Go, stalk the red deer o’er the heather,
Ride, follow the fox if you can!
But, for pleasure and profit together,
Allow me the hunting of Man,
The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul
To its ruin, the hunting of Man.
by RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936)
Public Domain Poetry
Gone! and they return no more,
But they leave a light in the heart;
The murmur of waves that kiss a shore
Will never, I know, depart.
Gone! yet with us still they stay,
And their memories throb through life;
The music that hushes or stirs to-day,
Is toned by their calm or strife.
Gone! and yet they never go!
We kneel at the shrine of time:
‘Tis a mystery no man may know,
Nor tell in a poet’s rhyme.
by ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN (1839-1886)
Public Domain Poetry
Lay down, lay down, antlers fallen from
the crown. A king falls, a doe dies, and wise
the mouse who makes his house in the moss!
O the cost of this solitary life —
paid out in blood and mountaintops, the coin
of misunderstandings. The warbler
cannot understand the mockingbird’s
almost-speech. I’m tired. I’m talking in code.
The deer’s wild heart beats its mighty last.
This too shall pass. The vultures crack the bones.
by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2025
Full of life, now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States,
To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,
To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you.
When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;
Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)
by WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)
Public Domain Poetry
unbolt me 