Best Child Poems

Brown and agile child, the sun which forms the fruit
And ripens the grain and twists the seaweed
Has made your happy body and your luminous eyes
And given your mouth the smile of water.
...

Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
...

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
...

When I bring to you colored toys, my child,
I understand why there is such a play of colors on clouds, on water,
and why flowers are painted in tints
- -when I give colored toys to you, my child.
...

Whey are those tears in your eyes, my child?
How horrid of them to be always scolding you for nothing!
You have stained your fingers and face with ink while writing-
is that why they call you dirty?
...

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
...

Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
...

FIRST

Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
...

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
...

People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don't have to live forever to become a grampa.
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,
You only have to live until your child has a child.
...

Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.
...

Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man,
Never fear though it break your heart -
Out of the wound new joy will start;
...

A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital
...

Mother India

Mother - The divine Mother,
On the road to save Her Child,
...

1.
WHO rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
...

Inscribed to a Dear Child:
In Memory of Golden Summer Hours
And Whispers of a Summer Sea
...

'Am I, at bottom, that fervent little Spanish Catholic child who chastised herself for loving toys, who forbade herself the enjoyment of sweet foods, who practiced silence, who humiliated her pride, who adored symbols, statues, burning candles, incense, the caress of nuns, organ music, for whom Communion was a great event? I was so exalted by the idea of eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood that I couldn't swallow the host well, and I dreaded harming the it.
...

God, tell me, who am I
Am I your passionate child
or someone who is wicked and wild.
Am I the one with aim and mission
...

The world is wide with wonder
For everything is new
A child’s mind is like a sponge
Or like a flower sipping morning dew
...

I open my window to let in the morning light and the cool fresh air
Though in the midst of a legion of works assigned for the day
The girl servant next door fills my heart with her innocent smile
Like a pure dew drop glares from the grass-top in the dawn
...

'Father, father, where are you going?
Oh do not walk so fast!
Speak, father, speak to you little boy,
Or else I shall be lost.'
...

The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the Waste,
He has a big head and a very small waist;
But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are grim,
And a good little child will not play with him.
...

This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can -
Lest the song get out of hand.
...

A Mother's breast:
Safe refuge from her childish fears,
From childish troubles, childish tears,
Mists that enshroud her dawning years!
...

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
...

HONEY, child, honey, child, whither are you going?
Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing?
Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you?
Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you?
...

FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April
Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
...

Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me.
...

Making a child
For giving love a dual name.

For saving its sense.
...

A tree of blood soaks the morning
where the newborn woman groans.
Her voice leaves glass in the wound
and on the panes, a diagram of bone.
...

    A storm was coming, that was why it was dark. The wind was blowing the fronds of the palm trees off. They were maples. I looked out the window across the big lawn. The house was huge, full of children and old people. The lion was loose. Either because of the wind, or by malevolent human energy, which is the same thing, the cage had come open. Suppose a child walked outside!

    A child walked outside. I knew that I must protect him from the lion. I threw myself on top of the child. The lion roared over me. In the branches and the bushes there was suddenly a loud crackling. The lion cringed. I looked up and saw that the elephant was loose!
...

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.
...

In a stage-coach, where late I chanced to be,
A little quiet girl my notice caught;
I saw she looked at nothing by the way,
...

it is hard to remain human on a day
when birds perch weeping
in the trees and the squirrel eyes
do not look away but the dog ones do
...

Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.
I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.
Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!"
...

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
...

This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big
House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open
To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop
To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.
...

Lost kisses lost kisses
With the wind may fly
After finding him sleeping
On his shoulder you lie
...

ON the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
...

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
...

You can scorn more illustrious eyes,
sweet eyes of my child, through which there takes flight
something as good or as tender as night.
...

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their hearts desire:
...

'Oh father, let us hence--for hark,
A fearful murmur shakes the air.
The clouds are coming swift and dark:--
...

ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,--
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
...

These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
...

'Come and hire me,' I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road.
Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot.
He held my hand and said, 'I will hire you with my power.'
But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot.
...

...

When to the garden of untroubled thought
I came of late, and saw the open door,
And wished again to enter, and explore
The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought,
...

HERE a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
...

They clamour and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end
to their wrangling.
Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my
child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.
...

'Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.'
...

The conversation of prayers about to be said
By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs
Who climbs to his dying love in her high room,
The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move
...

Child! do not throw this book about!
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
...

Oh, there once was a lady, and so I've been told,
Whose lover grew weary, whose lover grew cold.
"My child," he remarked, "though our episode ends,
In the manner of men, I suggest we be friends."
...

A prince stood on the balcony of his palace addressing a great multitude summoned for the occasion and said, "Let me offer you and this whole fortunate country my congratulations upon the birth of a new prince who will carry the name of my noble family, and of whom you will be justly proud. He is the new bearer of a great and illustrious ancestry, and upon him depends the brilliant future of this realm. Sing and be merry!" The voices of the throngs, full of joy and thankfulness, flooded the sky with exhilarating song, welcoming the new tyrant who would affix the yoke of oppression to their necks by ruling the weak with bitter authority, and exploiting their bodies and killing their souls. For that destiny, the people were singing and drinking ecstatically to the heady of the new Emir.

Another child entered life and that kingdom at the same time. While the crowds were glorifying the strong and belittling themselves by singing praise to a potential despot, and while the angels of heaven were weeping over the people's weakness and servitude, a sick woman was thinking. She lived in an old, deserted hovel and, lying in her hard bed beside her newly born infant wrapped with ragged swaddles, was starving to death. She was a penurious and miserable young wife neglected by humanity; her husband had fallen into the trap of death set by the prince's oppression, leaving a solitary woman to whom God had sent, that night, a tiny companion to prevent her from working and sustaining life.
...

Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night.

In a lone house near those villages lived a woman who sat by her fireside spinning wool, and at her side was her only child, staring now at the fire and then at his mother.
...

A child's tiny feet,
Blue, blue with cold,
How can they see and not protect you?
Oh, my God!
...

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
...

'Oh, Jesus, ” I am at your door steps and accept my prayers “small girl lit candles in the church and just cried while looking at the cross of lord.” How much you have suffered for mankind” she murmured and stared at the glittering eyes of Christ. She was at the highest peak of happiness and knell down to have more blessings from Him.

The little child never knew what was in store for her. A little noise from near by just detracted her attention from Christ and she found some one was pouring kerosene on her head. She was completely shocked and soon found to be wet in kerosene. She only saw flash from match stick and found burring in flames. She found Christ just extending his hand. Soon she was in flames and crashing on the ground.” help, help' came the groaning voice from little child and all the children from orphanage made a frantic cry for help. The child was rushed to hospital with unconscious state of mind with no hope of survival.
...

LONG ago, on a bright spring day,
I passed a little child at play;
And as I passed, in childish glee
She called to me, “Come and play with me!”
...

In the gloom of whiteness,
In the great silence of snow,
A child was sighing
And bitterly saying: "Oh,
...

Night is stygian sans of stars
Dark mood shares kinship
With black sky of new moon
Moon's jubilant child I am shedding
...

The eyeless labourer in the night,
the selfless, shapeless seed I hold,
builds for its resurrection day---
silent and swift and deep from sight
...

A photograph appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in 1994...a malnourished dying child trying to crawl to a UN aid post a kilometer away...watched over by a vulture just waiting for the child to die...


Kevin Carter zoomed his camera lens, that day in’94,
...

When I bring you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there
is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are
painted in tints-when I give coloured toys to you, my child.
When I sing to make you dance, I truly know why there is music
...

One wept whose only child was dead,
New-born, ten years ago.
"Weep not; he is in bliss," they said.
She answered, "Even so,
...

A beautiful child, she was, in her wishful days,
shining like a star despite her impoverished state,
wearing a beautiful expression on her innocent face,
and came towards me with a smile so innate.
...

I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

A parent is easily beguiled
...

"Loss of mother is death of the child"
No compensation can make up the loss

All privileges of childhood are denied to him
...

Like a soft shell
Afraid that she might be squashed
When I hold her tight
It makes me feel
...

Listen to Mustn'ts, child, listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Shouldn'ts, the Impossibles, the Won'ts.
...

...

Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines!
I seem to remember the first day when I filled my hands with
these jasmines, these white jasmines.
I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth;
...

when we were here together in a place we did not know, nor one
another.
A bit of grass held between the teeth for a moment, bright hair on the
wind.
...

for every tree you cut down,
a child is dying.
for every barrel of oil that
you drill and spill,
...

Childhood

There is a child inside
abandoned - for him
...

Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom
Gods and men and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
...

.
Has anyone asked the child
What she'd like to do?
Would she like to swim with dolphins
...

1914-18


The Babe was laid in the Manger
...

Dear can you help me for a while?
asked apologetically for a good smile,
’No’ replied a friend, keeping distance mile,
worries all around so can’t smile,
...

Sullen clouds are gathering fast over the black fringe of the
forest.
O child, do not go out!
The palm trees in a row by the lake are smiting their heads
...

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise
And asks questions of the old men, questions
Found under running water for all children
And found under shadows thrown on still waters
...

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
...

I could not tell I had jumped off that bus,
that bus in motion, with my child in my arms,
because I did not know it. I believed my own story:
I had fallen, or the bus had started up
...

I am small because I am a little child. I shall be big when I am
as old as my father is.
My teacher will come and say, "It is late, bring your slate
and your books."
...

Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a
branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and
danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?
You would call, "Baby, where are you?" and I should laugh to
...

papa...are you leaving us?
please don't leave papa...

do you see what am holding?
...

I only said, "When in the evening the round full moon gets
entangled among the beaches of that Dadam tree, couldn't somebody
catch it?"
But dada laughed at me and said, "Baby, you are the silliest
...

The roads also have their wistful rest,
When the weathercocks perch still and roost,
And the looks of men turn kind to clocks
And the trams go empty to their drome.
...

The war stopped, the great one
About seventy years ago
All said and done
There is now peace – peace aglow
...

At the moment of conception,
God’s miracle is sown,
The seedlings of an unborn child,
Within that womb are grown,
...

Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is
beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day
and night; it is not of the earth.
But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and
...

Say of him what you please, but I know my child's failings.
I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my
little child.
How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh
...

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
...

A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
...

The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
...

Down inside this grownup
lives the child that used to be.
When I look in my mirror,
she stares right back at me.
...

Child of the Aztec gods,
how long must we listen here,
how long before we go?
...

to look upon your childs face
to hold your child in a warm embrace
to be able to soothe their aches and pains
and kiss away the falling rain.
...

There are so many things I have forgot,
That once were much to me, or that were not,
All lost, as is a childless woman's child
And its child's children, in the undefiled
...