POEM OF THE DAY

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 *The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk* 

I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute,

From the center all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

O Solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face?

Better dwell in the midst of alarms

Than reign in this horrible place.

I am out of humanity’s reach,

I must finish my journey alone,

Never hear the sweet music of speech,—

I start at the sound of my own.

The beasts that roam over the plain

My form with indifference see;

They are so unacquainted with man,

Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, Friendship, and Love,

Divinely bestow’d upon man,

Oh, had I the wings of a dove,

How soon would I taste you again!

My sorrows I then might assuage

In the ways of religion and truth,

Might learn from the wisdom of age,

And be cheer’d by the sallies of youth.

Ye winds that have made me your sport,

Convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more!

My friends—do they now and then send

A wish or a thought after me?

Oh, tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see.

How fleet is a glance of the mind!

Compared with the speed of its flight,

The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-wingèd arrows of light.

When I think of my own native land,

In a moment I seem to be there;

But alas! recollection at hand

Soon hurries me back to despair.

But the seafowl is gone to her nest,

The beast is laid down in his lair,

Even here is a season of rest,

And I to my cabin repair.

There’s mercy in every place,

And mercy, encouraging thought!

Gives even affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot.

 *William Cowper*

POEM OF THE DAY

THE BROOK 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,

With here a blossom sailing,

And here and there a lusty trout,

And here and there a grayling.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

Among my skimming swallows;

I make the netted sunbeams dance

Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses.

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

Alfred Tennyson

POEM OF THE DAY

                                                       Wikimedia Commons 

Fate

Ralph Waldo Emerson

That you are fair or wise is vain,

Or strong, or rich, or generous;

You must have also the untaught strain

That sheds beauty on the rose.

There is a melody born of melody,

Which melts the world into a sea.

Toil could never compass it,

Art its height could never hit,

It came never out of wit,

But a music music-born

Well may Jove and Juno scorn.

Thy beauty, if it lack the fire

Which drives me mad with sweet desire,

What boots it? what the soldier’s mail

Unless he conquer and prevail?

What all the goods thy pride which lift,

If thou pine for another’s gift?

Alas! that one is born in blight,

Victim of perpetual slight;—

When thou lookest in his face,

Thy heart saith, Brother! go thy ways.

None shall ask thee what thou doest,

Or care a rush for what thou knowest.

Or listen when thou repliest,

Or remember where thou liest,

Or how thy supper is sodden,—

And another is born

To make the sun forgotten.

Surely he carries a talisman

Under his tongue;

Broad are his shoulders, and strong,

And his eye is scornful,

Threatening, and young.

I hold it of little matter,—

Whether your jewel be of pure water,

A rose diamond or a white,—

But whether it dazzle me with light.

I care not how you are drest,

In the coarsest, or in the best,

Nor whether your name is base or brave,

Nor for the fashion of your behavior,—

But whether you charm me,

Bid my bread feed, and my fire warm me,

And dress up nature in your favor.

One thing is forever good,

That one thing is success,—

Dear to the Eumenides,

And to all the heavenly brood.

Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,

Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 17, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

POEM OF THE DAY

If I Had But Two Little Wings

If I had but two little wings

And were a little feathery bird,

To you I’d fly, my dear!

But thoughts like these are idle things

And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly:

I’m always with you in my sleep!

The world is all one’s own.

And then one wakes, and where am I?

All, all alone.

Samuel T. Coleridge

Grateful thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the image of Coleridge 

POEM OF THE DAY

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils:

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay;

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company;

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

POEM OF THE DAY

The Sandpiper.

Across the lonely beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I,

And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.

The wild waves reach their hands for it,

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,

As up and down the beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud, black and swift, across the sky;

Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds

Stand out the white lighthouses high.

Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,

As fast we flit along the beach,

One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,

Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;

He starts not at my fitful song,

Nor flash of fluttering drapery.

He has no thought of any wrong,

He scans me with a fearless eye;

Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,

The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night,

When the loosed storm breaks furiously?

My driftwood fire will burn so bright!

To what warm shelter canst thou fly?

I do not fear for thee, though wroth

The tempest rushes through the sky;

For are we not God’s children both,

Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

Celia Thaxter

POEM OF THE DAY

A Life on the Ocean Wave.

A life on the ocean wave,

A home on the rolling deep,

Where the scattered waters rave,

And the winds their revels keep!

Like an eagle caged, I pine

On this dull, unchanging shore:

Oh! give me the flashing brine,

The spray and the tempest’s roar!

Once more on the deck I stand

Of my own swift-gliding craft:

Set sail! farewell to the land!

The gale follows fair abaft.

We shoot through the sparkling foam

Like an ocean-bird set free;—

Like the ocean-bird, our home

We’ll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view,

The clouds have begun to frown;

But with a stout vessel and crew,

We’ll say, Let the storm come down!

And the song of our hearts shall be,

While the winds and the waters rave,

A home on the rolling sea!

A life on the ocean wave!

Epes Sargent

POEM OF THE DAY: INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY

Inspired by INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY by William Wordsworth, created a poem with the help of ChatGPT, under the caption, INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY, which is as below:

INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY

I’ve counted my years —

not quite a neat tally,

more like coins in an old drawer,

some shiny, some sticky with time.

There are the grand “If only I had…”s,

those faithful companions,

forever wagging their fingers,

like unpaid bills in the mind’s postbox.

There are the “Thank heavens I did!”s —

smaller in number,

but they smile more often,

and cost less in maintenance.

Friends have left the stage early,

some with grace,

some with a muttered

“That’s enough of this nonsense!”

My body, once a spry clerk,

is now a slow-moving civil servant,

reluctant to stamp

any request for speed.

Still —

the morning sun hasn’t resigned,

tea still tastes like a warm handshake,

and once in a while,

a stranger’s kindness

feels like an unwrapped gift.

If this is the preface to my exit,

let it be read with a smile:

I came, I stumbled,

I danced a little —

and the music was worth it.

POEM OF THE DAY

*Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

By William Wordsworth* 

 

   The child is father of the man;

And I could wish my days to be

   Bound each to each by natural piety.

          (Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up")

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

       The earth, and every common sight,

                          To me did seem

                      Apparelled in celestial light,

            The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

                      Turn wheresoe'er I may,

                          By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

                      The Rainbow comes and goes,

                      And lovely is the Rose,

                      The Moon doth with delight

       Look round her when the heavens are bare,

                      Waters on a starry night

                      Are beautiful and fair;

       The sunshine is a glorious birth;

       But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

       And while the young lambs bound

                      As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

                      And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,

       The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

                      And all the earth is gay;

                           Land and sea

                Give themselves up to jollity,

                      And with the heart of May

                 Doth every Beast keep holiday;—

                      Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy.

Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call

      Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

      My heart is at your festival,

            My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.

                      Oh evil day! if I were sullen

                      While Earth herself is adorning,

                         This sweet May-morning,

                      And the Children are culling

                         On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

                      Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:—

                      I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

                      —But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone;

                      The Pansy at my feet

                      Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

                      Hath had elsewhere its setting,

                         And cometh from afar:

                      Not in entire forgetfulness,

                      And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

                      From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

                      Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

                      He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

                      Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

                      And by the vision splendid

                      Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

                      And, even with something of a Mother's mind,

                      And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

                      Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art

                      A wedding or a festival,

                      A mourning or a funeral;

                         And this hath now his heart,

                      And unto this he frames his song:

                         Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

                      But it will not be long

                      Ere this be thrown aside,

                      And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

                      As if his whole vocation

                      Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

                      Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—

                      Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

                      On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

                      O joy! that in our embers

                      Is something that doth live,

                      That Nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—

                      Not for these I raise

                      The song of thanks and praise

                But for those obstinate questionings

                Of sense and outward things,

                Fallings from us, vanishings;

                Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:

                      But for those first affections,

                      Those shadowy recollections,

                Which, be they what they may

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

                Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

                To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

                      Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

                Hence in a season of calm weather

                      Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

                      Which brought us hither,

                Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

                      And let the young Lambs bound

                      As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

                      Ye that pipe and ye that play,

                      Ye that through your hearts to-day

                      Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

                Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

                      We will grieve not, rather find

                      Strength in what remains behind;

                      In the primal sympathy

                      Which having been must ever be;

                      In the soothing thoughts that spring

                      Out of human suffering;

                      In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

                      Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

 *Grateful thanks to Poetry Foundation for the poem and Wikimedia Commons for the photo*

POEM OF THE DAY

How Sleep the Brave

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest

By all their country’s wishes blest!

When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,

Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,

She there shall dress a sweeter sod

Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,

By forms unseen their dirge is sung:

There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,

To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

And Freedom shall a while repair

To dwell a weeping hermit there!

William Collins

POEM OF THE DAY

The Shepherd of King Admetus

Once a year the children learn “The Shepherd of King Admetus,” which is one of the finest poems ever written as showing the possible growth of real history into mythology, the tendency of mankind to deify what is fine or sublime in human action. Not every child will learn this entire poem, because it is too long. But every child will learn the best lines in it while the children are teaching it to me and when I take my turn in teaching it to them. No child fails to catch the spirit and intent of the poem and to become entirely familiar with it. (1819-91.)

There came a youth upon the earth,

Some thousand years ago,

Whose slender hands were nothing worth,

Whether to plow, or reap, or sow.

Upon an empty tortoise-shell

He stretched some chords, and drew

Music that made men’s bosoms swell

Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.

Then King Admetus, one who had

Pure taste by right divine,

Decreed his singing not too bad

To hear between the cups of wine:

And so, well pleased with being soothed

Into a sweet half-sleep,

Three times his kingly beard he smoothed,

And made him viceroy o’er his sheep.

His words were simple words enough,

And yet he used them so,

That what in other mouths was rough

In his seemed musical and low.

Men called him but a shiftless youth,

In whom no good they saw;

And yet, unwittingly, in truth,

They made his careless words their law.

They knew not how he learned at all,

For idly, hour by hour,

He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,

Or mused upon a common flower.

It seemed the loveliness of things

Did teach him all their use,

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,

He found a healing power profuse.

Men granted that his speech was wise,

But, when a glance they caught

Of his slim grace and woman’s eyes,

They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.

Yet after he was dead and gone,

And e’en his memory dim,

Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,

More full of love, because of him.

And day by day more holy grew

Each spot where he had trod,

Till after-poets only knew

Their first-born brother as a god.

James Russell Lowell

POEM OF THE DAY

A Happy Life

How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another’s will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his master’s are,

Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Not tied unto the world with care

Of public fame, or private breath.

Sir Henry Wotton.

POEM OF THE DAY

Barnacles

My soul is sailing through the sea,

But the Past is heavy and hindereth me.

The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells

That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells

About my soul.

The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,

Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole

And hindereth me from sailing!

Old Past, let go, and drop i’ the sea

Till fathomless waters cover thee!

For I am living, but thou art dead;

Thou drawest back, I strive ahead

The Day to find.

Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind;

I needs must hurry with the wind

And trim me best for sailing.

Sidney Lanier

POEM OF THE DAY

Fairy Song.

Shed no tear! O shed no tear!

The flower will bloom another year.

Weep no more! O, weep no more!

Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.

Dry your eyes! Oh! dry your eyes!

For I was taught in Paradise

To ease my breast of melodies—

Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!

’Mong the blossoms white and red—

Look up, look up. I flutter now

On this flush pomegranate bough.

See me! ’tis this silvery bell

Ever cures the good man’s ill.

Shed no tear! O, shed no tear!

The flowers will bloom another year.

Adieu, adieu—I fly, adieu,

I vanish in the heaven’s blue—

Adieu, adieu!

John Keats.

POEM OF THE DAY

Sweet and Low.

Sweet and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,

Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dropping moon and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;

Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,

Father will come to thee soon;

Father will come to his babe in the nest,

Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon:

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

Alfred Tennyson.