Childhood Poems
The Nightingale
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A Conversation Poem, April, 1798
No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently.
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still.
A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
......
Alone
by Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
......
Ode On Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood
by William Wordsworth
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
I
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
......
All In The Golden Afternoon
by Lewis Carroll
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretense
Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
......
How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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 every day'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.
......
Satin and Silk
by Robert Creffield
There you were always racing against time,
a willing mother, a conscientious worker, a wife sublime.
There you were with your wondrous wrinkles, your drooping eyelids and your starched crisp cuffs to waitress pinafore uniform you ironed so much.
There you were at the filthy hospital kitchen sink sloshing the dollops of patients’ left-over dinner bits and your magnificent pride with its iron core, smiling through all that shit.
There you were standing at the bus stop early purple morning or late black night the back stocking line straight and right and shoes polished waxy and bright.
There you were seemingly solid and confident, but really wobbly and light, smoking too many fags through too many disappointed nights.
......
Vivien
by Robert Creffield
All blond curls and blur of blue velvet shorts
tilting arms splayed and plasticine legs bent
balancing along the bombsite wall, intrepid.
There was a difference between him and me
not like plastic cups and porcelain
rather a faint aura of all the things he’d become
and all the things I’d fail to be.
Behind him was a semi-detached
......
Clean
by Teo Luchin
Wash my hair,
Lavender shampoo, the squeak of cleanliness.
When you’re almost done,
Split my skull wide open.
Let it all spill out,
Cerebral storms unraveling in cold, biting splashes.
Take away all that I couldn’t purge.
Let the water flood the hollows of my head.
I’ll shake myself like a stray.
Flinging drops into my eyes.
......
Father's Gun Hanging at the Door.
by C Duggan
My father's gun hung on the door,
at first menacing, then necessary.
That gun kept out the wolves,
the bears,
and the wind howling.
The gun kept out the cold,
my mother no longer shivered,
and my father no longer took watch.
The stars no longer stared,
and the moon no longer seemed like a dream.
......
Shaping an adult
by Azaad M
If I could make my own adults,
I’d shape them gently—
after the foggy warmth of grandmothers' laps
and the way a mother tucks in the corners of a blanket like a promise.
I’d build them with leftover laughter from childhood
pressed into the hollows of their cheeks,
the kind that resurfaces when they laugh with their eyes closed.
I’d stir in a spoonful of Camus—
so they'd look at the sky and feel both lost and held.
......
