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Heart Poems

Table of Contents

  1. My Heart by Elizabeth Madox Roberts
  2. Consolation by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
  3. Have you got a brook in your little heart by Emily Dickinson
  4. The heart asks pleasure first by Emily Dickinson
  5. O Heart Be True! by Annie Armstrong
  6. The World Voice by Bliss Carman
  7. XXXIII. 5. by Christopher Pearse Cranch
  8. The Garden by Sara Teasdale
  9. The Tree by Sara Teasdale
  10. Song Making by Sara Teasdale
  11. Hilltop Song by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
  12. Where Shadows Point by Ruby Archer
  13. A Rose Jar by Ruby Archer
  14. Sea-Weed by Ruby Archer
  15. Open Hearted by Charles Swain
  16. Brave Hearts by Charles Swain
  17. Words by Charles Swain
  18. Apple Dumplings by Mary E. Tucker
  19. Green Mountains by James Russell Lowell
  20. Mail of Grace by Ruby Archer
  21. Weighing the World by Ellen P. Allerton
  22. Lift Up Thy Heart by Kate Louise Wheeler
  23. Drink Deep by Ruby Archer
  24. My Heart of Hearts by Ruby Archer
  25. Hearts Were Made to Give Away by Annette Wynne
  26. My Little Dreams by Georgia Douglas Johnson
  27. The Wheel of the Breast by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  28. October by Emma B. L. S. Dunham
  29. Give Me thine heart! by J. R. Eastwood
  30. Savior! I've no one else to tell by Emily Dickinson
  31. My true love hath my heart by Sir Philip Sidney
  32. In Italy by Bayard Taylor

  1. My Heart

    by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

    My heart is beating up and down,
    Is walking like some heavy feet.
    My heart is going every day,
    And I can hear it jump and beat.

    At night before I go to sleep,
    I feel it beating in my head;
    I hear it jumping in my neck
    And in the pillow on my bed.

    And then I make some little words
    To go along and say with it-
    The men are sailing home from Troy,
    And all the lamps are lit.

    The men are sailing home from Troy,
    And all the lamps are lit.

  2. Consolation

    by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

    Dear Heart, between us can be no farewell.
    We have so long to live, so much to endure,
    What ills despair might work us who can tell,
    Had we not help in that one trust secure!

    Time cannot sever, nor space keep long apart,
    Those whom Love's sleepless yearning would draw near.
    Fate bends unto the indomitable heart
    And firm-fixt will.—What room have we for fear!

  3. Have you got a brook in your little heart

    by Emily Dickinson

    Have you got a brook in your little heart,
    Where bashful flowers blow,
    And blushing birds go down to drink,
    And shadows tremble so?

    And nobody knows, so still it flows,
    That any brook is there;
    And yet your little draught of life
    Is daily drunken there.

    Then look out for the little brook in March,
    When the rivers overflow,
    And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
    And the bridges often go.

    And later, in August it may be,
    When the meadows parching lie,
    Beware, lest this little brook of life
    Some burning noon go dry!

  4. The heart asks pleasure first

    by Emily Dickinson

    The heart asks pleasure first,
    And then, excuse from pain;
    And then, those little anodynes
    That deaden suffering;

    And then, to go to sleep;
    And then, if it should be
    The will of its Inquisitor,
    The liberty to die.

  5. O Heart Be True!

    by Annie Armstrong

    O heart, be strong!
    There is so much for all to bear,
    So much to do in life's short day,
    Think not that thou shouldst rest; prepare
    To do thy part and take thy share,
    And join the fray;
    Gird on the sword of might and battle wrong.
    Be strong, my heart, be strong!

    O heart, be brave!
    Else in the thickest of the fight
    At times thou mayest fail and shrink;
    Remember thou art in God's sight,
    And care not what, if thou art right,
    The world may think;
    Bright victory's banner yet shall o'er thee wave.
    Be brave, my heart, be brave!

    O heart, be true!
    True to thyself and to thy God,
    Though all around thy path may change;
    Though oft the road that thou hast trod,
    To those that hear no guiding word,
    Seems hard and strange;
    Whatever else the whole wide world may do,
    Be true, my heart, be true!

  6. The World Voice

    by Bliss Carman

    I heard the summer sea
    Murmuring to the shore
    Some endless story of a wrong
    The whole world must deplore.

    I heard the mountain wind
    Conversing with the trees
    Of an old sorrow of the hills,
    Mysterious as the sea's.

    And all that haunted day
    It seemed that I could hear
    The echo of an ancient speech
    Ring in my listening ear.

    And then it came to me,
    That all that I had heard
    Was my own heart in the sea's voice
    And the wind's lonely word.

  7. XXXIII. 5.

    by Christopher Pearse Cranch

    Yet in all facts of sense life stands revealed;
    And from a thousand symbols hope may take
    Its charter to escape the Stygian lake,
    And find existence in an ampler field.
    The streams by winter's icy breath congealed
    Flow when the voices of the spring awake.
    The electric current lives when tempests break
    The wires. The chemic energies unsealed
    By sudden change, in other forms survive.
    The senses cheat us where the mind corrects
    Their partial verdict. More than all, the heart —
    The heart cold science counts not, is alive —
    Of the undivided soul that vital part
    Her microscopic eye in vain dissects.

  8. The Garden

    by Sara Teasdale

    My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
    Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
    In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
    The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;

    Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
    And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain—
    The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten—
    After the stillness, will spring come again?

  9. The Tree

    by Sara Teasdale

    Oh to be free of myself,
    With nothing left to remember,
    To have my heart as bare
    As a tree in December;

    Resting, as a tree rests
    After its leaves are gone,
    Waiting no more for a rain at night
    Nor for the red at dawn;

    But still, oh so still
    While the winds come and go,
    With no more fear of the hard frost
    Or the bright burden of snow;

    And heedless, heedless
    If anyone pass and see
    On the white page of the sky
    Its thin black tracery.

  10. Song Making

    by Sara Teasdale

    My heart cried like a beaten child
    Ceaselessly all night long;
    I had to take my own cries
    And thread them into a song.

    One was a cry at black midnight
    And one when the first cock crow—
    My heart was like a beaten child,
    But no one ever knew.

    Life, you have put me in your debt
    And I must serve you long—
    But oh, the debt is terrible
    That must be paid in song.

  11. Hilltop Song

    by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

    When the lights come out in the cottages
    Along the shores at eve,
    And across the darkening water
    The last pale colours leave;

    And up from the rock-ridged pasture slopes
    The sheep-bell tinklings steal,
    And the folds are shut, and the shepherds
    Turn to their quiet meal;

    And even here, on the unfenced height,
    No journeying wind goes by,
    But the earth-sweet smells and the home-sweet sounds
    Mount, like prayer, to the sky;

    Then from the door of my opened heart
    Old blindness and pride are driven,
    Till I know how high is the humble,
    The dear earth how close to heaven.

  12. Where Shadows Point

    by Ruby Archer

    Heart, yield not to mourning
    That all thy light is gone,
    Nor grieve when thy deep well-springs
    To far-off clouds are drawn.
    Clouds are jewel-caskets,
    Robbing but to dower;
    Thy brooks will soon be brimming
    Beneath the kindly shower.
    And though the twilight grayly
    Imprisons dell and lawn,
    The shadows born of sunset
    Like ringers beckon on,—
    Ay, like pale prophets gliding,
    The shadows beckon on,
    And while they steal the sunlight
    Are pointing toward the dawn.

  13. A Rose Jar

    by Ruby Archer

    Each heart—a rose-jar—teemeth, richly sweet
    With prisoned perfume of a vanished time;
    The spice of memory holds those odors fleet;
    A birthday lifts the lid, and we may greet
    Once more the breath of life's fair blossom,
    Gathered in their prime.

  14. Sea-Weed

    by Ruby Archer

    Sea-weed, my heart is like
    Your wandering branches—
    Reft from the deep of peace
    By tossings of great life
    In tide and surge,
    And roaming moorless
    'Neath sun or star,
    Seeking a bourne
    That voice of Chance names not
    Nor Destiny.

  15. Open Hearted

    by Charles Swain

    If you wish to be happy at home,
    Then your heart to that wish is the door—
    Keep it open—and angels may come,
    And enter, and dwell evermore!
    O'er each feeling a ray will be cast,
    As if lit by some magical gem;
    You will think you've found Heaven at last,
    But the angels have brought it with them.

    Keep it open—and friendship and love
    And happiness—all—will be thine:
    A gleam of Elysium above!
    A spark of the spirit divine!
    Keep it shut—and then Pride will have birth,
    And Envy—and all we condemn;
    You will think you've perdition on earth,
    Pride and Envy have brought it with them.

    The world will seem colder each day;
    'Tis an image those demons but throw,
    Cast your pride and your envy away—
    And the world's seeming coldness will go.
    Oh! 'tis well to be happy at home,
    And to this your own heart is the door;
    Keep it open and angels may come
    And enter, and dwell evermore.

  16. Brave Hearts

    by Charles Swain

    Brave hearts bend not so soon to care—
    Firm minds uplift the load of fate;
    They bear what others shrink to bear,
    And boldly any doom await!
    They rise above what would oppress
    A weaker spirit to the ground;
    And, though they feel no jot the less,
    Their sorrows scorn to breathe a sound.

    Oh! heroes have we still on earth,
    Worth all the boasted blood of Rome;
    And heroines, whose suffering worth
    Lends grace to many a humble home.
    Great hearts endurance cannot bend;
    Nor daily care, nor trial, tame;
    But these nor ask, nor gain, a friend—
    Nor seek, nor ever find, a name!

  17. Words

    by Charles Swain

    If words could satisfy the heart,
    The heart might find less care;
    But words, like summer birds, depart,
    And leave but empty air.
    The heart, a pilgrim upon earth,
    Finds often, when it needs,
    That words are of as little worth
    As just so many weeds.

    A little said,—and truly said,—
    Can deeper joy impart
    Than hosts of words, which reach the head,
    But never touch the heart.
    The voice that wins its sunny way,
    A lonely home to cheer,
    Hath oft the fewest words to say;
    But, oh! those few,—how dear!

    If words could satisfy the breast,
    The world might hold a feast;
    But words,—when summoned to the test,—
    Oft satisfy the least!
    Like plants that make a gaudy show,
    All blossom to the root;
    But whose poor nature cannot grow
    One particle of fruit!

  18. Apple Dumplings

    Then judge not by the surface, dear;
    Look deeper at the heart:
    Above the faults of earth appear
    Beneath the better part.

    – Mary E. Tucker
    Apple Dumplings
    by Mary E. Tucker

    Gaze not upon my outside, friend,
    With scorn or with disgust —
    Judge not, until you condescend
    To look beneath the crust.

    Rough and unsightly is my shell,
    But you just dues will render;
    And to the world the truth will tell,
    And say my heart is tender.

    The young may scorn my olden ways,
    With their new-fashioned notions;
    The old the insult soon repays
    By claiming double portions.

    'Tis true, like modern Misses, gay,
    The truth is sad, distressing!
    But I must now say out my say —
    I need a little dressing!

    My sauce, my rich apparel, hides
    My ugly form from sight;
    The goodness of my heart, besides,
    Will always come to light.

    Then judge not by the surface, dear;
    Look deeper at the heart:
    Above the faults of earth appear
    Beneath the better part.

  19. Green Mountains

    by James Russell Lowell

    Ye mountains, that far off lift up your heads,
    Seen dimly through their canopies of blue,
    The shade of my unrestful spirit sheds
    Distance-created beauty over you;
    I am not well content with this far view;
    How may I know what foot of loved one treads
    Your rocks moss-grown and sun-dried torrent beds?
    We should love all things better, if we knew
    What claims the meanest have upon our hearts;
    Perchance even now some eye, that would be bright
    To meet my own, looks on your mist-robed forms;
    Perchance your grandeur a deep joy imparts
    To souls that have encircled mine with light, —
    O brother-heart, with thee my spirit warms!

  20. Mail of Grace

    by Ruby Archer

    Take notice how the farmer
    Rounds off a stack of hay.
    The storm no opposition finds,
    The wind no sharp delay.

    A tender heart in mail of grace
    Invulnerably armed;
    The tempest by, the patient hay
    Inscrutable, unharmed.

  21. Weighing the World

    by Ellen P. Allerton

    I weighed the world to-day—its golden treasure,
    Its gleam and glitter, all its splendid show,
    Its pride, its fame—in most unstinted measure—
    All its allurements that do tempt me so.

    I put them in A balance, all together,
    Against one heart—but one, yet surely mine.
    I wished for once to know for certain whether
    This way, or that way, would the scales incline.

    Then slowly rose the piled-up, shining masses,
    As slowly, surely, did that one thing fall.
    So I have weighed; and thus the verdict passes:
    I find that one true heart is worth them all.

  22. Lift Up Thy Heart

    by Kate Louise Wheeler

    Lift up thy heart,
    The day is bright,
    There is no need of sighing;
    Do well thy part,
    Ere falls the night,
    Be happy in the trying.

    Fear not the way,
    God knows it all,
    His love is ever guiding;
    Be true to-day,
    And hear His call,
    In faith and works abiding.

    Look not before,
    Nor yet behind,
    The present is thy blessing;
    Doubt Him no more,
    But gladness find,
    His gracious gifts confessing.

    Lift up thy heart,
    And like a King
    Rule o'er it, faithless never;
    Do well thy part,
    Till earth shall sing,
    And Heaven be thine forever.

  23. October

    by Emma B. L. S. Dunham

    The freshness of Spring has departed,
    The languor of Summer has tied,
    October holds safe in her keeping
    The wealth of the days that have sped.

    In the place of the mist of midsummer,
    Which held back the sun's ardent ray,
    Great ridges of clouds massed in ether
    Illume and make perfect the day.

    The leaves of the forest, like heroes
    Who feel their last hours drawing nigh,
    Have summoned the wealth of their being,
    To grandly and gallantly die.

    The cricket shrills forth his loud chirping,
    The wind has a tremulous sound;
    A flock of dead leaves from the tree-top
    Comes fluttering down to the ground.

    The fields and the meadow have yielded
    Their harvest of hay and of grain;
    The orchards are fragrant with fruitage,
    Good store is on hill-side and plain.

    O Spring-time! so full of thy promise,
    O Summer! so heavy with gain;
    Ye've stored in the garner of Autumn
    The wealth of the sun and the rain.

    Haste, Heart, that hast felt Spring's assurance,
    Make growth in the summer of life,
    That when the perfected days find thee
    Thou mayst with good fruitage be rife.

  24. Drink Deep

    by Ruby Archer

    Stern Life is in a lavish mood to-day.
    She holds a brimming beaker to our lips.
    Sweet wine of love—ah, put it not away!
    Drink deep, dear heart. Life will not wait for sips.

  25. My Heart of Hearts

    by Ruby Archer

    My heart of hearts is a garden fair
    All abud and abloom for you,
    And a grey stone wall goes all around
    That none without may see it is there.
    But a little wicket your love has found
    Furtively, shyly open for you.

    A revel of blossom, a riot of bee,
    And fragrance fine as a melody,
    A thousand windings, soft to your feet;—
    And none may win by the grey stone bound
    To my heart of hearts with its rose and rue
    And hidden wildness of wanton sweet—
    Save you, Beloved, my Love, save you.

  26. Hearts Were Made to Give Away

    by Annette Wynne

    Hearts were made to give away
    On Valentine's good day;
    Wrap them up in dainty white,
    Send them off the thirteenth night.
    Any kind of heart that's handy—
    Hearts of lace, and hearts of candy,
    Hearts all trimmed with ribbands fine
    Send for good St. Valentine.
    Hearts were made to give away
    On Valentine's dear day.

  27. Give Me thine heart!

    by J. R. Eastwood

    "Give Me thine heart!" When life was young
    That summons gently came,
    With Jesus in the songs I sung
    The sweetest name.

    And God still called. The endless day
    Was in its early noon,
    With hours that beckoned far away;
    It was too soon.

    O love Divine! the grief, the tears,
    The Life laid down for me,
    And my return of sinful years,
    Estranged from Thee!

    O late repentance! I resign
    What Thou hast made Thine own,
    And all my heart's best love is Thine,
    And Thine alone!

  28. Father, I bring thee not myself, —

    by Emily Dickinson

    Savior! I've no one else to tell—
    And so I trouble thee.
    I am the one forgot thee so—
    Dost thou remember me?
    Nor, for myself, I came so far—
    That were the little load—
    I brought thee the imperial Heart
    I had not strength to hold—
    The Heart I carried in my own—
    Till mine too heavy grew—
    Yet—strangest—heavier since it went—
    Is it too large for you?

  29. My true love hath my heart

    by Sir Philip Sidney

    My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
    By just exchange one for the other given.
    I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
    There never was a better bargain driven.
    His heart in me keeps him and me in one;
    My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
    He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
    I cherish his, because in me it bides.
    His heart his wound received from my sight;
    For as from me on him his hurt did light
    So still methought in me his hurt did smart:
    Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss;
    My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

  30. My Little Dreams

    by Georgia Douglas Johnson

    I'm folding up my little dreams
    Within my heart tonight,
    And praying I may soon forget
    The torture of their sight.

    For time's deft fingers scroll my brow
    With fell relentless art—
    I'm folding up my little dreams
    Tonight, within my heart.

  31. In Italy

    by Bayard Taylor

    Dear Lillian, all I wished is won!
    I sit beneath Italia's sun,
    Where olive-orchards gleam and quiver
    Along the banks of Arno's river.

    Through laurel leaves, the dim green light
    Falls on my forehead as I write,
    And the sweet chimes of vesper, ringing,
    Blend with the contadina's singing.

    Rich is the soil with Fancy's gold;
    The stirring memories of old
    Rise thronging in my haunted vision,
    And wake my spirit's young ambition.

    But as the radiant sunsets close
    Above Val d'Arno's bowers of rose,
    My soul forgets the olden glory,
    And deems our love a dearer story.

    Thy words, in Memory's ear, outchime
    The music of the Tuscan rhyme;
    Thou standcst here—the gentlehearted—
    Amid the shades of bards departed.

    I see before thee fade away
    Their garlands of immortal bay,
    And turn from Petrarch's passion glances
    To my own dearer heart-romances.

    Sad is the opal glow that fires
    The midnight of the cypress spires,
    And cold the scented wind that closes
    The heart of bright Etruscan roses.

    A single thought of thee effaced
    The fair Italian dream I chased;
    For the true clime of song and sun
    Lies in the heart which mine hath won!

  32. The Wheel of the Breast

    by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    Through rivers of veins on the nameless quest
    The tide of my life goes hurriedly sweeping,
    Till it reaches that curious wheel o' the breast,
    The human heart, which is never at rest
    Faster, faster, it cries, and leaping,
    Plunging, dashing, speeding away,
    The wheel and the river work night and day.

    I know not wherefore, I know not whither
    This strange tide rushes with such mad force:
    It glides on hither, it slides on thither,
    Over and over the selfsame course,
    With never an outlet and never a source;
    And it lashes itself to the heat of passion
    And whirls the heart in a mill-wheel fashion.

    I can hear in the hush of the still, still night,
    The ceaseless sound of that mighty river;
    I can hear it gushing, gurgling, rushing
    With a wild, delirious strange delight,
    And a conscious pride in its sense of might,
    As it hurries and worries my heart forever.

    And I wonder oft as I lie awake,
    A list to the river that seethes and surges
    Over the wheel that it chides and urges,—
    I wonder oft if that wheel will break
    With the mighty pressure it bears, some day,
    Or slowly and wearily wear away.

    For little by little the heart is wearing.
    Like the wheel of the mill, as the tide goes tearing
    And plunging hurriedly through my breast,
    In a network of veins on a nameless quest,
    From and forth, unto unknown oceans,
    Bringing its cargoes of fierce emotions,
    With never a pause or an hour for rest.

    When the heart's with anguish riven,
    Hope 's our anchor,—faith's our guide,
    Which directs our souls to heaven,
    Where we from the storm may hide.

    – Eliza Wolcott
    To Sorrow

    A cheerful heart should be refin'd
    With truth and constancy;
    Then Bethlehem's Star lights up the mind,
    And sets the captive free.

    – Eliza Wolcott
    On Cheerfulness

    Oh! sing, human heart, like the fountains,
    With joy reverential and free,
    Contented and calm as the mountains,
    And deep as the woods and the sea.

    – Charles T. Brooks
    The Great Voices

    Though eager life must wait on livelihood,
    And all our hopes be tethered to the mart,
    Lacking the eagle's wild, high freedom, would
    That ours might be this day the eagle's heart!

    – John Charles McNeill
    Dawn

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