Tag Archives: Classic poets

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Dog. by Oliver Herford

The Dog is black or white or brown
And sometimes spotted like a clown.
He loves to make a foolish noise
And Human Company enjoys.
The Human People pat his head
And teach him to pretend he’s dead,
And beg, and fetch and carry too;
Things that no well-bred Cat will do.
At Human jokes, however stale,
He jumps about and wags his tail,
And Human People clap their hands
And think he really understands.
They say “Good Dog” to him. To us
They say “Poor Puss,” and make no fuss.
Why Dogs are “good” and Cats are “poor”
I fail to understand, I’m sure.
To Someone very Good and Just,
Who has proved worthy of her trust,
A Cat will sometimes condescend—
The Dog is Everybody’s friend.

by OLIVER HERFORD (1863-1935)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Ode To Man. by Thomas Frederick Young

A man is not what oft he seems,
On this terrestrial sphere,
No pow’r to wield, no honor’d place,
Oft curb his spirit here.

He knows not what within him lies,
Until his pow’rs be tried,
And when for them some use is found,
They spring from where they hide,

To startle and to puzzle him,
Who never knew their force,
Because his unfreed spirit kept
A low and shackl’d course.

Dishearten’d and despairing, he
Had often sigh’d alone,
Not thinking that in other ways
His spirit might have grown.

Not thinking that another course,
Which needed pluck and vim,
Might raise his drowning spirit high,
And teach it how to swim;

To battle with the rolling tide,
That hurries onward men,
And raise his head above the waves,
That come and go again.

by THOMAS FREDERICK YOUNG (1892-1940)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Sweeping The Floor. by George MacDonald

Sweep and sweep and sweep the floor,
Sweep the dust, pick up the pin;
Make it clean from fire to door,
Clean for father to come in!

Mother said that God goes sweeping,
Looking, sweeping with a broom,
All the time that we are sleeping,
For a shilling in the room:

Did he drop it out of glory,
Walking far above the birds?
Or did parson make the story
For the thinking afterwards?

If I were the swept-for shilling
I would hearken through the gloom;
Roll out fast, and fall down willing
Right before the sweeping broom!

by GEORGE MACDONALD (1824-1905)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // If by H.C. Dodge

If a man could live a thousand years,
When half his life had passed,
He might, by strict economy,
A fortune have amassed.

Then having gained some common-sense,
And knowledge, too, of life,
He could select the woman who
Would make him a true wife.

But as it is, man hasn’t time
To even pay his debts,
And weds to be acquainted with
The woman whom he gets.

by H.C. DODGE (1865-1915)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Hope by Charles Kingsley

Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,
Around each other roll alway,
Within one common atmosphere
Of their own mutual light and day.

And myriad happy eyes are bent
Upon their changeless love alway;
As, strengthened by their one intent,
They pour the flood of life and day.

So we through this world’s waning night
May, hand in hand, pursue our way;
Shed round us order, love, and light,
And shine unto the perfect day.

by CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819–1875)
Public Domain Poetry