Death poems
/ page 529 of 560 /
The Wargeilah Handicap
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Wargeilah town is very small,
There's no cathedral nor a club,
In fact the township, all in all,
Is just one unpretentious pub;
And there, from all the stations round,
The local sportsmen can be found.
Father Riley's Horse
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
The Duties of an Aide-de-camp
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Then they grab at his paw
And they chatter and jaw
Till they'd talk him to death -- if we'd let 'em --
And the folk he has met,
They are all in a fret,
Just for fear he might chance to forget 'em.
Tommy Corrigan
© Andrew Barton Paterson
He gave the shirkers extra heart, he steadied down the rash,
He rode great clumsy boring brutes, and chanced a fatal smash;
He got the rushing Wymlet home that never jumped at all --
But clambered over every fence and clouted every wall.
You should have heard the cheers, my boys, that shook the members' stand
Whenever Tommy Corrigan weighed out to ride Lone Hand.
Conroy's Gap
© Andrew Barton Paterson
This was the way of it, don't you know --
Ryan was "wanted" for stealing sheep,
And never a trooper, high or low,
Could find him -- catch a weasel asleep!
The Pearl Diver
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Kanzo Makame, the diver, sturdy and small Japanee,
Seeker of pearls and of pearl-shell down in the depths of the sea,
Trudged o'er the bed of the ocean, searching industriously.
The Man From Snowy River
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There was movement at the station, for the word has passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horseshe was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
A Bush Lawyer
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Now, Dan-di-dan the water rat was exquisitely dressed,
For not a seal in Bass's Straits had half as fine a coat,
And every day he combed and brushed his golden-yellow vest,
A contrast with the white cravat he wore beneath his throat.
Poppies On Ludlow Castle
© Willa Cather
THROUGH halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
A came to Ludlow tower.
Arcadian Winter
© Willa Cather
WOE is me to tell it thee,
Winter winds in Arcady!
Scattered is thy flock and fled
From the glades where once it fed,
A poem, on the rising glory of America
© Hugh Henry Brackenridge
LEANDER.
Or Roanoke's and James's limpid waves
The sound of musick murmurs in the gale;
Another Denham celebrates their flow,
In gliding numbers and harmonious lays.
A poem on divine revelation
© Hugh Henry Brackenridge
This is a day of happiness, sweet peace,
And heavenly sunshine; upon which conven'd
In full assembly fair, once more we view,
And hail with voice expressive of the heart,
Voyages II
© Hart Crane
--And yet this great wink of eternity,
Of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings,
Samite sheeted and processioned where
Her undinal vast belly moonward bends,
Laughing the wrapt inflections of our love;
At Melville's Tomb
© Hart Crane
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
Earliest Spring
© William Dean Howells
TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,
Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,
Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and
angles
Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.
The Furies
© Weldon Kees
Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six or more.
Whether at dusk or daybreak
Or at blinding noon, a retinue
The Smiles Of The Bathers
© Weldon Kees
The smiles of the bathers fade as they leave the water,
And the lover feels sadness fall as it ends, as he leaves his love.
The scholar, closing his book as the midnight clock strikes, is hollow
and old:
Year's End
© Weldon Kees
So rot in a closet in the ground
For the bad trumpets and the capitol's
Long seasonable grief. Rot for its guests,
Alive, that step away from death. Yet you,
A year cold, come more living to this room
Than these intruders, vertical and warm.
A Distance From The Sea
© Weldon Kees
"And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was
about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto
me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and
write them not." --REVELATIONS, x, 4.
