Dictionary Poems

When the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, … Continued

By what sendsthe white kidsI ain’t sent:I know I can’tbe President.What don’t bugthem white kidssure bugs me:We know everybodyain’t free. Lies written downfor white folksain’t for us a-tall:Liberty And Justice–Huh!–For All? – Children’s Rhymes by Langston Hughes

What man has not betrayed Some sacred trust?If haply you are made Of honest dust,Vaunt not of glory due, Of triumph won:Think, think of duties you Have left undone. But if in mercy hope, Despite your sin,The gates of Heaven ope’ To let you in:Pray, pray that when God reads Your judgement due,He may forget … Continued

Like trains of cars on tracks of plushI hear the level bee:A jar across the flowers goes,Their velvet masonry Withstands until the sweet assaultTheir chivalry consumes,While he, victorious, tilts awayTo vanquish other blooms. His feet are shod with gauze,His helmet is of gold;His breast, a single onyxWith chrysoprase, inlaid. His labor is a chant,His idleness … Continued

You who celebrate bygones,Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself,Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests,I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself in his own rights,Pressing the pulse of the life that has … Continued

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,And dark and true and tender is the North.O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and lightUpon her … Continued

If I should die,And you should live,And time should gurgle on,And morn should beam,And noon should burn,As it has usual done;If birds should build as early,And bees as bustling go, —One might depart at optionFrom enterprise below!‘T is sweet to know that stocks will standWhen we with daisies lie,That commerce will continue,And trades as briskly … Continued

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,Tears from the depth of some divine despairRise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,That brings our friends up from the underworld,Sad as the … Continued

‘A ticket for the lotteryI’ve purchased every week,’ said she ‘For years a scoreThough desperately poor am I,Oh how I’ve scrimped and scraped to buy One chance more. Each week I think I’ll gain the prize,And end my sorrows and my sighs, For I’ll be rich;Then nevermore I’ll eat bread dry,With icy hands to cry … Continued

Said a sheet of snow-white paper, Pure was I created, and pure will I remain for ever. I would rather be burnt and turn to white ashes than suffer darkness to touch me or the unclean to come near me. The ink-bottle heard what the paper was saying, and it laughed in its dark heart; … Continued