P1 - Poems

The Prince
By Josephine Dodge Daskam

My heart it was a cup of gold

That at his lip did long to lie,
But he hath drunk the red wine down,
And tossed the goblet by.

My heart it was a floating bird

That through the world did wander free,
But he hath locked it in a cage,
And lost the silver key.

My heart it was a white, white rose

That bloomed upon a broken bough,
He did but wear it for an hour,
And it is withered now.

goblet: a drinking cup with a stem and a foot.

bough: a firm branch of a tree

A Dream
By Stephen Phillips

My dead love came to me, and said:

'God gives me one hour's rest,
To spend with thee on earth again:
How shall we spend it best?'

'Why, as of old,' I said; and so

We quarrelled, as of old:
But, when I turned to make my peace,
That one short hour was told.

quarrel: a verbal dispute or heated argument

The Dilettante: a Modern Type
By Paul Lawrence Dunbar

He scribbles some in prose and verse,

And now and then he prints it;
He paints a little,--gathers some
Of Nature's gold and mints it.

He plays a little, sings a song,

Acts tragic roles, or funny;
He does, because his love is strong,
But not, oh, not for money!

He studies almost everything

From social art to science;
A thirsty mind, a flowing spring,
Demand and swift compliance.

He looms above the sordid crowd--

At least through friendly lenses;
While his mamma looks pleased and proud,
And kindly pays expenses.

1. dilettante: an amateur, someone who dabbles in a field casually

2. prose: written language, not poetry
3. verse: poetry, usually with a fixed rhythm or meter
4. compliance: yielding or agreeing to or with another to conform

To a Child Dancing Upon the Shore

By William Butler Yeats

Dance there upon the shore;

What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won.
And he, the best warrior, dead
And all the sheaves to bind!
What need that you should dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
Noon
By Kendall Banning

The bees are humming, humming in the clover;

The bobolink is singing in the rye;
The brook is purling, purling in the valley,
And the river's laughing, radiant, to the sky!

The buttercups are nodding in the sunlight;

The winds are whispering, whispering to the pine;
The joy of June has found me; as an aureole it's crowned me
Because, oh best beloved, you are mine!

1. bobolink: a songbird.
2. purling: when a stream flows with a murmuring sound.
3. aureole: a golden circle of light, usually around the head of a god or a saint.

The Land of Nod

By Robert Louis Stevenson

From breakfast on through all the day

At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,

With none to tell me what to do--
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me,

Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,

I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.
Swinging
By W. K. Clifford

Swing, swing, swing,

See! the sun is gone away;
Swing, swing, swing,
Gone to make a bright new day.
Swing, swing, swing.
I can see as up I go
The poplars waving to and fro,
I can see as I come down
The lights are twinkling in the town,
High and low,
Fast and slow,
Swing, swing, swing.

Little Things
By Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,

Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
Heat
By Hilda Doolittle

O wind, rend open the heat,

Cut apart the heat,
Rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop

Through this thick air --
Fruit cannot fall into heat
That presses up and blunts
The points of pears
And rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat --

Plough through it,
Turning it on either side
Of your path.

1. rend: to tear or rip apart

2. tatters: ragged clothing, fabric, or paper
from The Land of Beginning Again
By Louisa Fletcher Tarkington

I wish there were some wonderful place

Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches,
And all our poor, selfish grieves
Could be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door,
And never put on again.

We would find the things we intended to do,

But forgot and remembered too late--
Little praises unspoken, little promises broken,
And all of the thousand and one
Little duties neglected that might have perfected
The days of one less fortunate.

So I wish that there were some wonderful place

Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches,
And all our poor, selfish grieves
Could be dropped, like a ragged old coat, at the door, 1. grieves: to feel very sad about something
2. shabby: torn, worn, in poor condition
And never put on again.
3. neglected: failed to care for something
Strange Meetings
By Harold Mono

If suddenly a clod of earth should rise,

And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love,
How one would tremble, and in what surprise
Gasp: "Can you move?"

I see men walking, and I always feel:

"Earth! How have you done this? What can you be?"
I can't learn how to know men, or conceal
How strange they are to me.

1. clod: a lump of something, especially dirt or clay

2. conceal: hide

from Riding to Town

By Paul Lawrence Dunbar

When labor is light and the morning is fair,

I find it a pleasure beyond all compare
To hitch up my nag and go hurrying down
And take Katie May for a ride into town;
For bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la our lay.
There's joy in a song as we rattle along
In the light of the glorious day.

A coach would be fine, but a spring wagon's good;

My jeans are a match for Kate's gingham and hood;
The hills take us up and the vales take us down,
But what matters that? we are riding to town,
And bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la sing we.
There's never a care may live in the air
That is filled with the breath of our glee.

1. nag: a horse
2. gingham: a cotton fabric
3. vales: valleys
from Songs of an Empty House
By Marguerite Wilkinson

My father got me strong and straight and slim,

And I give thanks to him;
My mother bore me glad and sound and sweet, --
I kiss her feet.

I have no son, whose life of flesh and fire

Sprang from my splendid sire,
No daughter for whose soul my mother's flesh
Wrought raiment fresh.

Life's venerable rhythms like a flood

Beat in my brain and blood,
Crying from all the generations past,
"Is this the last?"

And I make answer to my haughty dead,

Who made me, heart and head,
"Even the sunbeams falter, flicker and bend --
I am the end."

1. raiment: clothing or material

2. venerable: commanding respect because of age, character, or position.
3. haughty: expressing an attitude of superiority.

The speaker is expressing her decision to not have children. She is the last descendent and
will end the line.

The speaker is resolved. I believe this because the speaker answers her ancestors confidently
when they ask, "Is this the last?" She says, "I am the end." She does not waiver in her
position.
Prevision
By Aline Kilmer

I know you are too dear to stay;

You are so exquisitely sweet:
My lonely house will thrill someday
To echoes of your eager feet.

I hold your words within my heart,

So few, so infinitely dear;
Watching your fluttering hands I start
At the corroding touch of fear.

A faint, unearthly music rings

From you to Heaven -- it is not far!
A mist about your beauty clings
Like a thin cloud before a star.

My heart shall keep the child I knew,

When you are really gone from me,
And spend its life remembering you
As shells remember the lost sea.
from I Shall Not Die for Thee
By Douglas Hyde

For thee, I shall not die,

Woman of high fame and name;
Foolish men thou mayest slay
I and they are not the same.

Why should I expire

For the fire of an eye,
Slender waist or swan-like limb,
Is't for them that I should die?

The golden hair, the forehead thin,

The chaste mien, the gracious ease,
The rounded heel, the languid tone,--
Fools alone find death from these.

Thy sharp wit, thy perfect calm,

Thy thin palm like foam o' the sea;
Thy white neck, thy blue eye,
I shall not die for thee.

Woman, graceful as the swan,

A wise man did nurture me.
Little palm, white neck, bright eye,
I shall not die for ye.

1. chaste: morally pure

2. mien: facial expression or attitude
3. languid: lacking enthusiasm
"There will come Soft Rain"
By Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire.

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly.

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

1. tremulous: trembling, quivering, or shaking

2. perished: died or expired
3. utterly: totally, completely