October, 1803 by William Wordsworth

October, 1803
by William Wordsworth

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:

Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air

With words of apprehension and despair:

While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,

Men unto whom sufficient for the day

And minds not stinted or untilled are given,

Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,

Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.

What do we gather hence but firmer faith

That every gift of noble origin

Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;

That virtue and the faculties within

Are vital,—and that riches are akin

To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?

Brilliant and timeless. A link to read more is here. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jwordsworth.htm

Women by Louise Bogan

Women 

Louise Bogan

Women have no wilderness in them,   

They are provident instead,   

Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts   

To eat dusty bread.   

They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass,   

They do not hear   

Snow water going down under culverts   

Shallow and clear.   

They wait, when they should turn to journeys,   

They stiffen, when they should bend.   

They use against themselves that benevolence   

To which no man is friend.   

They cannot think of so many crops to a field   

Or of clean wood cleft by an axe.   

Their love is an eager meaninglessness   

Too tense, or too lax.   

They hear in every whisper that speaks to them   

A shout and a cry.   

As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills   

They should let it go by.

Great observational and opinion piece. A link to read more of her poetry is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/louise-bogan

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls by E.E. Cummings

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds

(also, with the church's protestant blessings

daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)

they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,

are invariably interested in so many things—

at the present writing one still finds

delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?

perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy

scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D

.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above

Cambridge if sometimes in its box of

sky lavender and cornerless, the

moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

I am a big fan of this poet. I have included a link to read more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

Choose by Carl Sandburg

Choose

BY CARL SANDBURG

   THE single clenched fist lifted and ready,

Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.

                     Choose:

For we meet by one or the other.

I love a poems ability to simply make me think or look at something in a different way. I've included a link to read more about him and his poetry. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/carl-sandburg