1. The parasol is the umbrella's daughter, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3624 times on American Poems.

The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.

The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.(Read full poem)

To say that she came into me,
from another world, is not true.
Nothing comes into the universe
and nothing leaves it.
My mother—I mean my daughter did not
enter me. She began to exist
inside me—she appeared within me.
And my mother did not... (Read full poem)

3. Destruction Of Daughters - written by Lee Upton
Read 464 times on American Poems.

The friend who is concerned
with backdrops, not us,
but what we stand against,
his way of looking at the women
he loves,
to not look at them at all
but at roofs, a bit of sky.
To understand when exactly
a woman is angry
because of the way she... (Read full poem)

it gets run over by a van. 
you find it at the side of the road 
and bury it. 
you feel bad about it. 
you feel bad personally, 
but you feel bad for your daughter 
because it was her pet, 
and she loved it so. 
she used to croon to it 
and let it... (Read full poem)

5. Virgule - written by Thomas Lux
Read 807 times on American Poems.

What I love about this little leaning mark
is how it divides
without divisiveness.  The left
or bottom side prying that choice up or out,
the right or top side pressing down upon
its choice:  either/or,
his/her.  Sometimes called a slash (too... (Read full poem)

WANDERING oversea dreamer,
Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother,
Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood,
Child of the hair let down, and tears,
Child of the cross in the south
And the star in the north,
Keeper of Egypt and Russia and... (Read full poem)

7. Darling Daughter of Babylon - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 622 times on American Poems.

Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar's chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
With mead they came, with chants of shame.
DESIRE'S red flag before them flew.
And... (Read full poem)

If you in the village think that my work was a good one,
Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,
And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,
In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;
Why do you let the milliner's... (Read full poem)

9. Great Caesar! Condescend - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2936 times on American Poems.

Great Caesar! Condescend
The Daisy, to receive,
Gathered by Cato's Daughter,
With your majestic leave!(Read full poem)

WHILE deep you mourn beneath the cypress-shade
The hand of Death, and your dear daughter
laid
In dust, whose absence gives your tears to flow,
And racks your bosom with incessant woe,
Let Recollection take a tender part,
Assuage the raging... (Read full poem)

11. For My Daughter - written by David Ignatow
From Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994. Read 1347 times on American Poems.

When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
or forgotten you.
You were such a star to me,
following you through birth
and childhood, my hand
in your hand.

When I die
choose a star and name it
after me so... (Read full poem)

Ferdinand was systematic when
he drove his daughter mad.

With a Casanova's careful art,
he moved slowly,
stole only one child at a time
through tunnels specially dug
behind the walls of her royal
chamber, then paid the Duenna
well to... (Read full poem)

13. Youth And Beauty - written by William Carlos Williams
From Sour Grapes. Published in 1921. Read 4546 times on American Poems.

I bought a dishmop— 
having no daughter— 
for they had twisted 
fine ribbons of shining copper 
about white twine 
and made a tousled head
of it, fastened it 
upon a turned ash stick
slender at the neck 
straight, tall— 
when tied... (Read full poem)

At first she was sure it was just a bit of dried strawberry juice,
or a fleck of her mother's red nail polish that had flaked off
when she'd patted her daughter to sleep the night before.
But as she scrubbed, Snow felt a bump, something... (Read full poem)

15. To A Daughter Leaving Home - written by Linda Pastan
From The Imperfect Paradise. Published in 1988. Read 6557 times on American Poems.

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as... (Read full poem)

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is... (Read full poem)

17. Daughter - written by Gertrude Stein
Read 3824 times on American Poems.

Why is the world at peace.
This may astonish you a little but when you realise how
easily Mrs. Charles Bianco sells the work of American
painters to American millionaires you will recognize that
authorities are constrained to be relieved.  Let me... (Read full poem)

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
         Psalm 22

When fever burned the last light out of my daughter’s eyes,
I swore to find and kill the ones to blame.  Men
must  mount the long boat in the dark with spears.
At dawn, where the... (Read full poem)

19. Sympathetic Portrait Of A Child - written by William Carlos Williams
Read 4789 times on American Poems.

The murderer's little daughter 
who is barely ten years old 
jerks her shoulders 
right and left 
so as to catch a glimpse of me 
without turning round. 
Her skinny little arms 
wrap themselves 
this way then that 
reversely about her... (Read full poem)

He is rid away to the tenant farms
and I take up my pen to list
the shakings-out and openings.
And my thin letters lean as sails
that, though driven, cannot arrive.

May the ninth, I write.
And: Mrs. Ferguson.
Unbutton the bed pillows
and... (Read full poem)

21. Albert Schirding - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 537 times on American Poems.

Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one
Because his children were all failures.
But I know of a fate more trying than that:
It is to be a failure while your children are successes.
For I raised a brood of eagles
Who flew away at last, leaving... (Read full poem)

if there is a river 
more beautiful than this 
bright as the blood 
red edge of the moon if 
there is a river 
more faithful than this 
returning each month 
to the same delta if there

is a river 
braver than this 
coming and coming in a... (Read full poem)

23. Helen - written by H. D.
Read 7570 times on American Poems.

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre of the olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past... (Read full poem)

GRANDMOTHER's mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of... (Read full poem)

25. A Stone Is Nobody's - written by Russell Edson
Read 2149 times on American Poems.

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner. 
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the 
rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is 
captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she... (Read full poem)