My Favourite Poems

WINTER SCULPTURE
The weather hand of some sifts white before the clock face of the night; with silver-finger filigree, frost every house and fence and tree. A scene to grace all calendars, within the range of men and stars is sketched with strokes so brief and sure. we find no need for signature.
SPRING SONG
Listen, buds, it's March twenty-first; Don't you know enough to burst? Come on, birds, unlock your throats! Come on, gardeners, shed your coats! Come on, zephyrs, come on flowers! Come on, grass, and violet showers! And come on, lambs, in frisking flocks! Salute the vernal equinox! Twang the cheerful lute and zither! Spring is absolutely hither! Yester eve was dark despair, With winter, winter, everywhere; Today, upon the other hand, 'Tis spring throughout this happy land. Oh, such is Nature's chiaroscuro, According to the Weather Bureau. What though the blasts of Winter sting? Officially, at least, it's Spring!
-Ogden Nash
SUCCESS If you think you are beaten, you are If you think you dare not, you don't If you like to win, but you think you can't It is almost certain you won't If you think you will loose, you're lost For out of the world we find Success begins with a fellow's will It's all in the state of mind If you think you are outclassed, you are You've got to think high to rise You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man But soon or late the man who wins Is the man who thinks he can
-Unknown
OPPORTUNITY
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords and shield. A prince's banner wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel That blue blade that the king's son bears - but this Blunt thing!" he snap't and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bested, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt - buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatch it; and with battle shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day.
-Edward Rowland Sill
THE ISLAND
Great ports and swarming cities There be by all the seas, With shipping in their harbours And bales upon the quays; But I'd leave them all behind me To cruise the wide world around, And maybe find an island (A lost and lonely island!) That no one else has found. If East or West I know not, If North or South the Line, Ringed around with whispering palm trees, Or crowned with singing pine; But in some unsoiled ocean I know must surely be An undiscovered island (A sweet and secret island!) That waits for none but me!
-Unknown
MORNING They dream: A workman dreams, lowering his pickax, his sweat turned into scars by the flash. A wife dreams, bending over her sewing machine, midst the diseased odor of her parted skin. A box-office girl dreams, her hidden scars like crab's claws, on both arms. A match seller dreams, with pieces of shattered glass sticking in his neck. They dream: That through an element made from pitchblende and carnotite By means of an endless chain of energy, Famished deserts are changed into fertile, fields; Bright canals run round the base of crumbling mountains, Under artificial suns, in the wastelands of the Artic cities and towns are built of pure gold. They dream: That festival flags wave in the shade of trees Where working people take their rest, and legends of Hiroshima are told by tender lips. They dream: That those swine in man's shape who do not know how to use power from the earth's center except for slaughter. Survived only in illustrated books for the little ones. That the energy of ton million horse power per gram, one thousand times as strong as high explosive, Be delivered, out of the atom into the hands of the people. That the rich harvest of science Be conveyed, in peace, to the people
Like bunches of succulent grapes wet with dew Gathered in At dawn.

-Sankichi Toge A survivor of the Hiroshima blast.

My Favourite Poems

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WINTER SCULPTURE

Like bunches of succulent grapes wet with dew Gathered in At dawn.

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