Quatrains

I’ve always liked the inspiration you can find in a four line poem called a quatrain, and have written a few myself. Enjoy this collection. ~Bob

 

Quatrains

He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

Who fails to put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.

--John Graham, Marquis of Montrose

*****

Life is mainly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone -
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.

--Adam Lindsay Gordon

*****

"You cannot choose your battlefield,
The gods do that for you,
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew."

--Nathalia Crane, The Colors, ca 1925

*****

Whether at football, ping-pong or verse,

Politics, women or something worse,

It's a pleasure to stare at the fellow who moves

At the top of his form at the game that he loves.

--Arvid Shulenberger, Ancient Music

*****

He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took him in!

-- Edwin Markham

*****

For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear--
When you are the hammer, Strike.

--Edwin Markham

*****

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

--Sir Walter Scott

*****

The pedigree of honey

Does not concern the bee,

A clover, anytime, to him

Is aristocracy

--Emily Dickinson

*****

I burn my candle at both ends

It will not last the night,

But oh my foes and ah my friends,

It gives a lovely light!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

*****

Here richly, with ridiculous display,

The politician’s corpse was laid away.

While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged

I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

--Hilaire Belloc

*****

To see the World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

--William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

*****

Life

It matters not if rich or poor,

This life is quickly through,

So give to friends a little more

Than they can give to you.

--Robert A. Hall

Toast to Scotland

Here’s tae the Cross and the Thistle

Here’s tae the friends who are leal,

Here’s tae Scotland Forever

And the herts as true as steel!

--Robert A. Hall

Fate

The worst of fates is dying slow,

The bitter dregs of mellow cup,

Better like Socrates to go—

I’ll take mine straight, and standing up!

--Robert A. Hall

*****

Dying

When hope has fled, when light grows dim,

When evil splits the sky,

Then is the time you show the world

Just how a man can die.

--Robert A. Hall