Poetry
I like to read and write poetry, though I do not do as much as I would prefer. It is often relaxing, comforting, inspiring, and it has that unique ability to get inside your insides to say something that nobody else can hear.
All poetry copyright of their respective authors
Table of Contents
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening: Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken: Robert Frost
The Lamb: William Blake
The Tyger: William Blake
Crossing the Bar: Lord Alfred Tennyson
The Kraken: Lord Alfred Tennyson
A Psalm of Life: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Annabel Lee: Edgar Allen Poe
The Journey
Adam Johnson
As you commence your journey,
Cold and new like the first winter snow
Your path is uncertain, your steps unsure.
But love will guide you down this unfamiliar highway.
You may travel a smooth, paved street,
Free of turmoil and hardships.
Use wisely what has been given.
Thou art the steward, not the owner.
But perhaps you are not so fortunate,
And you will be forced to travel your journey
Without copious supplies.
So you trudge on a rough, ragged road.
But supplies do not matter,
It is how you use what is given to you.
For any street can lead to another.
All paths have their own potholes, and stumbling blocks.
Sometimes the road ahead is blurry and fogged
With a plethora of decisions to be made.
Accidents can and will occur.
Will you allow them to derail you?
Be Careful! A mistake early on may cost dearly down the road.
And sometimes the crossroads of loved ones are cut short.
But do not fear; For your road continues on.
Will you lead your road? Or will it lead you?
Perhaps your path will merge with another
And continue on as one.
Does now your journey seem complete?
No, you are just beginning, much more is to come.
Perhaps you will be responsible
To build new roads
And to watch over them and guide them
As you too have been guided.
And what if you set sail,
Aboard the planks of a mighty vessel
It may be a bright, pulchritudinous day
Smooth sailing up ahead!
But be watchful! Storms will approach quickly
And without warning.
The gale comes down harshly
Upon those ill prepared.
Winds will howl and waves will rage
Quick! Tie down the masts, stay firm,
Hold your course!
You can overcome this storm.
There are those on the shore praying for you.
As an eagle soars above to protect her young
He is waiting for you, waiting to help.
See, your toes touch the amiable soil of home.
But yes, there is still much more journey ahead
The road is long and wearisome,
A marathon, not a sprint.
All that start must finish.
Do not dawdle and do not piddle.
Carpe Diem! Seize the day.
What will your journey accomplish?
Will you travel a road that leads somewhere?
Or will you be on an unknown course
That no one uses, like a broken discarded trinket.
Just wandering and wandering, wandering aimlessly.
Wandering on a back country road.
There is a purpose for your journey!
Find and travel it strong!
It may be a roller-coaster ride,
Can you hang on?
You've been through so much now, your road is deteriorating.
It is cracking and crumbling, like loose dirt after the rain.
Will you still press on, will you keep on learning?
Will you travel your journey through to the end?
Now, up ahead you sight a great green sign that states:
You've ridden the ride, you've played the game.
Yes, my friend, your journey is now over.
Tell me, was it all you wished it to be?
Top
Stopping By 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 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 is 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.
Top
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Top
The Lamb The
Tyger
from Songs of Innocence from
Songs of Experience
William Blake
Little Lamb who made
thee Tyger!
Tyger! burning bright,
Dost thou know who made
thee In
the forests of the night:
Gave thee life & bid thee
feed. What
immortal hand or eye,
By the stream & o'er the
mead; Could
frame thy fearful symmetry?
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly
bright; In
what distant deeps or skies.
Gave thee such a tender
voice, Burnt
the fire of thine eyes!
Making all the vales
rejoice: On
what wings dare he aspire!
Little Lamb who made
thee What
the hand, dare sieze the fire?
Dost thou know who made
thee
And
what shoulder, & what art,
Little Lamb I'll tell
thee, Could
twist the sinews of thy heart?
Little Lamb I'll tell
thee: And
when thy heart began to beat,
He is called by thy
name, What
dread hand? & what dread feet?
For he calls himself a
Lamb:
He is meek & he is
mild, What
the hammer? what the chain,
He became a little
child: In
what furnace was thy brain?
I a child & thou a
lamb, What
the anvil? what dread grasp,
We are called by his
name. Dare
its deadly terrors clasp!
Little Lamb God bless
thee.
Little Lamb God bless
thee. When
the stars threw down their spears
And
water'd heaven with their tears:
Did
he smile his work to see?
Did
he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger!
Tyger! burning bright,
In
the forests of the night:
What
immortal hand or eye,
Dare
frame thy fearful symmetry?
Top
Crossing the Bar
Lord Alfred Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Top
The Kraken
Lord Alfred Tennyson
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
Top
A Psalm of Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Top
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allen Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.