Here are my favorite poems about feet categorized:
- Famous poems about feet
- Poems about feet and toes
- Poems about feet and love
- Short poems about feet
So if you want the best poems about feet, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s get started!
Uplifting Poems About Feet
Jump on a whimsical journey through a carefully curated collection of poems that celebrate the oft-overlooked beauty of feet.
Delight in the rhythmic dance of words as you encounter famous poems that pay homage to the grace and vitality of feet, while also exploring the concise and captivating charm of short poems that weave enchanting tales of footsteps and journeys.
This extraordinary anthology invites you to revel in the poetry of feet, where every step becomes a poetic expression of life’s exquisite cadence.
Let’s dive into it!
My #1 Favorite Poem About Feet
“At Her Feet” by Richard Le Gallienne
My head is at your feet,
Two Cytherean doves,
The same, O cruel sweet,
As were the Queen of Love’s;
They brush my dreaming brows
With silver fluttering beat,
Here in your golden house,
Beneath your feet.
No man that draweth breath
Is in such happy case:
My heart to itself saith–
Though kings gaze on her face,
I would not change my place;
To lie here is more sweet,
Here at her feet.
As one in a green land
Beneath a rose-bush lies,
Two petals in his hand,
With shut and dreaming eyes,
And hears the rustling stir,
As the young morning goes,
Shaking abroad the myrrh
Of each awakened rose;
So to me lying there
Comes the soft breath of her,–
O cruel sweet!–
There at her feet.
O little careless feet
That scornful tread
Upon my dreaming head,
As little as the rose
Of him who lies there knows
Nor of what dreams may be
Beneath your feet;
Know you of me,
Ah! dreams of your fair head,
Its golden treasure spread,
And all your moonlit snows,
Yea! all your beauty’s rose
That blooms to-day so fair
And smells so sweet–
Shoulders of ivory,
And breasts of myrrh–
Under my feet.
Famous Poems About Feet
“Upon Her Feet” by Robert Herrick
Her pretty feet
Like snails did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at Bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.
“Four-Feet” by Rudyard Kipling
I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.
Day after day, the whole day through,
Wherever my road inclined,
Four-feet said, “I am coming with you!”
And trotted along behind.
Now I must go by some other round,,
Which I shall never find,
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.
“Little-feet” by Edgar A. Guest
There is no music quite so sweet
As patter of a baby’s feet.
Who never hears along the hall
The sound of tiny feet that fall
Upon the floor so soft and low
As eagerly they come or go,
Has missed, no matter who he be,
Life’s most inspiring symphony.
There is a music of the spheres
Too fine to ring in mortal ears,
Yet not more delicate and sweet
Than pattering of baby feet;
Where’er I hear that pit-a-pat
Which falls upon the velvet mat,
Out of my dreamy nap I start
And hear the echo in my heart.
‘Tis difficult to put in words
The music of the summer birds,
Yet far more difficult a thing—
A lyric for that pattering;
Here is a music telling me
Of golden joys that are to be;
Unheralded by horns and drums,
To me a regal caller comes.
Now on my couch I lie and hear
A little toddler coming near,
Coming right boldly to my place
To pull my hair and pat my face,
Undaunted by my age or size,
Nor caring that I am not wise—
A visitor devoid of sham
Who loves me just for what I am.
This soft low music tells to me
In just a minute I shall be
Made captive by a thousand charms,
Held fast by chubby little arms,
For there is one upon the way
Who thinks the world was made for play.
Oh, where’s the sound that’s half so sweet
As pattering of baby feet?
“New Feet Within My Garden Go” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.
New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!
Poems About Feet and Toes
“Envoy” by Richard Hovey
I
Whose furthest footstep never strayed
Beyond the village of his birth,
Is but a lodger for the night
In this old wayside inn of earth.
Tomorrow he shall tae his pack,
And set outfor the ways beond,
n the old trail from star to star,
An alien and a vagabond.
II
If any record of our names
Be blown about the hills of time,
Let no one sunder us in death,–
The man of paint, the man of rhyme.
Of all our good, of all our bad,
This one thing only is of worth,–
We held the league of heart to heart
The only purpose of the earth.
“First Footsteps” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
A little way, more soft and sweet
Than fields aflower with May,
A babe’s feet, venturing, scarce complete
A little way.
Eyes full of dawning day
Look up for mother’s eyes to meet,
Too blithe for song to say.
Glad as the golden spring to greet
Its first live leaflet’s play,
Love, laughing, leads the little feet
A little way.
“A Baby Running Barefoot” by D. H. Lawrence
When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass
The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind,
They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water;
And the sight of their white play among the grass
Is like a little robin’s song, winsome,
Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one flower
For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.
I long for the baby to wander hither to me
Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,
So that she can stand on my knee
With her little bare feet in my hands,
Cool like syringa buds,
Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.
“Dead In The Sierras” by Joaquin Miller
His footprints have failed us,
Where berries are red,
And madroños are rankest,-
The hunter is dead!
The grizzly may pass
By his half-open door;
May pass and repass
On his path, as of yore;
The panther may crouch
In the leaves on his limb;
May scream and may scream,-
It is nothing to him.
Prone, bearded, and breasted
Like columns of stone;
And tall as a pine-
As a pine overthrown!
His camp-fires gone,
What else can be done
Than let him sleep on
Till the light of the sun?
Ay, tombless! what of it?
Marble is dust,
Cold and repellent;
And iron is rust.
“My Baby’s Feet” by Ella Fraser Weller
Within my palm, like roseleaves, dainty, sweet,
I fold with tenderest love two little feet—
Two little feet, twin flow’rets come to bring
To mother’s heart the first sweet breath of spring.
Wearied with play, at last they lie at rest,
One satin sole against its fair mate pressed.
Dear little feet, fain would this hand ‘ere shield
Thy tender flesh from thorns which lie concealed
Along the path which, stretching through the years,
Leads on to God, through joy and silent tears,
Oh, would that I could pluck from thy dear way
Whate’er might tempt these little feet to stray,
What though my hands be torn by thorn and stone,
Thy joy, for all my pain would soon atone;
If but thy mother planned thy life for thee,
No other path so bright as thine should be.
But what am I, that I my love should count
Greater than that of Him, who is love’s fount—
Who sent from heaven, these dainty baby feet
To make thy mother’s life and love complete?
What truer hand than His could mark thy path?
What greater love than God, thy Father, hath?
What greater wisdom shields thee from all strife?
What greater mercy grants eternal life?
When shadows come, and clouds obscure thy way
He knows that darkness only heralds day.
If bruised thy flesh, though mother’s heart may bleed,
He, in His mercy, knows thy greatest need.
Then, little feet, though mother’s prayers may rise,
In love and trust, that never doubt implies
That God, thy steps may lead in ways aright,
And keep thy soul from sin’s unholy blight,
I’ll leave thy future in His hands alone,
And know, at last, He’ll bring thee safely home.
“A Barefoot Boy” by James Whitcomb Riley
A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—
For May is here once more, and so is he,—
His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,
And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:
Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array
Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me
Of woody pathways winding endlessly
Along the creek, where even yesterday
He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—
Yet called the water “warm,” with never lack
Of joy. And so, half enviously I look
Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—
His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back
Like unto the clasp of an old pocketbook.
“Marian” by Thomas Ashe
Passing feet pause, as they pass,
By this little slab of slate.
People, if they go this way,
By the linchen’d wicket gate,
At each other look and say,
“Pity, pity! sad it was!”
Here have fallen as many tears
As the months in her short years.
Seven and ten brief sunny springs;
Scarce so many winter snows:
Here the little speedwell keeps
Watch beside the pale dog-rose;
On this hillock, while she sleeps
Underneath, the red-breast sings.
Wedded on an April day!
In the Autumn laid away!
“And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time” by William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
“Footsteps in the Street” by Robert Fuller Murray
Oh, will the footsteps never be done?
The insolent feet
Thronging the street,
Forsaken now of the only one.
The only one out of all the throng,
Whose footfall I knew,
And could tell it so true,
That I leapt to see as she passed along,
As she passed along with her beautiful face,
Which knew full well
Though it did not tell,
That I was there in the window-space.
Now my sense is never so clear.
It cheats my heart,
Making me start
A thousand times, when she is not near.
When she is not near, but so far away,
I could not come
To the place of her home,
Though I travelled and sought for a month and a day.
Do you wonder then if I wish the street
Were grown with grass,
And no foot might pass
Till she treads it again with her sacred feet?
“To Jessie’s Dancing Feet” by William De Lancey Ellwanger
How, as a spider’s web is spun
With subtle grace and art,
Do thy light footsteps, every one,
Cross and recross my heart!
Now here, now there, and to and fro,
Their winding mazes turn;
Thy fairy feet so lightly go
They seem the earth to spurn.
Yet every step leaves there behind
A something, in thy dance,
That serves to tangle up my mind
And all my soul entrance.
How, as the web the spiders spin
And wanton breezes blow,
Thy soft and filmy laces in
A swirl around thee flow!
The cobweb ’neath thy chin that ’s crossed
Remains demurely put,
While those are ever whirled and tossed
That show thy saucy foot;
That show the silver grayness of
Thy stockings’ silken sheen,
And mesh of snowy skirts above
The silver that is seen.
How, as the spider, from his web,
Dangles in light suspense,
Do thy sweet measures’ flow and ebb
Sway my enraptured sense!
Thy fluttering lace, thy dainty airs,
Thy every charming pose—
There are not more alluring snares
To bind me with than those.
Swing on! Sway on! With easy grace
Thy witching steps repeat!
The love I dare not—to thy face—
I offer at thy feet.
“The Feet of Judas” by George Marion McClellan
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
The dark and evil passions of his soul,
His secret plot, and sordidness complete,
His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole.
And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,
His bargain with the priest, and more than this,
In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim,
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And so ineffable his love ’twas meet,
That pity fill his great forgiving heart,
And tenderly to wash the traitor’s feet,
Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And thus a girded servant, self-abased,
Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven
Was ever too great to wholly be effaced,
And though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.
And so if we have ever felt the wrong
Of Trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,
What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:
Christ washed the feet of Judas.
“The Barefooted Friar” by Walter Scott (Sir)
I’ll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain,
To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;
But ne’er shall you find, should you search till you tire,
So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.
Your knight for his lady pricks forth in career,
And is brought home at even-song bunny’d through with a spear;
I confess him in haste – for his lady desires
No comfort on earth save the Barefooted Friar’s.
Your monarch? – Pshaw! many a prince has been known
To barter his robes for our cowl and our gown,
But which of us e’er felt the idle desire
To exchange for a crown the grey hood of a Friar!
The Friar has walk’d out, and where’er he has gone,
The land and its fatness is mark’d for his own;
He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires,
For every man’s house is the Barefooted Friar’s.
He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes
May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums
For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,
Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.
He’s expected at night, and the pasty’s made hot,
They broach the brown ale, and they fill the black pot,
And the goodwife would wish the goodman in the mire,
Ere he lack’d a soft pillow, the Barefooted Friar.
Long flourish the sandal, the cord, and the cope,
The dread of the devil and trust of the Pope;
For to gather life’s roses, unscathed by the briar,
Is granted alone to the Barefooted Friar.
“One Foot On Sea, And One On Shore” by Christina Georgina Rossetti
“Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again.”
“When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again.”
“Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.
“My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again.”
“Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all’s in vain;
For life’s in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again
“Till windflowers blossom on the sea,
And fishes skim along the plain;
Pale rose of roses let me be,
Your breaking heart breaks mine again.”
“The Pobble Who Has No Toes” by Edward Lear
The Pobble Who Has No Toes’
The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said “Some day you may lose them all;”
He replied “Fish, fiddle-de-dee!”
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said “The World in general knows
There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!”
The Pobble who has no toes
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set out he wrapped his nose
In a piece of scarlet flannel.
For his Aunt Jobiska said “No harm
Can come to his toes if his nose is warm;
And it’s perfectly known that a Pobble’s toes
Are safe, — provided he minds his nose!”
The Pobble swam fast and well,
And when boats or ships came near him,
He tinkledy-blinkledy-winkled a bell,
So that all the world could hear him.
And all the Sailors and Admirals cried,
When they saw him nearing the further side –
“He has gone to fish for his Aunt Jobiska’s
Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!”
But before he touched the shore,
The shore of the Bristol Channel,
A sea-green porpoise carried away
His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
And when he came to observe his feet,
Formerly garnished with toes so neat,
His face at once became forlorn,
On perceiving that all his toes were gone!
And nobody ever knew,
From that dark day to the present,
Whoso had taken the Pobble’s toes,
In a manner so far from pleasant.
Whether the shrimps, or crawfish grey,
Or crafty Mermaids stole them away –
Nobody knew: and nobody knows
How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes!
The Pobble who has no toes
Was placed in a friendly Bark,
And they rowed him back, and carried him up
To his Aunt Jobiska’s Park.
And she made him a feast at his earnest wish
Of eggs and buttercups fried with fish, –
And she said “It’s a fact the whole world knows,
That Pobbles are happier without their toes!”
“Is Bliss, Then, Such Abyss” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Is bliss, then, such abyss
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?
I’d rather suit my foot
Than save my boot,
For yet to buy another pair
Is possible
At any fair.
But bliss is sold just once;
The patent lost
None buy it any more.
“The Footsteps of the Flock” by James Drummond Burns
Not always, Lord, in pastures green
The sheep at noon Thou feedest,
Where in the shade they lie
Within Thy watchful eye:
Not always under skies serene
The white-fleeced flock Thou leadest.
On rugged ways, with bleeding feet,
They leave their painful traces;
Through deserts drear they go,
Where wounding briers grow,
And through dark valleys, where they meet
No quiet resting-places.
Not always by the waters still,
Or lonely wells palm-hidden,
Do they find happy rest,
And, in Thy presence blest,
Delight themselves, and drink their fill
Of pleasures unforbidden.
Their track is worn on Sorrow’s shore,
Where windy storms beat ever—
Their troubled course they keep,
Where deep calls unto deep;
So going till they hear the roar
Of the dark-flowing river.
But wheresoe’er their steps may be,
So Thou their path be guiding,
O be their portion mine!
Show me the secret sign,
That I may trace their way to Thee,
In Thee find rest abiding.
Slowly they gather to the fold,
Upon Thy holy mountain,—
There, resting round Thy feet,
They dread no storm nor heat,
And slake their thirst where Thou hast rolled
The stone from Life’s full fountain.
“Song for a Banjo Dance” by Langston Hughes
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake your brown feet, chile,
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake ’em swift and wil’–
Get way back, honey,
Do that rockin’ step.
Slide on over, darling,
Now! Come out
With your left.
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake ’em, honey chile.
Sun’s going down this evening–
Might never rise no mo’.
The sun’s going down this very night–
Might never rise no mo’–
So dance with swift feet, honey,
(The banjo’s sobbing low)
Dance with swift feet, honey–
Might never dance no mo’.
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
Shake ’em, Liza, chile,
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
(The music’s soft and wil’)
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
(The banjo’s sobbing low)
The sun’s going down this very night–
Might never rise no mo’.
“Song of Karen, The Dancing Child” by Katherine Mansfield
(O little white feet of mine)
Out in the storm and the rain you fly;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Can the children hear my cry?
(O little white feet of mine)
Never a child in the whole great town;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Lights out and the blinds pulled down.
(O little white feet of mine)
Never a light on a window pane,
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And the wild wet cry of the rain.
(O little white feet of mine)
Shall I never again be still?
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And away over valley and hill.
(O little white feet of mine)
Children, children, open the door!
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And the wind shrieks Nevermore.
“Barefooted” by John Charles McNeill
The girls all like to see the bluets in the lane
And the saucy johnny-jump-ups in the meadow,
But, we boys, we want to see the dogwood blooms again,
Throwin’ a sort of summer-lookin’ shadow;
For the very first mild mornin’ when the woods are white
(And we needn’t even ask a soul about it)
We leave our shoes right where we pulled them off at night,
And, barefooted once again, we run and shout it:
You may take the country over —
When the bluebird turns a rover,
And the wind is soft and hazy,
And you feel a little lazy,
And the hunters quit the possums —
It’s the time for dogwood blossoms.
We feel so light we wish there were more fences here;
We’d like to jump and jump them, all together!
No sleds for us, no guns, nor even ‘simmon beer,
No nothin’ but the blossoms and fair weather!
The meadow is a little sticky right at first,
But a few short days ‘ll wipe away that trouble.
To feel so good and gay, I wouldn’t mind the worst
That could be done by any field o’ stubble.
O, all the trees are seemin’ sappy!
O, all the folks are smilin’ happy!
And there’s joy in every little bit of room;
But the happiest of them all
At the Shanghai rooster’s call
Are we barefoots when the dogwoods burst abloom!
“To J.W” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Set not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Nor seek to unwind the shroud
Which charitable time
And nature have allowed
To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Care not to strip the dead
Of his sad ornament;
His myrrh, and wine, and rings,
His sheet of lead,
And trophies buried;
Go get them where he earned them when alive,
As resolutely dig or dive.
Life is too short to waste
The critic bite or cynic bark,
Quarrel, or reprimand;
‘Twill soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark.
“To Charles Harpur” by Henry Kendall
I would sit at your feet for long days,
To hear the sweet Muse of the Wild
Speak out through the sad and the passionate lays
Of her first and her favourite Child.
I would sit at your feet, for my soul
Delights in the solitudes free;
And I stand where the creeks and the cataracts roll
Whensoever I listen to thee!
I would sit at your feet, for I love
By the gulches and torrents to roam;
And I long in this city for woodland and grove,
And the peace of a wild forest home.
I would sit at your feet, and we’d dwell
On the scenes of a long-vanished time,
While your thoughts into music would surge and would swell
Like a breeze of our beautiful clime.
I would sit at your feet, for I know,
Though the World in the Present be blind,
That the amaranth blossoms of Promise will blow
When the Ages have left you behind.
I would sit at your feet, for I feel
I am one of a glorious band
That ever will own you and hold you their Chief,
And a Monarch of Song in the land!
“At The Foot Of Clifford Hill” by John Clare
Who loves the white-thorn tree,
And the river running free?
There a maiden stood with me
In Summer weather.
Near a cottage far from town,
While the sun went brightly down
O’er the meadows green and brown,
We loved together.
How sweet her drapery flowed,
While the moor-cock oddly crowed;
I took the kiss which love bestowed,
Under the white-thorn tree.
Soft winds the water curled,
The trees their branches furled;
Sweetest nook in all the world
Is where she stood with me.
Calm came the evening air,
The sky was sweet and fair,
In the river shadowed there,
Close by the hawthorn tree.
Round her neck I clasped my arms,
And kissed her rosy charms;
O’er the flood the hackle swarms,
Where the maiden stood with me.
O there’s something falls so dear
On the music of the ear,
Where the river runs so clear,
And my lover met with me.
At the foot of Clifford Hill
Still I hear the clacking mill,
And the river’s running still
Under the trysting tree.
“The Harlot’s House” by Oscar Wilde
We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.
Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss.
Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.
We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,
Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.
Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.
Then, turning to my love, I said,
‘The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.’
But she—she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.
Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.
And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.
“Etude Realiste” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
I.
A Baby’s feet, like sea-shells pink,
Might tempt, should heaven see meet,
An angel’s lips to kiss, we think,
A baby’s feet.
Like rose-hued sea-flowers toward the heat
They stretch and spread and wink
Their ten soft buds that part and meet.
No flower-bells that expand and shrink
Gleam half so heavenly sweet
As shine on life’s untrodden brink
A baby’s feet.
II.
A baby’s hands, like rosebuds furled
Whence yet no leaf expands,
Ope if you touch, though close upcurled,
A baby’s hands.
Then, fast as warriors grip their brands
When battle’s bolt is hurled,
They close, clenched hard like tightening bands.
No rosebuds yet by dawn impearled
Match, even in loveliest lands,
The sweetest flowers in all the world –
A baby’s hands.
III.
A baby’s eyes, ere speech begin,
Ere lips learn words or sighs,
Bless all things bright enough to win
A baby’s eyes.
Love, while the sweet thing laughs and lies,
And sleep flows out and in,
Sees perfect in them Paradise.
Their glance might cast out pain and sin,
Their speech make dumb the wise,
By mute glad godhead felt within
A baby’s eyes.
“Methought I Saw The Footsteps Of A Throne” by William Wordsworth
Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne
Which mists and vapours from mine eyes did shroud
Nor view of who might sit thereon allowed;
But all the steps and ground about were strown
With sights the ruefullest that flesh and bone
Ever put on; a miserable crowd,
Sick, hale, old, young, who cried before that cloud,
“Thou art our king, O Death! to thee we groan.”
Those steps I clomb; the mists before me gave
Smooth way; and I beheld the face of one
Sleeping alone within a mossy cave,
With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have
Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone;
A lovely Beauty in a summer grave!
“A New Year’s Gift” by John Hartley
A little lad,—bare wor his feet,
His ‘een wor swell’d an red,
Wor sleepin, one wild New Year’s neet,—
A cold doorstep his bed.
His little curls wor drippin weet,
His clooas wor thin an old,
His face, tho’ pinched, wor smilin sweet,—
His limbs wor numb wi’ cold.
Th’ wind whistled throo th’ deserted street,
An snowflakes whirled abaat,—
It wor a sorry sooart o’ neet,
For poor souls to be aght.
‘Twor varry dark, noa stars or mooin,
Could shine throo sich a storm;—
Unless some succour turns up sooin,
God help that freezin form!
A carriage stops at th’ varry haase,—
A sarvent oppens th’ door;
A lady wi’ a pale sad face,
Steps aght o’th’ cooach to th’ floor.
Her ‘een fell on that huddled form,
Shoo gives a startled cry;
Then has him carried aght o’th’ storm,
To whear its warm an dry.
Shoo tended him wi’ jewelled hands,
An monny a tear shoo shed;
For shoo’d once had a darlin lad
But he, alas! wor dead.
This little waif seemed sent to cheer,
An fill her darlin’s place;
An to her heart shoo prest him near,
An kissed his little face.
“Barefoot Sandals” by Mary White Slater
Ah, little barefoot sandals brown and still,
Do you long to be a-roaming on the hill,
Flashing down the garden way,
Fellows with the winds at play—
Are you weary waiting wingless, silent, chill?
When the morning mounts and makes the old earth sweet
With the lilt of laughing children in the street,
Do you ache to join them there,
To be twinkling down the stair
To the darling dancing gladness of her feet?
Do you know the asters troop in purple gloom,
Too late to greet the love that bade them bloom?—
That they wonder, watch and wait
At the quiet garden-gate,
While you weary in the lonely upper room?
Ah, hapless little shoes that held my all,
My joy of life within your trappings small,
Where’s the lithe and lovely thing
That each morning lent you wing?
Are you weary waiting wingless for her call?
“The Curse Of The Wandering Foot” by James Whitcomb Riley
All hope of rest withdrawn me? –
What dread command hath put
This awful curse upon me –
The curse of the wandering foot!
Forward and backward and thither,
And hither and yon again –
Wandering ever! And whither?
Answer them, God! Amen.
The blue skies are far o’er me – –
The bleak fields near below:
Where the mother that bore me? –
Where her grave in the snow? –
Glad in her trough of a coffin –
The sad eyes frozen shut
That wept so often, often,
The curse of the wandering foot!
Here in your marts I care not
Whatsoever ye think.
Good folk many who dare not
Give me to eat and drink:
Give me to sup of your pity –
Feast me on prayers! – O ye,
Met I your Christ in the city
He would fare forth with me –
Forward and onward and thither,
And hither again and yon,
With milk for our drink together
And honey to feed upon –
Nor hope of rest withdrawn us,
Since the one Father put
The bless d curse upon us –
The curse of the wandering foot.
“Little Feet” by Elizabeth Akers Allen
Two little feet, so small that both may nestle
In one caressing hand, –
Two tender feet upon the untried border
Of life’s mysterious land.
Dimpled, and soft, and pink as peach-tree blossoms,
In April’s fragrant days,
How can they walk among the briery tangles,
Edging the world’s rough ways?
These rose-white feet, along the doubtful future,
Must bear a mother’s load;
Alas! since Woman has the heavier burden,
And walks the harder road.
Love, for a while, will make the path before them
All dainty, smooth, and fair, –
Will cull away the brambles, letting only
The roses blossom there.
But when the mother’s watchful eyes are shrouded
Away from sight of men,
And these dear feet are left without her guiding,
Who shall direct them then?
How will they be allured, betrayed, deluded,
Poor little untaught feet!
Into what dreary mazes will they wander,
What dangers will they meet?
Will they go stumbling blindly in the darkness
Of Sorrow’s tearful shades?
Or find the upland slopes of Peace and Beauty,
Whose sunlight never fades?
Will they go toiling up Ambition’s summit,
The common world above?
Or in some nameless vale, securely sheltered,
Walk side by side with Love?
Some feet there be which walk Life’s track unwounded,
Which find but pleasant ways:
Some hearts there be to which this life is only
A round of happy days.
But these are few. Far more there are who wander
Without a hope or friend, –
Who find their journey full of pains and losses,
And long to reach the end.
How shall it be with her, the tender stranger,
Fair-faced and gentle-eyed,
Before whose unstained feet the world’s rude highway
Stretches so fair and wide?
Ah! who may read the future? For our darling
We crave all blessings sweet,
And pray that He who feeds the crying ravens
Will guide the baby’s feet.
“At the Feet of Isis” by Anonymous
Her feet are set in darkness–at Her feet
We kneel, for She is Mother of us all–
A mighty Mother, with all love replete;
We, groping ’midst the shadow’s dusky pall,
Ask not to see the upper vision bright,
Enough for us Her feet shine clear–all virgin white.
Her wings are tipped with golden light, but we
Ken but the shadow at Her pinions’ base–
We kneel before Her feet, we cannot see
The glory that illuminates Her face,
For he who t’wards the vision gazeth up
Finds first the stricken breast–the sacrificial cup!
Her feet gleam in the darkness–at Her feet
We lay the price of those twin pearls of Heav’n–
All that man hath–an offering incomplete
Is his who yet his best would leave ungiv’n;
And as She stoops Her guerdon to bestow,
His life’s blood in Her cup, outstretched there, needs must flow!
Her wings are in the shadow–Lo! they cast
That shadow e’en o’er Heav’n’s own light, we cry,
For in the darkness, terrible and vast,
She spreads the wing to which the soul must hie;
But, to that shelter led, our upward gaze
Beholds Her pinions formed of Light’s celestial rays!
Her feet are in the darkness, but Her face
Is in high Heav’n–all Truth inhabits there;
All Knowledge and all Peace, and perfect grace,
And in the wonder of Her joy they share
Who, blindly clinging to Her feet erstwhile,
Obtained the priceless gift–the vision of Her smile.
“The Journey” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being’s road,
Eternity by term.
Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.
Retreat was out of hope, —
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity’s white flag before,
And God at every gate.
“Where the Blessed Feet Have Trod” by Michael Field
Not alone in Palestine those blessed Feet have trod,
For I catch their print,
I have seen their dint
On a plot of chalky ground,
Little villas dotted round;
On a sea-worn waste,
Where a priest, in haste,
Passeth with the Blessèd Sacrament to one dying, frail,
Through the yarrow, past the tamarisk, and the plaited snail:
Bright upon the grass I see
Bleeding Feet of Calvary–
And I worship, and I clasp them round!
On this bit of chalky, English ground,
Jesu, Thou art found: my God I hail,
My Lord, my God!
“My Father’s Child” by Gertrude Bloede
About her head or floating feet
No halo’s starry gleam,
Still dark and swift uprising, like
A bubble in a stream,—
A soul, from whose rejoicing heart
The bonds of earth were riven,
Sped upward through the silent night
To the closed Gates of Heaven.
And waiting heard a voice,—“Who comes
To claim Eternity?
Hero or saint that bled and died
Mankind to save and free?”
She bent her head. The voice once more,—
“Didst thou then toil and live
For home and children—to thy Love
Last breath and heart’s blood give?”
Her head sank lower still, she clasped
Her hands upon her breast:
“Oh, no!” she whispered, “my dim life
Has never been so blest!
“I trod a lonely, barren path,
And neither great nor good,
Gained not a hero’s palm, nor won
The crown of motherhood!
“Oh, I was naught!” Yet suddenly
The white lips faintly smiled—
“Save, oh, methinks I was mayhap
My Heavenly Father’s Child!”
A flash of light, a cry of joy,
And with uplifted eyes
The soul, through gates rolled open wide,
Passed into Paradise.
“The Road and the End” by Carl Sandburg
I shall foot it
Down the roadway in the dusk,
Where shapes of hunger wander
And the fugitives of pain go by.
I shall foot it
In the silence of the morning,
See the night slur into dawn,
Hear the slow great winds arise
Where tall trees flank the way
And shoulder toward the sky.
The broken boulders by the road
Shall not commemorate my ruin.
Regret shall be the gravel under foot.
I shall watch for
Slim birds swift of wing
That go where wind and ranks of thunder
Drive the wild processionals of rain.
The dust of the traveled road
Shall touch my hands and face.
“The Statue of Lorenzo de’ Medici” by James Ernest Nesmith
Mark me how still I am!—The sound of feet
Unnumbered echoing through this vaulted hall,
Or voices harsh, on me unheeded fall,
Placed high in my memorial niche and seat,
In cold and marble meditation meet
Among proud tombs and pomp funereal
Of rich sarcophagi and sculptured wall,—
In death’s elaborate elect retreat.
I was a Prince,—this monument was wrought
That I in honor might eternal stand;
In vain, subdued by Buonarroti’s hand,
The conscious stone is pregnant with his thought;
He to this brooding rock his fame devised,
And he, not I, is here immortalized.
“The First Step” by Andrew Bice Saxton
My little one begins his feet to try,
A tottering, feeble, inconsistent way;
Pleased with the effort, he forgets his play,
And leaves his infant baubles where they lie.
Laughing and proud his mother flutters nigh,
Turning to go, yet joy-compelled to stay,
And, bird-like, singing what her heart would say;
But not so certain of my bliss am I.
For I bethink me of the days in store
Wherein those feet must traverse realms unknown,
And half forget the pathway to our door.
And I recall that in the seasons flown
We were his all — as he was all our own —
But never can be quite so any more.
“Harlem Shadow” by Claude McKay
I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass
To bend and barter at desire’s call.
Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet
Go prowling through the night from street to street!
Through the long night until the silver break
Of day the little gray feet know no rest;
Through the lone night until the last snow-flake
Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast,
The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet
Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.
Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way
Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,
Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,
The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!
Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
In Harlem wandering from street to street.
“A Forecast” by Archibald Lampman
What days await this woman, whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
Frank eyes I feel the very heart’s least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man’s desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?
One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.
“Litany” by John Samuel Bewley Monsell
When my feet have wander’d
From the narrow way
Out into the desert,
Gone like sheep astray;
Soil’d and sore with travel
Through the ways of men,
All too weak to bear me
Back to Thee again:
Hear me, O my Father!
From Thy mercy-seat,
Save me by the passion
Of the bleeding feet!
When my hands, unholy
Through some sinful deed
Wrought in me, have freshly
Made my Saviour’s bleed:
And I cannot lift up
Mine to Thee in prayer,
Tied and bound, and holden
Back by my despair:
Then, my Father! loose them,
Break for me their bands,
Save me by the passion
Of the bleeding hands!
When my thoughts, unruly,
Dare to doubt of Thee,
And thy ways to question
Deem is to be free:
Till, through cloud and darkness,
Wholly gone astray,
They find no returning
To the narrow way:
Then, my God! mine only
Trust and truth art Thou;
Save me by the passion
Of the bleeding brow!
When my heart, forgetful
Of the love that yet,
Though by man forgotten,
Never can forget;
All its best affections
Spent on things below,
In its sad despondings
Knows not where to go:
Then, my God! mine only
Hope and help Thou art;
Save me by the passion
Of the bleeding heart!
“The Spirit of the Fall” by Danske Dandridge
Come, on thy swaying feet,
Wild Spirit of the Fall!
With wind-blown skirts, loose hair of russet-brown,
Crowned with bright berries of the bitter-sweet.
Trip a light measure with the hurrying leaf,
Straining thy few late roses to thy breast,
With laughter over-gay, sweet eyes drooped down,
That none may guess thy grief.
Dare not to pause for rest
Lest the slow tears should gather to their fall.
But when the cold moon rises o’er the hill,
The last numb crickets cease, and all is still,
Face down thou liest on the frosty ground
Strewed with thy fortune’s wreek, alas, thine all—
There, on a winter dawn, thy corse I found,
Lone Spirit of the Fall.
“Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet” by George Washington Bethune
O blessed Jesus! when I see Thee bending,
Girt as a servant, at Thy servants’ feet,
Love, lowliness, and might, in zeal all blending,
To wash their dust away, and make them meet
To share Thy feast. I know not to adore,
Whether thy humbleness or glory more.
Conscious Thou art of that dread hour impending,
When Thou must hang in anguish on the tree;
Yet, as from the beginning to the ending
Of Thy sad life, Thine own are dear to Thee,—
And Thou wilt prove to them, ere Thou dost part
The untold love which fills Thy faithful heart.
The day, too, is at hand, when far ascending,
Thy human brow the crown of God shall wear,
Ten thousand saints and radiant ones attending,
To do Thy will and bow in homage there;
But Thou dost pledge, to guard Thy church from ill,
Or bless with good, Thyself a servant still.
Meek Jesus! to my soul, Thy spirit lending,
Teach me to live, like Thee, in lowly love;
With humblest service all Thy saints befriending,
Until I serve before Thy throne above—
Yes! serving e’en my foes, for Thou didst seek
The feet of Judas in Thy service meek.
Daily my pilgrim feet, as homeward wending
My weary way, are sadly stained with sin;
Daily do Thou, Thy precious grace expending,
Wash me all clean without and clean within,
And make me fit to have a part with Thee
And Thine, at last, in Heaven’s festivity.
O blessed name of Servant! comprehending
Man’s highest honour in his humblest name;
For Thou, God’s Christ, that office recommending,
The throne of mighty power didst truly claim;
He who would rise like Thee, like Thee must owe
His glory only to His stooping low.
“The Single Hound” by Emily Dickinson
The feet of people walking home
In gayer sandals go,
The Crocus, till she rises,
The Vassal of the Snow—
The lips at Hallelujah!
Long years of practice bore,
Till bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.
Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted from the Sea,
Pinions the Seraph’s wagon,
Pedestrians once, as we—
Night is the morning’s canvas,
Larceny, legacy,
Death but our rapt attention
To immortality.
My figures fail to tell me
How far the village lies,
Whose Peasants are the angels,
Whose Cantons dot the skies,
My Classics veil their faces,
My Faith that dark adores,
Which from its solemn Abbeys
Such resurrection pours!
“Hebe” by James Russell Lowell
I saw the twinkle of white feet,
I saw the flush of robes descending;
Before her ran an influence fleet,
That bowed my heart like barley bending.
As, in bare fields, the searching bees
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
It led me on, by sweet degrees
Joy’s simple honey-cells unbinding.
Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;
With nearer love the sky leaned o’er me;
The long-sought Secret’s golden gates
On musical hinges swung before me.
I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp
Thrilling with godhood; like a lover
I sprang the proffered life to clasp;–
The beaker fell; the luck was over.
The Earth has drunk the vintage up;
What boots it patch the goblet’s splinters?
Can Summer fill the icy cup,
Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter’s?
O spendthrift haste! await the Gods;
The nectar crowns the lips of Patience;
Haste scatters on unthankful sods
The immortal gift in vain libations.
Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,
And shuns the hands would seize upon her;
Follow thy life, and she will sue
To pour for thee the cup of honor.
“Finland” by Robert Graves
Feet and faces tingle
In that frore land:
Legs wobble and go wingle,
You scarce can stand.
The skies are jewelled all around,
The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground,
The Finn with face like paper
And eyes like a lighted taper
Hurls his rough rune
At the wintry moon
And stamps to mark the tune.
“Near Keokuk” by Carl Sandburg
Thirty-two Greeks are dipping their feet in a creek.
Sloshing their bare feet in a cool flow of clear water.
All one midsummer day ten hours the Greeks
stand in leather shoes shoveling gravel.
Now they hold their toes and ankles
to the drift of running water.
Then they go to the bunk cars
and eat mulligan and prune sauce,
Smoke one or two pipefuls, look at the stars,
tell smutty stories
About men and women they have known,
countries they have seen,
Railroads they have built—
and then the deep sleep of children.
“The Return” by Annie Fields
The bright sea washed beneath her feet,
As it had done of yore,
The well-remembered odor sweet
Came through her opening door.
Again the grass his ripened head
Bowed where her raiment swept;
Again the fog-bell told of dread,
And all the landscape wept.
Again beside the woodland bars
She found the wilding rose,
With petals fine and heart of stars,—
The flower our childhood knows.
And there, before that blossom small,
By its young face beguiled,
The woman saw her burden fall,
And stood a little child.
She knew no more the weight of love,
No more the weight of grief;
So could the simple wild-rose move
And bring her heart relief.
She asked not where her love was gone,
Nor where her grief was fled,
But stood as at the great white throne,
Unmindful of things dead.
“Theoretikos” by Oscar Wilde
This mighty empire hath but feet of clay:
Of all its ancient chivalry and might
Our little island is forsaken quite:
Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,
And from its hills that voice hath passed away
Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,
Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit
For this vile traffic-house, where day by day
Wisdom and reverence are sold at the mart,
And the rude people rage with ignorant cries
Against a heritage of centuries.
It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art
And loftiest culture I would stand apart,
Neither for God nor for his enemies.
“Metrical Feet” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl’s trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long.
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride —
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer.
If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these meters to show it,
With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet —
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S.T. Colerige.
“With Wavering Feet” by Vladimir Solovyov
With wavering feet I walked where dawn-lit mists were lying,
To find the shores of wonder and of mystery.
Dawn struggled with the final stars, frail dreams were flying,
While unto unknown gods my morning lips were crying
The prayers that my dream-imprisoned soul had whispered me.
The noon is cold and candid, the road winds on severely,
And through an unknown land once more my journey lies.
The mist has lifted now, and the stark eye sees clearly
How hard the mountain-road that rises upward sheerly,
How distant looms the dream the prescient heart descries!
Yet onward with unfaltering feet I shall be going
Toward midnight, onward toward the shore of my desires,
Where on a mountain-height, new stars its glory showing,
My promised temple waits, with plinth and pillar glowing,
Beaten about with flame of white, triumphal fires.
“Moritura” by Margaret Gilman Davidson
I am the mown grass, dying at your feet,
The pale grass, gasping faintly in the sun.
I shall be dead, long, long ere day is done,
That you may say: “The air, to-day, was sweet.”
I am the mown grass, dying at your feet.
I am the white syringa, falling now,
When some one shakes the bough.
What matter if I lose my life’s brief noon?
You laugh, “A snow in June!”
I am the white syringa, falling now.
I am the waning lamp that flickers on,—
Trying to give my old, unclouded light
Among the rest that make your garden bright.
Let me still burn till all my oil is gone.
I am the waning lamp that flickers on.
I am your singer, singing my last note.
Death’s fingers clutch my throat.
New grass will grow, new flowers bloom and fall;
New lamps blaze out against your garden wall:
I am your singer, singing my last note.
“A Song of Riches” by Katharine Lee Bates
What will you give to a barefoot lass,
Morning with breath like wine?
Wade, bare feet! In my wide morass
Starry marigolds shine.
Alms, sweet Noon, for a barefoot lass,
With her laughing looks aglow!
Run, bare feet! In my fragrant grass
Golden buttercups blow.
Gift, a gift for a barefoot lass,
O twilight hour of dreams!
Rest, bare feet, by my lake of glass,
Where the mirrored sunset gleams.
Homeward the weary merchants pass,
With the gold bedimmed by care.
Little they wise that the barefoot lass
Is the only millionaire.
“Clark Street Bridge” by Carl Sandburg
Dust of the feet
And dust of the wheels,
Wagons and people going,
All day feet and wheels.
Now…
Only stars and mist
A lonely policeman,
Two cabaret dancers,
Stars and mist again,
No more feet or wheels,
No more dust and wagons.
Voices of dollars
And drops of blood
Voices of broken hearts,
Voices singing, singing,
Silver voices, singing,
Softer than the stars,
Softer than the mist.
“To Will H. Low” by Robert Louis Stevenson
Youth now flees on feathered foot
Faint and fainter sounds the flute,
Rarer songs of gods; and still
Somewhere on the sunny hill,
Or along the winding stream,
Through the willows, flits a dream;
Flits but shows a smiling face,
Flees but with so quaint a grace,
None can choose to stay at home,
All must follow, all must roam.
This is unborn beauty: she
Now in air floats high and free,
Takes the sun and breaks the blue;–
Late with stooping pinion flew
Raking hedgerow trees, and wet
Her wing in silver streams, and set
Shining foot on temple roof:
Now again she flies aloof,
Coasting mountain clouds and kiss’t
By the evening’s amethyst.
In wet wood and miry lane,
Still we pant and pound in vain;
Still with leaden foot we chase
Waning pinion, fainting face;
Still with gray hair we stumble on,
Till, behold, the vision gone!
Where hath fleeting beauty led?
To the doorway of the dead.
Life is over, life was gay:
We have come the primrose way.
“To Theodore” by George Marion McClellan
Such are the little memories of you;
They come and go, return and lie apart
From all main things of life; yet more than they,
With noiseless feet, they come and grip the heart.
Gay laughter leading quick and stormy tears,
Then smiles again and pulse of flying feet,
In breathless chase of fleeting gossamers,
Are memories so dear, so bitter-sweet.
No more are echoes of your flying feet.
Hard by, where Pike’s Peak rears its head in state,
The erstwhile rushing feet, with halting steps,
For health’s return in Denver watch and wait.
But love and memories of noiseless tread,
Where angels hovered once, all shining fair,
To tuck you in your little trundle bed,
Kneel nightly now in agony of prayer.
“Flash Crimson” by Carl Sandburg
I shall cry God to give me a broken foot.
I shall ask for a scar and a slashed nose.
I shall take the last and the worst.
I shall be eaten by gray creepers in a bunkhouse where no runners of the sun come and no dogs live.
And yet—of all “and yets” this is the bronze strongest—
I shall keep one thing better than all else; there is the blue steel of a great star of early evening in it; it lives longer than a broken foot or any scar.
The broken foot goes to a hole dug with a shovel or the bone of a nose may whiten on a hilltop—and yet—“and yet”—
There is one crimson pinch of ashes left after all; and none of the shifting winds that whip the grass and none of the pounding rains that beat the dust, know how to touch or find the flash of this crimson.
I cry God to give me a broken foot, a scar, or a lousy death.
I who have seen the flash of this crimson, I ask God for the last and worst.
“Disputed Tread” by Hazel Hall
Where she steps a whir,
Like dust about her feet,
Follows after her
Down the dustless street.
Something struggles there:
The forces that contend
Violently as to where
Her pathway is to end.
Issues, like great hands, grip
And wrestle for her tread;
One would strive to trip,
And one would go ahead.
Conflicting strengths in her
Grapple to guide her feet,
Raising an unclean whir,
Like dust, upon the street.
“Atlantic City Waiter” by Countee Cullen
With subtle poise he grips his tray
Of delicate things to eat;
Choice viands to their mouths half way,
The ladies watch his feet
Go carving dexterous avenues
Through sly intricacies;
Ten thousand years on jungle clues
Alone shaped feet like these.
For him to be humble who is proud
Needs colder artifice;
Though half his pride is disavowed,
In vain the sacrifice.
Sheer through his acquiescent mask
Of bland gentility,
The jungle flames like a copper cask
Set where the sun strikes free.
“A Prayer” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
O Lord, the hard-won miles
Have worn my stumbling feet:
Oh, soothe me with thy smiles,
And make my life complete.
The thorns were thick and keen
Where’er I trembling trod;
The way was long between
My wounded feet and God.
Where healing waters flow
Do thou my footsteps lead.
My heart is aching so;
Thy gracious balm I need.
“A Sudden Shower” by James Whitcomb Riley
Barefooted boys scud up the street
Or skurry under sheltering sheds;
And schoolgirl faces, pale and sweet,
Gleam from the shawls about their heads.
Doors bang; and mother-voices call
From alien homes; and rusty gates
Are slammed; and high above it all,
The thunder grim reverberates.
And then, abrupt, – the rain! the rain! –
The earth lies gasping; and the eyes
Behind the streaming window-pane
Smile at the trouble of the skies.
The highway smokes; sharp echoes ring;
The cattle bawl and cowbells clank;
And into town comes galloping
The farmer’s horse, with streaming flank.
The swallow dips beneath the eaves,
And flirts his plumes and folds his wings;
And under the catawba leaves
The caterpillar curls and clings.
The bumble-bee is pelted down
The wet stem of the hollyhock;
And sullenly, in spattered brown,
The cricket leaps the garden walk.
Within, the baby claps his hands
And crows with rapture strange and vague;
Without, beneath the rosebush stands
A dripping rooster on one leg.
“Because My Faltering Feet” by Hilaire Belloc
Because my faltering feet may fail to dare
The first descendant of the steps of Hell
Give me the Word in time that triumphs there.
I too must pass into the misty hollow
Where all our living laughter stops: and hark!
The tiny stuffless voices of the dark
Have called me, called me, till I needs must follow:
Give me the Word and I’ll attempt it well.
Say it’s the little winking of an eye
Which in that issue is uncurtained quite;
A little sleep that helpsa moment by
Between the thin dawn and the large daylight.
Ah! tell me more than yet was hoped of men;
Swear that’s true now, and I’ll believe it then.
“Shoe Black” by James McIntyre
Gent on sidewalk held out his foot
While boy in gutter brushed his boot,
But at this time, how sad, alas,
An unruly horse did o’er him pass.
The child for friends he sad did lack,
They said he was but a shoeblack,
Kind hearted man the poor child bore,
To a soft cot in back of store.
And brought from hospital ward
A skilful nurse the lad to guard,
She often listened for his breath,
As he was passing the vale of death.
But, poor child, once he ope’d his eyes,
And he looked round in great surprise,
Feebly he asked, heaving a sigh,
Where in the world now am I.
The tender nurse bent o’er his face,
And said, dear boy, you’re in good place,
She asked his name, he said it was Tom,
And that for long he had no home.
And since his mother was stricken dead,
He had not once reposed in bed,
And while suffering child did rack,
He eagerly asked will mother come back.
The nurse she gently answered, no,
But, to your dear mother you can go,
In his last sleep he had a dream,
Shining up boots it was his theme.
He soon awoke and called out, mother,
I see you and little brother,
Christ, I know, has me forgiven,
For they are beckoning me to Heaven.
“L’Eau Dormante” by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Curled up and sitting on her feet.
Within the window’s deep embrasure,
Is Lydia; and across the street,
A lad, with eyes of roguish azure,
Watches her buried in her book.
In vain he tries to win a look,
And from the trellis over there
Blows sundry kisses through the air,
Which miss the mark, and fall unseen,
Uncared for. Lydia is thirteen.
My lad, if you, without abuse,
Will take advise from one who’s wiser,
And put his wisdom to more use
Than ever yet did your adviser;
If you will let, as none will do,
Another’s heartbreak serve for two,
You’ll have a care, some four years hence,
How you lounge there by yonder fence
And blow those kisses through that screen—
For Lydia will be seventeen.
“At The Foot Of The Cross” by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Freed from a burden sore and grievous band,
Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,
Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side,
As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land.
Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand,
With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide
Promise of help and mercies multiplied,
And hope that yet my soul secure may stand.
Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see
My evil past, Thy chastened ears to hear
And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime:
Let Thy blood only lave and succour me,
Yielding more perfect pardon, better cheer,
As older still I grow with lengthening time.
“Rest” by Abram Joseph Ryan
My feet are wearied, and my hands are tired,
My soul oppressed —
And I desire, what I have long desired —
Rest — only rest.
‘Tis hard to toil — when toil is almost vain,
In barren ways;
‘Tis hard to sow — and never garner grain,
In harvest days.
The burden of my days is hard to bear,
But God knows best;
And I have prayed — but vain has been my prayer
For rest — sweet rest.
‘Tis hard to plant in Spring and never reap
The Autumn yield;
‘Tis hard to till, and ’tis tilled to weep
O’er fruitless field.
And so I cry a weak and human cry,
So heart oppressed;
And so I sigh a weak and human sigh,
For rest — for rest.
My way has wound across the desert years,
And cares infest
My path, and through the flowing of hot tears,
I pine — for rest.
‘Twas always so; when but a child I laid
On mother’s breast
My wearied little head; e’en then I prayed
As now — for rest.
And I am restless still; ’twill soon be o’er;
For down the West
Life’s sun is setting, and I see the shore
Where I shall rest.
“Her Little Feet” by William Ernest Henley
Her little feet!… Beneath us ranged the sea,
She sat, from sun and wind umbrella-shaded,
One shoe above the other danglingly,
And lo! a Something exquisitely graded,
Brown rings and white, distracting – to the knee!
The band was loud. A wild waltz melody
Flowed rhythmic forth. The nobodies paraded.
And thro’ my dream went pulsing fast and free:
Her little feet.
Till she made room for some one. It was He!
A port-wine flavored He, a He who traded,
Rich, rosy, round, obese to a degree!
A sense of injury overmastered me.
Quite bulbously his ample boots upbraided
Her little feet.
“The Epitaph” by Jonathan Swift
Here, five feet deep, lies on his back
A cobbler, starmonger, and quack;
Who to the stars, in pure good will,
Does to his best look upward still.
Weep, all you customers that use
His pills, his almanacks, or shoes;
And you that did your fortunes seek,
Step to his grave but once a-week;
This earth, which bears his body’s print,
You’ll find has so much virtue in’t,
That I durst pawn my ears, ’twill tell
Whate’er concerns you full as well,
In physic, stolen goods, or love,
As he himself could, when above.
“Footsteps Of Angels” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!
They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only
Such as these have lived and died!
“Mare Rubrum” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
In Life’s Red Sea with faith I plant my feet,
And wait the sound of that sustaining word
Which long ago the men of Israel heard,
When Pharaoh’s host behind them, fierce and fleet,
Raged on, consuming with revengeful heat.
Why are the barrier waters still unstirred?–
That struggling faith may die of hope deferred?
Is God not sitting in His ancient seat?
The billows swirl above my trembling limbs,
And almost chill my anxious heart to doubt
And disbelief, long conquered and defied.
But tho’ the music of my hopeful hymns
Is drowned by curses of the raging rout,
No voice yet bids th’ opposing waves divide!
“Evening” by Charles Stuart Calverley
Kate! if e’er thy light foot lingers
On the lawn, when up the fells
Steals the Dark, and fairy fingers
Close unseen the pimpernels:
When, his thighs with sweetness laden,
From the meadow comes the bee,
And the lover and the maiden
Stand beneath the trysting tree:-
Lingers on, till stars unnumber’d
Tremble in the breeze-swept tarn,
And the bat that all day slumber’d
Flits about the lonely barn;
And the shapes that shrink from garish
Noon are peopling cairn and lea;
And thy sire is almost bearish
If kept waiting for his tea:-
And the screech-owl scares the peasant
As he skirts some churchyard drear;
And the goblins whisper pleasant
Tales in Miss Rossetti’s ear;
Importuning her in strangest,
Sweetest tones to buy their fruits:-
O be careful that thou changest,
On returning home, thy boots.
“Quiet” by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Only the footprints of the partridge run
Over the billowy drifts on the mountain-side;
And now on level wings the brown birds glide
Following the snowy curves, and in the sun
Bright birds of gold above the stainless white
They move, and as the pale blue shadows move,
With them my heart glides on in golden flight
Over the hills of quiet to my love.
Storm-shaken, racked with terror through the long
Tempestuous night, in the quiet blue of morn
Love drinks the crystal airs, and peace newborn
Within his troubled heart, on wings aglow
Soars into rapture, as from the quiet snow
The golden birds; and out of silence, song.
“Workmen’s March” by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken!
Keeping time is power’s token.
That makes
one
of many, many,
That makes bold, if fear daunts any,
That makes small the load and lighter,
That makes near the goal and brighter,
Till it greets us gained with laughter,
And we seek the next one after.
Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken!
Keeping time is power’s token.
Marching, marching of few hundreds,
No one heeds it, never one dreads;
Marching, marching of few thousands,
Here and there wakes some to hearing;
Marching, marching hundred thousands,-
All will mark that thunder nearing.
Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken!
Keeping time is power’s token.
Let us march all, never weaken
Time from Vardö down to Viken,
Vinger up to Bergen’s region,-
Let us make
one
marching legion,
Then we’ll rout some wrong from Norway,
Open wide to right the doorway.
“To The Young: After Heine” by John Milton Hay
Let your feet not falter, your course not alter
By golden apples, till victory’s won!
The sword’s sharp clangour, the dart’s shrill anger,
Swerve not the hero thundering on.
A bold beginning is half the winning,
An Alexander makes worlds his fee.
No long debating! The Queens are waiting
In his pavilion on beaded knee.
Thus swift pursuing his wars and wooing,
He mounts old Darius’ bed and throne.
O glorious ruin! O blithe undoing!
O drunk death-triumph in Babylon!
“His Mercy Endureth For Ever” by William Arthur Dunkerley
Our feet have wandered, wandered far and wide,–
His mercy endureth for ever!
From that strait path in which the Master died,–
His mercy endureth for ever!
Low have we fallen from our high estate,
Long have we lingered, lingered long and late;
But the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ever!
There is no sin His Love can not forgive;–
His mercy endureth for ever!
No soul so stained His Love will not receive;
His mercy endureth for ever!
No load of sorrow but His touch can move,
No hedge of thorns that can withstand His Love;
For the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ever!
So we will sing, whatever may betide;–
His mercy endureth for ever!
Nought but ourselves can keep us from His side;–
His mercy endureth for ever!
What though no place we win in life’s rough race,
Our loss may prove the measure of His grace.
For the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ever!
“Little All-Aloney” by Eugene Field
Little All-Aloney’s feet
Pitter-patter in the hall,
And his mother runs to meet
And to kiss her toddling sweet,
Ere perchance he fall.
He is, oh, so weak and small!
Yet what danger shall he fear
When his mother hovereth near,
And he hears her cheering call:
“All-Aloney”?
Little All-Aloney’s face
It is all aglow with glee,
As around that romping-place
At a terrifying pace
Lungeth, plungeth he!
And that hero seems to be
All unconscious of our cheers –
Only one dear voice he hears
Calling reassuringly:
“All-Aloney!”
T hough his legs bend with their load,
Though his feet they seem so small
That you cannot help forebode
Some disastrous episode
In that noisy hall,
Neither threatening bump nor fall
Little All-Aloney fears,
But with sweet bravado steers
Whither comes that cheery call:
“All-Aloney!”
Ah, that in the years to come,
When he shares of Sorrow’s store, –
When his feet are chill and numb,
When his cross is burdensome,
And his heart is sore:
Would that he could hear once more
The gentle voice he used to hear –
Divine with mother love and cheer –
Calling from yonder spirit shore:
“All, all alone!”
“To The Wissahiccon” by Frances Anne Kemble
My feet shall tread no more thy mossy side,
When once they turn away, thou Pleasant Water,
Nor ever more, reflected in thy tide,
Will shine the eyes of the White Island’s daughter.
But often in my dreams, when I am gone
Beyond the sea that parts thy home and mine,
Upon thy banks the evening sun will shine,
And I shall hear thy low, still flowing on.
And when the burden of existence lies
Upon my soul, darkly and heavily,
I’ll clasp my hands over my weary eyes,
Thou Pleasant Water, and thy clear waves see.
Bright be thy course for ever and for ever,
Child of pure mountain springs, and mountain snow;
And as thou wanderest on to meet the river
Oh, still in light and music mayst thou flow!
I never shall come back to thee again,
When once my sail is shadowed on the main,
Nor ever shall I hear thy laughing voice
As on their rippling way thy waves rejoice,
Nor ever see the dark green cedar throw
Its gloomy shade o’er the clear depths below,
Never, from stony rifts of granite gray
Sparkling like diamond rocks in the sun’s ray,
Shall I look down on thee, thou pleasant stream,
Beneath whose crystal folds the gold sands gleam;
Wherefore, farewell! but whensoe’er again
The wintry spell melts from the earth and air;
And the young Spring comes dancing through thy glen,
With fragrant, flowery breath, and sunny hair;
When through the snow the scarlet berries gleam,
Like jewels strewn upon thy banks, fair stream,
My spirit shall through many a summer’s day
Return, among thy peaceful woods to stray.
“A Mountain Spring” by Henry Kendall
Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet
Of thunder and the wildering wings of rain
Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,
And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;
But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain,
Year after year, the days of tender heat,
And gracious nights whose lips with flowers are sweet,
And filtered lights, and lutes of soft refrain.
A still, bright pool. To men I may not tell
The secrets that its heart of water knows,
The story of a loved and lost repose;
Yet this I say to cliff and close-leaved dell:
A fitful spirit haunts yon limpid well,
Whose likeness is the faithless face of Rose.
“Weariness” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O little feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road!
O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
Am weary, thinking of your task.
O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires;
Mine that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned
Now covers and conceals its fires.
O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light
Direct from heaven, their source divine;
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,
How lurid looks this soul of mine!
“O Pulchritudo” by Henry John Newbolt, Sir
O Saint whose thousand shrines our feet have trod
And our eyes loved thy lamp’s eternal beam,
Dim earthly radiance of the Unknown God,
Hope of the darkness, light of them that dream,
Far off, far off and faint, O glimmer on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.
O Word whose meaning every sense hath sought,
Voice of the teeming field and grassy mound,
Deep-whispering fountain of the wells of thought,
Will of the wind and soul of all sweet sound,
Far off, far off and faint, O murmur on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.
“The Tweed Visited” by William Lisle Bowles
O Tweed! a stranger, that with wandering feet
O’er hill and dale has journeyed many a mile,
(If so his weary thoughts he might beguile),
Delighted turns thy stranger-stream to greet.
The waving branches that romantic bend
O’er thy tall banks a soothing charm bestow;
The murmurs of thy wandering wave below
Seem like the converse of some long-lost friend.
Delightful stream! though now along thy shore,
When spring returns in all her wonted pride,
The distant pastoral pipe is heard no more;
Yet here while laverocks sing could I abide,
Far from the stormy world’s contentious roar,
To muse upon thy banks at eventide.
“Life-Weary” by George MacDonald
O Thou that walkest with nigh hopeless feet
Past the one harbour, built for thee and thine.
Doth no stray odour from its table greet,
No truant beam from fire or candle shine?
At his wide door the host doth stand and call;
At every lattice gracious forms invite;
Thou seest but a dull-gray, solid wall
In forest sullen with the things of night!
Thou cravest rest, and Rest for thee doth crave,
The white sheet folded down, white robe apart.-
Shame, Faithless! No, I do not mean the grave!
I mean Love’s very house and hearth and heart.
“The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman” by William Butler Yeats
You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar
Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
When Iwas a boy with never a crack in my heart.
Poems About Feet and Love
“She of the Dancing Feet Sings” by Countee Cullen
And what would I do in heaven, pray,
Me with my dancing feet,
And limbs like apple boughs that sway
When the gusty rain winds beat?
And how would I thrive in a perfect place
Where dancing would be sin,
With not a man to love my face,
Nor an arm to hold me in?
The seraphs and the cherubim
Would be too proud to bend
To sing the feary tunes that brim
My heart from end to end.
The wistful angels down in hell
Will smile to see my face,
And understand, because they fell
From that all-perfect place.
“Four Footprints” by Thomas Hardy
Here are the tracks upon the sand
Where stood last evening she and I –
Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;
The morning sun has baked them dry.
I kissed her wet face – wet with rain,
For arid grief had burnt up tears,
While reached us as in sleeping pain
The distant gurgling of the weirs.
“I have married him – yes; feel that ring;
‘Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .
A dutiful daughter does this thing,
And resignation succeeds anon!
“But that I body and soul was yours
Ere he’d possession, he’ll never know.
He’s a confident man. ‘The husband scores,’
He says, ‘in the long run’ . . . Now, Dear, go!”
I went. And to-day I pass the spot;
It is only a smart the more to endure;
And she whom I held is as though she were not,
For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.
“His Footsteps” by Henry Augustin Beers
The wildernes a secret keeps
Upon whose guess I go:
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard;
And yet I know, I know,
Some day the viewless latch will lift,
The door of air swing wide
To one lost chamber of the wood
Where those shy mysteries hide,—
One yet unfound, exceeding depth,
From which the wood-thrush sings,
Still luring me to darker shades,
In—in—to colder springs.
There is no wind abroad to-day;
But hark the pine-tops’ war,
That sleep, and in their dreams repeat
The music of the shore.
What wisdom stirs among the pines?
What song is that they sing?
Those airs that search the forest’s heart,
What rumor do they bring?
A hushed excitement fills the gloom,
And in the stillness, clear
The river’s tell-tale warning rings:
“’Tis near—’tis near—’tis near!”
As in the fairy tale, more loud
The ghostly music plays,
When, toward the enchanted bower, the prince
Draws closer through the maze.
Nay, nay—I track a fleeter game,
A wilder than ye know,
To lairs beyond the utmost haunt
Of thrush or vireo.
This way it passed: the scent lies fresh;
The ferns still lightly shake.
Ever I follow hard upon,
But never overtake.
“The Feet of the Beloved” by John Addington Symonds
To bless the meadow with your touch:
Nay, walk unshod; for as you pass,
The dust will take your feet like grass.
Oh dearest melodies, oh beat
Of musically moving feet!
Stars that have fallen from the sky
To sparkle where you let them lie;
Blossoms, a new and heavenly birth,
Rocked on the nourishing breast of earth;
Dews that on leaf and petal fling
Multitudinous quivering;
Winged loves with light and laughter crowned;
Kind kisses pressed upon the ground!
“Regardant” by John Milton Hay
As I lay at your feet that afternoon,
Little we spoke, — you sat and mused,
Humming a sweet old-fashioned tune,
And I worshipped you, with a sense confused
Of the good time gone and the bad on the way,
While my hungry eyes your face perused.
To catch and brand on my soul for aye
The subtle smile which had grown my doom.
Drinking sweet poison hushed I lay.
Till the sunset shimmered athwart the room.
I rose to go. You stood so fair
And dim in the dead day’s tender gloom:
All at once, or ever I was aware,
Flashed from you on me a warm strong wave
Of passion and power; in the silence there.
I fell on my knees, like a lover, or slave,
With my wild hands clasping your slender waist;
And my lips, with a sudden frenzy brave,
A madman’s kiss on your girdle pressed,
And I felt your calm heart’s quickening beat,
And your soft hands on me one instant rest.
And if God had loved me, how endlessly sweet
Had he let my heart in its rapture burst,
And throb its last at your firm small feet!
And when I was forth, I shuddered at first
At my imminent bliss. As a soul in pain,
Treading his desolate path accursed,
Looks back and dreams through his tears’ dim rain
That by Heaven’s wide gate the angels smile,
Relenting, and beckon him back again,
And goes on, thrice damned by that devil’s wile, —
So sometimes burns in my weary brain
The thought that you loved me all the while.
“Multum Dilexit” by Hartley Coleridge
She sat and wept beside His feet; the weight
Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame,
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct, and out of date,
Only the sin remained,–the leprous state;
She would be melted by the heart of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver ore adulterate.
She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair
Still wiped the feet she was so blessed to touch;
And He wiped off the soiling of despair
From her sweet soul, because she loved so much.
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears:
Make me a humble thing of love and the tears.
“Now tripping forth, the fairy-footed Spring” by Da Ponte
Now tripping forth, the fairy-footed Spring
Awakens bud and bloom, and, liberal, fills
The air with balm, mantling the sunny hills
With living green. The purple martins wing
Their wheeling course, and, twittering sharply, sing
In treble notes a strange and keen delight;
And as they upward soar in airy flight,
Shrill through the sapphire arch their pæans ring.
O sweetheart mine! shall I unfold the theme
Bird, bud, and blossom teach our swelling hearts?
Thy tell-tale blush replies! Nor idle deem
Nor slight the lesson Nature thus imparts,
While even Zephyr from his flight above,
Stooping to kiss thy cheek, sighs tenderly of LOVE!
“The Way-Side Well” by Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr.
A fancy halts my feet at the way-side well.
It is not to drink, for they say the water is brackish.
It is not to tryst, for a heart at the mile’s end beckons me on.
It is not to rest, for what feet could be weary when a heart at the mile’s end keeps time with their tread?
It is not to muse for the heart at the mile’s end is food for my being.
I will question the well for my secret by dropping a pebble into it.
Ah, it is dry.
Strike lightning to the road, my feet, for hearts are like wells.
You may not know they are dry ’til you question their depths.
Fancies clog the way to heaven, and saints miss their crown.
“Violet Moore And Bert Moore” by Conrad Potter Aiken
He thinks her little feet should pass
Where dandelions star thickly grass;
Her hands should lift in sunlit air
Sea-wind should tangle up her hair.
Green leaves, he says, have never heard
A sweeter ragtime mockingbird,
Nor has the moon-man ever seen,
Or man in the spotlight, leering green,
Such a beguiling, smiling queen.
Her eyes, he says, are stars at dusk,
Her mouth as sweet as red-rose musk;
And when she dances his young heart swells
With flutes and viols and silver bells;
His brain is dizzy, his senses swim,
When she slants her ragtime eyes at him. . .
Moonlight shadows, he bids her see,
Move no more silently than she.
It was this way, he says, she came,
Into his cold heart, bearing flame.
And now that his heart is all on fire
Will she refuse his heart’s desire?–
And O! has the Moon Man ever seen
(Or the spotlight devil, leering green)
A sweeter shadow upon a screen?
“To Her Who Passes” by William Stanley Braithwaite
Her footsteps fall in silent sands;
Her hands are cool like growing leaves;
The fingers of her hovering hands
Touch lightly, pass; and time bereaves
The benison of her caress
Of peace, or pain, or bitterness.
The kisses of her mouth like dew
Rain gently down; if she has sinned,
That she had sinned she never knew;
Lightly she walks upon the wind,
And like the wind she leaves no trace
Upon the quiet of this place.
“Rondel” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Kissing her hair I sat against her feet,
Wove and unwove it, wound and found it sweet;
Made fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes,
Deep as deep flowers and dreamy like dim skies;
With her own tresses bound and found her fair,
Kissing her hair.
Sleep were no sweeter than her face to me,
Sleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold sea;
What pain could get between my face and hers?
What new sweet thing would love not relish worse?
Unless, perhaps, white death had kissed me there,
Kissing her hair?
“Sonnet CXLIV” by Francesco Petrarca
Love, who his votary wings in heart and feet,
To the third heaven that lightly he may soar,
In one short day has many a stream and shore
Given to me, in famed Ardennes, to meet.
Unarm’d and single to have pass’d is sweet
Where war in earnest strikes, nor tells before–
A helmless, sail-less ship ‘mid ocean’s roar–
My breast with dark and fearful thoughts replete;
But reach’d my dangerous journey’s far extreme,
Remembering whence I came, and with whose wings,
From too great courage conscious terror springs.
But this fair country and belovë”d stream
With smiling welcome reassures my heart,
Where dwells its sole light ready to depart.
“The Giddy Girl” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A giddy young maiden with nimble feet,
Heigh-ho! alack and alas!
Declared she would far rather dance than eat,
And the truth of it came to pass.
For she danced all day and she danced all night;
She danced till the green earth faded white;
She danced ten partners out of breath;
She danced the eleventh one quite to death;
And still she redowaed up and down-
The giddiest girl in town.
With one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three-kick;
Chassée back, chassée back, whirl around quick.
The name of this damsel ended with E-
Heigh-ho! alack and a-day!
And she was as fair as a maiden need be,
Till she danced her beauty away.
She danced her big toes out of joint;
She danced her other toes all to a point;
She danced out slipper and boot and shoe;
She danced till the bones of her feet came through.
And still she redowaed, waltzed and whirled-
The giddiest girl in the world.
With one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three-kick;
Chassée back, chassée back, whirl around quick.
Now the end of my story is sad to relate-
Heigh-ho! and away we go!
For this beautiful maiden’s final fate
Is shrouded in gloom and woe.
She danced herself into a patent top;
She whirled and whirled till she could not stop;
She danced and bounded and sprang so far,
That she stuck at last on a pointed star;
And there she must dance till the Judgment Day,
And after it, too, for she danced away
Her soul, you see, so she has no place anywhere out of space,
With her one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three-kick;
Chassée back, chassée back, whirl about quick.
“Sonnet: X” by Charles Sangster
Poor snail, that toilest at my weary feet,
Thou, too, must have thy burden! Life is sweet
If we would make it so. How vast a load
To carry all its days along the road
Of its serene existence! Christian-like,
It toils with patience, seeking sweet repose
Within itself when wearied with the throes
Of its life-struggle. The low sounds that strike
Upon the ear in wafts of melody,
Are cruel mockeries, O snail, of thee.
The cricket’s chirp, the grasshopper’s shrill tone,
The locust’s jarring cry, all mock thy lone
And dumb-like presence. May this heart of mine,
When tried, put on a resignation such as thine.
Short Poems About Feet
“My Feet” by Gelett Burgess
My feet, they haul me Round the House,
They Hoist me up the Stairs;
I only have to steer them, and
They Ride me Everywheres.
“Foot-Soldiers” by John. B. Tabb
‘Tis all the way to Toe-town,
Beyond the Knee-high hill,
That Baby has to travel down
To see the soldiers drill.
One, two, three, four, five, a-row—
A captain and his men—
And on the other side, you know,
Are six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
“Close Quarters” by John. B. Tabb
Little toe, big toe, three toes between,
All in a pointed shoe!
Never was narrower forecastle seen
Nor so little room for the crew.
“The Giver” by Sara Teasdale
You bound strong sandals on my feet,
You gave me bread and wine,
And sent me under sun and stars,
For all the world was mine.
Oh, take the sandals off my feet,
You know not what you do;
For all my world is in your arms,
My sun and stars are you.
“A Good-By” by Bliss William Carman
For love of the roving foot
And joy of the roving eye,
God send you store of morrows fair
And a good rest by and by!
“Nursery Rhyme” by Unknown
The pettitoes are little feet,
And the little feet not big;
Great feet belong to the grunting hog,
And the pettitoes to the little pig.
“Garden Wireless” by Carl Sandburg
How many feet ran with sunlight, water, and air?
What little devils shaken of laughter, cramming their little ribs with chuckles,
Fixed this lone red tulip, a woman’s mouth of passion kisses, a nun’s mouth of sweet thinking, here topping a straight line of green, a pillar stem?
Who hurled this bomb of red caresses?-nodding balloon-film shooting its wireless every fraction of a second these June days:
Love me before I die;
Love me-love me now.
“Upon Patrick, A Footman. Epig.” by Robert Herrick
Now Patrick with his footmanship has done,
His eyes and ears strive which should fastest run.
“Mary at Jesus’ Feet” by Richard Crashaw
‘Mary which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word.
Behold a new thing here—host hanging on her Guest:
Preparing for His mouth, His mouth’s words are her feast!
O Martha sister, spare thy labour and thy cost:
Tending the food that perisheth, diviner food is lost.
“To Dianeme” by Robert Herrick
Show me thy feet; show me thy legs, thy thighs;
Show me those fleshy principalities;
Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit.
Having a living fountain under it;
Show me thy waist, then let me therewithal,
By the assention of thy lawn, see all.
“New Feet” by Carl Sandburg
Empty battlefields keep their phantoms.
Grass crawls over old gun wheels
And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple
Into the summer’s southwest wind,
Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet,
Reaching a blossom in rust of shrapnel.
“Fairy Bread” by Robert Louis Stevenson
Come up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy ready to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children ,you may dine
On the golden smell of broom
And the shade of pine;
And when you have eaten well,
Fairy stories hear and tell.
“To My Mother” by Robert Louis Stevenson
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
“Christ Crucified” by Richard Crashaw
Thy restless feet now cannot go
For us and our eternal good,
As they were ever wont. What though
They swim, alas! in their own flood?
Thy hands to give Thou canst not lift,
Yet will Thy hand still giving be;
It gives, but O, itself’s the gift!
It gives tho’ bound, tho’ bound ’tis free!
“Absence” by Richard Jago
With leaden foot Time creeps along
While Delia is away:
With her, nor plaintive was the song,
Nor tedious was the day.
Ah, envious Pow’r! reverse my doom;
Now double thy career,
Strain ev’ry nerve, stretch ev’ry plume,
And rest them when she ‘s here!
“Standing on Tiptoe” by George Frederick Cameron
Standing on tiptoe ever since my youth,
Striving to grasp the future just above,
I hold at length the only future—Truth,
And Truth is Love.
I feel as one who being awhile confined
Sees drop to dust about him all his bars:-
The clay grows less, and, leaving it, the mind
Dwells with the stars.
“Baby Toes” by Carl Sandburg
There is a blue star, Janet,
Fifteen years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.
There is a white star, Janet,
Forty years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.
Shall we ride
To the blue star
Or the white star?
“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by W. B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
“The Fields” by Jessie B. Rittenhouse
Though wisdom underfoot
Dies in the bloody fields,
Slowly the endless root
Gathers again and yields.
In fields where hate has hurled
Its force, where folly rots,
Wisdom shall be unfurled
Small as forget-me-nots.
“Songs to Joannes, VII” by Mina Loy
My pair of feet
Smack the flag-stones
That are something left over from your walking
The wind stuffs the scum of the white street
Into my lungs and my nostrils
Exhilarated birds
Prolonging flight into the night
Never reaching
“Mister Merryman” by Richard Hunter
He’s always standing on his toes,
And never on his heels;
He’s always holding up his arms–
I wonder how it feels.
Two balls are always in his hands,
He never lets them drop;
He’s always smiling just like this,
And never seems to stop.
“Inscription On The Shanklin Fountain” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O traveller, stay thy weary feet;
Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet;
It flows for rich and poor the same.
Then go thy way, remembering still
The wayside well beneath the hill,
The cup of water in His name.
“Many Inventions” by Rudyard Kipling
‘Less you want your toes trod of you’d better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,
And the elephants bring the guns.
Ho! Yuss!
Great-big-long-black-forty-pounder guns.
Jiggery-jolty to and fro,
Each as big as a launch in tow
Blind-dumb-broad-breeched beggars o’ battering-guns!
“The Answer” by John Frederick Freeman
O, my feet have worn a track
Deep and old in going back.
Thought released turns to its home
As bees through tangling thickets come.
One way of thought leads to the vast
Desert of the mind, and there is lost,
But backward leads to a dancing light
And myself there, stiff with delight.
O, well my thought has trodden a way
From this brief day to that long day.
“Nursery Rhyme” by Unknown
Pussicat, wussicat, with a white foot,
When is your wedding? for I’ll come to’t.
The beer’s to brew, the bread’s to bake,
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, don’t be too late.