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
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
One who claims that he knows about it
Tells me the earth is a vale of sin;
But I and the bees, and the birds we doubt it,
And think it a world worth living in.
Whatever you want, if you wish for it long,
With constant yearning and ceaseless desire,
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong
That they never grow languid, never tire,
Why, over the storm cloud and out of the dark
It will come flying some day to you,
As the dove with the olive branch flew to the ark,
And the wish you’ve been dreaming,
it will come true.
by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX (1855–1919)
Public Domain Poetry
O south star through the trees seen — where are
your kin on this flustered night? Hidden,
shy, sequestered in the sky above
the cooling clouds and their sparkling motes.
The half-empty moon has tipped his cup,
let the dregs fall upon the slumbered Earth.
We travel from darkness to darkness,
the light intermittent, inconstant,
afflicted with mighty tracts of void.
Your perturbations are a matter
of atmosphere: that is to say, Earth,
not that mighty glare on the other side
of time. We are phantoms: you of the past
long-dissipated, me of the future
yet unimagined, each tender view
occluded by ice crystals and chance —
by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2026
Life with the sun in it –
Shaded by gloom!
Life with the fun in it –
Shadowed by Doom!
Life with its Love ever haunted by Hate!
Life’s laughing morrows frowned over by Fate!
Young Life’s wild gladness still waylaid by Age!
All its sweet badness still mocking the sage!
What can e’er measure the joy of its strife?
What boundless leisure
Count the heaped treasure
Of woe, that’s the pleasure
And beauty of Life?
by THOMAS RUNCIMAN (1841 – 1909)
Public Domain Poetry
unbolt me 