WAGON POEMS

A House Upon The Height

399

A House upon the Height-
That Wagon never reached-
.....

Emily Dickinson

Upstairs

I too have a garret of old playthings.
I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs.
I have a wagon and the wheels gone upstairs.
I have guns and a drum, a jumping-jack and a magic lantern.
.....

Carl Sandburg

Directive

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
.....

Robert Frost

Zero

The gate, on ice-hoarse hinges, stiff with frost,
Croaks open; and harsh wagon-wheels are heard
Creaking through cold; the horses' breath is furred
Around their nostrils; and with snow deep mossed
.....

Madison Julius Cawein

Michael Oaktree

Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed
Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon
Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

.....

Alfred Noyes

Gone With A Handsomer Man.

JOHN:

I've worked in the field all day, a-plowin' the "stony streak;"
I've scolded my team till I'm hoarse; I've tramped till my legs are weak;
.....

Will Carleton

The Good Little Boy

Once there was a boy who never
Tore his clothes, or hardly ever,
Never made his sister mad,
Never whipped fer bein' bad,
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi

I.

Over the road from the three star Galaxy Hotel is our hotel,
the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street,
.....

S. K. Kelen

Crapshooters

SOMEBODY loses whenever somebody wins.
This was known to the Chaldeans long ago.
And more: somebody wins whenever somebody loses.
This too was in the savvy of the Chaldeans.
.....

Carl Sandburg

The Approach Of Christmas

There's a little chap at our house that is being mighty good-
Keeps the front lawn looking tidy in the way we've said he should;
Doesn't leave his little wagon, when he's finished with his play,
On the sidewalk as he used to; now he puts it right away.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Things I Didn't Know I Loved

it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
.....

Nazim Hikmet

Breitmann In Kansas

Vonce oopon a dimes, goot vhile afder der var vas ofer, der Herr Breitmann vent oud Vest, drafellin' apout like efery dings "circuivit terram et perambulavit eam," ash der Teufel said ven dey ask him: "How vash you und how you has peen?"

Von efenings he vas drafel mit some ladies und shendlemans, und he shtaid incognitus. Und dey singed songs, dill py und py one of de ladies say: "Ish any podies here ash know de crate pallad of Hans Breitmann's Barty?" Den Hans say: "Ecce Gallus! I am dat rooster!" Den der Hans dook a trink und a let-bencil und a biece of baper, und goes indo himself a little dimes und den coomes out again mit dis boem:

.....

Charles G. Leland

The Junk Man

I am glad God saw Death
And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired
of living:

.....

Carl Sandburg

The Feet Of People Walking Home

7

The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go-
.....

Emily Dickinson

Men

Man is a creature of a thousand whims;
The slave of hope and fear and circumstance.
Through toil and martyrdom a million years
Struggling and groping upward from the brute,
.....

Hanford Lennox Gordon

Malines

Vers les prés le vent cherche noise
Aux girouettes, détail fin
Du château de quelque échevin,
Rouge de brique et bleu d'ardoise,
.....

Paul Verlaine

Omaha

Red barns and red heiffers spot the green
grass circles around Omaha--the farmers
haul tanks of cream and wagon-loads of
cheese.
.....

Carl Sandburg

Bergliot

(In her lodgings)

To-day King Harald
Must hold his ting-peace;
.....

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Journey To The Dead

Forth from the East, up the ascent of Heaven,
Day drove his courser with the Shining Mane;
And in Valhalla, from his gable perch,
The golden-crested Cock began to crow:
.....

Matthew Arnold

Moesta Et Errabunda (grieving And Wandering)

Dis-moi ton coeur parfois s'envole-t-il, Agathe,
Loin du noir océan de l'immonde cité
Vers un autre océan où la splendeur éclate,
Bleu, clair, profond, ainsi que la virginité?
.....

Charles Baudelaire

Drum-taps

Aroused and angry,
I thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war;
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd, and I resign'd myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.
.....

Walt Whitman

Little Breeches

I don't go much on religion,
I never ain't had no show;
But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
On the handful o' things I know.
.....

John Hay

Heat

From plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the glare.
.....

Archibald Lampman

Bullocky

Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
.....

Judith Wright

Saturday Night In The Parthenon

Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
And in the corner away from the hearth, the red wheels
Of an up-ended chariot slowly turn.
.....

Kenneth Patchen

Love Lies Sleeping

from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.

.....

Elizabeth Bishop

Manners

For a Child of 1918

My grandfather said to me
as we sat on the wagon seat,
.....

Elizabeth Bishop

Richard Coeur De Lion

Richard the First, Coeur-de-Lion,
Is a name that we speak of with pride,
Though he only lived six months in England
From his birth to the day that he died.
.....

Marriott Edgar

Song

Whene'er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon that I'm rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at the Uâ??
.....

George Canning

Preface

First, plain speech in the mother tongue.
Hearing it, you should be able to see
Apple trees, a river, the bend of a road,
As if in a flash of summer lightning.
.....

Czeslaw Milosz

Blue Island Intersection

Six streets come together here.
They feed people and wagons into the center.
In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags,
Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby-buggies.
.....

Carl Sandburg

Localities

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.....

Carl Sandburg

How We Kept The Day.

I.
The great procession came up the street,
With clatter of hoofs and tramp of feet;
There was General Jones to guide the van,
.....

Will Carleton

Riding To Town

When labor is light and the morning is fair,
I find it a pleasure beyond all compare
To hitch up my nag and go hurrying down
And take Katie May for a ride into town;
.....

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Tale Of Custard The Dragon

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
.....

Ogden Nash

The Exchange

Between Wytheville, Virginia
and the North Carolina line,
he meets a wagon headed
where he's been, seated beside
.....

Ron Rash

Elijah's Wagon Knew No Thill

1254

Elijah's Wagon knew no thill
Was innocent of Wheel
.....

Emily Dickinson

Threnody

The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
.....

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walking The Ties

This was the old woman who ate canned dog food
This the red wagon she pulled through the alleys
This the pack of stray dogs that went with her

.....

Jared Carter

Anna Imroth

Cross the hands over the breast here-so.
Straighten the legs a little more-so.
And call for the wagon to come and take her home.
Her mother will cry some and so will her sisters and
.....

Carl Sandburg

Tract

I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral-
for you have it over a troop
of artists-
.....

William Carlos Williams

Horses And Men In Rain

Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.

Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches--and talk about mail carriers and
.....

Carl Sandburg

The Circus-day Parade

Oh, the Circus-Day parade! How the bugles played and played!
And how the glossy horses tossed their flossy manes, and neighed,
As the rattle and the rhyme of the tenor-drummer's time
Filled all the hungry hearts of us with melody sublime!
.....

James Whitcomb Riley

Elegy Before Death

There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
.....

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Part 6 Of Trout Fishing In America

THE HUNCHBACK TROUT



.....

Richard Brautigan

Percy Bysshe Shelley

My father who owned the wagon-shop
And grew rich shoeing horses
Sent me to the University of Montreal.
I learned nothing and returned home,
.....

Edgar Lee Masters

October On The Sheep Range

There ain't no leaves to turn to gold-
There ain't a tree in sight-
In other ways the herder's told
October's come, all right.
.....

Arthur Chapman

The Burial Of Saint Brendan

ON the third day from this (Saint Brendan said)
I will be where no wind that filled a sail
Has ever been, and it blew high or low:
For from this home-creek, from this body's close
.....

Padraic Colum

Nothing To Do

Don't know what to do to-day.
Got so many things to do
I can't do them. Want to play,
But my toys are all too new
.....

Madison Julius Cawein

Harvest

Cows in the stall and sheep in the fold;
Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold;
A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere;
The twitter of killdees keen in the air;
.....

John Charles Mcneill