poetry

Poetry

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            TREES
              by
      Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree,
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks to God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by tools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

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.

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire,
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for the destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Gentlist of critics,does your memory hold
(I know it does) a record of the days
When I, a schoolboy, earned your generous praise
For halting verse and stories crudely told?
Over these childish scrawls the years have rolled,
They might not know the world's infriendly gaze;
But still your smile shines down familiar ways,
Touches my works and turns their dross to gold,

More dear today than in that vanished time
Comes your nigh praise to make me proud and strong,
In my poor notes you hear love's splendid chime,
So unto you does this, my work belong,
Take then, a little gift of fragile rhyme;
Your heart will change it to authentic song.

   THE SINGING GIRL
                By
        Joyce Kilmer

There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.
It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang
"My soul doth magnify the Lord."
The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.

       FIRE AND ICE
             By
         Robert Frost

       TO MY MOTHER
                  By
          Joyce Kilmer

   THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
                     By
            Robert Frost

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                   IF
              by
       Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone.
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on'";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

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