Best poems
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The Fair Youth Sonnets (18 - 77, 87 - 126)
© William Shakespeare
Comprising the largest grouping of poems, the Fair Youth sonnets are addressed to the same young man in the Procreation Sonnets. But their themes and subjects are more drastically varied.
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Christmas,1870
© Alfred Austin
Heaven strews the earth with snow,
That neither friend nor foe
May break the sleep of the fast-dying year;
A world arrayed in white,
Late dawns, and shrouded light,
Attest to us once more that Christmas-tide is here.
Paradise Lost: Book IV
© Patrick Kavanagh
"Which of those rebel Spirits adjudg'd to Hell
Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison? and, transform'd,
Why satt'st thou like an enemy in wait,
Here watching at the head of these that sleep?"
Don Juan Aux Enfers (Don Juan In Hell)
© Charles Baudelaire
Quand Don Juan descendit vers l'onde souterraine
Et lorsqu'il eut donné son obole à Charon,
Un sombre mendiant, l'oeil fier comme Antisthène,
D'un bras vengeur et fort saisit chaque aviron.
The Retreat From Moscow
© Victor Marie Hugo
It snowed. A defeat was our conquest red!
For once the eagle was hanging its head.
Portico
© Rubén Dario
I am the singer who of late put by
The verse azulean and the chant profane,
Across whose nights a rossignol would cry
And prove himself a lark at morn again.
An Essay on Man: Epistle I
© Alexander Pope
To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
Vernal Ode
© William Wordsworth
I
BENEATH the concave of an April sky,
When all the fields with freshest green were dight,
Appeared, in presence of the spiritual eye
A Sonnet, To His Mother As A New Year's Gift From Cambridge
© George Herbert
My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn,
The Affliction of Richard
© John Hall Wheelock
Love not too much. But how,
When thou hast made me such,
To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name Avis, Aged One Year
© Phillis Wheatley
But, Madam, let your grief be laid aside,
And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd,
In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain,
Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain,
Your pains they witness, but they can no more,
While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore.
Remarks Of Increase D. O'phace, Esquire
© James Russell Lowell
At An Extrumpery Caucus In State Street, Reported By Mr. H. Biglow
No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him?
Pauline, A Fragment of a Question
© Robert Browning
And I can love nothing-and this dull truth
Has come the last: but sense supplies a love
Encircling me and mingling with my life.
On Seeing The Captives, Lately Redeem'd From Barbary By His Majesty.
© Mary Barber
A sight like this, who can unmov'd survey?
Impartial Muse, can'st thou with--hold thy Lay?
See the freed Captives hail their native Shore,
And tread the Land of Liberty once more:
See, as they pass, the crouding People press,
Joy in their Joy, and their Dellv'rer bless.
The Child Of The Islands - Autumn
© Caroline Norton
I.
BROWN Autumn cometh, with her liberal hand
Binding the Harvest in a thousand sheaves:
A yellow glory brightens o'er the land,
Imitations of Horace
© Alexander Pope
While you, great patron of mankind, sustain
The balanc'd world, and open all the main;
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?
To Mrs. Strangeways Horner, With A Letter From My Son;
© Mary Barber
Methinks, I see your Friendship rise,
And sparkle in your lovely Eyes.
Your Heir! (I hear you now repeat)
I long to know of your Estate.
Say--Is it an Hibernian Bog,
Where Phoebus seldom shines for Fog?
The Village: Book I
© George Crabbe
The village life, and every care that reigns
O'er youthful peasants and declining swains;
