Only a dad, neither rich nor proud, Merely one of the surging crowd Toiling, striving from day to day, Facing whatever may come his way.
—Edgar Albert GuestIf you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
—Rudyard KiplingWisteria woke me this morning, And there was all June in the garden; I felt them, early, warning Lest I miss any part of the day.
—Ann McGoughThough faith and trust are stronger than our fears, And the signs promise peace with liberty, Not thus we trifle with our country’s tears And sweat of agony.
—John Greenleaf WhittierFast fading violets cover’d up in leaves; And mid-May’s eldest child The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
—John KeatsOnce more I summon you Out of the past With poignant love, You who nourished the poet And the lover. I see your gray eyes Looking out to sea.
—May SartonO swallows, swallows, poems are not The point. Finding again the world, That is the point, where loveliness Adorns intelligible things Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
—Howard Nemerovit’s spring(all our night becomes day)o,it’s spring! all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
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.
—William WordsworthThe sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day. When the sun is out and the wind is still, You’re one month on in the middle of May.
—Robert FrostO how I long to see her with me alive and well, Her heart and mine was united, Love and feelings deeply rooted for each other, She and I could never part.
—Nancy LuceNathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod. Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God.
—Emma LazarusA light exists in spring Not present on the year At any other period.When March is scarcely here A color stands abroad On solitary hills That science cannot overtake, But human nature feels.
—Emily DickinsonThe grey winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go. I hear the noise of many waters Far below. All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro.
—James JoyceBlue numbers on my bedside clock Tell I forgot to change the hour.This sets routines on haywire. Like a domestic goat staked To its circle of earth. I don’t do well untethered.
—Margaret HasseIt was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken.
—Elizabeth BishopExhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical disguise.
—Gwendolyn BrooksYou’re the life principle, more or less, so get going on a little optimism around here. Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.
—Margaret AtwoodShe walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
—Lord ByronAh, he starts to Stir. With drowsy Stare Looks from his burrow Out on fields of Snow. What’s there? Oh no. His shadow.
—Lilian Moore