Courage poems

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Life

© Henry Van Dyke

So let the way wind up the hill or down,
  O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
  Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
  My heart will keep the courage of the quest,
  And hope the road's last turn will be the best.

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from The Vanity of Human Wishes

© Henry James Pye

  Yet still one gen’ral cry the skies assails,
And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales,
Few know the toiling statesman’s fear or care,
Th’ insidious rival and the gaping heir.

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A Commonplace Song

© George Essex Evans

Ebbs and flows the restless river

 In the city street

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from The Botanic Garden, “The Economy of Vegetation”: Canto I

© Erasmus Darwin

Argument

The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1.  She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59.  Addresses the Nymphs of Fire.  Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81.  I. Love created the Universe.  Chaos explodes.  All the Stars revolve.  God, 97.  II. Shooting Stars.  Lightning.  Rainbow.  Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies.  Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air.  Twilight.  Fire-balls.  Aurora Borealis.  Planets.  Comets.  Fixed Stars.  Sun’s Orb, 115.  III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre.  Animal Incubation, 137.  2. Volcanic Mountains.  Venus visits the Cyclops, 149.  IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air.  Phosphoric lights in the Evening.  Bolognian Stone.  Calcined Shells.  Memnon’s Harp, 173.  Ignis fatuus.  Luminous Flowers.  Glow-worm.  Fire-fly.  Luminous Sea-insects.  Electric Eel.  Eagle armed with Lightning, 189.  V. 1. Discovery of Fire.  Medusa, 209.  2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223.  3. Gunpowder, 237.  VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253.  Labours of Hercules.  Abyla and Calpe, 297.  VII. 1. Electric Machine.  Hesperian Dragon.  Electric Kiss.  Halo round the heads of Saints.  Electric Shock.  Fairy-rings, 335.  2. Death of Professor Richman, 371.  3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds.  Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383.  VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood.  The great Egg of Night, 399.  IX. Western Wind unfettered.  Naiad released.  Frost assailed.  Whale attacked, 421.  X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light.  Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457.  XI. Sirius.  Jupiter and Semele.  Nothern Constellations.  Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas.  Rainy Monsoons, 497.  XII. Points erected to procure Rain.  Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549.  Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.

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The Day is a Poem

© Robinson Jeffers

(September 19, 1939)


This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we heard his voice.

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[as freedom is a breakfastfood]

© Edward Estlin Cummings

as freedom is a breakfastfood

or truth can live with right and wrong

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Jerusalem Delivered - Book 05 - part 04

© Torquato Tasso

XLIX

"If then you scorn to be in prison pent,

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The Heart Courageous

© Virna Sheard

Who hath a heart courageous
  Will fight with right good cheer;
For well may he his foes out-face
  Who owns no foe called Fear!

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from Dante Études: Book Three: In My Youth Not Unstaind

© Robert Duncan

Now, upon old age: “Our life
has a fixt course and a simple path”
I would not avoid, “that of our right nature”
—then Dante adds, himself quoting:
“and in every part of our life
 place is given for certain things”:

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The Two Armies

© Henry Timrod

Two armies stand enrolled beneath

The banner with the starry wreath;

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Olney Hymn 68: Light Shining Out Of Darkness

© William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way,
  His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
  And rides upon the storm.

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The Sign Of The Cross

© John Henry Newman

WHENE’ER across this sinful flesh of mine  

 I draw the Holy Sign,  

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Jerusalem Delivered - Book 02 - part 03

© Torquato Tasso

XXI

It was amazement, wonder and delight,

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Fand, A Feerie Act III

© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

[She looks towards the sea.
Attendant. None.
The sea mist drives too thickly.

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The Banks Of Wye - Book III

© Robert Bloomfield

PEACE to your white-wall'd cots, ye vales,

Untainted fly your summer gales;

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The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 10

© Publius Vergilius Maro

THE GATES of heav’n unfold: Jove summons all  

The gods to council in the common hall.  

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Revenge of Injuries

© Elizabeth Carew

The fairest action of our human life
Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie.
And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.

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$2.50

© Kenneth Fearing

But that dashing, dauntless, delphic, diehard, diabolic cracker likes his fiction turned with a certain elegance and wit; and that anti-anti-anti-slum-congestion clublady prefers romance;
Search through the mothballs, comb the lavender and lace;
Were her desires and struggles futile or did an innate fineness bring him at last to a prouder, richer peace in a world gone somehow mad?

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The Lotos-eaters

© Alfred Tennyson

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,

"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."

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Only a Dad

© Edgar Albert Guest

Only a dad, with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame,
To show how well he has played the game,
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come, and to hear his voice.