Love Me
Sara Teasdale
Brown-thrush singing all day long
In the leaves above me,
Take my love this April song,
“Love me, love me, love me!”
When he harkens what you say,
Bid him, lest he miss me,
Leave his work or leave his play,
And kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it’s queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Laugh and be Merry
John Masefield
Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.
Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.
Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.
Laugh and be merry: remember, in olden time.
God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rhyme,
Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of
His mirth
The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of the earth.
So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky,
Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,
Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.
Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,
Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,
Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.
Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.
The Road that has no End
Joseph Burrows
Hast ever tramped along the road
That has no end?
The far brown winding road, your one
Fast friend
A tattered weather-beaten swag,
A silent mate
To send
His dumb warm comfort to the heart,
A fount where dreams ascend.
There’s wondrous freedom on the road
That has no end;
A man,s heart glows, his spirit leaps
To blend
Its joy of life with fierce wind’s gust
Upon his face:
To lend
Its cry to Nature’s tumult, full
And shrill, as twilight shades descend.
The flowers bloom along the road
That has no end
Cool breezes blow, the gum trees sway
And bend;
The wild doves woo, and softly coo
Their soothing notes,
And mend
Heart’s throbbing pain to sweet content,
And peace lights on the mind’s sad trend
There’s pain and toil along the road
That has no end;
A sinking heart, and weary feet
That spend
Their strength, and lag and crave respite;
And dim tired eyes
That tend
To close their heavy lids upon
The stinging dusts that upward wend.
There are sweet still hours along the road
That has no end
Neath twinkling stars when night’s deep shades
O’erpend;
A man’s eyes shine with gathered tears,
And memories come
To rend
His straining heart strings, while above
The paling lights his mood commend.
I love the road, the swagman’s road
That has no end;
I love its joys, that pains and toils
Transcend;
It is my dreams, the life that fills my heart
And when death comes and would
My peacefulness
Amend,
I pray that God may let my soul depart
With my tattered swag beside me,
Mid my friends that never chide me,
And my face towards the distant clouded hill,
Where leads the far brown winding road
That has no end.
Limitless
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
When the motive is right and the will is strong
There are no limits to human power;
For that great Force back of us moves along
And takes us with it, in trial’s hour.
And whatever the height you yearn to climb,
Though it never was trod by the foot of man,
And no matter how steep—I say you can,
If you will be patient—and use your time.
Evening Song
Willa Cather
Pastoral
William Carlos Williams
The little sparrows hop ingenuously about the pavement quarreling with sharp voices over those things that interest them. But we who are wiser shut ourselves in on either hand and no one knows whether we think good or evil. Meanwhile, the old man who goes about gathering dog-lime walks in the gutter without looking up and his tread is more majestic than that of the Episcopal minister approaching the pulpit of a Sunday. These things astonish me beyond words.
Songs of Innocence
William Blake
‘I have no name:
I am but two days old.’
What shall I call thee?
‘I happy am,
Joy is my name.’
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while,
Sweet joy befall thee!
A Day of Sunshine
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O gift of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be! Through every fibre of my brain, Through every nerve, through every vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch Of life, that seems almost too much. I hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument. And over me unrolls on high The splendid scenery of the sky, Where though a sapphire sea the sun Sails like a golden galleon, Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, Whose steep sierra far uplifts Its craggy summits white with drifts. Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms! Blow, winds! and bend within my reach The fiery blossoms of the peach! O Life and Love! O happy throng Of thoughts, whose only speech is song! O heart of man! canst thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free?
An Ancient Pond
Matsuo Basho
An ancient pond! With a sound from the water Of the frog as it plunges in.
