I Taught Myself to Live Simply by Anna Akhmatova
I taught myself to live simply and wisely, to look at the sky and pray to God, and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous worries. When the burdocks rustle in the ravine and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops I compose happy verses about life’s decay, decay and beauty. I come back. […]
Lines on the Mermaid Tavern by John Keats
Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host’s Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood […]
A Little Song by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Oh, a great world, a fair world, a true world I find it; A sun that never forgets to rise, On the darkest night, a star in the skies, And a God of love behind it. Oh, a good life, a sweet life, a large life I take it, Is what He offers to you, […]
The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare
Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever’s end, To this troop come thou not near! From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save […]
Dreams by Emily Dickinson
Let me not mar that perfect dream By an auroral stain, But so adjust my daily night That it will come again.
Out of the Morning by Emily Dickinson
Will there really be a morning? Is there such a thing as day? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like water-lilies? Has it feathers like a bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard? Oh, some […]
After All by Henry Lawson
The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town; My spirit revives in the morning breeze, though it died when the sun went down; The river is high and the stream is strong, and the grass is green and tall, And I fain would think that this world of […]
O Me! O Life! by Walt Whitman
O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless – of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light – of the objects mean – of the struggle […]
Longings for Home by Walt Whitman
Dusk in Autumn by Sara Teasdale
The moon is like a scimitar, A little silver scimitar, A-drifting down the sky. And near beside it is a star, A timid twinkling golden star, That watches like an eye. And thro’ the nursery window-pane The witches have a fire again, Just like the ones we make, And now I know they’re having tea, […]