All Things Human

The Vanity of Human Wishes
by Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Outcast
by Claude McKay (1889-1948)
For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
I would go back to darkness and to peace,
But the great western world holds me in fee,
And I may never hope for full release
While to [...]

The Sorrows of Charlotte
by Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836-1919)
The Sorrows of Werther, that is the Book,
   Little girl of mine. Will I show you what
His sorrows were like? Such a brown-eyed look
   Could hardly see. Never mind, they were not
Such sorrows, I fancy as yours or mine,
But such as in pictures look so fine,
   And such as can [...]

Gloire de Dijon
by David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)
When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window \
And the sunbeams catch her
Glistening white on the shoulders,
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown
Gloire de Dijon roses.
She drips herself with [...]

A Wood Song
by Ralph Hodgson (1871-1962)
Now one and all, you Roses,
Wake up, you lie too long!
This very morning closes
The Nightingale his song;
Each from its olive chamber
His babies every one
This very morning clamber
Into the shining sun.
You Slug-a-beds and Simples,
Why will you so delay!
Dears, doff your olive wimples,
And listen while you may.