Tree Blessing

-Ruskin Bond

Grandmother often said:
"Blessed is the house upon whose walls
The shade of an old tree softly falls.
"We had no tree near our cottage
So I planted one last spring.
It's six months old now,
And growing fastIn six years time there'll be
A blessing.

City, city

-Marci Ridlon

City, city,
Wrong and bad,
Looms above me
When I'm sad,
Throws its shadow on my care,
Sheds its poison
In my air,
Pounds me with its
Noisy fist,
Sprays me with its
Sooty mist.


Till, with sadness
On my face,
I long to live
Another place.

City, city
Golden-clad
Shines around me
When I'm glad,
Lifts me with its
Strength and height,
Fills me with its
Sound and sight,


Takes me to its
Crowded heart,
Holds me so
Won't depart.
Till, with gladness
On my face,
I wouldn't live
Another place.

April Rain Song

-Langston Hughes.

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
The rain makes still pools on the pavement.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night.
And I love the rain.

The Train

An unknown African poet.

(Translated by Gerhard Kubik)


The train
Carries everybody
Everywhere.

It carries the men
It carries the women.
It carries me too
A blind boy.

Wherever it carries me
Alas, I met distress
And knock against it
With my knee.

It carries the men
It carries the women.
It carries the blind boy
To his distress.

April Rain Song

-Langston Hughes.

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
The rain makes still pools on the pavement.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night.
And I love the rain.

A poem by an African Man

When
I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die, I still Black.......

And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray.................

And you calling me Colored ???????????

Abou Ben Adhem

James leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men."
The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Where the mind is without fear

Rabindranath Tagore



Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Ozymandias of Egypt

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd 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.