1. Streets Too Old - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1442 times on American Poems.

I WALKED among the streets of an old city and the streets were lean as the throats of hard seafish soaked in salt and kept in barrels many years.
How old, how old, how old, we are:—the walls went on saying, street walls leaning toward each... (Read full poem)

(For the Rev. James B. Dollard)

The Kings of the earth are men of might,
And cities are burned for their delight,
And the skies rain death in the silent night,
And the hills belch death all day!
But the King of Heaven, Who made them all,
Is... (Read full poem)

3. What Best I See In Thee. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 3086 times on American Poems.

WHAT best I see in thee, 
Is not that where thou mov’st down history’s great highways, 
Ever undimm’d by time shoots warlike victory’s dazzle, 
Or that thou sat’st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace, 
Or thou the... (Read full poem)

IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet.
In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.
In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not
yet dreamed out in the heads of men.

In the old wars clutches of short... (Read full poem)

5. Tezcotzinco - written by Alan Seeger
Read 286 times on American Poems.

Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold, 
Thou wert sometime the garden of a king. 
The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing. 
The flowers are few. It was not so of old. 
It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled 
Through arbors... (Read full poem)

OUT of the testimony of such reluctant lips, out of the oaths and mouths of such scrupulous liars, out of perjurers whose hands swore by God to the white sun before all men,
  
Out of a rag saturated with smears and smuts gathered from the footbaths... (Read full poem)

7. Salome's Dancing-Lesson - written by Dorothy Parker
From Death and Taxes. Published in 1931. Read 5787 times on American Poems.

She that begs a little boon
(Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)
Little gets- and nothing, soon.
(No, no, no!  No, no, no!)
She that calls for costly things
Priceless finds her offerings-
What's impossible to kings?
(Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)

Kings are... (Read full poem)

Emporers and kings! in vain you strive
Your torments to conceal--
The age is come that shakes your thrones,
Tramples in dust despotic crowns,
And bids the sceptre fail.

In western worlds the flame began:
From thence to France it flew--
Through... (Read full poem)

9. Thick-Sprinkled Bunting. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 2267 times on American Poems.

THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! 
Long yet your road, fateful flag!—long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! 
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! 
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads,... (Read full poem)

a pretty a day
(and every fades)
is here and away
(but born are maids
to flower an hour
in all,all)

o yes to flower
until so blithe
a doer a wooer
some limber and lithe
some very fine mower
a tall;tall

some jerry so very
(and nellie... (Read full poem)

11. A Million Young Workmen, 1915 - written by Carl Sandburg
From Cornhuskers. Published in 1918. Read 1345 times on American Poems.

A MILLION young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another... (Read full poem)

Come, let us rejoice in James Joyce, in the greatness of this poet,
      king, and king of poets
For he is our poor dead king, he is the monarch and Caesar of English,
      he is the veritable King of the King's English

      The English of the... (Read full poem)

13. Ace Shaw - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 575 times on American Poems.

I never saw any difference
Between playing cards for money
And selling real estate,
Practicing law, banking, or anything else.
For everything is chance.
Nevertheless
Seest thou a man diligent in business?
He shall stand before Kings! (Read full poem)

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw,
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide... (Read full poem)

15. My Lady in Her White Silk Shawl - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 815 times on American Poems.

My lady in her white silk shawl
Is like a lily dim,
Within the twilight of the room
Enthroned and kind and prim.

My lady! Pale gold is her hair.
Until she smiles her face
Is pale with far Hellenic moods,
With thoughts that find no... (Read full poem)

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. 

The star was so beautiful,... (Read full poem)

17. The Little Garden - written by Amy Lowell
From A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass. Read 3205 times on American Poems.

A little garden on a bleak hillside
Where deep the heavy, dazzling mountain snow
Lies far into the spring.  The sun's pale glow
Is scarcely able to melt patches wide
About the single rose bush.  All denied
Of nature's tender ministries.  But... (Read full poem)

As cool as the pale wet leaves 
of lily-of-the-valley 
She lay beside me in the dawn.(Read full poem)

19. To Her Father with Some Verses - written by Anne Bradstreet
Read 1980 times on American Poems.

Most truly honoured, and as truly dear, 
If worth in me or ought I do appear, 
Who can of right better demand the same 
Than may your worthy self from whom it came? 
The principal might yield a greater sum, 
Yet handled ill, amounts but to this... (Read full poem)

In the evening
all the hours that weren't used
are emptied out
and the beggars are waiting to gather them up
to open them
to find the sun in each one
and teach it its beggar's name
and sing to it It is well
through the night

but each of us
has his... (Read full poem)

21. Monadnock through the Trees - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 393 times on American Poems.

Before there was in Egypt any sound 
Of those who reared a more prodigious means 
For the self-heavy sleep of kings and queens 
Than hitherto had mocked the most renowned,— 
Unvisioned here and waiting to be found,
Alone, amid remote and older... (Read full poem)

CAST a bronze of my head and legs and put them on the king’s street.
Set the cast of me here alongside Carl XII, making two Carls for the Swedish people and the utlanders to look at between the palace and the Grand Hotel.
The summer sun will... (Read full poem)

23. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city - written by Conrad Aiken
From The House of Dust. Published in 1917. Read 1115 times on American Poems.

The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,
Over the pale grey tumbled towers,—
And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.
Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to... (Read full poem)

In Springfield, Illinois

IT is portentious, and a thing of state 
That here at midnight, in our little town 
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, 
Near the old court-house, pacing up and down. 

Or by his homestead, or by shadowed yards 
He... (Read full poem)

25. The Clerks - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 534 times on American Poems.

I did not think that I should find them there
When I came back again; but there they stood,
As in the days they dreamed of when young blood
Was in their cheeks and women called them fair.
Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,—
And yes,... (Read full poem)