Courage poems
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The Garlands.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
KLOPSTOCK would lead us away from Pindus; no longer
for laurel
May we be eager--the homely acorn alone must content us;
Yet he himself his more-than-epic crusade is conducting
The First Walpurgis-night.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Would ye, then, so rashly act?
Would ye instant death attract?
Know ye not the cruel threats
New Love, New Life.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,
Comfort In Tears.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
How happens it that thou art sad,While happy all appear?
Thine eye proclaims too well that thouHast wept full many a tear."If I have wept in solitude,None other shares my grief,
And tears to me sweet balsam are,And give my heart relief."Thy happy friends invite thee now,--Oh come, then, to our breast!
And let the loss thou hast sustain'dBe there to us confess'd!"Ye shout, torment me, knowing notWhat 'tis afflicteth me;
Human Feelings.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
AH, ye gods! ye great immortals
In the spacious heavens above us!
Would ye on this earth but give us
Steadfast minds and dauntless courage
We, oh kindly ones, would leave you
All your spacious heavens above us!
Reynard the Fox - Part 1
© John Masefield
Poor Polly's dying struck him queer,
He was a darkened man thereafter,
Cowed, silent, he would wince at laughter
And be so gentle it was strange
Even to see. Life loves to change.
The Dons of Spain
© Henry Lawson
The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round,
Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found;
For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main,
The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts of the Dons of Spain.
The Man Who Raised Charlestown
© Henry Lawson
They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge;
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.
When Your Pants Begin to Go
© Henry Lawson
When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn't white,
And you cannot sleep for thinking how you'll reach to-morrow night,
You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care,
And as yet be unacquainted with the Demon of Despair;
For I rather think that nothing heaps the trouble on your mind
Like the knowledge that your trousers badly need a patch behind.
May-Day
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world rolls round,--mistrust it not,--
Befalls again what once befell;
All things return, both sphere and mote,
And I shall hear my bluebird's note,
And dream the dream of Auburn dell.
A Song of Brave Men
© Henry Lawson
Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave?
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave:
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands,
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands!
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real,
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate, and the buggers put out from Deal!
The Old Stoic
© Emily Jane Brontë
Riches I hold in light esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish'd with the morn:
If You Would Please Me
© Edgar Albert Guest
If you would please me when I've passed away
Let not your grief embitter you. Be brave;
On The Victory Obtained By Blake Over the Spaniards, In The
© Andrew Marvell
Now does Spains Fleet her spatious wings unfold,
Leaves the new World and hastens for the old:
But though the wind was fair, the slowly swoome
Frayted with acted Guilt, and Guilt to come:
The Song Of Honour
© Ralph Hodgson
I heard no more of bird or bell,
The mastiff in a slumber fell,
I stared into the sky,
As wondering men have always done
Since beauty and the stars were one,
Though none so hard as I.
Toads
© Philip Larkin
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Barbury Camp
© Charles Hamilton Sorley
We burrowed night and day with tools of lead,
Heaped the bank up and cast it in a ring
And hurled the earth above. And Caesar said,
Why, it is excellent. I like the thing.
We, who are dead,
Made it, and wrought, and Caesar liked the thing.
Sonnet XLVII: In Pride of Wit
© Michael Drayton
In pride of wit when high desire of fame
Gave life and courage to my laboring pen,
And first the sound and virtue of my name
Won grace and credit in the ears of men,
