Life is FineBy Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,I set down on the bank.I tried to think but couldn’t,So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!I came up twice and cried!If that water hadn’t a-been so coldI might’ve sunk and died.

But it wasCold in that water!It was cold!

I took the elevatorSixteen floors above the ground.I thought about my babyAnd thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!I stood there and I cried!If it hadn’t a-been so highI might’ve jumped and died.

But it wasHigh up there!It was high!

So since I’m still here livin’I guess I will live on.I could’ve died for love—But for livin’ I was born.

Though you may hear me holler,And you may see me cry—I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine!Life is fine!Life is fine!

A Psalm of LifeBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!—For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not the goal;Dust thou art, to dust returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each to-morrowFind us father than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,In the bivouac of Life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle!Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, how’er pleasant!Let the dead Past bury it’s dead!Act, —act in the living Present!Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave us behind usFootprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing.With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.

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A Song of GreatnessA Chippewa song, translated by Mary Austin

When I hear the old menTelling of heroes,Telling of great deedsOf ancient days,When I hear them telling,Then I think within meI too am one of these.

When I hear the peoplePraising great ones,Then I know that I tooShall be esteemed,I too when my time comesShall do mightily.

The Road Not TakenBy Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn 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 tale with a sighSomewhere 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.

I Like to See It Lap the MilesBy Emily Dickinson

I like to see it lap the miles,And lick the valleys up,And stop to feed itself at tanks;And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,And, supercilious, peerIn shanties by the sides of roads;And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawly between,Complaining all the whileIn horrid, hooting stanza;Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;Then, punctual as a star,Stop—docile and omnipotent—At its own stable door.

This is Just to SayBy William Carlos Williams

I have eatenthe plumsthat were inthe icebox

and whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfast

Forgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold

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Woman WorkBy Maya Angelou

I’ve got the children to tendThe clothes to mendThe floor to mopThe food to shopThen the chicken to fryThe baby to dryI company to feedThe garden to weedI’ve got the shirts to pressThe tots to dressThe cane to cutI gotta clean up this hutThen see about the sickThe cotton to pick

Shine on me, sunshineRain on me, rainFall softly, dew dropsAnd cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from hereWith your fiercest windLet me float across the sky‘Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakesCover me with whiteCold icy kisses andLet me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving skyMountain, oceans, leaf and stoneStar shine, moon glowYou’re all that I can call my own

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningBy Robert Frost

Whose woods are these I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound’s the sweepOf 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.

HarlemBy Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry upLike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore—And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over—Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

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The Negro speaks of RiversBy Langston Hughes

I’ve known river:I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Mother to SonBy 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 darkWhere 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.

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I Wandered Lonely as a CloudBy William Wadsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but theyOut-did the sparkling leaves in glee;A poet could not be but gay,In such a jocund company!I gazed—and gazed—but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.

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A Narrow Fellow in the GrassBy Emily Dickinson

A narrow fellow in the grassOccasionally 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 feetAnd opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,A floor too cool for corn.Yet when a child, and barefoot,I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lashUnbraiding in the sun,--When, stooping to secure it,It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's peopleI know, and they know me;I feel for them a transportOf cordiality;

But never met this fellow,Attended or alone,Without a tighter breathing,And zero at the bone.

There is no Frigate like a BookBy Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away, Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry –  This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll –  How frugal is the Chariot That bears a Human soul.

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IfBy 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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Apostrophe to the OceanFrom Childe Harold’s PilgrimageBy George Gordon Byron

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,There is rapture on the lonely shore,There is society where none intrudes,By the deep Sea, and the music in its roar:I love not Man the less, but Nature more,From these our interviews, in which I stealFrom all I may be, or have seen before,To mingle with the Universe, and feelWhat I can ne’er express, yet cannot conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;Man marks the earth with ruin—his controlStops with the shore;—upon the watery plainThe wrecks are all they deed, nor doth remainA shadow of man’s revenge, save his own,When for a moment, like a drop of rain,He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fieldsAre not a spoil for him,—thou dost ariseAnd shake him from thee; the vile strength he wieldsFor earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,And send’st him, shivering in thy playful sprayAnd howling, to his gods, where haply liesHis petty hope in some near port or bay,And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the wallsOf rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,And monarchs tremble in their capitals.The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs makeTheir clay creator the vain title takeOf lord of thee, and arbiter of war;These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,They melt into thy yeast of waves, which marAlike the Armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

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Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?Thy waters wasted them while they were freeAnd many a tyrant since: their shores obeyThe stranger, slave, or savage; their decayHas dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play—Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s formGlasses itself in tempests; in all time,Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,Icing the pole, or in the torrid climeDark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—The image of Eternity—the throneOf the Invisible; even from out thy slimeThe monsters of the deep are made; each zoneObeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joyOf youthful sports was on thy breast to beBorne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boyI wantoned with thy breakers—they to meWere a delight; and if the freshening seaMade them a terror—‘twas a pleasing fear,For I was as it were a child of thee,And trusted to thy billows far and near,And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.

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A Walloping Window BlindBy Charles E. Carryl

A capital ship for an ocean tripWas the Walloping Window Blind.No gale that blew dismayed her crewOr troubled the captain's mind.

The man at the wheel was taught to feelContempt for the wildest blow.And it often appeared when the weather had clearedThat he'd been in his bunk below.

The boatswain's mate was very sedate,Yet fond of amusement too;And he played hopscotch with the starboard watchWhile the captain tickled the crew.

And the gunner we had was apparently madFor he stood on the cannon's tail,And fired salutes in the captain's bootsIn the teeth of a booming gale.

The captain sat in a commodore's hatAnd dined in a royal wayOn toasted pigs and pickles and figsAnd gummery bread each day.

But the rest of us ate from an odious plateFor the food that was given the crewWas a number of tons of hot cross bunsChopped up with sugar and glue.

We all felt ill as mariners willOn a diet that's cheap and rude,And the poop deck shook when we dipped the cookIn a tub of his gluesome food.

Then nautical pride we laid aside,And we cast the vessel ashoreOn the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smilesAnd the Anagzanders roar.

Composed of sand was that favored landAnd trimmed in cinnamon straws;And pink and blue was the pleasing hueOf the Tickletoeteasers claws.(continued on next page)

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We climbed to the edge of a sandy ledgeAnd soared with the whistling bee,And we only stopped at four o'clockFor a pot of cinnamon tea.

From dawn to dark, on rubagub barkWe fed, till we all had grownUncommonly thin. Then a boat blew inOn a wind from the torriby zone.

She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care,And we cheerily put to sea.We plotted a course for the Land of Blue Horse,Due west 'cross the Peppermint Sea.

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Caged BirdBy Maya Angelou

A free bird leapson the back of the windand floats downstreamtill the current endsand dips his wingin the orange sun raysand dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalksdown his narrow cagecan seldom see throughhis bars of ragehis wings are clipped andhis feet are tiedso he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird singswith a fearful trillof things unknownbut longed for stilland his tune is heardon the distant hillfor the caged birdsings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breezeand the trade winds soft through the sighing treesand the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawnand he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreamshis shadow shouts on a nightmare screamhis wings are clipped and his feet are tiedso he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird singswith a fearful trillof things unknown but longed for stilland his tune is heardon the distant hillfor the caged birdsings for freedom.

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SympathyBy Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,And the river flows like a stream of glass;When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wingTill its blood is red on the cruel bars;For he must fly back to his perch and clingWhen he fain would be on the bough a-swing;And a pain still throbs in the old, old scarsAnd they pulse again with a keener sting—I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—When he beats his bars and he would be free;It is not a carol of joy or glee,But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—I know why the caged bird sings!

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All the World’s a StageFrom As You Like ItBy William Shakespeare

All the world’s a stageAnd all the men and women merely players:They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,And shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwilling to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woefull balladMade to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good carpon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slippered pantaloon,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishess and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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Lift Ev’ry Voice and SingBy James Weldon Johnson

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,Till earth and heaven ring,Ring with the harmonies of Liberty,Let our rejoicing riseHigh as the list’ning skies,Let is resound loud as the rolling sea.Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught usSing a song full of hope that the present has brought usFacing the rising sun of our new day begun,Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trodBitter the chast’ning rod,Felt in the days when hope unborn had died

Yet with a steady beatHave not our weary feetCome to the place for which our fathers sighed?We have come over a way that with tears has been wateredWe have come, treading our path thro’ the blood of the slaughtered,Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at lastWhere the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,God of our silent tears,Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;Thou who hast by Thy might,Led us into the light,Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we meet Thee,Let our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,True to our God, true to our native land.

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Father WilliamBy Lewis Carroll

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,“And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head—Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,“I feared it might injure the brain;But no that I’m perfectly sure I have none,Why, I do it again and again.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,And have grown most uncommonly fat;Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door—Pray; what is the reason of that?”

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,“I kept all my limbs very suppleBy the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—Allow me to sell you a couple.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weakFor anything tougher than suet;Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,And argued each case with my wife;And the muscular strength which it gave to my jawHas lasted the rest of my life.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly supposeThat your eyes was as steady as ever;Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—What made you so awfully clever?”

“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”Said his father, “don’t give yourself airs!Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?Be off, or I’ll kick you down the stairs!”

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The RavenBy Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—Only this, and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken and uncertain rustling of each purple curtainThrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—Some late visitor entreating entrances at my chamber door;—That it is, and nothing more.”

Presently, my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door—Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no tokenAnd the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore”—Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice:Let me see, then what thereat is, and this mystery explore—Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—‘Tis the wind and nothing more.”

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Once here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore—Tell me what they lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,Though its answer little meaning---little relevancy bore;For we cannot help agreeing that no living human beingEver yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door—Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke onlyThat one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—Till I scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown before—On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful DisasterTill the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden boreOf ‘Never—nevermore.’”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linkingFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—What this grim, ungainly, ghastly and ominous bird of yoreMeant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressingTo the fowl whose fiery eyes no burned into my bosom’s core;This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease recliningOn the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,She shall press, ah, nevermore!(continued on the next page)

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Then me thought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censerSwung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent theeRespite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forgot this lost Lenore!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thinking evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—Is there—I there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil!By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels names Lenore—Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,” I shrieked, upstarting—“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spkoken!Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sittingOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floorShall be lifted—nevermore!

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Myself Edgar A. Guest

I have to live with myself and so I want to be fit for myself to know.I want to be able as days go by,always to look myself straight in the eye;I don't want to stand with the setting sun and hate myself for the things I have done.I don't want to keep on a closet shelf a lot of secrets about myself and fool myself as I come and go into thinking no one else will ever know the kind of person I really am, I don't want to dress up myself in sham.I want to go out with my head erect I want to deserve all men's respect;but here in the struggle for fame and wealth I want to be able to like myself. I don't want to look at myself and know that I am bluster and bluff and empty show.I never can hide myself from me;I see what others may never see;I know what others may never know, I never can fool myself and so, whatever happens I want to be self respecting and conscience free.

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