poet

Pretty Good World ~ Frank Stanton

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Pretty good world if you take it all round—

    Pretty good world, good people!

  Better be on than under the ground—

    Pretty good world, good people!

  Better be here where the skies are as blue

    As the eyes of your sweetheart a-smilin’ at you—

  Better than lyin’ ‘neath daisies and dew—

    Pretty good world, good people!

  Pretty good world with its hopes and its fears—

    Pretty good world, good people!

  Sun twinkles bright through the rain of its tears—

    Pretty good world, good people!

  Better be here, in the pathway you know—

    Where the thorn’s in the garden where sweet roses grow,

  Than to rest where you feel not the fall o’ the snow—

    Pretty good world, good people!”

“Pretty good world! Let us sing it that way—

    Pretty good world, good people!

  Make up your mind that you’re in it to stay—

    At least for a season, good people!

  Pretty good world, with its dark and its bright—

    Pretty good world, with its love and its light;

  Sing it that way till you whisper, “Good-night!”—

    Pretty good world, good people!

Frank L. Stanton

Mending Wall ~ Robert Frost

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Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Those Who Do Not Dance ~ Gabriela Mistral

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A crippled child
Said, “How shall I dance?”
Let your heart dance
We said. 

Then the invalid said:
“How shall I sing?”
Let your heart sing
We said 

Then spoke the poor dead thistle,
But I, how shall I dance?”
Let your heart fly to the wind
We said. 

Then God spoke from above
“How shall I descend from the blue?”
Come dance for us here in the light
We said. 

All the valley is dancing
Together under the sun,
And the heart of him who joins us not
Is turned to dust, to dust. 

Life’s Scars ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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They say the world is round, and yet
I often think it square,
So many little hurts we get
From corners here and there.
But one great truth in life I’ve found,
While journeying to the West-
The only folks who really wound
Are those we love the best. 

The man you thoroughly despise
Can rouse your wrath, ’tis true;
Annoyance in your heart will rise
At things mere strangers do;
But those are only passing ills;
This rule all lives will prove;
The rankling wound which aches and thrills
Is dealt by hands we love. 

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,
Are oft to strangers shown;
The careless mien, the frowning face,
Are given to our own.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best. 

Love does not grow on every tree,
Nor true hearts yearly bloom.
Alas for those who only see
This cut across a tomb!
But, soon or late, the fact grows plain
To all through sorrow’s test:
The only folks who give us pain
Are those we love the best. 

Dreams ~ Langston Hughes

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Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. 

Langston Hughes

Beauty ~ Gerald Manley Hopkins

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“I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful
than the bluebell I have been looking at.
I know the beauty of our Lord by it.” ~ Gerald Manley Hopkins

Give All To Love ~ Emerson

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Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse;
Nothing refuse.

‘Tis a brave master,
Let it have scope,
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope;
High and more high,
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But ’tis a god,
Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
‘Tis not for the mean,
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending;
Such ’twill reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love; – 
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise,
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho’ her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

The Coming of Light ~ Mark Strand

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Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light. 
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, 
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, 
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine 
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath. 

The Song of Creation ~ Anonymous

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The Song of Creation 

Then there was neither Aught nor Nought, no air nor sky beyond.
What covered all? Where rested all? In watery gulf profound?
Nor death was then, nor deathlessness, nor change of night and day.
That One breathed calmly, self-sustained; nought else beyond it lay.

Gloom hid in gloom existed first – one sea, eluding view.
That One, a void in chaos wrapt, by inward fervour grew.
Within it first arose desire, the primal germ of mind,
Which nothing with existence links, as sages searching find.

The kindling ray that shot across the dark and drear abyss-
Was it beneath? or high aloft? What bard can answer this?
There fecundating powers were found, and mighty forces strove-
A self-supporting mass beneath, and energy above.

Who knows, who ever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had then been born – who then can e’er the truth disclose?
Whence sprang this world, and whether framed by hand divine or no-
Its lord in heaven alone can tell, if even he can show.

 – Anon

I Am Not Alone ~ Gabriela Mistral

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The night, it is deserted 
from the mountains to the sea. 
But I, the one who rocks you, 
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted 
for the moon falls to the sea. 
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted. 
All flesh is sad you see. 
But I, the one who hugs you, 
I am not alone!

– Gabriela Mistral

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