,—
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,
And this was the song the bright ones sung.

“Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,—
The fair blue fields that before us lie,—
Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

“For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o’erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo, yonder the living splendours play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

“Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,
How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o’er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen,
Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

“And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o’er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And ‘twixt them both, o’er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

“Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, Love is brooding, and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice like us, in motion and light.

“Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent,
To the farthest wall of the firmament,—
The boundless visible smile of Him,
To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim.”

***

«Star Light, Star Bright» by Dorothy Parker

Star, that gives a gracious dole,
What am I to choose?
Oh, will it be a shriven soul,
Or little buckled shoes?

Shall I wish a wedding-ring,
Bright and thin and round,
Or plead you send me covering-
A newly spaded mound?
Gentle beam, shall I implore
Gold, or sailing-ships,
Or beg I hate forevermore
A pair of lying lips?

Swing you low or high away,
Burn you hot or dim;
My only wish I dare not say-
Lest you should grant me him.

***

«Star Of My Heart» by Vachel Lindsay

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
O lead me to Jehovah’s child
Across this dreamland lone and wild,
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
And kiss his little haloed head —
“My star and I, we love thee, little child.”

Except the Christ be born again to-night
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright.
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro’ the night
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
To that far sky where mystic births begin,
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there,
And each shall find his brother fair,
Like a little child within:
All hearts of the earth shall find new birth
And wake, no more to sin.

***

«Star of the east» by Eugene Field

Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay–
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!

Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth’s loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for all and me.

Star of the East! show us the way
In wisdom undefiled
To seek that manger out and lay
Our gifts before the child–
To bring our hearts and offer them
Unto our King in Bethlehem!

***

«Star Of The East» by Eugene Field

Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay–
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!

Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth’s loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for all and me.

Star of the East! show us the way
In wisdom undefiled
To seek that manger out and lay
Our gifts before the child–
To bring our hearts and offer them
Unto our King in Bethlehem!

***

«Starlight» by William Meredith

Going abruptly into a starry night

It is ignorance we blink from, dark, unhoused;

There is a gaze of animal delight

Before the human vision. Then, aroused

To nebulous danger, we may look for easy stars,

Orion and the Dipper; but they are not ours,

These learned fields. Dark and ignorant,

Unable to see here what our forebears saw,

We keep some fear of random firmament

Vestigial in us. And we think, Ah,

If I had lived then, when these stories were made up, I

Could have found more likely pictures in haphazard sky.

But this is not so. Indeed, we have proved fools

When it comes to myths and images. A few

Old bestiaries, pantheons and tools

Translated to the heavens years ago—

Scales and hunter, goat and horologe—are all

That save us when, time and again, our systems fall.

And what would we do, given a fresh sky

And our dearth of image? Our fears, our few beliefs

Do not have shapes. They are like that astral way

We have called milky, vague stars and star-reefs

That were shapeless even to the fecund eye of myth—

Surely these are no forms to start a zodiac with.

To keep the sky free of luxurious shapes

Is an occupation for most of us, the mind

Free of luxurious thoughts. If we choose to escape,

What venial constellations will unwind

Around a point of light, and then cannot be found

Another night or by another man or from other ground.

As for me, I would find faces there,

Or perhaps one face I have long taken for guide;

Far-fetched, maybe, like Cygnus, but as fair,

And a constellation anyone could read

Once it was pointed out; an enlightenment of night,

The way the pronoun you will turn dark verses bright.

***

«Stars» by Sara Teasdale

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;

Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,

And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.

***

«Stars» by Emily Brontë

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart’s thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce beams struck my brow;
The soul of nature sprang, elate,
But mine sank sad and low!

My lids closed down, yet through their veil
I saw him, blazing, still,
And steep in gold the misty dale,
And flash upon the hill.

I turned me to the pillow, then,
To call back night, and see
Your worlds of solemn light, again,
Throb with my heart, and me!

It would not do the pillow glowed,
And glowed both roof and floor;
And birds sang loudly in the wood,
And fresh winds shook the door;

The curtains waved, the wakened flies
Were murmuring round my room,
Imprisoned there, till I should rise,
And give them leave to roam.

Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;
Oh, night and stars, return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn;

That drains the blood of suffering men;
Drinks tears, instead of dew;
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!

***

«Stars» by Robert Frost

How countlessly they congregate
O’er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!–

As if with keeness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,–

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like somw snow-white
Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

***

«Stars and the Soul» by Henry Van Dyke

“Two things,” the wise man said, “fill me with awe:
The starry heavens and the moral law.”
Nay, add another wonder to thy roll, —
The living marvel of the human soul!

Born in the dust and cradled in the dark,
It feels the fire of an immortal spark,
And learns to read, with patient, searching eyes,
The splendid secret of the unconscious skies.

For God thought Light before He spoke the word;
The darkness understood not, though it heard:
But man looks up to where the planets swim,
And thinks God’s thoughts of glory after Him.

What knows the star that guides the sailor’s way,
Or lights the lover’s bower with liquid ray,
Of toil and passion, danger and distress,
Brave hope, true love, and utter faithfulness?

But human hearts that suffer good and ill,
And hold to virtue with a loyal will,
Adorn the law that rules our mortal strife
With star-surpassing victories of life.

So take our thanks, dear reader of the skies,
Devout astronomer, most humbly wise,
For lessons brighter than the stars can give,
And inward light that helps us all to live.

The world has brought the laurel-leaves to crown
The star-discoverer’s name with high renown;
Accept the flower of love we lay with these
For influence sweeter than the Pleiades!

***

«Sunset» by Rainer Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs-

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

***

«The Heart of Night» by Bliss Carman

When all the stars are sown
Across the night-blue space,
With the immense unknown,
In silence face to face.

We stand in speechless awe
While Beauty marches by,
And wonder at the Law
Which wears such majesty.

How small a thing is man
In all that world-sown vast,
That he should hope or plan
Or dream his dream could last!

O doubter of the light,
Confused by fear and wrong,
Lean on the heart of night
And let love make thee strong!

The Good that is the True
Is clothed with Beauty still.
Lo, in their tent of blue,
The stars above the hill!

***

«The Light of Stars» by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above,
A hero’s armour gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.

Oh star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars:
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquer’d will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possess’d.

And thou, too, whosoe’er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

***

«The Morning Star» by George William Russell

IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star,
And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar
Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen,
Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men.


In the dark tarn of my spirit, love, the morning star, is lit;
And its halo, ever brightening, lightens into dawn in it.
Love, a pearl-grey dawn in darkness, breathing peace without desire;
But I fain would shun the burning terrors of the mid-day fire.


Through the faint and tender airs of twilight star on star may gaze,
But the eyes of light are blinded in the white flame of the days,
From the heat that melts together oft a rarer essence slips,
And our hearts may still be parted in the meeting of the lips.


What a darkness would I gaze on when the day had passed the west,
If my eyes were dazed and blinded by the whiteness of a breast?
Never through the diamond darkness could I hope to see afar
Where beyond the pearly rampart burned the purer evening star.

***

«The Star» by Hannah Flagg Gould

Ever beaming, still I hang,
Bright as when my birth I sang
From chaotic night,
In the boundless, azure dome
Where I’ve made my constant home,
Till thousand, thousand years have come
To sweep earth’s things from sight!

Mortals, I unchanging view
Every change that sports with you
On your shadowy ball.
All below my native skies,
Here I mark how soon it dies;
How your proudest empires rise,
Flourish, shake and fall!

Wealth and splendor, pomp and pride,
I’ve beheld you laid aside;
Love and hate forgot!
Fame, ambition, glory, power,
You I’ve seen enjoy your hour;
Beauty, withering, as a flower,
While I altered not!

Him, whose sceptre swayed the world,
I have seen aghast, and hurled
From his holy throne.
Monarch’s form and vassal’s clay
Turned to dust and swept away:
E’en to tell where once they lay,
I am left alone!

When I’ve been from age to age,
Questioned by the lettered sage
What a star might be,
I’ve answered not; for soon, I knew,
He’d have a clearer, nobler view,
And look the world of mysteries through
In vast eternity!

Mortals, since ye pass as dew,
Seize the promise made for you
Ere your day is o’er.
The righteous, says a page divine,
Are as the firmament to shine;
And like the stars, when I and mine
Are quenched to beam no more!

***

«The Star» by Jane Taylor

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is set,
And the grass with dew is wet,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveler in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see where to go
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

***

«The Star» by Henry Vaughan

Whatever ’tis, whose beauty here below

Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow,

And wind and curl, and wink and smile,

Shifting thy gate and guile;

Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars

My present search, for eagles eye not stars,

And still the lesser by the best

And highest good is blest;

Yet, seeing all things that subsist and be,

Have their commissions from divinity,

And teach us duty, I will see

What man may learn from thee.

First, I am sure, the subject so respected

Is well dispos’d, for bodies once infected,

Deprav’d, or dead, can have with thee

No hold, nor sympathy.

Next, there’s in it a restless, pure desire

And longing for thy bright and vital fire,

Desire that never will be quench’d,

Nor can be writh’d, nor wrench’d.

These are the magnets which so strongly move

And work all night upon thy light and love,

As beauteous shapes, we know not why,

Command and guide the eye.

For where desire, celestial, pure desire

Hath taken root, and grows, and doth not tire,

There God a commerce states, and sheds

His secret on their heads.

This is the heart he craves, and who so will

But give it him, and grudge not, he shall feel

That God is true, as herbs unseen

Put on their youth and green.

***

«The Star and the Water Lily» by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The sun stepped down from his golden throne.
And lay in the silent sea,
And the lily had folded her satin leaves,
For a sleepy thing was she;
What is the Lily dreaming of?
Why crisp the waters blue?
See, see, she is lifting her varnished lid!
Her white leaves are glistening through!

The Rose is cooling his burning cheek
In the lap of the breathless tide;—
The Lily hath sisters fresh and fair,
That would lie by the Rose’s side;
He would love her better than all the rest,
And he would be fond and true;—
But the Lily unfolded her weary lids,
And looked at the sky so blue.

Remember, remember, thou silly one,
How fast will thy summer glide,
And wilt thou wither a virgin pale,
Or flourish a blooming bride?
“O the Rose is old, and thorny, and cold,
And he lives on earth,” said she;
“But the Star is fair and he lives in the air,
And he shall my bridegroom be.”

But what if the stormy cloud should come,
And ruffle the silver sea?
Would he turn his eye from the distant sky,
To smile on a thing like thee?
O no, fair Lily, he will not send
One ray from his far-off throne;
The winds shall blow and the waves shall flow,
And thou will be left alone.

There is not a leaf on the mountain top,
Nor a drop of evening dew,
Nor a golden sand on the sparkling shore,
Nor a pearl in the waters blue,
That he has not cheered with his fickle smile,
And warmed with his faithless beam,—
And will he be true to a pallid flower,
That floats on the quiet stream?

Alas for the Lily! she would not heed,
But turned to the skies afar,
And bared her breast to the trembling ray
That shot from the rising star;
The cloud came over the darkened sky,
And over the waters wide:
She looked in vain through the beating rain,
And sank in the stormy tide.

***

«The Stars Above the Sea» by Amos Russel Wells

Far, far away one mystery greets
Another vast and high,
The infinite of waters meets
The infinite of sky.

The stars are singing hymns of calm
Above the sea’s unrest;
Can ever that majestic psalm
Dwell in the ocean’s breast?

What far horizon dim and low
The sweet solution finds,
Where earth’s tumultuous yearnings know
The peace of heavenly minds?

And still the sky’s imperial grace
The tossing ocean mars;
We cannot see the meeting place,
But we can see the stars.

***

«The Stars and the Falling Dew» by Hannah Flagg Gould

The sun, like a hero, whose chariot rolled
In glory, has reached the west;
And wrapped in his mantle of crimson and gold,
Has sunken away to rest.
The stars from the skies
Look forth like the eyes
Of Angels, the earth to view;
While timid and soft,
Their light form aloft,
Comes down with the falling dew.

The flowers, that, oppressed by the monarch of day,
Have bowing confessed his power,
Are lifting their foreheads, relieved of his ray,
To the cool of the evening hour.
And each holding up
Her emerald cup,
Her delicate draught to renew,
Their trust is repaid,
While their thirst is allayed
By the drops of the falling dew.

The birds are at rest in their own little homes,
Their songs are forgotten in sleep;
And low and uncertain the murmuring comes
From over the slumbering deep.
The breezes that sighed
Have fainted and died
In the boughs they were quivering through,
And motion and sound
Have ceased from around
To yield to the falling dew.

And gently it comes, as the shadowy wing
Of night o’er the earth is unfurled;
A silent, refreshing and spirit-like thing,
To brighten and solace the world!
As the face of a friend.
When in sorrow we bend—
Like a heart ever tender and true,
When darkness is ours,
To the earth and the flowers,
Are the stars and the falling dew.

***

«The Twelfth Night Star» by Bliss Carman

It is the bitter time of year
When iron is the ground,
With hasp and sheathing of black ice
The forest lakes are bound,
The world lies snugly under snow,
Asleep without a sound.

All the night long in trooping squares
The sentry stars go by,
The silent and unwearying hosts
That bear man company,
And with their pure enkindling fires
Keep vigils lone and high.

Through the dead hours before the dawn,
When the frost snaps the sill,
From chestnut-wooded ridge to sea
The earth lies dark and still,
Till one great silver planet shines
Above the eastern hill.

It is the star of Gabriel,
The herald of the Word
In days when messengers of God
With sons of men conferred,
Who brought the tidings of great joy
The watching shepherds heard;

The mystic light that moved to lead
The wise of long ago,
Out of the great East where they dreamed
Of truths they could not know,
To seek some good that should assuage
The world’s most ancient woe.

O well, believe, they loved their dream,
Those children of the star,
Who saw the light and followed it,
Prophetical, afar, —
Brave Gaspar, clear-eyed Melchior,
And eager Balthasar.

Another year slips to the void,
And still with omen bright
Above the sleeping doubting world
The day-star is alight, —
The waking signal flashed of old
In the blue Syrian night.

But who are now as wise as they
Whose faith could read the sign
Of the three gifts that shall suffice
To honor the divine,
And show the tread of common life
Ineffably benign?

Whoever wakens on a day
Happy to know and be,
To enjoy the air, to love his kind,
To labor, to be free,—
Already his enraptured soul
Lives in eternity.

For him with every rising sun
The year begins anew;
The fertile earth receives her lord,
And prophecy comes true,
Wondrously as a fall of snow,
Dear as a drench of dew.

Who gives his life for beauty’s need,
King Gaspar could no more;
Who serves the truth with single mind
Shall stand with Melchior;
And love is all that Balthasar
In crested censer bore.

***

«To A Much Too Unfortunate Lady» by Dorothy Parker

He will love you presently
If you be the way you be.
Send your heart a-skittering.
He will stoop, and lift the thing.
Be your dreams as thread, to tease
Into patterns he shall please.
Let him see your passion is
Ever tenderer than his….
Go and bless your star above,
Thus are you, and thus is Love.

He will leave you white with woe,
If you go the way you go.
If your dreams were thread to weave
He will pluck them from his sleeve.
If your heart had come to rest,
He will flick it from his breast.
Tender though the love he bore,
You had loved a little more….
Lady, go and curse your star,
Thus Love is, and thus you are.

***

«To a Star» by Lucretia Maria Davidson

Thou brightly-glittering star of even,
Thou gem upon the brow of Heaven
Oh! were this fluttering spirit free,
How quick ‘t would spread its wings to thee.

How calmly, brightly dost thou shine,
Like the pure lamp in Virtue’s shrine!
Sure the fair world which thou may’st boast
Was never ransomed, never lost.

There, beings pure as Heaven’s own air,
Their hopes, their joys together share;
While hovering angels touch the string,
And seraphs spread the sheltering wing.

There cloudless days and brilliant nights,
Illumed by Heaven’s refulgent lights;
There seasons, years, unnoticed roll,
And unregretted by the soul.

Thou little sparkling star of even,
Thou gem upon an azure Heaven,
How swiftly will I soar to thee,
When this imprisoned soul is free!

***

«To the Stars» by William B. Tappan

Fair stars! upon the brow of night
Ye look, from yonder fields of blue,
Where ye, ‘mid melody of light,
Bright wheeling worlds! your way pursue.

Ye never tire,–pure diadems,
The marshalled sentinels on high,
Ye shine, and ever shine, the gems
That fringe the curtain of the sky.

Minstrels are ye–your early song
Followed the Voice Ompnipotent,
When light and music flowed along
Over the spangled firmament.

Ye stars! if aught ’tis yours to know,
Beyond your own returnless bourne,
With pity have ye not below
Glanced on these vales where mortals mourn?

O, as I scan your nightly march,
Your anthems steal upon mine ears;
As sprinkled o’er yon glittering arch,
Ye wake the music of the spheres.

‘Tis fancy!–yet the empyrean strains
Impart kind gilead to my breast;
They tell of brighter, fairer plains,
Where troubles cease, where pilgrims rest.

***

«Under the Stars» by William Stanley Braithwaite

I take my soul in my hand,
I give it, a bounding ball
(Over Love’s sea and land),
For you to toss and let fall
At command.

Dear, as we sit here together —
Silence and alternate speech,
Dreams that are loose from the tether,
Stars in an infinite reach
Of dark ether:

Over and under and through
Silence and stars and the dreams,
How my emotions pursue,
With a still passion that teems
Full of you.

O what can the stars desire,
And what can the night fulfil,
Of a thousand thoughts on fire
That burns on my soul’s high hill
Like a pyre.

Does the flame leap upward, Where
God feels — and heat makes human,
Pity, in His heart —a snare
To win worship for a woman
Unaware?

If He made all Time for this,
O beloved, shall we not dare
To crown His dream with a kiss,
While each new-born star makes fair
Night’s abyss?

***

«When The Shy Star Goes Forth In Heaven» by James Joyce

When the shy star goes forth in heaven
All maidenly, disconsolate,
Hear you amid the drowsy even
One who is singing by your gate.
His song is softer than the dew
And he is come to visit you.

O bend no more in revery
When he at eventide is calling.
Nor muse: Who may this singer be
Whose song about my heart is falling?
Know you by this, the lover’s chant,
‘Tis I that am your visitant.

Talking about the weather is part of the etiquette and traditions of the modern world. The weather really does affect our lives every day anyway. The weather can make a nice day or destroy all our plans, it can make us sad or happy. It is something we just have to accept because as we know, nature has no bad weather.

«A Beautiful Day» by Francis Duggan

In the blue sky just a few specks of gray
In the evening of a beautiful day
Though last night it rained and more rain on the way
And that more rain is needed ‘twould be fair to say
On a gum tree in the park the white backed magpie sing
He sings all year round from the Summer to Spring
But in late Winter and Spring he even sings at night
So nice to hear him piping in the moonlight
Spring it is with us and Summer is near
And beautiful weather for the time of year
Such beauty the poets and the artists inspire
Of talking of Nature could one ever tire
Her green of September Mother Nature wear
And the perfumes of blossoms in the evening air.

***

«A Crosstown Breeze» by Henry Taylor

A drift of wind
when August wheeled
brought back to mind
an alfalfa field

where green windrows
bleached down to hay
while storm clouds rose
and rolled our way.

With lighthearted strain
in our pastoral agon
we raced the rain
with baler and wagon,

driving each other
to hold the turn
out of the weather
and into the barn.

A nostalgic pause
claims we saved it all,
but I’ve known the loss
of the lifelong haul;

now gray concrete
and electric light
wear on my feet
and dull my sight.

So I keep asking,
as I stand here,
my cheek still basking
in that trick of air,

would I live that life
if I had the chance,
or is it enough
to have been there once?

***

«A Line-storm Song» by Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift, 
  The road is forlorn all day, 
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift, 
  And the hoof-prints vanish away. 
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
  Expend their bloom in vain. 
Come over the hills and far with me, 
  And be my love in the rain. 

The birds have less to say for themselves 
  In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves, 
  Although they are no less there: 
All song of the woods is crushed like some 
  Wild, easily shattered rose. 
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
  Where the boughs rain when it blows. 

There is the gale to urge behind 
  And bruit our singing down, 
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind 
  From which to gather your gown.    
What matter if we go clear to the west, 
  And come not through dry-shod? 
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast 
  The rain-fresh goldenrod. 

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells   
  But it seems like the sea’s return 
To the ancient lands where it left the shells 
  Before the age of the fern; 
And it seems like the time when after doubt 
  Our love came back amain.      
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout 
  And be my love in the rain.

***

«A Madrigal» by William Shakespeare

Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare:
Youth is full of sports,
Age’s breath is short,
Youth is nimble, Age is lame:
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold,
Youth is wild, and Age is tame:-
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee;
O! my Love, my Love is young!
Age, I do defy thee-
O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay’st too long.

***

«A MATCH» by Algernon Charles Swinburne

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather,

Blown fields or flowerful closes,

Green pasture or gray grief;

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune,

With double sound and single

Delight our lips would mingle,

With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon;

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune.

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death,

We’d shine and snow together

Ere March made sweet the weather

With daffodil and starling

And hours of fruitful breath;

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death.

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy,

We’d play for lives and seasons

With loving looks and treasons

And tears of night and morrow

And laughs of maid and boy;

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy.

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May,

We’d throw with leaves for hours

And draw for days with flowers,

Till day like night were shady

And night were bright like day;

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain,

We’d hunt down love together,

Pluck out his flying-feather,

And teach his feet a measure,

And find his mouth a rein;

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain.

***

«A Process In The Weather Of The Heart» by Dylan Thomas

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.

***

«A Touch Of Verse» by Sandra Fowler

Light has exposed the landscape to its form.
Mood is rebuked of all its artifice.
Wind moves like winter through the naked trees.
I ask you for a leaf, but there is none.

Instead, you offer me a weather coat,
Gray as warm words reduced to whispering.
You tell me that November loves old bones.
Your frost accent is quite believable.

You paint a picture of our private sky.
The light falls faint upon my closing eyes.
Held close within a margin of rare words,
Stillness sings like a fragile, yellow bird.

Against the glass old memories ebb and flow.
A touch of verse becomes a touch of snow.
Our tiny world is slipping into space.
Only your precious hands hold it in place.

***

«After the Winter Rain» by Ina Coolbrith

After the winter rain, 
   Sing, robin! Sing, swallow!
Grasses are in the lane, 
   Buds and flowers will follow.

Woods shall ring, blithe and gay,
   With bird-trill and twitter,
Though the skies weep to-day, 
   And the winds are bitter. 

Though deep call unto deep
   As calls the thunder, 
And white the billows leap
   The tempest under;

Softly the waves shall come
   Up the long, bright beaches, 
With dainty, flowers of foam
   And tenderest speeches…

After the wintry pain, 
   And the long, long sorrow, 
Sing, heart!—for thee again
   Joy comes with the morrow.

***

«Against Winter» by Charles Simic

The truth is dark under your eyelids.
What are you going to do about it?
The birds are silent; there’s no one to ask.
All day long you’ll squint at the gray sky.
When the wind blows you’ll shiver like straw.

A meek little lamb you grew your wool
Till they came after you with huge shears.
Flies hovered over open mouth,
Then they, too, flew off like the leaves,
The bare branches reached after them in vain.

Winter coming. Like the last heroic soldier
Of a defeated army, you’ll stay at your post,
Head bared to the first snow flake.
Till a neighbor comes to yell at you,
You’re crazier than the weather, Charlie.

***

«An Abandoned Factory, Detroit» by Philip Levine

The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,
An iron authority against the snow,
And this grey monument to common sense
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands,
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.

Beyond, through broken windows one can see
Where the great presses paused between their strokes
And thus remain, in air suspended, caught
In the sure margin of eternity.
The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes
Which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought,

And estimates the loss of human power,
Experienced and slow, the loss of years,
The gradual decay of dignity.
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour;
Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears
Which might have served to grind their eulogy.

***

«An April Jest» by Ruby Archer

On a rough March day with a sky half gray,
The wind with the sunshine plead:
“Come with me and creep where the blossoms sleep,
And waken them all,” he said.

And the sun laughed, “Yea.” So they sped away,
All the night-capped flowers to find;
And they touched the heads in the deep soft beds
With a delicate leaf-mould lined,

‘Till the flow’rets dreamed that a rainbow gleamed,
And a murmuring zephyr sang;
And their night-caps soft in a trice they doffed,
And lo—from their beds up sprang.

As each wee sprout flung its fingers out
And soft pushed the earth away,
Wily wind and sun in their impish fun
Made the March world laugh like May.

When the flower heads fair felt the silk-soft air,
They nodded in artless glee;
And each conceived as it happily leaved,
It was strong as a plant need be.

Nor with wind and sun were the favors done.
They cradled and kissed the flowers,
While March crept past, in caprice at last,
With crotchets and petulant showers.

When March had departed, the wind icy-hearted
Blew fiercely the poor plants around;
‘Till frightened they quivered, and fearfully shivered,
And laid their sweet heads on the ground.

The sunshine grew naughty, and feigned to be haughty
By hooding himself with a cloud:
The darkness came quickly, the clouds gathered thickly,
And every bright leaflet was cowed.

Then a white despair clutched the gasping air,
And the plants lay prone in their woe;
For the awful white meant the fatal blight
In the touch of the pitiless snow.

Then the sunshine peered from his hood and jeered,
“‘Twas a jest! Silly plants! April fool!”
And the wind shrieked past in a cutting blast,
“April fool! April fool! April fool!”

***

«April» by Ella Higginson

Ah, who is this with twinkling feet,
With glad, young eyes and laughter sweet,
     Who tosses back her strong, wild hair,
     And saucy kisses flings to Care,
     The while she laughs at her? Beware—
You who this winsome maiden meet!

She dances on a daisied throne,
About her waist a slender zone
     Of dandelion’s gold; her eyes
     Are softer than the summer skies,
     And blue as violets; and lies
A tearful laughter in her tone.

She reaches dimpled arms and bare;
Her breath is sweet as wild-rose air;
     She sighs, she smiles, she glances down,
     Her brows meet in a sudden frown;
     She laughs; then tears the violets drown—
If you should meet her—ah, beware!

***

«Aspens» by Edward Thomas

All day and night, save winter, every weather,
Above the inn, the smithy and the shop,
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.

Out of the blacksmith’s cavern comes the ringing
Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn
The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing –
The sounds that for these fifty years have been.

The whisper of the aspens is not drowned,
And over lightless pane and footless road,
Empty as sky, with every other sound
No ceasing, calls their ghosts from their abode,

A silent smithy, a silent inn, nor fails
In the bare moonlight or the thick-furred gloom,
In the tempest or the night of nightingales,
To turn the cross-roads to a ghostly room.

And it would be the same were no house near.
Over all sorts of weather, men, and times,
Aspens must shake their leaves and men may hear
But need not listen, more than to my rhymes.

Whatever wind blows, while they and I have leaves
We cannot other than an aspen be
That ceaselessly, unreasonably grieves,
Or so men think who like a different tree.

***

«Autumn Song» by Katherine Mansfield

Now’s the time when children’s noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row.

And to-day the hardened sinner
Never could be late for dinner,
But will jump up to the table
Just as soon as he is able,
Ask for three times hot roast mutton–
Oh! the shocking little glutton.

Come then, find your ball and racket,
Pop into your winter jacket,
With the lovely bear-skin lining.
While the sun is brightly shining,
Let us run and play together
And just love the autumn weather.

***

«Battery Recharge» by Ernestine Northover

Why are Winter’s dull days, so depressing,
And if it’s cold as well, very distressing.
Especially, if it’s damp,
It gives one’s joints the cramp,
This type of weather becomes really quite stressing.

Yet when the sun shines, we then feel elated,
Our spirits rise, and are regenerated,
It makes one raise a smile,
And then, after a while,
One feels that one’s whole being’s rejuvenated.

So roll on Summer with your sunny haze,
When one can, in your warmth, lay back and gaze,
And let the sun renew,
One’s batteries, which are due,
Thus setting one up for next Winter’s dreary days.

***

«Bells in the Rain» by Elinor Wylie

Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,
Upon the steep cliffs of the town.
Sleep falls; men are at peace again
While the small drops fall softly down.

The bright drops ring like bells of glass
Thinned by the wind; and lightly blown;
Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass
So softly as it falls on stone.

Peace falls unheeded on the dead
Asleep; they have had deep peace to drink;
Upon a live man’s bloody head
It falls most tenderly, I think.

***

«Braggart» by Dorothy Parker

The days will rally, wreathing
Their crazy tarantelle;
And you must go on breathing,
But I’ll be safe in hell.

Like January weather,
The years will bite and smart,
And pull your bones together
To wrap your chattering heart.

The pretty stuff you’re made of
Will crack and crease and dry.
The thing you are afraid of
Will look from every eye.

You will go faltering after
The bright, imperious line,
And split your throat on laughter,
And burn your eyes with brine.

You will be frail and musty
With peering, furtive head,
Whilst I am young and lusty
Among the roaring dead.

***

«Cold» by Holly Heron

I’m cold.
You drew me out of my shell,
You kept me warm in winter,
Then you saw another,
Brighter, Kinder, Warmer,
You walked away,
And left me in winters wasteland,
You walked away,
Left me to freeze,
You drew me out of my shell,
Left me here to die,
To starve without your love,
To freeze without your presence,
You’ve left me now in a barren wasteland,
In winters cold embrace,
You left.

***

«December» by Christopher Pearce Cranch

No more the scarlet maples flash and burn
       Their beacon-fires from hilltop and from plain;
The meadow-grasses and the woodland fern
       In the bleak woods lie withered once again.

The trees stand bare, and bare each stony scar
       Upon the cliffs; half frozen glide the rills;
The steel-blue river like a scimitar
       Lies cold and curved between the dusky hills.

Over the upland farm I take my walk,
       And miss the flaunting flocks of golden-rod;
Each autumn flower a dry and leafless stalk,
       Each mossy field a track of frozen sod.

I hear no more the robin’s summer song
       Through the gray network of the wintry woods;
Only the cawing crows that all day long
       Clamor about the windy solitudes.

Like agate stones upon earth’s frozen breast,
       The little pools of ice lie round and still;
While sullen clouds shut downward east and west
       In marble ridges stretched from hill to hill.

Come once again, O southern wind,—once more
       Come with thy wet wings flapping at my pane;
Ere snow-drifts pile their mounds about my door,
       One parting dream of summer bring again.

Ah, no! I hear the windows rattle fast;
       I see the first flakes of the gathering snow,
That dance and whirl before the northern blast.
       No countermand the march of days can know.

December drops no weak, relenting tear,
       By our fond summer sympathies ensnared;
Nor from the perfect circle of the year
       Can even winter’s crystal gems be spared.

***

«Even the Rain» by Agha Shahid Ali

What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.

“Our glosses / wanting in this world”—“Can you remember?”
Anyone!—“when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?

After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.
And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.

Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you’d poured—what?—even the rain.

Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:
Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.

How did the Enemy love you—with earth? air? and fire?
He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.

This is God’s site for a new house of executions?
You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?

After the bones—those flowers—this was found in the urn:
The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.

What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?
A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.

How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames—
To help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain.

He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves;
he would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain.

New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me—
To make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain.

They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?
No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.

***

«Here In This Spring» by Dylan Thomas

Here in this spring, stars float along the void;
Here in this ornamental winter
Down pelts the naked weather;
This summer buries a spring bird.

Symbols are selected from the years’
Slow rounding of four seasons’ coasts,
In autumn teach three seasons’ fires
And four birds’ notes.

I should tell summer from the trees, the worms
Tell, if at all, the winter’s storms
Or the funeral of the sun;
I should learn spring by the cuckooing,
And the slug should teach me destruction.

A worm tells summer better than the clock,
The slug’s a living calendar of days;
What shall it tell me if a timeless insect
Says the world wears away?

***

«In April» by James Hearst

This I saw on an April day:

Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,

A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,

And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path

Shy and proud.

And this I found in an April field:

A new white calf in the sun at noon,

A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,

And tips of tulips promising flowers

To a blue-winged loon.

And this I tried to understand

As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:

The movement of seed in furrowed earth,

And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear

From a green-sprayed bough.

***

«In April» by Rainer Maria Rilke

Again the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.

After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.

Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.

***

«Joint Laughter» by Ernestine Northover

We laugh at the same funny things,
Our quick sense of humour just springs
From being together,
Whatever the weather,
It’s wonderful what such laughter brings.

We can each see the funny side, that’s true,
But of course we can sometimes be blue,
But if one of us is down,
Then the others a clown
Enticing a smile to break through.

Sometimes, when we’re both very tired,
And we feel that we’re electrically wired,
Something just makes us smile,
And after a while,
We can laugh, which is just what’s required.

I won’t say there’s not sadness in life,
But try looking beyond all the strife,
We keep smiling along,
Till the sadness has gone,
That’s the delight of being ‘husband and wife’.

***

«June Sunset» by Sarojini Naidu

Here shall my heart find its haven of calm,
By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams
That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm.
Here shall my soul find its true repose
Under a sunset sky of dreams
Diaphanous, amber and rose.
The air is aglow with the glint and whirl
Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight,
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl.
Afloat in the evening light.

A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes,
A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume,
And thro’ the wet earth the gentian pushes
Her spikes of silvery bloom.
Where’er the foot of the bright shower passes
Fragrant and fresh delights unfold;
The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses,
Wild bees on the cactus-gold.

An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks,
And a wistful music pursues the breeze
From a shepherd’s pipe as he gathers his flocks
Under the pipal-trees.
And a young Banjara driving her cattle
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by
In an ancient ballad of love and battle
Set to the beat of a mystic tune,
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky
To herald a rising moon.

***

«Kid, this is the first rain» by Jeffrey Bean

of November. It strips off the rest
of the leaves, reminds trees
how to shiver. I think to Earth
it looks like the first first rain, the water
of the beginning, swirling down hot
into gassy soup. The bubbling stuff
that imagined trees to begin with, and also
mountains, kangaroos, dolphin cartilage,
stoplights. And you, tearing down
hills on Arnold street, a blur
of training wheels and streamers. And me
in the ’80s, crunching Life cereal on the couch
beside my night-owl mother, blue in the light
of David Letterman’s grin.

Try to remember, everything that is solid
is not solid. But slowly, always melting. The road
cracks, wrinkles like a folded map. Huge trees
lie down, throb into pulp inside termites.
And the ground drinks you,
though you grow, a tall drink of water,
going down easy. It swallows me faster
and faster. But don’t worry. Look at
our neighbor’s roof—those fake gray shingles
are crumbling, growing a thick pelt
of moss. Eventually
we all wake up as forest.

***

«May Day» by Sara Teasdale

A delicate fabric of bird song
  Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
  Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
  Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
  The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
  Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
  The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
  I shall see again
The world on the first of May
  Shining after the rain?

***

«Nightwind» by John Clare

Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods

Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain,

Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods

To spread and foam and deluge all the plain.

The cotter listens at his door again,

Half doubting whether it be floods or wind,

And through the thickening darkness looks afraid,

Thinking of roads that travel has to find

Through night’s black depths in danger’s garb arrayed.

And the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops

When hushed to silence by the lifted hand

Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread

And thinks a deluge comes to drown the land;

Nor dares she go to bed until the tempest drops.

***

«Now Winter Nights Enlarge» by Thomas Campion

Now winter nights enlarge

    This number of their hours;

And clouds their storms discharge

    Upon the airy towers.

Let now the chimneys blaze

    And cups o’erflow with wine,

Let well-tuned words amaze

    With harmony divine.

Now yellow waxen lights

    Shall wait on honey love

While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights

    Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense

    With lovers’ long discourse;

Much speech hath some defense,

    Though beauty no remorse.

All do not all things well:

    Some measures comely tread,

Some knotted riddles tell,

    Some poems smoothly read.

The summer hath his joys,

    And winter his delights;

Though love and all his pleasures are but toys

    They shorten tedious nights.

***

«October’s Bright Blue Weather» by Helen Hunt Jackson

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October’s bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October’s bright blue weather.

***

«Pirate Story» by Robert Louis Stevenson

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?

Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea–
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

***

«Rainbow on the Mountain» by Ruby Archer

See―the Sky has lent her jewel
To the Mountain for an hour
Has forgotten to be cruel
In a kind caprice of power

And the dusky bosom rounding
Wears the opals with an air
And a fine content abounding
In the sense of looking fair.

Now the Sky demands her crescent―
Brightest bauble of her store;
Slow it fadeth, evanescent,
And the Mountain smiles no more.

***

«Raindrops» by Mrs. Minot Carter

Have you heard the raindrops 
     On a field of corn, 
Pattering ov’r the green leaves
      Dusty and forlorn?
Did you ever fancy 
      They were little feet 
Hurrying out with water 
      Thirsty ones to meet? 

Have you seen the raindrops 
       Falling on the lake?
How they flash and sparkle 
      Tiny splashes make. 
Did you ever fancy 
     They were diamonds rare 
Scattered by an aeroplane
      Sailing through the air? 

***

«Rhythm of Rain» by Lynn Riggs

Out of the barrenness of earth,
And the meager rain—
Mile upon mile of exultant
Fields of grain.

Out of the dimness of morning—
Sudden and stark,
A hot sun dispelling
The hushed dark.

Out of the bleakness of living,
Out of the unforgivable wrongs,
Out of the thin, dun soil of my soul—
These songs.

Only the rhythm of the rain
Can ease my sorrow, end my pain.

He was a wilful lad,
Laughter the burden he had;

Songs unsung haunted his mouth,
Velvet as soft airs from the languid south;

He was sprung from the dawn,
Flame-crested. He is gone!

Only the lashing, silver whips
Of the rain can still my lips…

***

«River Snow» By Mark Van Doren

The flakes are a little thinner where I look,
For I can see a circle of grey shore,
And greyer water, motionless beyond.
But the other shore is gone, and right and left
Earth and sky desert me. Still I stand
And look at the dark circle that is there—
As if I were a man blinded with whiteness,
And one grey spot remained. The flakes descend,
Softly, without a sound that I can tell—
When out of the further white a gull appears,
Crosses the hollow place, and goes again…
There was no flap of wing; no feather fell.
But now I hear him crying, far away,
And think he may be wanting to return…
The flakes descend… And shall I see the bird?
Not one path is open through the snow.

***

«Snow» by Eliza Cook

Brave Winter and I shall ever agree,
Though a stern and frowning gaffer is he.
I like to hear him, with hail and rain,
Come tapping against the window pane;
I joy to see him come marching forth
Begirt with the icicle gems of the north;
But I like him best when he comes bedight
In his velvet robes of stainless white.

A cheer for the snow—the drifting snow!
Smoother and purer than beauty’s brow!
The creature of thought scarce likes to tread
On the delicate carpet so richly spread.
With feathery wreaths the forest is bound,
And the hills are with glittering diadems crown’d;
’Tis the fairest scene we can have below.
Sing, welcome, then, to the drifting snow!

The urchins gaze with eloquent eye
To see the flakes go dancing by.
In the thick of the storm how happy are they
To welcome the first deep snowy day;
Shouting and pelting—what bliss to fall
Half-smother’d beneath the well-aim’d ball!
Men of fourscore, did ye ever know
Such sport as ye had in the drifting snow?

I’m true to my theme, for I loved it well.
When the gossiping nurse would sit and tell
The tale of the geese—though hardly believed—
I doubted and question’d the words that deceived.
I rejoice in it still, and love to see
The ermine mantle on tower and tree.
’Tis the fairest scene we can have below.
Hurrah! then, hurrah! for the drifting snow!

***

«Song of the Moon» by Priscilla Jane Thompson

Oh, a hidden power is in my breast, 
    A power that none can fathom; 
I call the tides from seas of rest, 
They rise, they fall, at my behest; 
And many a tardy fisher’s boat, 
I’ve torn apart and set afloat, 
     From out their raging chasm. 

For I’m an enchantress, old and grave; 
      Concealed I rule the weather; 
Oft set I, the lover’s heart a blaze, 
With hidden power of my fulgent rays, 
Or seek I the souls of dying men, 
And call the sea-tides from the fen,
      And drift them out together. 

I call the rain from the mountain’s peak,
     And sound the mighty thunder; 
When I wax and wane from week to week,
The heavens stir, while vain men seek,
To solve the myst’ries that I hold, 
But a bounded portion I unfold, 
     So nations pass and wonder. 

Yea, my hidden strength no man may know;
     Nor myst’ries be expounded;
I’ll cause the tidal waves to flow, 
And I shall wane, and larger grow, 
Yet while man rack his shallow brain, 
The secrets with me still remain, 
      He seeks in vain, confounded. 

***

«Song of the Storm-Swept Plain» by William D. Hodjkiss

The wind shrills forth 
From the white cold North 
Where the gates of the Storm-god are; 
And ragged clouds, 
Like mantling shrouds,
Engulf the last, dim star. 

Through naked trees, 
In low coulees, 
The night-voice moans and sighs; 
And sings of deep, 
Warm cradled sleep, 
With wind-crooned lullabies. 

He stands alone 
Where the storm’s weird tone
In mocking swells; 
And the snow-sharp breath 
Of cruel Death 
The tales of its coming tells. 

The frightened plaint
Of his sheep sound faint
Then the choking wall of white—
Then is heard no more, 
In the deep-toned roar, 
Of the blinding, pathless night. 

No light nor guide,
Save a mighty tide
Of mad fear drives him on;
‘Till his cold-numbed form 
Grows strangely warm;
And the strength of his limbs is gone. 

Through the storm and night
A strange, soft light 
O’er the sleeping shepherd gleams;
And he hears the word 
Of the Shepherd Lord 
Called out from the bourne of dreams. 

Come, leave the strife 
Of your weary life;
Come unto Me and rest 
From the night and cold, 
To the sheltered fold,
By the hand of love caressed. 

The storm shrieks on,
But its work is done—
A soul to its God has fled;
And the wild refrain 
Of the wind-swept plain, 
Sings requiem for the dead.

***

«Spring» by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Birds’ love and birds’ song
Flying here and there,
Birds’ songand birds’ love
And you with gold for hair!
Birds’ songand birds’ love
Passing with the weather,
Men’s song and men’s love,
To love once and forever.

Men’s love and birds’ love,
And women’s love and men’s!
And you my wren with a crown of gold,
You my queen of the wrens!
You the queen of the wrens —
We’ll be birds of a feather,
I’ll be King of the Queen of the wrens,
And all in a nest together.

***

«Storm-Sun» by  Ruby Archer

Come and marvel at the sunset!
Lo—a storm is brooding near,—
All the thirsty world imploring,
In a mood akin to fear.

Like a beaker in her fingers
Holds the world the valley high,
Mountain-lipped and cañon-hearted,
To the largess of the sky.

But the sky, capricious ever,
Hides the storm unbroken still;
And the pallid, sun-born nectar
Doth the beaker brimming fill.

See the weirdly golden essence
Lurk along, the shades between,
‘Till it drowns and rolls above them
In triumphant glare of sheen.

***

«The First Grass» by Robinson Jeffers

It rained three autumn days; then close to frost

Under clear starlight the night shivering was.

The dawn rose cold and colorless as glass,

And when we wakened rains and clouds were lost.

The ocean surged and shouted stormy-tossed.

I went down to companion him. Alas,

What faint voice by the way? The sudden grass

Cried with thin lips as I the valley crossed,

Saying blade by blade, “Although the warm sweet rain

Awakened us, this world is all too cold.

We never dreamed it thus.”—”Your champion bold

Is risen,” I said; “he in an hour or twain

Will comfort you.” I passed. Above the dune

Stood the wan splendorless daylight-waning moon.

***

«The First Snow» by Philip M. Raskin

Fairy-like on earth advancing,
All transforming, all entrancing,
Playing on their way and dancing,
        Soil-untarnished yet,

Silver stars from sky are dropping,
Little fairies skipping, hopping,
On the roofs and turrets popping,
        Crowns with diamonds set.

Greeting nature’s silver wedding,
Argent splendor they are shedding,
And a bridal veil outspreading,
        Like a silver net;

Till town-alleys, foul and tainted,
Turn cathedral-aisles ensainted,
Carved with gorgeous, ermine-painted,
        Ornamental fret.

How all changed by elfin power!
Every house a magic tower,
Every tree with lilac-flower
        Lures like a coquette.

Following in their magic traces,
Hidden joy each heart embraces,
Sparkling eyes and brightened faces
        Everywhere are met.

How I love you, white-robed city,
Maiden-pure, and maiden-pretty!
But my love is—what a pity!—
        Tempered with regret.

Truer lover you would find me,
If you were not to remind me
Of a cold land left behind me
        That I’d fain forget.

***

«The Flower Boat» by Robert Frost

The fisherman’s swapping a yarn for a yarn
Under the hand of the village barber,
And her in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.

At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel of flowers growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George’s bank when winds were blowing.

And I judge from that elysian freight
That all they ask is rougher weather,
And dory and master will sail by fate
To seek the Happy Isles together.

***

«The Hard» by Simon Armitage

Here on the Hard, you’re welcome to pull up and stay;
there’s a flat fee of a quid for parking all day.

And wandering over the dunes, who wouldn’t die
for the view: an endless estate of beach, the sea

kept out of the bay by the dam-wall of the sky.
Notice the sign, with details of last year’s high tides.

Walk on, drawn to the shipwreck, a mirage of masts
a mile or so out, seemingly true and intact

but scuttled to serve as a target, and fixed on
by eyeballs staring from bird-hides lining the coast.

The vast, weather-washed, cornerless state of our mind
begins on the Hard; the Crown lays claim to the shore

between low tide and dry land, the country of sand,
but the moon is law. Take what you came here to find.

Stranger, the ticket you bought for a pound stays locked
in the car, like a butterfly trapped under glass;

stamped with the time, it tells us how taken you are,
how carried away by now, how deep and how far.

***

«The Rainbow» By Thomas Campbell

Triumphal arch, that fill’st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art; —

Still seem; as to my childhood’s sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation’s face
Enchantment’s veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o’er the green, undeluged earth
Heaven’s covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world’s gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow luster smiled
O’er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth, delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse’s eye
Unraptured greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the prophet’s theme!

The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When, glittering in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle, cast
O’er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam:

For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span;
Nor lets the type grow pale with age,
That first spoke peace to man.

***

«The Rainbow» by John Keble

A fragment of a rainbow bright
Through the moist air I see,
All dark and damp on yonder height,
All bright and clear to me.

An hour ago the storm was here,
The gleam was far behind;
So will our joys and grief appear,
When earth has ceased to blind.

Grief will be joy if on its edge
Fall soft that holiest ray,
Joy will be grief if no faint pledge
Be there of heavenly day.

***

«The Rainy Day» by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary …

***

«The Rising of the Storm» by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The lake’s dark breast
Is all unrest,
It heaves with a sob and a sigh.
Like a tremulous bird,
From its slumber stirred,
The moon is a-tilt in the sky.

From the silent deep
The waters sweep,
But faint on the cold white stones,
And the wavelets fly
With a plaintive cry
O’er the old earth’s bare, bleak bones.

And the spray upsprings
On its ghost-white wings,
And tosses a kiss at the stars;
While a water-sprite,
In sea-pearls dight,
Hums a sea-hymn’s solemn bars.

Far out in the night,
On the wavering sight
I see a dark hull loom;
And its light on high,
Like a Cyclops’ eye,
Shines out through the mist and gloom.

Now the winds well up
From the earth’s deep cup,
And fall on the sea and shore,
And against the pier
The waters rear
And break with a sullen roar.

Up comes the gale,
And the mist-wrought veil
Gives way to the lightning’s glare,
And the cloud-drifts fall,
A sombre pall,
O’er water, earth, and air.

The storm-king flies,
His whip he plies,
And bellows down the wind.
The lightning rash
With blinding flash
Comes pricking on behind.

Rise, waters, rise,
And taunt the skies
With your swift-flitting form.
Sweep, wild winds, sweep,
And tear the deep
To atoms in the storm.

And the waters leapt,
And the wild winds swept,
And blew out the moon in the sky,
And I laughed with glee,
It was joy to me
As the storm went raging by!

***

«The Thunder-Storm» By Amos Russel Wells

I came with a roar from the western sky
And over the western hill;
I shook the rocks as I thundered by,
And I bent the woods to my will.

I came at two of the village clock,
When the night was heavy with mirk;
I carried a torch in one of my hands,
And in one I carried a dirk.

I hid the torch in my folds of rain,
Till sudden I showed its glare;
I plunged the dirk in the thick of the woods
And splintered a pine-tree there.

I kindled a fire in the forcst leaves,
And put it out with my rain;
I leaped with a howi from the western ridge
And rushed o’er the western plain.

I came at two of the village clock.
And raced through the empty street.
I slashed the houghs of the arching elms,
And the high church tower I beat.

I flung my rain through the shingled roofs
And into the window—souse!
The nightgowned folk with their lamps
Hurried around the house.

The children snuggled in awesome beds,
And trembled to hear my shout;
And yet it was pleasant, so safe within,
So marvellous wild without.

Then away from the town I flung myself,
And into the eastern sea,
Where the big black waves rose up with a roar
And heavily welcomed me.

I came and I went at the beck of the Lord,
The Lord of storms and of men,
And I crouch in my cave at the end of the world
Till He beckons me forth again.

***

«The Winter Bird» by Jones Very

Thou sing’st alone on the bare wintry bough,
As if Spring with its leaves were around thee now;
And its voice that was heard in the laughing rill,
And the breeze as it whispered o’er meadow and hill,
Still fell on thine ear, as it murmured along
To join the sweet tide of thine own gushing song.
Sing on—though its sweetness was lost on the blast,
And the storm has not heeded thy song as it passed,
Yet its music awoke in a heart that was near,
A thought whose remembrance will ever prove dear;
Though the brook may be frozen, though silent its voice,
And the gales through the meadows no longer rejoice,
Still I felt, as my ear caught thy glad note of glee,
That my heart in life’s winter might carol like thee.

***

«To Winter» by Claude McKay

Stay, season of calm love and soulful snows!
There is a subtle sweetness in the sun,
The ripples on the stream’s breast gaily run,
The wind more boisterously by me blows,
And each succeeding day now longer grows.
The birds a gladder music have begun,
The squirrel, full of mischief and of fun,
From maple’s topmost branch the brown twig throws.
I read these pregnant signs, know what they mean:
I know that thou art making ready to go.
Oh stay! I fled a land where fields are green
Always, and palms wave gently to and fro,
And winds are balmy, blue brooks ever sheen,
To ease my heart of its impassioned woe.

***

«Travelling Storm» by Mark Van Doren 

The sky, above us here, is open again. 
The sun comes hotter, and the shingles steam. 
The trees are done with dripping, and the hens
Bustle among bright pools to pick and drink. . . . 
But east and south are black with speeding storm. 
That thunder, low and far, remembering nothing,
Gathers a new world under it and growls, 
Worries, strikes, and is gone.  Children at windows 
Cry at the rain, it pours so heavily down,
Drifting across the yard till the sheds are grey. . . . 
A county father on, the wind is all—
A swift dark wind that turns the maples pale, 
Ruffles the hay, and spreads the swallows’ wings. 
Horses, suddenly restless, are unhitched,
And men, with glances upward, hurry in; 
Their overalls blow full and cool; they shout;
Soon they will lie in barns and laugh at the lightning. . . . 
Another county yet, and the sky is still; 
The air is fainting; women sit with fans
And wonder when a rain will come that way. 

***

«Tree At My Window» by Robert Frost

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

***

«Wind» By Gwendolyn Bennett

The wind was a care-free soul 
    That broke the chains of earth, 
And strode for a moment across the land
    With the wild halloo of his mirth.
He little cared that he ripped up trees, 
    That houses fell at his hand, 
That his step broke calm on the breast of seas, 
    That his feet stirred clouds of sand. 

But when he had had his little joke, 
    Had shouted and laughed and sung, 
When the trees were scarred, their branches broke, 
    And their foliage aching hung, 
He crept to his cave with a stealthy tread, 
    With rain-filled eyes and low-bowed head.

***

«Winter to Spring» by Irvin W. Underhill

Did not I remember that my hair is grey
    With only a fringe of it left,
I’d follow your footsteps from wee break of day
    Till night was of moon-light bereft.

Your eyes wondrous fountains of joy and of youth
    Remind me of days long since flown,
My sweetheart, I led to the altar of truth,
    But then the gay spring was my own.

Now winter has come with its snow and its wind
    And made me as bare as its trees,
Oh, yes, I still love, but it’s only in mind,
    For I’m fast growing weak at the knees.

Your voice is as sweet as the song of a bird, 
    Your manners are those of the fawn,
I dream of you, darling,—oh, pardon, that word,
    From twilight to breaking of dawn.

Your name in this missive you’ll search for in vain,
    Nor mine at the finis, I’ll fling,
For winter must suffer the bliss and the pain 
In secret for loving the spring.

Here we have collected poems about sports and healthy lifestyles. A selection of poems about sports, health, and physical education for children. Being healthy does not mean making a muscle, proving to everyone around you that you are the strongest. It means to lead an active lifestyle, eat right, and take care of the regime of the day. Poems about sports and physical culture will help you to make sure that a healthy mind lives in a healthy body.

«A Boy Juggling a Soccer Ball» by Christopher Merrill

after practice: right foot

to left foot, stepping forward and back,

to right foot and left foot,

and left foot up to his thigh, holding

it on his thigh as he twists

around in a circle, until it rolls

down the inside of his leg,

like a tickle of sweat, not catching

and tapping on the soft

side of his foot, and juggling

once, twice, three times,

hopping on one foot like a jump-roper

in the gym, now trapping

and holding the ball in midair,

balancing it on the instep

of his weak left foot, stepping forward

and forward and back, then

lifting it overhead until it hangs there;

and squaring off his body,

he keeps the ball aloft with a nudge

of his neck, heading it

from side to side, softer and softer,

like a dying refrain,

until the ball, slowing, balances

itself on his hairline,

the hot sun and sweat filling his eyes

as he jiggles this way

and that, then flicking it up gently,

hunching his shoulders

and tilting his head back, he traps it

in the hollow of his neck,

and bending at the waist, sees his shadow,

his dangling T-shirt, the bent

blades of brown grass in summer heat;

and relaxing, the ball slipping

down his back. . .and missing his foot.

He wheels around, he marches

over the ball, as if it were a rock

he stumbled into, and pressing

his left foot against it, he pushes it

against the inside of his right

until it pops into the air, is heeled

over his head—the rainbow!—

and settles on his extended thigh before

rolling over his knee and down

his shin, so he can juggle it again

from his left foot to his right foot

—and right foot to left foot to thigh—

as he wanders, on the last day

of summer, around the empty field.

***

«After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade» by Dennis Cooper

Their jeans sparkled, cut off

way above the knee, and my

friends and I would watch them

from my porch, books of poems

lost in our laps, eyes wide as

tropical fish behind our glasses.

Their football flashed from hand

to hand, tennis shoes gripped

the asphalt, sweat’s spotlight on

their strong backs. We would

dream of hugging them, and crouch

later in weird rooms, and come.

Once their ball fell our way

so two of them came over, hands

on their hips, asking us to

throw it to them, which Arthur did,

badly, and they chased it back.

One turned to yell, “Thanks”

and we dreamed of his long

teeth in our necks. We

wanted them to wander over,

place deep wet underarms to

our lips, and then their white

asses, then those loud mouths.

One day one guy was very tired,

didn’t move fast enough,

so a car hit him and he sprawled

fifty feet away, sexy, but he was

dead, blood like lipstick, then

those great boys stood together

on the sidewalk and we joined them,

mixing in like one big friendship

to the cops, who asked if we were,

and those boys were too sad to counter.

We’d known his name, Tim, and how

he’d turned to thank us nicely

but now he was under a sheet

anonymous as God, the big boys crying,

spitting words, and we stunned

like intellectuals get, our high

voices soft as the tinkling of a

chandelier on a ceiling too high to see.

***

«An Athlete’s Prayer» by Sandy Dow Mapula

It was right before the big one and the football player said,
“Excuse me guys for just a sec while I go bow my head.”
And in the quiet of that room
The football player prayed,
“Oh God if nothing hear me now
I know that fate is made.”

“So help us Lord to win this game,
It’s the big one, man, you see,
If we lose this game that’s it for us,
Please do this, Lord, for me.”

And as his body knelt in prayer,
He looked up to the sky,
“And while I’m here, and have some time,
I need to ask you why?”

“They say you never help teams wind,
Just do it once I pray,
We will pay you back in kinder deeds
Or in another way,”

“The reason why I can’t help you win,”
The Lord just then replied,
“Is as you’re asking me to win,
So is the other side.”

“I’m everybody’s father and
I must not take one side,
So games are played all on your own
Or they would all be tied.”

“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pray,”
He answered him with care,
“You can pray that players don’t get hurt
And that all the calls are fair,”

And while the player heard this voice,
He bowed his head in prayer,
“I pray for fairness,” said the boy
“And for your tender care.”

“You shall be blessed,” the Lord replied,
“Your team and you the same,
And now will you excuse me boy,
I cannot miss this game.”

***

«At the Pool» by Glen Martin Fitch

“You’re wasting your time.”
so leers the jock.
And I glare back.
“My time is mine to waste.”
There’s what and when and how,
and where’s the clock,
and I don’t want
my towel and keys misplaced.
“Go on and play”
the anxious parents plead.
They fear the hesitation
of their child is fear.
Kids know instinctively
they need to watch and test
while data is compiled.
“Get down from there!”
surprised a parent screams.
Look who did what
while waiting out of sight!
Most kids will dare
a studied task,
it seems,
when confident
that now the time is right.
Today’s not ’bout
how fast or hard or more.
My hardest exercise
is my front door.

***

«Athlete» by Mellissa A Smith

It’s game time now, it’s time to win
we’ve worked so hard all year
We’ve made it past some tough game times
and now, the reward is near

Let’s bow our heads and ask the Lord for this last precious win
Let’s make sure he knows we’ve tried real hard and it’s all up to him
“Dear Lord our father, we need this bad, we did all we could do”
we continue on and ask again “Please Lord help us make it through”

A feeling comes from deep inside, it didn’t feel real good
I decided to try it once again, but asking the way I should
“Dear Lord I pray for a fun, safe game, may both teams be injury free,
we have tried real hard and should all feel proud whatever the outcome may be.”

So now we must go and do our best
it’s up to us to pass this test
Whatever the outcome, victory or defeat
I just thank you Lord for making me an ATHLETE!

***

«Basketball» by Erika Johnson

My heart races as I step on the court
Basketball my favorite sport
The whistle blows to start the game
It’s a feeling I can’t explain
My team is my family
When we work together there’s no boundaries

Pass, shoot, score
Everyone wants more
Time for defense no one gets by
Shot goes up the ball is mine
The half time buzzer blows
Into the locker room we go

Start at half it’s a tie
We need to give it our all to get by
Ten seconds left down by one
We can’t be done
I have the ball I shoot a three
The crowd stands up and cheers or me.

***

«Basketball Is Lots of Fun» by Kenn Nesbitt

Basketball is lots of fun.
It’s my favorite sport.
But I’m so bad that, when I play,
they throw me off the court.

Now hockey is my favorite sport.
The trouble is I stink.
So every time I hit the ice
they throw me off the rink.

Now soccer is the game I like.
There’s just one little hitch;
I kick and run too slow, and so
they throw me off the pitch.

At last I found some sports that I
can play and not get thrown.
I now play soccer, basketball,
and hockey on my phone.

***

«Come on Coach» by Aimee Vey

Come on coach I know I’m a little small;
Come on coach throw me the ball.
My eyes are on the ball I’m in my stance;
Come on coach I just need a chance.
I’m getting better every year;
With a little practice I no longer fear
So coach throw me one I can hit;
I bet I’ll even surprise the team a bit.
With my eyes on the ball and my hands on the bat tight;
The coach threw me one and I hit it hard into right.
The fans cheered as I ran round the bases;
I looked into the crowd to see all their faces.
But the two people who stood out
My mom and my dad and they said with a shout
“Hooray Bailey way to go!”
I hit the ball and now I know;
With a little confidence and some cheers
I’ll get better and better throughout the years.

***

«Dinamita Knocked “Pacman” Out» by Alon Calinao Dy

The world witnessed the year’s biggest bout
When “Dinamita” knocked “Pacman” out.
Marquez got his revenge and fought bravely.
This time around he won convincingly.

What’s next now to our pound-for-pound king?
Will he retire from the world of boxing?
Why did he become reckless in this slugfest?
Is the fight between “Money” versus “Pacman” still the subject?

This boxing match teaches us many lessons in life.
It’s not always about winning.
It’s not about how you lose in a game.
But it’s how you rise again after that painful loss.

I love Manny Pacquiao known as “Pacman.”
But if hanging up the gloves is a better option,
Why consider it now?
Why would you risk your life for a boxing show?

Nevertheless,
I congratulate the winner Juan Manuel Marquez!
He fought a very hard fight tonight.
Therefore, I give you all my respect.

***

«Fast Break» by Edward Hirsch

A hook shot kisses the rim and
hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop,

and for once our gangly starting center
boxes out his man and times his jump

perfectly, gathering the orange leather
from the air like a cherished possession

and spinning around to throw a strike
to the outlet who is already shoveling

an underhand pass toward the other guard
scissoring past a flat-footed defender

who looks stunned and nailed to the floor
in the wrong direction, trying to catch sight

of a high, gliding dribble and a man
letting the play develop in front of him

in slow motion, almost exactly
like a coach’s drawing on the blackboard,

both forwards racing down the court
the way that forwards should, fanning out

and filling the lanes in tandem, moving
together as brothers passing the ball

between them without a dribble, without
a single bounce hitting the hardwood

until the guard finally lunges out
and commits to the wrong man

while the power-forward explodes past them
in a fury, taking the ball into the air

by himself now and laying it gently
against the glass for a lay-up,

but losing his balance in the process,
inexplicably falling, hitting the floor

with a wild, headlong motion
for the game he loved like a country

and swiveling back to see an orange blur
floating perfectly through the net.

***

«Football Mom» by Annissa Worobec

With mouth guard in, and ball in hand
A pass will be made and the crowd will stand.
They will cheer and scream for their home team
And the coach’s face will grin and beam.

The boys on the field will perform a great play
That will bring the team victory
And touchdowns will be made

Flips and slams, turns and fumbles
I see my mom cringe
When it’s me getting pummeled

She hates the violence and the aggression that occurs,
It eats at her stomach, and twitches her nerves
But she waits for me to score for my home team
Then her cheer is the loudest
AND IT’S ALL JUST FOR ME.

***

«Football Uniform» by Rhonda J. Becker

Football Uniform
I remember watching you out upon the field.
In the Seventh grade, you were with a helmet as your shield.
The uniform just hung upon your skinny frame.
The number on the jersey was your only name.

I washed and soaked those football pants time and time again.
I often said a little prayer for our team’s little men.
I hung the jersey out to dry with hopes of victory.
Watching how you were growing now for the entire world to see.

You grew in size physically, as well as character too.
I realized how the time has passed and the years they just flew.
For as I wash your uniform after this game that is your last,
I hope and pray you remember the lessons from seasons past.

Winning is very glorifying and is definitely the most fun.
Sometimes, however, you did everything there was to be done.
Yet the score didn’t’t reflect the hard work and preparation the team put in.
And you had to support each other with compassion without the win.

I stand here proudly staring at your number upon this shirt.
I am wishing for more days that it would be filled with dirt.
My mind will hold forever the picture of my son.
Waiting for his name to be called and on the field he’d run.

My little skinny boy has now become a man.
In life he will go now and do the best he can.
Football has taught him, teamwork and unity.
God, I pray, You help him become the best that he can be.

***

«Game Called» by Grantland Rice

Game Called. Across the field of play
the dusk has come, the hour is late.
The fight is done and lost or won; the player files out through the gate.
The tumult dies, the cheer is hushed,
the stands are bare, the park is still.
But through the night, there shines the light,
home beyond the silent hill.

Game Called. Where in the golden light
the bugle rolled the reveille.
The shadows creep where night falls deep,
and taps has called the end of play.
The game is done, the score is in,
the final cheer and jeer have passed.
But in the night, beyond the fight,
the player finds his rest at last.

Game Called. Upon the field of life
the darkness gathers far and wide,
the dream is done, the score is spun
that stands forever in the guide.
Nor victory, nor yet defeat
is chalked against the players’ name.
But down the roll, the final scroll
shows only how he played the game.

***

«Golf» by Vicki Ryan

Golf is a game played by many,
Clubs, balls and tee’s are your enemy.
Stand at the tee ball up on a stick
bend your knee’s and give a big hit.
Down the fairway out of site don’t
hit the tree’s stay on the grass.
Hazards will find you, water and sand
bushes and tree’s and really long grass.
No time to be chasing a ball that’s
lost so get another and stay in the game.
18 greens to chase down most on a mound
with a flag to find that marks the hole
then putt your little ball into the cup.
Albatross, Eagles, Birdies and Pars get
some of these and they help you to score.
Bogies and bunkers and balls out of bounds
will test and tease you and ruin the round
So when you stand at the ball club in hand
remember that the short green stuff makes
for a great game and you will do it again.

***

«I am a Martial Artist» by Karen Eden

“I am a martial artist.” I see through different eyes.
I see a bigger picture when others see grey skies.
Though many can’t conceive it, I stand…facing the wind.
My bravery, not from fighting, but from my strength within.

I am a martial artist. I’ll walk the extra mile.
Not because I have to, but because it’s worth my while.
I know that I am different, when I stand on a crowded street.
I know the fullness of winning, I’ve tasted the cup of defeat.

I am a martial artist. They say I walk with ease.
Though trained for bodily harm, my intentions are for peace.
The world may come and go, but a different path I’ll choose.
A path I will not stray from, no matter, win or lose.

***

«My Hamster Has a Skateboard» by Kenn Nesbitt

My hamster has a skateboard.
When he rides it, though, he falls.
He takes off like a maniac
and crashes into walls.

He screams, “Geronimo!”
and then goes crashing down the stairs.
He’s good at knocking tables down
and slamming into chairs.

He’ll slalom through the living room
and then you’ll hear a, “Splat!”
which means that he’s collided with
my mother or the cat.

He plows right into cabinets,
and smashes into doors,
I think he’s wrecked on every bed
and every chest of drawers.

It’s fun to watch him ride
because you’re sure to hear a smash.
He doesn’t skate so well but, boy,
he sure knows how to crash.

***

«Not In Vain» by Luis Limon

If you can get an equalizer with 10 men,
If you can take the shot and forget your pain,
not all you went through was in vain,
If you can use the ground to your advantage in the hard rain,
If you can take a hit and smile back,
If you can be the one that leads the pack,
If you can keep your head cool,
while everyone is about to lose theirs.
Become the best out of those that came first,
Not all you went through was in vain,
If you can take defeat on the chin,
If you can celebrate without hurting a feeling,
If you can respond to the singing of the crowd,
If you can give them something to celebrate..
That’s what is all about,
If you can go that extra sprint, that jump, that save,
If you can keep your feet in the ground,
But strike in a flying path,
If you can make the sacred place roar,
and make the ground tremble in furor,
Then I can really tell you that..not all you went through…was in vain..

***

«Our Teacher’s a Football Fanatic» by Kenn Nesbitt

Our teacher’s a football fanatic.
It’s all that he has on his mind.
He listens to games on his headphones,
and frets when his team is behind.

He jumps up and down with they’re winning.
He screams when they fumble a pass.
We know we’re supposed to be reading,
but watching him’s simply a gas.

Our principal walked in on Friday,
and he was too angry to speak.
Our substitute started on Monday.
Our teacher’s been benched for a week.

***

«Perfect Form» by Kamilah Aisha Moon

Walter Scott must have been a track athlete
before serving his country, having children:

his knees were high, elbows bent
at 90 degrees as his arms pumped
close to his sides, back straight and head up
as each foot landed in front of the other.
Too much majesty in his last strides.

So much depends on instinct, ingrained
legacies and American pastimes.
Relays where everyone on the team wins
remain a dream. Olympic arrogance,
black men chased for sport—
heat after heat
of longstanding, savage races
that always finish the same way.

My guess is Walter Scott ran distances
and sprinted, whatever his life events
required. Years of training and technique
are not forgotten, even at 50. Even after being
tased out of his right mind. Even in peril
the body remembers what it has been
taught, keeping perfect form
during his final dash.

***

«Prayer of a sportsman» by Berton Braley 

Dear Lord, in the battle that goes on through life
I ask but a field that is fair,
A chance that is equal with all in the strife,
A courage to strive and to dare;

And if should win, let it be by the code
With my faith and my honor held high;
And if I should lose, let me stand by the road,
And cheer as the winners go by.

And Lord, may my shouts be ungrudging and clear,
A tribute that comes from the heart,
And let me not cherish a snarl or a sneer
Or play any sniveling part;

Let me say, “There they ride, on whom laurel’s bestowed
Since they played the game better than I.”
Let me stand with a smile by the side of the road,
And cheer as the winners go by.

So grant me to conquer, if conquer I can,
By proving my worth in the fray,
But teach me to lose like a regular man,
And not like a craven, I pray;

Let me take off my hat to the warriors who strode
To victory splendid and high,
Yea, teach me to stand by the side of the road
And cheer as the winners go by.

***

«Rainy Day in Baseballland» by Joe DeMarco

It was a rainy day in Baseballland
The players were home in bed
One rookie rolled over his eyelids a flutter
With dreams of a stand-up triple running through his head

The cleats and spikes were all on hooks
Along with mitts, bats, and caps
And even Cal Ripken Jr. had settled down
For a long summer’s nap

Outside the rain was pouring down
While puddles drenched the field
But little Eric Hopkins came to play
And his imagination refused to yield

His mitt lay soggy in a puddle
And his sleeves were drenched with rain
As his hands clenched a cold bat with a hope
“That springs eternal in the human brain.”

Little Eric threw the ball up swung and missed,
And the umpire bawked, “Strike one!”
He tapped his cleats, picked up the ball, and reminded the ghost crowd,
“This rain won’t ruin our fun.”

For little Eric loved the game
And he loved the feel of stitched leather in his hands
As he waved to his mom, who sat with his fabricated wife
And his invented kids up there in the fantasy stands

And now the imaginary pitcher holds the ball
And now he lets it go
But little Eric swung and missed again
Which made two strikes in a row

He metaphorically dusted himself off
And picked up the ball once more
For often he wished that instead of three strikes
The batter could get four

But today he realized, it was his day
His wishes were his commands
So as he squeezed the water from his jersey
He raised his finger toward the left-field stands

He was Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr,
and Barry Bonds all together
And anything you said about lightning or thunder
Wouldn’t be getting him out of this weather

For in his head the sun was shining
And the grass was green and dry
And he sent that low and away 0-2 pitch
Like a rocket into the sky

And he arrogantly trotted around the bases
Stepped on third and headed toward home plate
While his mother yelled from down the street,
“Dinner’s cold and you are late!”

***

«Run Every Race as if It’s Your Last» by Lisa Olstein

as you round the bend
keep the steel and mouse-skinned
rabbit front left center
and the track and the crowd
and its cries are a blurred ovation
as you stumble and recover
and then fully fall even if
only onto the rough gravel
of your inside mind or outside
in what is called the real world
as how many drunken grandfathers
holding little girls’ hands
and broken peanut shells go
swirling by why are you racing
what are you racing from
from what fixed arm does this
moth-eaten rabbit run
captive is different than stupid
near dead is different than dead
they call it a decoy but we know
a mirror when we see ourselves
lurch and dive for one

***

«Surviving The Bull Ride» by Becky Reynolds

The bull is in the gate
You lower yourself to rest on his back
He moos a threatening sound full of hate
You nod your out there’s no turning back
He takes off you hold on for life
He twists you follow your body cracking
3 seconds in he’s winning
Your hand is weakening your fingers cramping
5 seconds in your full of pain
Your body says give up
Your mind says I can win
7 seconds in your almost done
Your hand starts slipping
8 seconds in you hear the buzzer
you let go, fall down, stand up
Your legs are weak your body quivering
But you won that silver buckle
On your belt it slides
Another trophy from your
8 second rides

***

«The Biker’s Road» by Daren L. Gardner

Raise the door or just take off the cover,
there she sits just waiting for us to hover.

Our first glance we know she waits,
just as our mind anticipates.

As we sit on the seat, a turn of the key,
we know for sure this is the way it should be.

Pull out the drive and head down the street,
whether we are alone or heading to a meet.

The direction that we take as the wind hits our face,
remember it’s about the joy, not about winning a race.

The curves, the hairpins, or just the straights,
with every lean, there’s just something about the path we take.

It’s the feeling we get as we straddle of course,
a passion and a love upon that steel horse.

So as we roll along and feel the ground,
with every throttle twist taking in the sound.

Be aware of the others as your mind clears the load,
hoping they remember this too is “The Bikers Road”.

***

«The Church of Michael Jordan» by Jeffrey McDaniel

The hoop is not metal, but a pair of outstretched arms,
God’s arms, joined at the fingers. And God is saying

throw it to me. It’s not a ball anymore. It’s an orange prayer
I’m offering with all four chambers. And the other players—

the Pollack of limbs, flashing hands and teeth—
are just temptations, obstacles between me and the Lord’s light.

Once during an interview I slipped, I didn’t pray well tonight,
and the reporter looked at me, the same one who’d called me

a baller of destiny, and said you mean play, right? Of course,
I nodded. Don’t misunderstand—I’m no reverend

of the flesh. Priests embarrass me. A real priest
wouldn’t put on that robe, wouldn’t need the public

affirmation. A real priest works in disguise, leads
by example, preaches with his feet. Yes, Jesus walked on water,

but how about a staircase of air? And when the clock
is down to its final ticks, I rise up and over the palms

of a nonbeliever—the whole world watching, thinking
it can’t be done—I let the faith roll off my fingertips, the ball

drunk with backspin, a whole stadium of people holding
the same breath simultaneously, the net flying up like a curtain,

the lord’s truth visible for an instant, converting nonbelievers
by the bushel, who will swear for years they’ve witnessed a miracle.

***

«The Football Game Is on TV» by Kenn Nesbitt

The football game is on TV.
The chips are in the bowl.
We’re totally excited and
about to lose control.

Our living room has turned into
a huge, chaotic scene.
We’re madly jumping up and down.
We’re screaming at the screen.

My mom and dad are yelling
while my baby brother wails.
My sister’s sitting on the sofa
chewing on her nails.

I’m running all around the room
as if I’ve lost my mind.
It’s not because our team’s ahead.
It’s not that they’re behind.

The reason that we’re shouting
and we’re running all about,
is that the game was tied and then
the Internet went out.

***

«The World’s Fastest Bicycle» by Kenn Nesbitt

My bicycle’s the fastest
that the world has ever seen;
it has supersonic engines
and a flame-retardant sheen.

My bicycle will travel
a gazillion miles an hour —
it has rockets on the handlebars
for supplemental power.

The pedals both are jet-propelled
to help you pedal faster,
and the shifter is equipped
with an electric turbo-blaster.

The fender has a parachute
in case you need to brake.
Yes, my bike is undeniably
the fastest one they make.

My bicycle’s incredible!
I love the way it feels,
and I’ll like it even more
when Dad removes the training wheels.

***

«Victory» by Sherman Alexie

When I was twelve, I shoplifted a pair
Of basketball shoes. We could not afford
Them otherwise. But when I tied them on,
I found that I couldn’t hit a shot.

When the ball clanked off the rim, I felt
Only guilt, guilt, guilt. O, immoral shoes!
O, kicks made of paranoia and rue!
Distraught but unwilling to get caught

Or confess, I threw those cursed Nikes
Into the river and hoped that was good
Enough for God. I played that season
In supermarket tennis shoes that felt

The same as playing in bare feet.
O, torn skin! O, bloody heels and toes!
O, twisted ankles! O, blisters the size
Of dimes and quarters! Finally, after

I couldn’t take the pain anymore, I told
My father what I had done. He wasn’t angry.
He wept out of shame. Then he cradled
And rocked me and called me his Little

Basketball Jesus. He told me that every cry
Of pain was part of the hoops sonata.
Then he laughed and bandaged my wounds—
My Indian Boy Poverty Basketball Stigmata.

***

«You Can Argue with a Tennis Ball» by Kenn Nesbitt

You can argue with a tennis ball
or argue with your hat.
You can argue with bananas
or a broken baseball bat.

You can argue with your locker.
You can argue with your shoe.
You can argue all day long
until your face is turning blue.

You can argue with a pickle.
You can argue with a bee.
It’s a fact that you can argue
with most anything you see.

You can argue with the football field
or argue with the bleachers.
But I’ve found it isn’t very smart
to argue with the teachers.