The Old Stoic- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

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		Poems about Living
		"I'm afraid of death" by Kathleen Ossip

		Another Elegy by Jericho Brown

		Ashes of Life by Edna St. Vincent Millay

		August, 1953 by David Wojahn

		Characteristics of Life by Camille T. Dungy

		Coda by Marilyn Hacker

		Daily Life by Susan Wood

		Difficult Body by Mark Wunderlich

		Elegy in Joy [excerpt] by Muriel Rukeyser

		far memory by Lucille Clifton

		First Things to Hand by Robert Pinsky

		Frozen by Natasha Head

		How to Uproot a Tree by Jennifer K. Sweeney

		I could suffice for Him, I knew (643) by Emily Dickinson

		Insomnia by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

		Life by Joe Brainard

		Life is Fine by Langston Hughes

		Little Night Prayer by Péter Kántor

		Living in Numbers by Claire Lee

		Lost and Found by Ron Padgett

		Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus [excerpt] by Denise Levertov

		Meditation 29 by Philip Pain

		On Living by Nazim Hikmet

		One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch

		Primitive State [excerpt] by Anselm Berrigan

		Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky

		Spent by Mark Doty

		sugar is smoking by Jason Schneiderman

		Summer in Winter in Summer by Noah Eli Gordon

		Tear It Down by Jack Gilbert

		The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

		The Pain by Laura Kasischke

		The Secret by Denise Levertov

		Thrown as if Fierce & Wild by Dean Young

		Variation on a Theme by W. S. Merwin

		Virgil's Hand by Francesc Parcerisas

		What the Living Do by Marie Howe

		What Wild-Eyed Murderer by Peter Meinke

		Where I Live by Maxine Kumin

		won't you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton

		Yellow Beak by Stephen Dobyns

The Old Stoic
by Emily Brontë

Riches I hold in light esteem, And Love I laugh to scorn; And lust of fame was but a dream, That vanished with the morn: And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear, And give me liberty!" Yes, as my swift days near their goal: ’Tis all that I implore; In life and death a chainless soul, With courage to endure.

This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on July 14, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.