Sur la Mort de Marie - Pierre de Ronsard

Just as one sees, upon a branch, the rose in May,
to whose first flowered loveliness rich looks are lent,
with brighter organdies the very skies resent,
while dawn with tears will sprinkle it at break of day,

Immutable - Delmira Agustini

   O you who sleep so deep you cannot wake!
Every night in mourning I come upon your pupils,
Miraculous in life, miraculous in death,

Welcome Inside - Euphrase Kezilahabi

I

The traditional poets are playing now at sleeping
in the weak radiance of a setting sun
as their rhythms twist and turn on a sea of story,
having failed to plumb the depths of rationality.

Rebekah - Anne Ranasinghe

Dusk, and a gnawing wind from the desert.
Flat the land, yellow and ochre and brown;
Halfway point: Europe behind us in sunlight and mist,
We fly to the East, towards darkness.

Andy's Gone With Cattle - Henry Lawson

Our Andy's gone to battle now
'Gainst Drought, the red marauder;
Our Andy's gone with cattle now
Across the Queensland border.

Night Lamp - Agi Mishol

It takes time for the body
to grasp what the mind has decided

My Shadow - Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

There is a charming land - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger

There is a charming land

Where grow the wide-armed beeches

By the salt eastern Strand.

Old Denmark, so we call

These rolling hills and valleys,

And this is Freia's Hall.

Dame Martha’s Fountain - Bernhard Severin Ingemann

Dame Martha dwelt at Karisegaard,
 So many kind deeds she wrought:
If the winter were sharp, and the rich man hard,
 Her gate the indigent sought.

Little Little Man - Alfonsina Storni

Little little man, little little man,
set free your canary that wants to fly.
I am that canary, little little man,
leave me to fly.

One word song - Vinay Benjamin

"Papa?" she sang over the lines,
Tremulous with expectation,
A word summoned all tenderness,
Time, the knave, bowed in salutation.

Against Unworthy Praise - William Butler Yeats

O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What s not for their applause,
Being for a woman s sake.

The Poet VIII - Khahlil Gibran

He is a link between this and the coming world.
He is
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink.

In Due Season - John McCrae

If night should come and find me at my toil,
When all Life's day I had, tho' faintly, wrought,
And shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil
Were all my labour: Shall I count it naught

In praise of Shiva - Manikkavachakar

I wear a cassia garland
and cling to Shiva's round shoulders,

Alice Sick - Jean de La Fontaine

Sick, has Alice grown, and fearing dire event,
Some friend advised a servant should be sent
Her confessor to bring and ease her mind;—
Yes, she replied, to see him I'm inclined;
Let father Andrew instantly be sought:—
By him salvation usually I'm taught.

In the Mediterranean - Georges Moustaki

In this basin where
children with black eyes play
there are three continents
and centuries of history,
prophets of the gods,
the Messiah in person.
There is a fair summer there
that fears no autumn,
in the Mediterranean.

On Miss Wilhelmina Alexander - Robert Burns

’Twas even—the dewy fields were green,
 On every blade the pearls hang;
The zephyr wanton’d round the bean,
 And bore its fragrant sweets alang:
 In ev’ry glen the mavis sang,
All nature list’ning seem’d the while,
 Except where greenwood echoes rang,
Amang the braes o’ Ballochmyle.

There Is No Age - Eva Gore-Booth

There is no age, this darkness and decay
Is by a radiant spirit cast aside,
Young with the ageless youth that yesterday
Bent to the yoke of flesh immortal pride.

We plough the fields and scatter - Matthias Claudius

We plough the fields and scatter
the good seed on the land,
but it is fed and watered
by God's almighty hand;
he sends the snow in winter,
the warmth to swell the grain,
the breezes and the sunshine,
and soft refreshing rain.

Blue Earth - Judita Vaičiūnaitė

To dig each day in the blue earth—
               to mine amber

The Mu'allaqat - Baha ad-Din Zuhayr

"Does the blackened ruin, situated in the stony ground
between Durraj and Mutathallam, which did not speak to me,
when addressed, belong to the abode of Ummi Awfa?

The Shining Hours (II) - Emile Verhaeren

Although we saw this bright garden, wherein we
pass silently, flower before our eyes, it is
rather in us that grows the pleasantest and
fairest garden in the world.

The man on the bus - Jill Jones

He lets out a cat moan
in tune with something
in his head, or closer to his blood.