Tag Archives: Poet

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Dirge. by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples’ dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.

by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI (1830-1894)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Sea Longing by Sara Teasdale

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,
Tho’ I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea’s eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

by SARA TEASDALE (1884-1933)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Valentine [From A Very Little Boy To A Very Little Girl] by Arthur Macy

This is a valentine for you.
Mother made it. She’s real smart,
I told her that I loved you true
And you were my sweetheart.

And then she smiled, and then she winked,
And then she said to father,
“Beginning young!” and then he thinked,
And then he said, “Well, rather.”

Then mother’s eyes began to shine,
And then she made this valentine:
“If you love me as I love you,
No knife shall cut our love in two,”
And father laughed and said, “How new!”
And then he said, “It’s time for bed.”

So, when I’d said my prayers,
Mother came running up the stairs
And told me I might send the rhymes,
And then she kissed me lots of times.
Then I turned over to the wall
And cried about you, and – that’s all.

by ARTHUR MACY (1842-1904)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // St. Anthony’s Sermon To The Fishes by Abraham a Sancta-Clara

Saint Anthony at church
Was left in the lurch,
So he went to the ditches
And preached to the fishes.
They wriggled their tails,
In the sun glanced their scales.

The carps, with their spawn,
Are all thither drawn;
Have opened their jaws,
Eager for each clause.
No sermon beside
Had the carps so edified.

Sharp-snouted pikes,
Who keep fighting like tikes,
Now swam up harmonious
To hear Saint Antonius.
No sermon beside
Had the pikes so edified.

And that very odd fish,
Who loves fast-days, the cod-fish,
The stock-fish, I mean,
At the sermon was seen.
No sermon beside
Had the cods so edified.

Good eels and sturgeon,
Which aldermen gorge on,
Went out of their way
To hear preaching that day.
No sermon beside
Had the eels so edified.

Crabs and turtles also,
Who always move low,
Made haste from the bottom
As if the devil had got ’em.
No sermon beside
The crabs so edified.

Fish great and fish small,
Lords, lackeys, and all,
Each looked at the preacher
Like a reasonable creature.
At God’s word,
They Anthony heard.

The sermon now ended,
Each turned and descended;
The pikes went on stealing,
The eels went on eeling.
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.

The crabs are backsliders,
The stock-fish thick-siders,
The carps are sharp-set,
All the sermon forget.
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.

by ABRAHAM A SANCTA-CLARA (1644-1709)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Dead Child. by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Life to her was a perfect flower,
And every petal a jeweled hour,
Till all at once–we know not why–
God sent a frost from His clear blue sky.

Life to her was a fairy rune;
Her light feet tripped to the lilting tune,
Till all at once–we know not why–
God stopped th’ enchanting melody.

Life to her was a picture book
That her glad eyes searched with eager look
Till all at once–we know not why–
God put the wondrous volume by.

by CHARLES HAMILTON MUSGROVE (1871-1926)
Public Domain Poetry