Courage poems
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The Lay Of St. Odille
© Richard Harris Barham
Odille was a maid of a dignified race;
Her father, Count Otto, was lord of Alsace;
Edmund Clarence Stedman
© Henry Van Dyke
Oh, quick to feel the lightest touch
Of beauty or of truth,
The Swamp Fox
© William Gilmore Simms
What! 't is the signal! start so soon,
And through the Santee swamp so deep,
Without the aid of friendly moon,
And we, Heaven help us! half asleep!
The Art Of War. Book I.
© Henry James Pye
I'll paint the cruel arm from Bayonne nam'd,
Where savage art a new destruction fram'd,
Their powers combin'd where fire and steel impart,
And point a double wound at every heart.
More Light! More Light!
© Anthony Evan Hecht
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses, and being brought at that time
Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
"I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime."
The Same, Expanded.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
And people then will alter their mind.
If courage is gone--then all is gone!
'Twere better that thou hadst never been born.
Elegy IV. Anno Aet. 18. To My Tutor, Thomas Young, Chaplain Of The English Merchants Resident At Ham
© William Cowper
Hence, my epistle--skim the Deep--fly o'er
Yon smooth expanse to the Teutonic shore!
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: CIV
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
THE SAME CONTINUED
O world, in very truth thou art too young,
They gave thee love who measured out thy skies,
And, when they found for thee another star,
Rinaldo.*
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This Cantata was written for Prince Frederick
of Gotha, and set to music by Winter, the Prince singing the part
of Rinaldo.--See the Annalen.]
The Reckoning.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
LEADER.LET no cares now hover o'er usLet the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?Hast thou all thy duty done?SOLO.Two young folks--the thing is curious--Loved each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,Next day, quite the deuce to pay!
If her neck she there was stooping,He must here needs pull his hair.
The Treasure-digger
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ALL my weary days I pass'dSick at heart and poor in purse.Poverty's the greatest curse,Riches are the highest good!
And to end my woes at last,Treasure-seeking forth I sped."Thou shalt have my soul instead!"Thus I wrote, and with my blood.Ring round ring I forthwith drew,Wondrous flames collected there,Herbs and bones in order fair,Till the charm had work'd aright.
Then, to learned precepts true,Dug to find some treasure old,In the place my art foretoldBlack and stormy was the night.Coming o'er the distant plain,With the glimmer of a star,Soon I saw a light afar,As the hour of midnight knell'd.
Preparation was in vain.Sudden all was lighted upWith the lustre of a cupThat a beauteous boy upheld.Sweetly seem'd his eves to laughNeath his flow'ry chaplet's load;With the drink that brightly glow'd,He the circle enter'd in.
Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on high.
Ballad Of The Banished And Returning Count.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Goethe began to write an opera called Lowenstuhl,
founded upon the old tradition which forms the subject of this Ballad,
but he never carried out his design.]
The Spagnoletto. Act IV
© Emma Lazarus
Night. RIBERA'S bedroom. RIBERA discovered in his dressing-gown,
seated reading beside a table, with a light upon it. Enter from
an open door at the back of the stage, MARIA. She stands
irresolute for a moment on the threshold behind her father,
watching him, passes her hand rapidly over her brow and eyes,
and then knocks.
The Destruction Of Magdeburg.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[For a fine account of the fearful sack of Magdeburg,
by Tilly, in the year 1613, see SCHILLER's History of the Thirty
Years' War.]
Little Boy Blue
© George MacDonald
Little Boy Blue lost his way in a wood-
Sing apples and cherries, roses and honey:
He said, "I would not go back if I could,
It's all so jolly and funny!"
Starting From Paumanok
© Walt Whitman
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced-stars, rain, snow,
my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountainhawk's,
And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit thrush from the
swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal, Imitated by Samuel Johnson
© Samuel Johnson
Yet still the 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.
The Sea-voyage.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
MANY a day and night my bark stood ready laden;
Waiting fav'ring winds, I sat with true friends round me,
Pledging me to patience and to courage,
In the haven.
