1. The Road Not Taken 2.
Sign for My Father, Who Stressed
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
the Bunt, David Bottoms
On the rough diamond,
the hand-cut field below the dog lot and barn,
we rehearsed the strict technique
of bunting. I watched from the infield,
the mound, the backstop
as your left hand climbed the bat, your legs
and shoulders squared toward the pitcher.
You could drop it like a seed
down either base line. I admired your style,
but not enough to take my eyes off the bank
that served as our center-field fence.
Years passed, three leagues of organized ball,
no few lives. I could homer
into the garden beyond the bank,
into the left-field lot Carmichael Motors,
and still you stressed the same technique,
the crouch and spring, the lead arm absorbing
just enough impact. That whole tiresome pitch
about basics never changing,
and I never learned what you were laying down.
Like a hand brushed across the bill of a cap,
let this be the sign
I'm getting a grip on the sacrifice.
3. INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
By Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
4. Valentine for Ernest Mann
Naomi Shihab Nye
You can't order a poem like you order a
taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take
two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in
reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was
crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was
ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented
them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had
been
hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives
give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the
odd
sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like,
but
not quite.
And let me know.
5. “AMBITION”
By Morris Bishop
I got pocketed behind 7X-3824;
He was making 65, but I can do a little more.
I crowded him on the curves, but I couldn’t
get past.
And on the straightaways there was always
some truck coming fast.
Then we got to the top of a mile-long incline
and I edged her out to the left, a little
over the white line,
And ahead was a long grade with construction
at the bottom,
And I said to the wife, “Now by golly I got’m!”
I bet I did 85 going down the long grade,
And I braked her down hard in front of the
Barricade,
And swung in ahead of him and landed fine
Behind 9W-7679.
6. Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor-
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin'landin's,
And turnin'corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there
ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now--
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
7. The Lady's Reward
by Dorothy Parker
Lady, lady, never start
Conversation toward your heart;
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.
Show yourself, by word and look,
Swift and shallow as a brook.
Be as cool and quick to go
As a drop of April snow;
Be as delicate and gay
As a cherry flower in May.
Lady, lady, never speak
Of the tears that burn your cheek-
She will never win him, whose
Words had shown she feared to lose.
Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you-
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.
8. The Spider's Web (Natural History)
by E.B White
The spider dropping down from twig
Unfolds a plan of her devising
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.
And all that journey down from space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.
 9. “Driving to Town Late to Mail A
Letter”
by Robert Bly
It is a cold and snowy night. The main
street is deserted.
The only things moving are swirls of snow.
As I lift the mailbox door, I feel the cold
iron,
There is a privacy I love in this snowy
night.
Driving around, I will waste more time.
A prayer for the twenty-first century
by John Marsden
May the road be free for the journey,
May it lead where it promised it would
May the stars that gave ancient bearings
Be seen, still be understood.
May every aircraft fly safely,
May every traveller be found,
May sailors in crossing the ocean
Not hear the cries of the drowned.
May gardens be wild like jungles,
May nature never be tamed,
May dangers create of us heroes,
May fears always have names.
May the mountains stand to remind us
Of what it means to be young,
May we be outlived by our daughters,
May we be outlived by our sons.
May the bombs rust away in the bunkers,
And the doomsday clock not be rewound,
May the solitary scientists, working,
Remember the holes in the ground.
May the knife remain in the holder,
May the bullet stay in the gun,
May those who live in the shadows
Be seen by those in the sun.
10. Waltzing the Spheres
Susan Scott Thompson
We pulled each other closer in the turn
around a center that we could not see-
This holding on was what I had to learn.
The sun can hold the planets, earth the
moon,
but we had to create our gravity
by always pulling closer in the turn.
Each revolution caused my head to whirl
so dizzily I wanted to break free,
but holding on was what I had to learn.
I fixed my eyes on something out there
firm,
and then our orbit steadied so that we
could pull each other closer in the turn.
The joy that circles with us round the
curve
is joy that passes surely as a peace,
and holding on is what we have to learn.
And if our feet should briefly leave the
earth,
no matter, earth was made for us to
leave,
and arms for pulling closer in the turn -
This holding on is what we have to learn.
 11. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (Dutch Lullaby)
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe---
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you
wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring
fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen
three:
Wynken,
Blynken,And Nod

The old moon laughed and sang a song,

As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea---
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish---
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fishermen
three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw

To the stars in the twinkling foam---
Then down from the skies came the
wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 't was a dream
they 'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea---
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
 12. Maybe Dats Youwr Pwoblem Too
by Jim Hall
All my powblems
who knows, maybe evwybody's pwoblems
is due to da fact, due to da awful twuth
dat I am SPIDERMAN.
I know, I know. All da dumb jokes:
No flies on you, ha ha,
and da ones about what do I do wit all
doze extwa legs in bed. Well, dat's funny
yeah.
But you twy being
SPIDERMAN for a month or two. Go
ahead.
You get doze cwazy calls fwom da
Gubbener askin you to twap some booglar
who's
only twying to wip off color TV sets.
Now, what do I cawre about TV sets?
But I pull on da suit, da stinkin suit,
wit dasucker cups on da fingers,
and get my wopes and wittle bundle of
equipment and den I go flying like cwazy
acwoss da town fwom woof top to woof
top.
Till der he is, some poor dumb color TV
slob
and I fall on him and we westle a widdle
Until I get him all woped. So big deal.
You tink when you SPIDERMAN
der's sometin big going to happen to you.
Well, I tell you what. It don't happen dat
way.
Nuttin happens. Gubbener calls, I go.
Bwing him to pwice. Gubbener calls again,
like dat over and over.
I tink I twy sometin diffunt. I tink I twy
sometin excitin like wacing cawrs.
Sometin to make
my heart beat at a difwent wate.
But den you just can't quit being sometin
like
SPIDERMAN.
You SPIDERMAN for life. Fowever. I
can't even
buin my suit. It won't buin. It's fwame
wesistent.
So maybe dat's youwr pwoblem too, who
knows.
So maybe dat's da whole pwoblem wif
evwytin.
Nobody can buin der suits, day all fwame
wesistent.
Who knows
13. Why I Read by Richard Peck
I read because one life isn't enough,
and in the pages of a book I can be
anybody;
I read because the words that build the
story
become mine, to build my life;
I read not for happy endings but for new
beginnings,
I'm just beginning myself and I woudn't
mind a map;
I read because I have friends who don't,
and young though they are,
they are beginning to run out of material;
I read because every journey begins at the
library,
and it's time for me to start packing
I read because one of these days I may
want to leave this town,
and I'm going to go everywhere and meet
everybody,
and I want to be READY !
14. The Millionth Circle
by Leia Sandmann (age 12)
Rippling outward
In
twinkling vibrations
Flickering under the silent
Orb of the moon
The stars giddy
With the sight of countless circles
The fish smile
A mere kiss can cause
a million circles
15. Books by Billy Collins
From the heart of this dark, evacuated campus
I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to
his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language.
I picture a figure in the act of reading, shoes on
a desk, head tilted into the wind of a book,
a man in two worlds, holding the rope of his tie
as the suicide of lovers saturates a page,
or lighting a cigarette in the middle of a theorem.
He moves from paragraph to paragraph
as if touring a house of endless, paneled rooms.
I hear the voice of my mother reading to me
from a chair facing the bed, books about horses
and dogs,
and inside her voice lie other distant sounds,
the horrors of a stable ablaze in the night,
a bark that is moving toward the brink of speech.
I watch myself building bookshelves in college,
walls within walls, as rain soaks New England,
or standing in a bookstore in a trench coat,
I see all of us reading ourselves away from
ourselves,
straining in circles of light to find more light until
the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs
that we follow across a page of fresh snow;
when evening is shadowing the forest
and small birds flutter down to consume the
crumbs,
we have to listen hard to hear the voices
of the boy and his sister receding into the
woods.
16. Ozymandias
by: Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of
stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose
frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions
read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless
things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart
that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
17. Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert,
repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your
body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell
you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of
the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean
blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and
exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-- Mary Oliver
from House of Light (1990)
 18. MY MOTHER PIECED QUILTS by Teresa Paloma Acosta
They were just meant as covers,
in winters
as weapons
against pounding January winds.
But it was just that every morning I
awoke to these
October ripened canvases,
passed my hand across their cloth faces
and began to wonder how you pieced
all these together- -
these strips of gentle Communion cotton
and flannel
nightgowns,
wedding organdies,
dime store velvets.
How you shaped patterns- - square and
oblong and round,
positioned,
balanced,
then cemented them
with your thread,
a steel needle,
a thimble.
How the thread darted in and out
galloping along the frayed edges, tucking
them in
as you did us at night.
Oh, how you stretched and turned and re-
arranged
your Michigan spring faded curtain pieces,
my father's Santa Fe work shirt,
the summer denims, the tweed of fall.
In the evening you sat at your canvas.
Our cracked linoleum floor - - the drawing
board.
me lounging on your arm,
and you staking out the plan;
whether to put the lilac-purple-of-
Easter against the red
plaid of winter-going-
into-spring,
whether to mix a yellow with blue
and white and paint the
Corpus Christi noon when my father
held your hand,
whether to shape a five-point star
from the
somber black silk you wore to
Grandmother's funeral.
You were the river current,
carrying the roaring notes,
forming them into pictures of a
little boy reclining,
a swallow flying.
You were the caravan master at the
reins,
driving your thread needle artillery
across the mosaic
cloth bridges,
delivering yourself in separate
testimonies.
Oh, Mother, you plunged me sobbing
and laughing
into our past,
into the river crossing at five,
into the spinach fields,
into the Plainview cotton rows,
into tuberculosis wards,
into braids and muslin dresses,
sewn hard and taut to withstand the
thrashings of
twenty-five years.
Stretched out they lay
armed/ready/shouting/celebrating.
Knotted with love,
the quilts sing on.
19. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening
By Robert Lee Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
20. Camomile Tea
by: Katherine Mansfield
Outside the sky is light with stars;
There's a hollow roaring from the sea.
And, alas! for the little almond flowers,
The wind is shaking the almond tree.
How little I thought, a year ago,
In the horrible cottage upon the Lee
That he and I should be sitting so
And sipping a cup of camomile tea.
Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.
We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.
Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,
The tap is dripping peacefully;
The saucepan shadows on the wall
Are black and round and plain to see.
21. A Poison Tree
by: William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
22. Numbers by Mary Cornish
I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.
23. I'm A Fool To Love You Cornelius Eady
Some folks will tell you the blues is a
woman,
Some type of supernatural creature.
My mother would tell you, if she could,
About her life with my father,
A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman.
She would tell you about the choices
A young black woman faces.
Is falling in love with some man
A deal with the devil
In blue terms, the tongue we use
When we don't want nuance
To get in the way,
When we need to talk straight.
My mother chooses my father
After choosing a man
Who was, as we sing it,
Of no account.
This man made my father look good,
That's how bad it was.
He made my father seem like an island
In the middle of a stormy sea,
Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.
There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.
And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.
Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look
He made my father look like a rock.
And is the blues the moment you realize
You exist in a stacked deck,
You look in a mirror at your young face,
The face my sister carries,
And you know it's the only leverage
You've got.
Does this create a hurt that whispers
How you going to do?
Is the blues the moment
You shrug your shoulders
And agree, a girl without money
Is nothing, dust
To be pushed around by any old breeze.
Compared to this,
My father seems, briefly,
To be a fire escape.
This is the way the blues works
Its sorry wonders,
Makes trouble look like
A feather bed,
Makes the wrong man's kisses
A healing.
24. praise song

Lucille Clifton who survive the spectacular quake

because
to my aunt blanche they spent their time making plans to go
who rolled from grass to driveway back
into the street one sunday morning. to the Mid-West and live near his parents
i was ten. i had never seen while the others wanted to steal the gold
a human woman hurl her basketball and ivory
of a body into the traffic of the world. then move to Los Angeles where they
Praise to the drivers who stopped in time. would rarely
Praise to the faith with which she rose call their mothers and almost never fly
after some moments then slowly walked home
sighing back to her family. and when they did for only a few days at a
Praise to the arms which understood time.
little or nothing of what it meant
but welcomed her in without judgment,
accepting it all like children might,
like God. 26. The Blue Bowl

Jane Kenyon
25. Fault Ron Koertge *
Like primitives we buried the cat
In the airport bar, I tell my mother not to with his bowl. Bare-handed
worry. we scraped sand and gravel
No one ever tripped and fell into the San back into the hole.
Andreas They fell with a hiss
Fault. But as she dabs at her dry eyes, I and thud on his side,
remember on his long red fur, the white feathers
those old movies where the earth does between his toes, and his
open. long, not to say aquiline, nose.
There's always one blonde entomologist, We stood and brushed each other off.
four There are sorrows keener than these.
deceitful explorers, and a pilot who's Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
good-looking ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
but not smart enough to take off his all night; now it clears, and a robin
leather jacket burbles from a dripping bush
in the jungle. like the neighbor who means well
Still, he and Dr. Cutie Bug are the only but always says the wrong thing.
ones
27. The Mending Wall By Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a
wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under
it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass
abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a
stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of
hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I
mean,
No one has seen them made or heard
them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them
there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to
each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly
balls
We have to use a spell to make them
balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are
turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling
them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
28. IN A STATION OF THE METRO
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell
him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good
neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't
it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a
wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to
him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage
armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good
neighbors."
 Ezra Pound
29. FOG
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
30. The Man he Killed by Thomas Hardy
1 "Had he and I but met
2 By some old ancient inn,
3 We should have sat us down to wet
4 Right many a nipperkin!
5 "But ranged as infantry,
6 And staring face to face,
7 I shot at him as he at me,
8 And killed him in his place.
9 "I shot him dead because --
10 Because he was my foe,
11 Just so: my foe of course he was;
12 That's clear enough; although
13 "He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
14 Off-hand like -- just as I --
15 Was out of work -- had sold his traps
--
16 No other reason why.
17 "Yes; quaint and curious war is!
18 You shoot a fellow down
19 You'd treat if met where any bar is,
20 Or help to half-a-crown."
31. A narrow Fellow in the Grass [cc]
A NARROW Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides--
You may have met Him--did you not
His notice sudden is--
The Grass divides as with a Comb--
A spotted shaft is seen--
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on--
He likes a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corn--
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot--
I more than once at noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash,
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone--
Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me--
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality--
But never met this Fellow,
Attended or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone.
Emily Dickinson
32. I'm Nobody! Who are you?
[cc]
I'M Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they'd
advertise--you know!
 How dreary--to be-- To tell your name--the
Somebody! livelong June--
How public--like a Frog-- To an admiring Bog!
Emily Dickinson (1858)

33. To a Mouse

On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell--
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou are no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast
my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna
see,
I guess an' fear!
34. Because I could not stop for Death--
[cc]
BECAUSE I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stopped for me--
The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
And Immortality.
We slowly drove--He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His Civility--
We passed the School, where Children
strove
At Recess--in the Ring--
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--
Or rather--He passed Us--
The Dews drew quivering and chill--
For only Gossamer, my Gown--
My Tippet--only Tulle--
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground--
The Roof was scarcely visible--
The Cornice--in the Ground--
Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity--
Emily Dickinson
35. 'OUT, OUT--' by Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks
of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew
across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could
count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and
rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from
work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them 'Supper'. At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to
leap--
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh.
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all--
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--
He saw all spoiled. 'Don't let him cut my hand
off
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him,
sister!'
 So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then -- the watcher at his pulse took
fright.
36. THE RUNAWAY by Robert Frost
Once when the snow of the year was beginning
to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say
'Whose colt?'
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his
head
And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he
fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim
and grey,
Like a shadow against the curtain of falling
flakes.
'I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow.
He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play
With the little fellow at all. He's running
away.
I doubt if even his mother could tell him,
"Sakes,
It's only weather". He'd think she didn't
know !
Where is his mother? He can't be out alone.'
And now he comes again with a clatter of
stone
And mounts the wall again with whited eyes
And all his tail that isn't hair up straight.
He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.
'Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,
When other creatures have gone to stall and
bin,
Ought to be told to come and take him in.'
37. I Can't Write a Poem
Forget it.
You must be kidding.
I'm still half asleep.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little -- less -- nothing! -- and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs
My eyes keep closing.
My brain isn't working.
I don't have a pencil.
I don't have any paper.
My desk is wobbly.
I don't know what to write about.
And besides, I don't even know how to
write a poem.
I've got a headache. I need to see the
nurse.
Time's up? Uh oh!
All I have is this dumb list of excuses.
You like it? Really? No kidding.
Thanks a lot. Would you like to see
another one?
-Bruce Lansky
38. Do Not Go Gentle into that Good
Night
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of
day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though Wise men at their end know dark
is right,
Because their words had forked no
lightning they
Do not so gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how
bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a
green bay.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in
flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its
way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with
blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be
gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
39. "All I Wanna Do"
Sheryl Crow, Tuesday Night Music Club
Hit it!
This ain't no disco
It ain't no country club either
This is LA!
"All I wanna do is have a little fun before
I die,"
Says the man next to me out of nowhere
It's apropos of nothing
He says his name's William but I'm sure
He's Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy
And he's plain ugly to me
And I wonder if he's ever had a day of
fun in his whole life
We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday
In a bar that faces a giant car wash
The good people of the world are washing
their cars
On their lunch break, hosing and
scrubbing
As best they can in skirts in suits
They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record
store too
Well, they're nothing like Billy and me,
cause
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
And you, my father, there on the sad
height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce
tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica
Boulevard
I like a good beer buzz early in the
morning
And Billy likes to peel the labels
From his bottles of Bud
He shreds them on the bar
Then he lights every match in an
oversized pack
Letting each one burn down to his thick
fingers
Before blowing and cursing them out
And he's watching the bottles of Bud as
they spin on the floor
And a happy couple enters the bar
Dangerously close to one another
The bartender looks up from his want ads
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica
Boulevard
Otherwise the bar is ours,
The day and the night and the car wash
too
The matches and the Buds and the clean
and dirty cars
The sun and the moon but
 All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica
Boulevard
40. The Long and Winding Road
Writer, lead vocal: Paul McCartney
The long and winding road that leads to your door, Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say.
Will never disappear,
I've seen that road before It always leads me here,
Leads me to your door.
The wild and windy night the rain washed away,
Has left a pool of tears crying for the day.
Why leave me standing here, let me know the
way
Many times I've been alone and many times I've
cried
Anyway you'll never know the many ways I've
tried, but
Still they lead me back to the long and winding
road
You left me standing here a long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here, lead me to you door
Da, da, da, da
41. Yesterday
Writer, lead vocal: Paul McCartney
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly, I'm not half to man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm.
42. Let It Be
Writer, lead vocal: Paul McCartney
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
 And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

43. THE RAVEN

by Edgar Allan Poe
(1845)

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, no longer,
weak and weary, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten implore;
lore, But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came rapping,
came a tapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my
chamber door. chamber door,
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened
chamber door- wide the door;-
Only this, and nothing more." Darkness there, and nothing more.
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
December, there wondering,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost fearing,
upon the floor. Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared
Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to dream before;
to borrow But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness
From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for gave no token,
the lost Lenore- And the only word there spoken was the
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels whispered word, "Lenore!"
name Lenore- This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the
Nameless here for evermore. word, "Lenore!"-
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each Merely this, and nothing more.
purple curtain Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never me burning,
felt before; Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I before.
stood repeating, "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my window lattice:
chamber door- Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this
Some late visitor entreating entrance at mystery explore-
my chamber door;- Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery
This it is, and nothing more." explore;-
'Tis the wind and nothing more."
 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flown before."
flirt and Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
flutter, Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days spoken,
of yore; "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute and store,
stopped or stayed Caught from some unhappy master whom
he; unmerciful Disaster
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my Followed fast and followed faster till his songs
chamber door- one burden bore-
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden
chamber door- bore
Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Of 'Never- nevermore'."
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into
smiling, smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of
it wore. bird, and bust and
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I door;
said, "art sure no Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to
craven, linking
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird
Nightly shore- of yore-
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous
Plutonian shore!" bird of yore
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable
discourse so plainly, expressing
Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my
bore; bosom's core;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease
being reclining
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight
chamber door- gloated o'er,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight
chamber door, gloating o'er,
With such name as "Nevermore." She shall press, ah, nevermore!
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed
spoke only from an unseen censer
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the
outpour. tufted floor.
Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee- by
then he fluttered- these angels he
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other hath sent thee
friends have flown Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy
before- memories of Lenore!
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this
lost Lenore!" "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." shrieked,
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!- prophet still, if upstarting-
bird or "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's
devil!- Plutonian shore!
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy
thee here ashore, soul hath spoken!
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust
enchanted- above my door!
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy
implore- form from off my
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, door!"
I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if is sitting
bird or On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber
devil! door;
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's
we both adore- that is dreaming,
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his
distant Aidenn, shadow on the
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels floor;
name Lenore- And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels on the floor
name Lenore." Shall be lifted- nevermore!
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." -- THE END
 44. A Loaf of Poetry Which is as tight-closed
by Naoshi Koriyama As a tiny bud.
Yet one is surprised
you mix To see the poem
the dough Gradually unfolding,
of experience Revealing its rich inner self,
with As one reads it
the yeast Again
of inspiration And over again.
and knead it well
with love 46. How to Eat a Poem by Eve Merriam
and pound it
with all your might Don't be polite.
and then Bite in.
leave it Pick it up with your fingers and lick the
until juice that may run down your chin.
it puffs out big It is ready and ripe now, whenever you
with its own inner force are.
and then You do not need a knife or fork or spoon
knead it again or plate or napkin or tablecloth.
and For there is not core
shape it or stem
into a round form or rind
and bake it or pit
in the oven or seed
of your heart. to throw away.

45. Unfolding Bud

by Naoshi Koriyama
One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on a richer color
And new dimensions.
One is not amazed,
At a first glance,
By a poem,
47. STEAM SHOVEL
The dinosaurs are not all dead.
I saw on raise its iron head.
To watch me walking down the road.
Beyond our house today.
It jaws were dripping with a load.
It must have heard me where I stopped,
Snorted white steam my way,
And stretched its long neck out to see, BY Charles Malam
And chewed, and grinned quite amiably.

48. The Builders

I told them a thousand times if I told them

once:
Stop fooling around, I said, with straw and
sticks;
They won't hold up; you're taking an awful
chance.
Brick is the stuff to build with, solid bricks.
You want to be impractical, go ahead.
But just remember, I told them; wait and see.

You're making a big mistake. Awright, I said,

The funny thing is, they didn't. There they

sat,
One in his crummy yellow shack, and one
Under his roof of twigs, and the wolf ate
Them, hair and hide. Well, what is done is
done.
But I'd been willing to help them, all along,
If only they'd once admitted they were
wrong.

Sara Henderson Hay

 49. Arithmetic

Carl Sandburg

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.
Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how many you had before
you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven-or five six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your
paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of
the window and see the blue sky-or the answer is wrong and you have to start all
over and try again and see how it comes out this time.
If you take a number and double it and double it again and then double it a few more
times, the number gets bigger and bigger and goes higher and higher and only
arithmetic can tell you what the number is when you
decide to quit doubling.
Arithmetic is where you have to multiply-and you carry the multiplication table in your
head and hope you won't lose it.
If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you eat one and a striped
zebra with streaks all over him eats the other, how many animal crackers will you
have if somebody offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say Nay
nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?
If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she gives you two fried eggs
and you eat both of them, who is better in arithmetic, you or your mother?
50. The Microscope by Maxine Kumin
Anton Leeuwenhoek was Dutch.
He sold pincushions, cloth, and such.
The waiting townsfolk fumed and fussed.
As Anton's dry goods gathered dust.
He worked, instead of tending store,
At grinding special lenses for
A microscope. Some of the things
He looked at were:
mosquitoes' wings,
the hairs of sheep, the legs of lice,
the skin of people, dogs, and mice;
ox eyes, spiders's spinning gear,
fishes' scales, a little smear
of his own blood,
and best of all,
the unknown, busy, very small
bugs that swim and bump and hop
inside a simple water drop.
Impossible! Most Dutchmen said.
This Anton's crazy in the head.
We ought to ship him off to Spain.
He says he's seen a housefly's brain.
He says the water that we drink
Is full of bugs. He's mad, we think!
They called him dumkopf, which means
dope.
That's how we got the microscope.
51. Superman
By John Updike
I drive my car to supermarket,
The way I take is superhigh,
A superlot is where I park it,
And Super Suds are what I buy.
Supersalesmen sell me tonic—
Super-Tone-O, for Relief.
The planes I ride are supersonic,
In trains, I like the Super Chief.
Supercillious men and women
Call me superficial—me,
Who so superbly learned to swim in
Supercolossality.
Superphosphate fed foods feed me;
Superservice keeps me new,
Who would dare to supersede me,
Super-super-superwho?
52. Sonic Boom
By John Updike
I’m sitting in the living room,
When, up above, the Thump of Doom
Resounds. Relax. It’s sonic boom.
The ceiling shudders at the clap,
The mirrors tilt, the rafters snap,
And Baby wakens from his nap.
“Hush, babe. Some pilot we equip,
Giving the speed of sound the slip.
Has cracked the air like a penny whip.”
Our world is far from frightening; I
No longer strain to read the sky
Where moving fingers (jet planes) fly,
Our world seems much too tame to die.
53. Southbound On The Freeway
A tourist came from Orbitville,
Parked in the air, and said:
The creatures of this star
Are made of metal and glass.
Through their transparent parts
You can see their guts.
Their feet are round and roll
On diagrams – or long
Measuring tapes – dark
With white lines.
They have four eyes
The two at the back are red.
Sometimes you can see a five – eyed
One, with a red eye turning
On the top of his head
He must be special –
The others respect him
And go slow,
When he passes, winding
Among them from behind.
They all hiss as they glide,
Like inches, down the marked
Tapes. These soft shapes,
Shadowy inside
The hard bodies – are they
Their guts or their brains?
May Swenson
And it if does, with one more pop,
I shan’t look up to see it drop.
54. The Base Stealer
Poised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tight-rope walker,
Fingertips pointing the opposites,
Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball,
Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on!
Running a scattering of steps sidewise,
How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,
Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,
He's only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,
Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate -
Now!
----Robert Francis
55. Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Langston Hughes
 56. Foul Shot

With two 60's stuck on the scoreboard Lands,

And two seconds hanging on the clock, Leans,

The solemn boy in the center of eyes, Wobbles

Squeezed by silence, Wavers,

Seeks out the line with his feeeet, Hesitates,

Soothes his hands along his uniform, Exasperates,

Gently drums the ball against the floor, Plays it coy

Then measures the waiting net, Until every face begs with unsounding
screams-
Raises the ball on his right hand,
And then
Balances it with fingertips,

Breathes,
And then
Crouches,

Waits,
And then,
And then through a stretching of
stillness, Right before ROAR-UP,

Nudges it upward. Dives down and through.

The ball

Slides up and out, By Edwin A. Hoey

 57. Casey at the Bat
Ernest Lawrence Thayer

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine

that day; Then from five thousand throats and more there
The score stood four to two with but one inning rose a lusty yell;
more to play. It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the
And then when Cooney died at first and Barrows dell;
did the same, It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game. the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The bat.
rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped
human breast; into his place;
They thought if only Casey could but get a whack There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on
at that-- Casey's face.
We'd put up even money now with Casey at the And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly
bat. doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy at the bat.
Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his
cake; hands with dirt;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped
sat, them on his shirt
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball
getting to the bat. into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of Casey's lip.
all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off And now the leather-covered sphere came
the ball; hurtling through the air,
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty
what had occurred~ grandeur there.
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a- Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded
hugging third. sped--
 "That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one,"
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw
the umpire said. his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball
From the benches, black with people, therego by again.
went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm waves on a The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are
stern and distant shore. clenched in hate;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the
the stand; plate.
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now
Casey raised his hand. he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's blow.
Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is
on; shining bright;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the The band is playing somewhere, and
spheroid flew; somewhere hearts are light,
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, And somewhere men are laughing, and
"Strike two." somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville--mighty Casey
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo has struck out.
answered, "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the
audience was awed.
 58. Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-
five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and
year.
He said to his friend, "If the British
march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal
light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and
farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Then he said "Good-night!" and with
muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and
street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the
grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the
shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old
North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him
made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's
tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret
dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the
bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and
near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle
girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North
Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he
turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the
dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in
passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and
fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom
and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in
his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the
steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and
deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the
ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he
rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford
town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and
bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord
town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning
breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have
read
How the British Regulars fired and
fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard
wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of
alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the
door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and
need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

59. Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

193. O Captain! My Captain!
1

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart! 5
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck, 15
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
60. Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

innuendoes,
I The blackbird whistling
Among twenty snowy Or just after.
mountains,
The only moving thing VI
Was the eye of the Icicles filled the long
blackbird. window
With barbaric glass.
II The shadows of the
I was of three minds, blackbird
Like a tree Crossed it, to and fro.
In which there are three The mood
blackbirds. Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
III
The blackbird whirled in VII
the autumn winds. O thin men of Haddam,
It was a small part of the Why do you imagine golden
pantomime. birds?
Do you not see how the
IV blackbird
A man and a woman Walks around the feet
Are one. Or the women about you?
A man and a woman and a
blackbird VIII
Are one. I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable
V rhythms;
I do not know which to But I know, too,
prefer, That the blackbird is
The beauty of inflections involved
Or the beauty of In what I know.
 equipage
IX For blackbirds.
When the blackbird flew
out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X XII
At the sight of blackbirds The river is moving.
Flying in a green light, The blackbird must be
Even the bawds of euphony flying.

Would cry out sharply. XIII

It was evening all
XI afternoon.
He rode over Connecticut It was snowing
In a glass coach. And it was going to snow.
Once, a fear pierced him, The blackbird sat
In that he mistook In the cedar-limbs.
The shadow of his

61. "Cinderella" by Anne Sexton

You always read about it: Once

the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.
Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
from diapers to Dior.
That story.
Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.
Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.
the wife of a rich man was on her
deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from
town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's
grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove
sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the
dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed
him.
Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland
came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That's the way with stepmothers.
Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince's ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.
As nightfall came she thought she'd
better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and
broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for
three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's
wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for
keeps.
He went to their house and the two
sisters
were delighted because they had lovely
feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the
slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she
simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the
white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring
forth.
That is the way with amputations.
They just don't heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.
At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.
Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for
eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.
62. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the
Ways" (1850)
How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and
height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of
sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for
Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from
Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's
faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with
the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God
choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
63. Live
"Lightening Crashes"
Lightening Crashes, a new mother cries
her placenta falls to the floor
The angel opens her eyes
the confusion sets in
before the doctor can even close the door
Lightening Crashes, an old mother dies
her intentions fall to the floor
the angel closes her eyes
the confusion that was hers
belongs now, to the baby down the hall
Oh now feel it comin’ back again
like a rollin’ thunder chasing the wind
forces pullin’ from the center of the
Earth again
I can feel it.
Lightening Crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she’s been waiting for
The angel opens her eyes
Pale blue colored iris, presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide
 64. Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret Men themselves have wondered

lies. What they see in me.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion They try so much
model's size But they can't touch
But when I start to tell them, My inner mystery.
They think I'm telling lies. When I try to show them
I say, They say they still can't see.
It's in the reach of my arms, I say,
The span of my hips, It's in the arch of my back,
The stride of my step, The sun of my smile,
The curl of my lips. The ride of my breasts,
I'm a woman The grace of my style.
Phenomenally. I'm a woman
Phenomenal woman, Phenomenally.
That's me. Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please, Now you understand
And to a man, Just why my head's not bowed.
The fellows stand or I don't shout or jump about
Fall down on their knees. Or have to talk real loud.
Then they swarm around me, When you see me passing
A hive of honey bees. It ought to make you proud.
I say, I say,
It's the fire in my eyes, It's in the click of my heels,
And the flash of my teeth, The bend of my hair,
The swing in my waist, The palm of my hand,
And the joy in my feet. The need for my care.
I'm a woman 'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally. Phenomenally.
Phenomenal women, Phenomenal woman,
That's me. That's me.

65. Alternate Player…
Beware: Do Not Read This
Poem
by Ishmael Reed
tonite, thriller was
abt an ol woman, so vain she
surrounded herself w/
many mirrors
it got so bad that finally
she
locked herself indoors &
her
whole life became the
mirrors
one day the villagers
broke
into her house, but she
was too
swift for them. she
disappeared
into a mirror
each tenant who bought the
house
after that, lost a loved one to
the ol woman in the mirror:
first a little girl
then a young woman
then the young woman/s husband
the hunger of this poem is
legendary
it has taken in many
victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs
back off from this poem
it is a greedy mirror
you are into this poem.
from
the waist down
nobody can hear you can they?
this poem has had you up to here
belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out frm this poem
relax now & go w/ this poem
move & roll on to this
poem
do not resist this poem
this poem has yr eyes
this poem has his head
this poem has his arms
this poem has his fingers
this poem has his
fingertips
this poem is the reader &
the
reader the poem
statistic: the us bureau of
missing persons re-
ports that in 1968 over 100,000
people
disappeared leaving no solid
clues
nor trace only
a space in the lives of their
friends