Amazing poems
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An Essay on Man: Epistle I
© Alexander Pope
To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
Killing Him: A Radio Play
© John Wesley
LISTEN TO THE RADIO PLAY
JOE, a doctoral candidate in literature
RACHEL, his fiancée
POET/CRITIC
Unholy Sonnet 4
© Mark Jarman
Not Dante’s rings, not the Zen zero’s mouth,
Out of which comes and into which light goes,
This God recedes from every metaphor,
Turns the hardest data into untruth,
And fills all blanks with blankness. This love shows
Itself in absence, which the stars adore.
Eight Variations
© Weldon Kees
1.
Prurient tapirs gamboled on our lawns,
But that was quite some time ago.
Now one is accosted by asthmatic bulldogs,
Sluggish in the hedges, ruminant.
My Father
© Charles Bukowski
was a truly amazing man
he pretended to be
rich
even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies
when we sat down to eat, he said,
"not everybody can eat like this."
The Moon and the Comet
© Amelia Opie
This fact is clear….Both man and woman
Prize not what's good, but what's uncommon ;
And most delighted still they are,
Not with the excellent, but rare,….
I could of this give proofs most stable,
But, par exemple , take a fable.
The Selvage
© Michael Rosen
So door to door among the shotgun
shacks in Cullowhee and Waynesville in
our cleanest shirts and ma’am
and excuse me were all but second
I Wasn’t One of the Six Million: And What Is My Life Span? Open Closed Open
© John Wesley
3
And what is my life span? I’m like a man gone out of Egypt:
the Red Sea parts, I cross on dry land,
two walls of water, on my right hand and on my left.
Pharaoh’s army and his horsemen behind me. Before me the desert,
perhaps the Promised Land, too. That is my life span.
A Little Dog
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
"And why are you abusing God, and praising
With mock effacement
And false abasement
Your own heart's kindness, deeming it amazing
That you should do this duty for my sake,
The Baby's Vengeance
© William Schwenck Gilbert
Weary at heart and extremely ill
Was PALEY VOLLAIRE of Bromptonville,
In a dirty lodging, with fever down,
Close to the Polygon, Somers Town.
What a Book! : to Calvus the Poet
© Gaius Valerius Catullus
If I didnt love you more than my eyes,
most delightful Calvus, Id dislike you
A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton
© James Thomson
And what new wonders can ye show your guest!
Who, while on this dim spot, where mortals toil
Clouded in dust, from motion's simple laws,
Could trace the secret hand of Providence,
Wide-working through this universal frame.
Charades
© Charles Stuart Calverley
Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to Eliza Spinks the cook:
"Mrs. Spinks," says he, "I've foundered: 'Liza dear, I'm overtook.
Druv into a corner reglar, puzzled as a babe unborn;
Speak the word, my blessed 'Liza; speak, and John the coachman's yourn."
Amazing Grace
© John Newton
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound!)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
Decius Brutus, On The Coast Of Portugal
© Richard Monckton Milnes
Never did Day, her heat and trouble o'er,
Proclaim herself more blest,
Than when, beside that Lusitanian shore,
She wooed herself to rest:
David
© Thomas Parnell
When e'er his flocks the lovely shepherd drove
To neighb'ring waters, to the neighb'ring grove;
To Jordan's flood refresh'd by cooling wind,
Or Cedron's brook to mossy banks confin'd,
In easy notes and guise of lowly swain,
'Twas thus he charm'd and taught the listning train.
Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Knowledge. Book I.
© Matthew Prior
But, O! ere yet original man was made,
Ere the foundations of this earth were laid,
It was opponent to our search ordain'd,
That joy still sought should never be attain'd:
This sad experience cites me to reveal,
And what I dictate is from what I feel.
A Fish Answers
© James Henry Leigh Hunt
O breather of unbreathable, sword-sharp air,
How canst exist? How bear thyself, thou dry
And dreary sloth? WHat particle canst share
Of the only blessed life, the watery?
I sometimes see of ye an actual pair
Go by! linked fin by fin! most odiously.
