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Graduation

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  • Poem

    A Blessing

    By Luci Tapahonso
    This morning we gather in gratitude for all aspects of sacredness:
    the air, the warmth of fire, bodies of water, plants, the land,
    and all animals and humankind.
    We gather to honor our students who have achieved the extraordinary
    accomplishment of earning doctoral or...
  • Poem

    Graduation Day

    By Matthew Zapruder
    Drawn by ceremonial obligation
    up from sleep I woke and stepped 
    into the borrowed black robes
    all ghost bureaucrats trained 
    to redirect dreaming pretend 
    we do not like to wear. I drove 
    my black car to the stadium 
    to sit on stage and be watched 
    watching young expectant...
  • Poem

    The Road Not Taken

    By Robert Frost
    Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
    And sorry I could not travel both
    And be one traveler, long I stood
    And looked down one as far as I could
    To where it bent in the undergrowth;

    Then took the other, as just as fair,
    And...
  • Poem

    If—

    By Rudyard Kipling
    If you can keep your head when all about you   
        Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
        But make allowance for their doubting too;   
    If you can wait and not be...
  • Poem

    Che Fece ... Il Gran Rifiuto

    By C. P. Cavafy
    For some people the day comes
    when they have to declare the great Yes
    or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes
    ready within him; and saying it,

    he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
    He who refuses...
  • Poem

    Pastime with Good Company

    By Henry VIII, King of England
    Pastime with good company
    I love and shall unto I die.
    Grudge whoso will, but none deny,
    So God be pleased, this live will I.
    For my pastance
    Hunt, sing, and dance.
    My heart is set
    All godely sport
    To...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    The School Where I Studied

    By Yehuda Amichai
    Translated By Chana Bloch
    I passed by the school where I studied as a boy
    and said in my heart: here I learned certain things
    and didn't learn others. All my life I have loved in vain
    the things I didn't learn. I am filled with knowledge,
    I...
  • Poem

    Up-Hill

    By Christina Rossetti
    Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
       Yes, to the very end.
    Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
       From morn to night, my friend.

    But is there for the night a resting-place?
       A roof for...
  • Poem

    It Couldn’t Be Done

    By Edgar Albert Guest
    Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
          But he with a chuckle replied
    That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
          Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
    So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
          On his face. If he...
  • Poem

    "You who want ..."

    By Hadewijch II
    Translated By Jane Hirshfield
    You who want
    knowledge,
    seek the Oneness
    within.

    There you
    will find
    the clear mirror
    already waiting.
  • Poem

    Live Blindly and upon the Hour

    By Trumbull Stickney
    Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,
    Who was the Future, died full long ago.
    Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go,
    Poor child, and be not to thyself abhorred.
    Around thine earth sun-wingèd winds do blow
    And...
  • Poem

    On Distinction

    By A. F. Moritz
    We won’t pretend we’re not hungry for distinction
    but what can ever distinguish us enough?
    This country, this language won’t last long, the race
    will die, later the cockroach, earth itself,

    and last this beer bottle: silicon fused by man,
    almost indestructible, like a soul:
    it...
  • Poem

    An Emeritus Addresses the School

    By John Ciardi
    No one can wish nothing.
    Even that death wish sophomores
    are nouveau-glib about
    reaches for a change of notice.

    “I’ll have you know,” it will say
    thirty years later to its son,
    “I was once widely recognized
    for the quality of my death wish.”

    That was before three...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    Odes

    By Fernando Pessoa
    Translated By Edouard Roditi
    1.
    Of the gardens of Adonis, Lydia, I love
    Most of all those fugitive roses
             That on the day they are born,
             That very day, must also die.
    Eternal, for them, the light of day:
    They're born when the sun is already high
             And...
  • Poem

    For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman

    By Miller Williams
    Because you’ll find how hard it can be
    to tell which part of your body sings,
    you never should dally with any young man
    who does any one of the following things:

    tries to beat all the yellow lights;
    says, “Big deal!”...
  • Poem

    Solitude

    By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
    Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
    Weep, and you weep alone;
    For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
    But has trouble enough of its own.
    Sing, and the hills will answer;
    Sigh, it is lost on the air;
    The echoes bound to a...
  • Poem

    Worldly Place

    By Matthew Arnold
    Even in a palace, life may be led well!
    So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
    Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
    Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

    Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
    And drudge under some foolish master's ken
    Who...
  • Poem

    To a Young Writer

    By Yvor Winters
    Here for a few short years
    Strengthen affections; meet,
    Later, the dull arrears
    Of age, and be discreet.

    The angry blood burns low.
    Some friend of lesser mind
    Discerns you not; but so
    Your solitude’s defined.

    Write little; do it well.
    Your knowledge will be such,
    At last, as to...
  • Article

    Graduation Poems

    By The Editors
    Poems to celebrate and share with your high school or college graduate.
    A woman graduate, using a digital camera, takes a picture during Columbia University's 2005 Commencement ceremony. Columbia will graduate approximately 11,000 students from all schools marking Columbia University's 251st academic year.
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