Poetry & Analysis
Selected Poems
Inspirational PoemsGive Them the Flowers Now
Closed eyes can’t see the white roses,
Cold hands can’t hold them, you know,
Breath that is stilled cannot gather
The odors that sweet from them blow,
Death, with a peace beyond dreaming,
Its children of earth doth endow;
Life is the time we can help them,
So give them the flowers now!
Here are the struggles and striving,
Here are the cares and the tears;
Now is the time to be smoothing
The frowns and the furrows and fears.
What to closed eyes are kind sayings?
What to hushed heart is deep vow?
Naught can avail after parting,
So give them the flowers now!
Just a kind word or a greeting;
Just a warm grasp or a smile—
These are the flowers that will lighten
The burdens for many a mile.
After the journey is over
What is the use of them; how
Can they carry them who must be carried?
Oh, give them the flowers now!
Blooms from the happy heart’s garden
Plucked in the spirit of love;
Blooms that are earthly reflections
Of flowers that blossom above.
Words cannot tell what a measure
Of blessings such gifts will allow
To dwell in the lives of many,
So give them the flowers now!
Overview Short Summary
The poem uses cold hands and a warm grasp to argue that love should be shown while people are living. It fits keywords around helping hands, healing hands, and hands as care.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Kindness: The poem asks for practical affection before it is too late.
- Mortality: Cold hands mark the silence of death.
- Human care: A warm grasp becomes a small but powerful act of support.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is earnest and instructive; the mood is gentle but urgent.
Craft Literary Devices
- Contrast: Cold hands contrast with a warm grasp.
- Metaphor: Flowers represent words, smiles, and living kindness.
Clean Hands
Make this thing plain to us, O Lord!
That not the triumph of the sword—
Not that alone—can end the strife,
But reformation of the life—
But full submission to Thy Word!
Not all the stream of blood outpoured
Can Peace—the Long-desired—afford;
Not tears of Mother, Maid or Wife . . .
Make this thing plain!
We must root out our sins ignored,
By whatsoever name adored;
Our secret sins, that, ever rife,
Shrink from the operating knife;
Then shall we rise, renewed, restored . . .
Make this thing plain!
Overview Short Summary
This poem treats clean hands as a moral idea: peace requires inner reform, not only victory. It supports searches about hands and moral meaning.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Moral responsibility: The poem argues that public peace needs private reform.
- Spiritual cleansing: Clean hands suggest purity of action.
- Peace: The poem rejects violence as the only answer to conflict.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is prayerful and serious, with a mood of moral urgency.
Craft Literary Devices
- Refrain: “Make this thing plain” gives the poem a prayer-like rhythm.
- Symbolism: Clean hands stand for ethical conduct.
Let Dogs Delight to Bark and Bite
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For ’tis their nature too.
But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise;
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other’s eyes.
Overview Short Summary
This short children’s poem uses little hands to teach self-control and gentleness. It fits keywords such as poems about hands for children and little hands poem.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Childhood behavior: Hands are connected with learning restraint.
- Peacefulness: Children are urged not to hurt one another.
- Moral instruction: The poem teaches through simple contrast.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is instructive and gentle; the mood is simple and cautionary.
Craft Literary Devices
- Contrast: Animal fighting is contrasted with human self-control.
- Direct address: The poet speaks directly to children.
Amaze
I know
Not these my hands
And yet I think there was
A woman like me once had hands
Like these.
Overview Short Summary
This brief poem turns hands into a moment of self-recognition and estrangement. It works well for searches about old hands, memory, body, and identity.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Self-recognition: The speaker studies her own hands as if they belong to someone else.
- Time: The hands suggest change and aging.
- Embodiment: The poem links identity to the body.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is quiet, surprised, and reflective; the mood is intimate and haunting.
Craft Literary Devices
- Compression: The cinquain form creates a concentrated emotional effect.
- Paradox: The speaker both knows and does not know her own hands.
Study
Somewhere the long mellow note of the blackbird
Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel,
Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back,
Stirred by an impetuous wind. Some ways’ll
All be sweet with white and blue violet.
(Hush now, hush. Where am I?—Biuret—)
On the green wood’s edge a shy girl hovers
From out of the hazel-screen on to the grass,
Where wheeling and screaming the petulant plovers
Wave frighted. Who comes? A labourer, alas!
Oh the sunset swims in her eyes’ swift pool.
(Work, work, you fool—!)
Somewhere the lamp hanging low from the ceiling
Lights the soft hair of a girl as she reads,
And the red firelight steadily wheeling
Weaves the hard hands of my friend in sleep.
And the white dog snuffs the warmth, appealing
For the man to heed lest the girl shall weep.
(Tears and dreams for them; for me
Bitter science—the exams. are near.
I wish I bore it more patiently.
I wish you did not wait, my dear,
For me to come: since work I must:
Though it’s all the same when we are dead.—
I wish I was only a bust,
All head.)
Overview Short Summary
The poem moves between study, nature, work, and emotional longing. The image of hard hands connects the poem to labor, touch, and domestic warmth.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Work and longing: The speaker is pulled between duty and feeling.
- Hands and labor: Hard hands suggest the physical world of work.
- Imagination: The mind wanders away from study into vivid scenes.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is restless and self-critical; the mood is dreamy but pressured.
Craft Literary Devices
- Parenthesis: Interruptions mimic the speaker’s distracted mind.
- Imagery: Hands, firelight, birds, and flowers create a sensory contrast with study.
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