"Be A Friend" by Edgar Albert Guest (friendship poem)

 

Be A Friend

Be a friend. You don't need money;

Just a disposition sunny;

Just the wish to help another

Get along some way or other;

Just a kindly hand extended

Out to one who's unbefriended;

Just the will to give or lend,

This will make you someone's friend.

 

Be a friend. You don't need glory.

Friendship is a simple story.

Pass by trifling errors blindly,

Gaze on honest effort kindly,

Cheer the youth who's bravely trying,

Pity him who's sadly sighing;

Just a little labor spend

On the duties of a friend.

 

Be a friend. The pay is bigger

(Though not written by a figure)

Than is earned by people clever

In what's merely self-endeavor.

You'll have friends instead of neighbors

For the profits of your labors;

You'll be richer in the end

Than a prince, if you're a friend.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/nJcKzs8KGiY

Who wrote the poem "Be A Friend"?

Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881 ~ August 5, 1959)

Edgar Albert Guest was a Britishborn American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century. He wrote 11,000 poems which were syndicated in 300 newspapers. He became known as the People's Poet because his poems were easy to read and had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life with such themes as family, work, children, and God.

"Be A Friend" explanation

In the poem, the speaker talks about the importance and benefits of becoming someone’s friend by helping them in one way or other.

"Thanksgiving" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

Thanksgiving

We walk on starry fields of white

And do not see the daisies;

For blessings common in our sight

We rarely offer praises.

We sigh for some supreme delight

To crown our lives with splendor,

And quite ignore our daily store

Of pleasures sweet and tender.

 

Our cares are bold and push their way

Upon our thought and feeling.

They hand about us all the day,

Our time from pleasure stealing.

So unobtrusive many a joy

We pass by and forget it,

But worry strives to own our lives,

And conquers if we let it.

 

There’s not a day in all the year

But holds some hidden pleasure,

And looking back, joys oft appear

To brim the past’s wide measure.

But blessings are like friends, I hold,

Who love and labor near us.

We ought to raise our notes of praise

While living hearts can hear us.

 

Full many a blessing wears the guise

Of worry or of trouble;

Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,

Who knows the mask is double.

But he who has the faith and strength

To thank his God for sorrow

Has found a joy without alloy

To gladden every morrow.

 

We ought to make the moments notes

Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;

The hours and days a silent phrase

Of music we are living.

And so the theme should swell and grow

As weeks and months pass o’er us,

And rise sublime at this good time,

A grand Thanksgiving chorus. 

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music

poem video 👇

https://youtu.be/KLjHw0ENooQ

Who wrote the poem "Thanksgiving"?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850 – October 30, 1919)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet who wrote “Solitude,” which contains the famous lines “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.” Popular among people rather than among literary critics, she often displayed in her poems cheerful and optimistic sentiments in plain and rhyming words. After she married Robert Wilcox in 1884, the couple became interested in spiritualism and promised each other that whoever died first would return and communicate with the other. After her husband died in 1916 after over 30 years of marriage, she was overwhelmed by grief and waited long to hear from her deceased husband in vain. She also believed in reincarnation. She died of cancer in 1919.

"Thanksgiving" explanation

In our lives, we often don’t appreciate what we already have, taking it for granted, in the pursuit of what we don’t have. The poem reminds us to be grateful for all the things and people around us.

"The Harvest Moon" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

The Harvest Moon

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

Of Nature have their image in the mind,

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

Only the empty nests are left behind,

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇 

https://youtu.be/jFe1y3atdTw

Who wrote the poem "The Harvest Moon"?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882)

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He was one of the most famous American poets of the 19th century, both domestically and internationally, and was one of the few American writers honored in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine (then still part of Massachusetts). He studied at Bowdoin College and became a professor there and later at Harvard University. His poems were known for their musicality, often including stories of mythology and legend.

"The Harvest Moon" explanation

In the poem, the speaker calmly describes a rural landscape at night around Thanksgiving, where moonlight illuminates various objects. The subtle images invoke mixed feelings of peacefulness, security, and loneliness.

“O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman

 

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

 

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/PxNu0rR_XWw

Who wrote the poem “O Captain! My Captain!”?

Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892)

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. Whitman is one of the most important American poets, often called the father of free verse. His major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 at his own expense and became popular and controversial due to its overt sensuality. Whitman greatly admired Abraham Lincoln, and on Lincoln’s death, he wrote famous poems, “O Captain! My Captain!” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman “America’s poet… He is America.”

“O Captain! My Captain!” explanation

The poem was written as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln upon his tragic death, whom the poet admired very much. The poem, written in the form of elegy, shows the poet’s respect and love for the great leader and grief for the loss of him. So many people from all over the world have adored the poem on account of its artistic merit as well as admiration of “the Captain.”

"Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/dvhuY-C3jeY

Who wrote the poem "Pied Beauty"?

Gerard Manley Hopkins (July 28, 1844 – June 8, 1889)

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest and is regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Victorian era. He never published his poems during his lifetime. His friend poet, Robert Bridges, published his poems after his death. His poetry was famous for its inventiveness and rich aural patterning. He often praised God through vivid use of imagery and nature in his poems.

"Pied Beauty" explanation

In the poem, the speaker celebrates the beauty and diversity of things in the universe and praises God for creating them.

"My November Guest" by Robert Frost

 

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane.

 

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted grey

Is silver now with clinging mist.

 

The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

 

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell her so,

And they are better for her praise.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/tQ9e81rJAiI

Who wrote the poem "My November Guest"?

Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963)

Robert Frost was an American poet who was born in San Francisco, California. Frost’s life was marked by grief and loss. When he was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving just eight dollars. Frost’s mother died of cancer when he was 26. Mental illness ran in his family. He and his mother suffered from depression, and his sister and his daughter were committed to mental hospitals. Using realistic depictions of rural life, his poems often examined complex social and philosophical themes. Frost’s first book was published at the age of 40, but he ended up winning four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and becoming the most famous poet of his time.

"My November Guest" explanation

In the poem, the speaker personifies sorrow as a woman and regular visitor whom he loves and respects, implying he might have experienced a great deal of sorrow in November. This “Guest” (sorrow) teaches the speaker about the beauty of November, and although the speaker already knows about this (“Not yesterday I learned to know”), he doesn’t correct his guest, for “they are better for her praise.” The poem is a very unique and authentic expression of the poet’s complex feelings for November days (love and sorrow).

"The Mother" by Robert W. Service

 

The Mother

There will be a singing in your heart,

There will be a rapture in your eyes;

You will be a woman set apart,

You will be so wonderful and wise.

You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,

As of one that wakes in Paradise,

There will be a singing in your heart,

There will be a rapture in your eyes.

 

There will be a moaning in your heart,

There will be an anguish in your eyes;

You will see your dearest ones depart,

You will hear their quivering good-byes.

Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,

Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;

There will be a moaning in your heart,

There will be an anguish in your eyes.

 

There will come a glory in your eyes,

There will come a peace within your heart;

Sitting ‘neath the quiet evening skies,

Time will dry the tear and dull the smart.

You will know that you have played your part;

Yours shall be the love that never dies:

You, with Heaven’s peace within your heart,

You, with God’s own glory in your eyes.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/kJ7ihr4B3F8

Who wrote the poem "The Mother"?

Robert W. Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958)

Robert William Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer. As a bank clerk, he had to travel widely in the Western U.S. and Canada. When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he wrote poems about the Klondike Gold Rush and achieved an immediate and great commercial success. His poems had often been criticized as literarily inferior by the critics, as in the case of Rudyard Kipling, and he was nicknamed “the Canadian Kipling.” This, however, didn’t bother Service, who classified his work as “verse, not poetry.”

 

"The Mother" explanation

In the poem, the speaker expresses his love, admiration, and gratitude for his mother and her role in her children’s life. Overcoming many challenges and tragedies, our mothers take care of her children. The speaker then praises motherly love to be immortal.

"What is Success" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

What is Success

What is Success?

 

To laugh often and much;

 

To win the respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

 

To earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

 

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

 

To leave the world a bit better, whether by

a healthy child, a garden patch

or a redeemed social condition;

 

To know even one life has breathed

easier because you have lived;

 

This is to have succeeded.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/HiDmFRMu4Wg

Who wrote the poem "What is Success"?

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882)

 Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolistionist, and poet in the 19th century. He was considered as a champion of individualism and led the transcendentalist movement. His works had a great influence on many philosophers and writers including Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.

"What is Success" explanation

In the poem, the poet shares his own meaning of living a successful life. The poet’s definitions of success include happiness, wholesome relationships, beauty, and contributions to society. While so many people pursue fame, power, money, and pleasure, this simple yet profound poem makes the reader to think about the true meaning of success in life.

"Memory: by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

 

Memory

My mind lets go a thousand things

Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,

And yet recalls the very hour--

'T was noon by yonder village tower,

And on the last blue noon in May--

The wind came briskly up this way,

Crisping the brook beside the road;

Then, pausing here, set down its load

Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly

Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/NX2FC0tDT4Y

Who wrote the poem "Memory"?

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (November 11, 1836 – March 19, 1907)

 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich was an American poet, novelist, short-story writer, and editor. He started writing as a teenager and became friends with other young poets including Walt Whitman. He was greatly admired for his talent and successful in all genres. He also gave inspirations to many famous writers including Mark Twain, who reportedly got inpired by Thomas’ semi-autobiographical novel “Story of A Bad Boy” and wrote “Tom Sawyer.” His last words were “In spite of it all, I’m going to sleep.”

"Memory" explanation

In the poem, the speaker talks about transience and complexity of memory. Although some important memories such as historic names and dates can fade, our mind can hold on to seemingly trivial things such as movement, smell, and touch of the wind and rose petals.