Best Famous Happenings Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Happenings poems. This is a select list of the best famous Happenings poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Happenings poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of happenings poems.

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Written by Rudyard Kipling | The Legend of Mirth The Four Archangels, so the legends tell, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, Being first of those to whom the Power was shown Stood first of all the Host before The Throne, And, when the Charges were allotted, burst Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first. Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed Their own high judgment on their lightest deed. Zeal was their spur that, when relief was given, Urged them unwearied to new toils in Heaven; For Honour's sake perfecting every task Beyond what e 'en Perfection's self could ask. . . And Allah, Who created Zeal and Pride, Knows how the twain are perilous-near allied. It chanced on one of Heaven's long-lighted days, The Four and all the Host being gone their ways Each to his Charge, the shining Courts were void Save for one Seraph whom no charge employed, With folden wings and slumber-threatened brow, To whom The Word: "Beloved, what dost thou?" "By the Permission," came the answer soft, Little I do nor do that little oft. As is The Will in Heaven so on Earth Where by The Will I strive to make men mirth" He ceased and sped, hearing The Word once more: " Beloved, go thy way and greet the Four." Systems and Universes overpast, The Seraph came upon the Four, at last, Guiding and guarding with devoted mind The tedious generations of mankind Who lent at most unwilling ear and eye When they could not escape the ministry. . . . Yet, patient, faithful, firm, persistent, just Toward all that gross, indifferent, facile dust, The Archangels laboured to discharge their trust By precept and example, prayer and law, Advice, reproof, and rule, but, labouring, saw Each in his fellows' countenance confessed, The Doubt that sickens: "Have I done my best?" Even as they sighed and turned to toil anew, The Seraph hailed them with observance due; And, after some fit talk of higher things, Touched tentative on mundane happenings. This they permitting, he, emboldened thus, Prolused of humankind promiscuous, And, since the large contention less avails Than instances observed, he told them tales-- Tales of the shop, the bed, the court, the street, Intimate, elemental, indiscreet: Occasions where Confusion smiting swift Piles jest on jest as snow-slides pile the drift Whence, one by one, beneath derisive skies, The victims' bare, bewildered heads arise-- Tales of the passing of the spirit, graced With humour blinding as the doom it faced-- Stark tales of ribaldy that broke aside To tears, by laughter swallowed ere they dried- Tales to which neither grace nor gain accrue, But Only (Allah be exalted!) true, And only, as the Seraph showed that night, Delighting to the limits of delight. These he rehearsed with artful pause and halt, And such pretence of memory at fault, That soon the Four--so well the bait was thrown-- Came to his aid with memories of their own-- Matters dismissed long since as small or vain, Whereof the high significance had lain Hid, till the ungirt glosses made it plain. Then, as enlightenment came broad and fast, Each marvelled at his own oblivious past Until--the Gates of Laughter opened wide-- The Four, with that bland Seraph at their side, While they recalled, compared, and amplified, In utter mirth forgot both Zeal and Pride! High over Heaven the lamps of midnight burned Ere, weak with merriment, the Four returned, Not in that order they were wont to keep-- Pinion to pinion answering, sweep for sweep, In awful diapason heard afar-- But shoutingly adrift 'twixt star and star; Reeling a planet's orbit left or right As laughter took them in the abysmal Night; Or, by the point of some remembered jest, Winged and brought helpless down through gulfs unguessed, Where the blank worlds that gather to the birth Leaped in the Womb of Darkness at their mirth, And e'en Gehenna's bondsmen understood. They were not damned from human brotherhood . . . Not first nor last of Heaven's high Host, the Four That night took place beneath The Throne once more. 0 lovelier than their morning majesty, The understanding light behind the eye! 0 more compelling than their old command, The new-learned friendly gesture of the hand! 0 sweeter than their zealous fellowship, The wise half-smile that passed from lip to lip! 0 well and roundly, when Command was given, They told their tale against themselves to Heaven, And in the silence, waiting on The Word, Received the Peace and Pardon of The Lord!

Written by Denise Levertov | The Secret Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don't know the secret wrote the line. They told me (through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret, the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can't find, and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all.

Written by Denise Levertov | The Rainwalkers An old man whose black face shines golden-brown as wet pebbles under the streetlamp, is walking two mongrel dogs of dis- proportionate size, in the rain, in the relaxed early-evening avenue. The small sleek one wants to stop, docile to the imploring soul of the trashbasket, but the young tall curly one wants to walk on; the glistening sidewalkentices him to arcane happenings. Increasing rain. The old bareheaded man smiles and grumbles to himself. The lights change: the avenue's endless nave echoes notes of liturgical red. He drifts between his dogs' desires. The three of them are enveloped - turning now to go crosstown - in their sense of each other, of pleasure, of weather, of corners, of leisurely tensions between them and private silence.

Written by G K Chesterton | To Belloc For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree; You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town's, The largest lamp on Campden Hill. Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home The big blue cap that always fits, And so it is (be calm; they come To goal at last, my wandering wits), So is it with the heroic thing; This shall not end for the world's end And though the sullen engines swing, Be you not much afraid, my friend. This did not end by Nelson's urn Where an immortal England sits-- Nor where your tall young men in turn Drank death like wine at Austerlitz. And when the pedants bade us mark What cold mechanic happenings Must come; our souls said in the dark, 'Belike; but there are likelier things.' Likelier across these flats afar These sulky levels smooth and free The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found a thing to love. Far from your sunny uplands set I saw the dream; the streets I trod The lit straight streets shot out and met The starry streets that point to God. This legend of an epic hour A child I dreamed, and dream it still, Under the great grey water-tower That strikes the stars on Campden Hill

Written by John Berryman | Sonnet 96 It will seem strange, no more this range on range Of opening hopes and happenings. Strange to be One's name no longer. Not caught up, not free. Strange, not to wish one's wishes onward. Strange, The looseness, slopping, time and space estrange. Strangest, and sad as a blind child, not to see Ever you, never to hear you, endlessly Neither you there, nor coming.. Heavy change!— An instant there is, Sophoclean, true, When Oedipus must understand: his head— When Oedipus believes—tilts like a wave, And will not break, only iov iov Wells from his dreadful mouth, the love he led: Prolong to Procyon this. This begins my grave.

Written by Eugene Field | The two little skeezucks There were two little skeezucks who lived in the isle Of Boo in a southern sea; They clambered and rollicked in heathenish style In the boughs of their cocoanut tree. They didn't fret much about clothing and such And they recked not a whit of the ills That sometimes accrue From having to do With tailor and laundry bills. The two little skeezucks once heard of a Fair Far off from their native isle, And they asked of King Fan if they mightn't go there To take in the sights for awhile. Now old King Fan Was a good-natured man (As good-natured monarchs go), And howbeit he swore that all Fairs were a bore, He hadn't the heart to say "No." So the two little skeezucks sailed off to the Fair In a great big gum canoe, And I fancy they had a good time there, For they tarried a year or two. And old King Fan at last began To reckon they'd come to grief, When glory! one day They sailed into the bay To the tune of "Hail to the Chief!" The two little skeezucks fell down on the sand, Embracing his majesty's toes, Till his majesty graciously bade them stand And salute him nose to nose. And then quoth he: "Divulge unto me What happenings have hapt to you; And how did they dare to indulge in a Fair So far from the island of Boo?" The two little skeezucks assured their king That what he surmised was true; That the Fair would have been a different thing Had it only been held in Boo! "The folk over there in no wise compare With the folk of the southern seas; Why, they comb out their heads And they sleep in beds Instead of in caverns and trees!" The two little skeezucks went on to say That children (so far as they knew) Had a much harder time in that land far away Than here in the island of Boo! They have to wear clo'es Which (as every one knows) Are irksome to primitive laddies, While, with forks and with spoons, they're denied the sweet boons That accrue from free use of one's paddies! "And now that you're speaking of things to eat," Interrupted the monarch of Boo, "We beg to inquire if you happened to meet With a nice missionary or two?" "No, that we did not; in that curious spot Where were gathered the fruits of the earth, Of that special kind Which Your Nibs has in mind There appeared a deplorable dearth!" Then loud laughed that monarch in heathenish mirth And loud laughed his courtiers, too, And they cried: "There is elsewhere no land upon earth So good as our island of Boo!" And the skeezucks, tho' glad Of the journey they'd had, Climbed up in their cocoanut trees, Where they still may be seen with no shirts to keep clean Or trousers that bag at the knees.

Written by Emile Verhaeren | The small happenings The small happenings, the thousand nothings, a letter, a date, a humble anniversary, a word said once again as in days long ago uplift your heart and mine in these long evenings. And we celebrate for ourselves these simple things, and we count and recount our old treasures, so that the little of us that we still keep may remain steadfast and brave before the sullen hour. And more than is fitting, we show ourselves solicitous of these poor, gentle, kindly joys that sit down on the bench near the flaming fire with winter flowers on their thin knees. And they take from the chest where their goodness hides it the bright bread of happiness that was allotted to us, and of which Love in our house has so long eaten that he loves it even to the crumbs.

Written by Paul Laurence Dunbar | After The Quarrel So we, who 've supped the self-same cup, To-night must lay our friendship by; Your wrath has burned your judgment up, Hot breath has blown the ashes high. You say that you are wronged—ah, well, I count that friendship poor, at best A bauble, a mere bagatelle, That cannot stand so slight a test. I fain would still have been your friend, [Pg 41]And talked and laughed and loved with you; But since it must, why, let it end; The false but dies, 't is not the true. So we are favored, you and I, Who only want the living truth. It was not good to nurse the lie; 'T is well it died in harmless youth. I go from you to-night to sleep. Why, what's the odds? why should I grieve? I have no fund of tears to weep For happenings that undeceive. The days shall come, the days shall go Just as they came and went before. The sun shall shine, the streams shall flow Though you and I are friends no more. And in the volume of my years, Where all my thoughts and acts shall be, The page whereon your name appears Shall be forever sealed to me. Not that I hate you over-much, 'T is less of hate than love defied; Howe'er, our hands no more shall touch, We 'll go our ways, the world is wide.