Twinkle, Twinkle, Little 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 gone,

When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveler in the dark

Thanks you for your tiny spark,
How could he see where to go,
If you did not twinkle so?

In the dark blue sky you keep,

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.

A Red, Red Rose

BY ROBERT BURNS
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
 A Lady
Amy Lowell

You are beautiful and faded,

Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colors.
My vigor is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust
That its sparkle may amuse you.

When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be

BY JOHN KEATS
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
 The Sun Rising
BY JOHN DONNE
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes, I,

Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

Hope” is the thing with feathers

BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
 Concord Hymn
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

"Hey, diddle, diddle,"

BY MOTHER GOOSE
Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud Launch Audio in a New Window
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The Sun Just Had a Nasty Day

By Denise Rodgers
The sun just had a nasty day,
refused to smile or shine.
It stayed behind the dark gray clouds,
a mottled, grim design.
But shortly after dinner time
one ray poked though the gray,
a spark of golden yellow warmth
reminding us of day.

If you want to please us, Sun,

(don't take this as a warning)
if you're going to pierce the clouds,
please do it in the morning.
 The Portrait
Stanley Kunitz - 1905-2006
My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

A Cat Named Joe

By:Leighton B Watts
There’s a cat named Joe and you wouldn’t want to know
But he thinks he’d like to be a Hippopotamus
And it sounds very strange, and he really wants to change
And in that way he’s just like a lot of us
Oh, it wouldn’t be so bad if he was certified as mad
But he’s not… he holds a normal conversation
It’s just that within he’s in a different kind of skin
And it causes him a lot of botheration
An identity crisis in a bloke like that
Has got to get a high consideration
At times we’re all like that, the hippo and the cat
And it can make for very strange conversation
You see, Joe can’t swim… it’s just not natural to him
He gets his fur wet and whiskers out of shape
And a hippo feels a dud unless he’s wallowing in mud
With his big toothy mouth all agape
But you look into Joe’s eyes and know he loves the shape and size
Of his big, round cousin in the water
So he sits by the river with his heart all a-quiver
Wanting what he really shouldn’t oughta
An identity crisis in a bloke like that
Has got to get a high consideration
At times we’re all like that, the hippo and the cat
I guess we’d sometimes like to change our situation.