Unless I learn to ask no help
From any other soul but mine,
To seek no strength in waving reeds
Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
Unless I learn to look at Grief
Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
And take from Pleasure fearlessly
Whatever gifts will make me wise
Unless I learn these things on earth,
Why was I ever given birth?
by SARA TEASDALE (1884-1933)
Public Domain Poetry
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
by WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
Public Domain Poetry
I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Man is a curious brute – he pets his fancies –
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho’ law be clear as crystal,
Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.
Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.
by VACHEL LINDSAY (1879-1931)
Public Domain Poetry
Now from the dust of half-forgotten things,
You rise to haunt me at the year’s Spring-cleaning,
And bring to memory dim imaginings
Of mystic meaning.
No old-time potter handled you, I ween,
Nor yet were you of gold or silver molten;
No Derby stamp, nor Worcester, can be seen,
Nor Royal Doulton.
You never stood to grace the princely board
Of monarchs in some Oriental palace.
Your lid is chipped, your chubby side is scored
As if in malice.
I hesitate to say it, but your spout
Is with unhandsome rivets held together —
Mute witnesses of treatment meted out
In regions nether.
O patient sufferer of many bumps!
I ask it gently — shall the dustbin hold you?
And will the dust-heap, with its cabbage stumps,
At last enfold you?
It ought. And yet with gentle hands I place
You with my priceless Delft and Dresden china,
For sake of one who loved your homely face
In days diviner.
by FAY INCHFAWN (1880-1978)
Public Domain Poetry
See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branches, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs’ expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
“Are the ills of one’s life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?”
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?
by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM (1824-1889)
Public Domain Poetry
unbolt me 