Famous poems
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Shakespeare's Sonnets: Let those who are in favour with their stars
© William Shakespeare
Let those who are in favour with their starsOf public honour and proud titles boast,Whil'st I whom fortune of such triumph barsUnlook't for joy in that I honour most;Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spreadBut as the marigold at the sun's eye,And in them-selves their pride lies burièd,For at a frown they in their glory die
Richard II (excerpts): This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle
© William Shakespeare
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by Nature for her selfAgainst infection and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in a silver seaWhich serves it in the office of a wallOr as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands,This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,Feared by their breed and famous for their birth,Renownèd for their deeds as far from homeFor Christian service and true chivalryAs is the sepulchre in stubborn JewryOf the world's ransom, blessèd Mary's son
The Splendid Shilling
© Philips John
-- -- Sing, Heavenly Muse,Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime,A Shilling, Breeches, and Chimera's Dire.
A Farewell Entitled to the Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English Forces
© George Peele
Have done with care, my hearts, abord amain,With stretching sail to plow the swelling waves
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
© John Milton
PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad successThe Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope,So oft, and the perswasive RhetoricThat sleek't his tongue, and won so much on Eve,So little here, nay lost; but Eve was Eve,This far his over-match, who self deceiv'dAnd rash, before-hand had no better weigh'dThe strength he was to cope with, or his own:But as a man who had been matchless heldIn cunning, over-reach't where least he thought,To salve his credit, and for very spightStill will be tempting him who foyls him still,And never cease, though to his shame the more;Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr'd,Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;Or surging waves against a solid rock,Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew,Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end;So Satan, whom repulse upon repulseMet ever; and to shameful silence brought,Yet gives not o're though desperate of success,And his vain importunity pursues
Paradise Regain'd: Book III (1671)
© John Milton
SO spake the Son of God, and Satan stoodA while as mute confounded what to say,What to reply, confuted and convinc'tOf his weak arguing, and fallacious drift;At length collecting all his Serpent wiles,With soothing words renew'd, him thus accosts
Paradise Regain'd: Book II (1671)
© John Milton
MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'dAt Jordan with the Baptist, and had seenHim whom they heard so late expresly call'dJesus Messiah Son of God declar'd,And on that high Authority had believ'd,And with him talkt, and with him lodg'd, I meanAndrew and Simon, famous after knownWith others though in Holy Writ not nam'd,Now missing him thir joy so lately found,So lately found, and so abruptly gone,Began to doubt, and doubted many days,And as the days increas'd, increas'd thir doubt:Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,And for a time caught up to God, as onceMoses was in the Mount, and missing long;And the great Thisbite who on fiery wheelsRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come
Paradise Lost: Books II-III: Editorial Summary
© John Milton
BOOK II presents the "great consult": Moloch urges open war against Heaven, while Belial counsels complete passivity lest worse befall them, and Mammon proposes exploiting the riches of Hell; Beelzebub offers what purports to be a compromise, but is really the plan predetermined by Satan, namely, an attack, by guile, not force, against God through his latest creation, man
Tom Deadlight (1810)
© Herman Melville
During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British Dreadnought, 98, wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by snatches his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates, his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou'-wester
Two Poets
© Joussaye Marie
There lived a poet once, a famous bard, Whose muse, arrayed in robes of misty light,Soared high above the common herd of men
Flint and Feather
© Emily Pauline Johnson
Ojistoh1.2Of him whose name breathes bravery and life1.3And courage to the tribe that calls him chief.1.4I am Ojistoh, his white star, and he1.5Is land, and lake, and sky--and soul to me.
Virgidemiarum: Book I, Satire III
© Joseph Hall
With some pot-fury, ravish'd from their wit,They sit and muse on some no-vulgar writ:As frozen dunghills in a winter's morn,That void of vapours seemed all beforn,Soon as the sun sends out his piercing beams,Exhale out filthy smoke and stinking steams;So doth the base, and the fore-barren brain,Soon as the raging wine begins to reign
Father O'Flynn
© Graves Alfred Perceval
Of priests we can offer a charmin' variety,Far renowned for larnin' and piety;Still, I'd advance you, widout impropriety, Father O'Flynn as the flower of them all.
My Dear and Only Love
© James Graham
My dear and only Love, I pray This noble world of theeBe govern'd by no other sway But purest monarchy;For if confusion have a part, Which virtuous souls abhor,And hold a synod in thy heart, I'll never love thee more
