Poems

A Graveyard Poem by Unknown Pause a moment, as you pass by. As you are now, so once were we. As we are now, so shall you be! Behold this grave as you pass by For where you stand so once was I And where I am you soon shall be So prepare for death and follow me. If by Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! Ozymandias by  Percy Shelley I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

My Dead Friends by Marie Howe

I have begun, when I’m weary and can’t decide an answer to a bewildering question

to ask my dead friends for their opinion and the answer is often immediate and clear.

Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child in my middle age?

They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads to joy, they always answer,

to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy’s ashes were — it’s green in there, a green vase,

and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes. Billy’s already gone through the frightening door,

whatever he says I’ll do.