1. The earth has many keys, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 19460 times on American Poems.

The earth has many keys,
Where melody is not
Is the unknown peninsula.
Beauty is nature's fact.

But witness for her land,
And witness for her sea,
The cricket is her utmost
Of elegy to me.(Read full poem)

I Found you and I lost you, 
All on a gleaming day. 
The day was filled with sunshine, 
And the land was full of May.

A golden bird was singing 
Its melody divine, 
I found you and I loved you, 
And all the world was mine.

I found you... (Read full poem)

3. Lament - written by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Read 5048 times on American Poems.

Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have... (Read full poem)

JOY … weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel … painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face … slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room … forever and... (Read full poem)

5. Swing Song - written by John Williams
Read 783 times on American Poems.

The blatant horns blare strident sound;
Delighted, you laugh and seize
My passive arm, but I have found
Content in the harmonies.
They sound, are silent; please or annoy,
Are not clever, cruel, or coy
Like human qualities.
See agile fingers... (Read full poem)

Mine -- by the Right of the White Election!
Mine -- by the Royal Seal!
Mine -- by the Sign in the Scarlet prison --
Bars -- cannot conceal!

Mine -- here -- in Vision -- and in Veto!
Mine -- by the Grave's Repeal --
Tilted -- Confirmed --
Delirious... (Read full poem)

7. Morning - written by Frank O\'Hara
Read 2053 times on American Poems.

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on... (Read full poem)

I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing --
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears --
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown --
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And... (Read full poem)

9. Houses - written by Joyce Kilmer
From Main Street and Other Poems. Published in 1917. Read 3998 times on American Poems.

(For Aline)

When you shall die and to the sky
Serenely, delicately go,
Saint Peter, when he sees you there,
Will clash his keys and say:
"Now talk to her, Sir Christopher!
And hurry, Michelangelo!
She wants to play at building,
And you've... (Read full poem)

After all the Shakespeare, the book
of poems they type is the saddest
in history.

But before they can finish it,
they have to wait for that Someone
who is always

looking to look away. Only then
can they strike the million
keys that... (Read full poem)

11. The Old Guitar - written by James Whitcomb Riley
Read 3293 times on American Poems.

Neglected now is the old guitar
And moldering into decay;
Fretted with many a rift and scar
That the dull dust hides away,
While the spider spins a silver star
In its silent lips to-day.

The keys hold only nerveless strings--
The sinews of... (Read full poem)

I had a guinea golden --
I lost it in the sand --
And tho' the sum was simple
And pounds were in the land --
Still, had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye --
That when I could not find it --
I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson Robin --
Who sang... (Read full poem)

13. A Prayer to All the Dead among Mine Own People - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 811 times on American Poems.

Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven? 
Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? 
Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, 
Fly by my path till you have made me whole! (Read full poem)

Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see --
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way --

But were it told to me -- Today --
That I might have the sky
For mine -- I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me --

The... (Read full poem)

15. The Golden Hook - written by John Montague
From About Love. Published in 1993. Read 589 times on American Poems.

Two fish float:

one slowly downstream
into the warm
currents of the known

the other tugging
against the stream,
disconsolate twin,

the golden 
marriage hook
tearing its throat.(Read full poem)

Glinting golden through the trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Through the moon-pierced warp of night
Shoot pale shafts of yellow light,
Swaying to the kissing breeze
Swings the treasure, golden-gleaming,
Apples of Hesperides!
Far and lofty yet... (Read full poem)

17. The Opening of the Piano - written by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Read 538 times on American Poems.

IN the little southern parlor of tbe house you may have seen
With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green,
At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right,
Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of... (Read full poem)

Finding is the first Act
The second, loss,
Third, Expedition for
The "Golden Fleece"

Fourth, no Discovery --
Fifth, no Crew --
Finally, no Golden Fleece --
Jason -- sham -- too.(Read full poem)

19. He fumbles at your Soul - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5373 times on American Poems.

He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on --
He stuns you by degrees --
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers -- further heard --
Then nearer -- Then so slow
Your Breath has time to... (Read full poem)

O BOY of the West! 
To you many things to absorb, I teach, to help you become eleve of mine: 
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins; 
If you be not silently selected by lovers, and do not silently select lovers, 
Of what use is it that you... (Read full poem)

21. Love's Lantern - written by Joyce Kilmer
From Trees and Other Poems. Published in 1914. Read 2304 times on American Poems.

(For Aline)

Because the road was steep and long
And through a dark and lonely land,
God set upon my lips a song
And put a lantern in my hand.
Through miles on weary miles of night
That stretch relentless in my way
My lantern burns serene... (Read full poem)

Promise This -- When You be Dying --
Some shall summon Me --
Mine belong Your latest Sighing --
Mine -- to Belt Your Eye --

Not with Coins -- though they be Minted
From an Emperor's Hand --
Be my lips -- the only Buckle
Your low Eyes -- demand... (Read full poem)

23. The Organ-Blower - written by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Read 444 times on American Poems.

DEVOUTEST of my Sunday friends,
The patient Organ-blower bends;
I see his figure sink and rise,
(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!)
A moment lost, the next half seen,
His head above the scanty screen,
Still measuring out his deep... (Read full poem)

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And... (Read full poem)

25. Penalty - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 378 times on American Poems.

Because of the fullness of what I had, 
All that I have seems poor and vain. 
If I had not been happy, I were not sad-- 
Tho' my salt is savorless, why complain?

From the ripe perfection of what was mine, 
All that is mine seems worse than... (Read full poem)