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Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost (1874–1963) Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.    

My November Guest Robert Frost (1874–1963) My sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s […]

A November Night Sara Teasdale There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street — Why can’t you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I’d twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were […]

October Edward Thomas (1878–1917) The green elm with the one great bough of gold Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, — The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white, Harebell and scabious and tormentil, That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun, Bow down to; and the wind travels too light To […]

Poppies in October Sylvia Plath Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts. Nor the woman in the ambulance Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly — A gift, a love gift Utterly unasked for By a sky Palely and flamily Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes Dulled to a halt under […]

October Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 –1906) October is the treasurer of the year, And all the months pay bounty to her store; The fields and orchards still their tribute bear, And fill her brimming coffers more and more But she, with youthful lavishness, Spends all her wealth in gaudy dress, And decks herself in garments […]

The Summer Day Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of […]

A Moment Mary Elizabeth Coleridge The clouds had made a crimson crown     Above the mountains high. The stormy sun was going down     In a stormy sky. Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,     And hold your breath between? In all the ages this can never be     As if […]

Defeated Sophie Jewett When the last fight is lost, the last sword broken; The last call sounded, the last order spoken; When from the field where braver hearts lie sleeping, Faint, and athirst, and blinded, I come creeping, With not one waving shred of palm to bring you, With not one splendid battle-song to sing […]

Fire and Ice Robert Frost 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 say that for destruction ice Is also great And would […]

The Road Not Taken 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 […]

Desiderata Max Ehrmann Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. […]

Wild Geese Mary Oliver 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 […]

Seeing for a Moment Denise Levertov I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young,        the news—always of death, […]

Let America Be America Again Langston Hughes (1901–1967) Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be […]