Freedom poems
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am was.
© Edward Estlin Cummings
am was. are leaves few this. is these a or
scratchily over which of earth dragged once
-ful leaf. & were who skies clutch an of poor
how colding hereless. air theres what immense
The Progress of Poesy
© Thomas Gray
A Pindaric OdeAwake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The Sompnour's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Carrack: A great ship of burden used by the Portuguese; the
name is from the Italian, "cargare," to load
Troilus And Criseyde: Book 01
© Geoffrey Chaucer
The double 12 sorwe of Troilus to tellen,
That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,
In lovinge, how his aventures fellen
Fro wo to wele, and after out of Ioye,
The Man of Law's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Plight: pulled; the word is an obsolete past tense from
"pluck."
The Reeve's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. "With blearing of a proude miller's eye": dimming his eye;
playing off a joke on him.
The General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
There was also a Reeve, and a Millere,
A Sompnour, and a Pardoner also,
A Manciple, and myself, there were no mo'.
Frederick Douglass
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
A hush is over all the teeming lists,
And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
Laments the passing of her noblest born.
Million Man March Poem
© Maya Angelou
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
I know why the caged bird sings
© Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.
Prairie-Grass Dividing, The.
© Walt Whitman
THE prairie-grass dividingits special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Prairie States, The.
© Walt Whitman
A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
By all the world contributedfreedoms and laws and thrifts society,
Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States.
© Walt Whitman
1
SUDDENLY, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
Like lightning it lept forth, half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the ragsits hands tight to the throats of kings.
In Former Songs.
© Walt Whitman
1
IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life,
But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.
Song of the Exposition.
© Walt Whitman
1
AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
Apostroph.
© Walt Whitman
O MATER! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free.
© Walt Whitman
1
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought Id think to-day of thee, America,
Spain 187374.
© Walt Whitman
OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,
Out of the feudal wrecks, and heapd-up skeletons of kings,
Out of that old entire European debristhe shatterd mummeries,
Ruind cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests,
Mystic Trumpeter, The.
© Walt Whitman
1
HARK! some wild trumpetersome strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
Respondez!
© Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completedthe price is paidthe title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
