Future poems
/ page 24 of 121 /Don Juan: Canto The Sixth
© George Gordon Byron
'There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which,--taken at the flood,'--you know the rest,
To The Duke Of Dorset
© George Gordon Byron
Dorset! whose early steps with mine have stray'd,
Exploring every path of Ida's glade;
The Four Seasons : Autumn
© James Thomson
Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
The Olive Branch
© George Meredith
A dove flew with an Olive Branch;
It crossed the sea and reached the shore,
And on a ship about to launch
Dropped down the happy sign it bore.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 251-500 (Whinfield Translation)
© Omar Khayyám
Are you depressed? Then take of bhang one grain,
Of rosy grape-juice take one pint or twain;
Sufis, you say, must not take this or that,
Then go and eat the pebbles off the plain!
The Progress Of Refinement. Part III.
© Henry James Pye
CONTENTS OF PART III. Introduction.Comparison of ancient and modern Manners. Peculiar softness of the latter.Humanity in War. Politeness.Enquiry into the causes.Purity of the Christian Religion.Abolition of Slavery in Europe. Remaining effects of Chivalry.The behaviour of Edward the Black Prince, after the battle of Poitiers, contrasted with a Roman Triumph.Tendency of firearms to abate the ferocity of war.Duelling.Society of Women.Consequent prevalence of Love in poetical compositions. Softness of the modern Drama.Shakespear admired, but not imitated.Sentimental Comedy.Novels. Diffusion of superficial knowledge.Prevalence of Gaming in every state of mankind.Peculiar effect of the universal influence of Cards on modern times.Luxury. Enquiry why it does not threaten Europe now, with the fatal consequences it brought on ancient Rome.Indolence, and Gluttony, checked by the free intercourse with women.Their dislike to effeminate men.The frequent wars among the European Nations keep up a martial spirit.Point of Honor.Hereditary Nobility.Peculiar situation of Britain.Effects of Commerce when carried to excess.Danger when money becomes the sole distinction. Address to Men of ancient and noble families. Address to the Ladies.The Decline of their influence, a sure fore-runner of selfish Luxury.Recapitulation and Conclusion.
Apology For Bad Dreams
© Robinson Jeffers
I
In the purple light, heavy with redwood, the slopes drop seaward,
Gualterus Danistonus, Ad Amicos. - And Imitation
© Matthew Prior
Dum studeo fungi fallentis munere vitae,
Adfectoque viam sedibus Elysiis
'The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 5
© Publius Vergilius Maro
MEANTIME the Trojan cuts his watry way,
Fixd on his voyage, thro the curling sea;
A Life
© Sylvia Plath
Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year --
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.
Jimmy Sago, Jackaroo
© Anonymous
If you want a situation, I'll just tell you the plan
To get on to a station, I am just your very man.
Pack up the old portmanteau, and label it Paroo,
With a name aristocratic - Jimmy Sago, Jackaroo.
To the Earl of Warwick, On the Death of Mr. Addison
© Thomas Tickell
. If, dumb too long, the drooping Muse hath stay'd,
And left her debt to Addison unpaid;
Brings me hope
© Shams al-Din Hafiz
WHAT drunkenness is this that brings me hope--
Who was the Cup-bearer, and whence the wine?
That minstrel singing with full voice divine,
What lay was his? for 'mid the woven rope
Of song, he brought word from my Friend to me
Set to his melody.
David And Goliath. A Sacred Drama
© Hannah More
Great Lord of all things! Power divine!
Breathe on this erring heart of mine
Thy grace serene and pure:
Defend my frail, my erring youth,
And teach me this important truth--
The humble are secure!
The Revolt Of Islam: Canto I-XII
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
There is no danger to a man, that knows
What life and death is: there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.
-Chapman.
Book Twelfth [Imagination And Taste, How Impaired And Restored ]
© William Wordsworth
What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far
Perverted, even the visible Universe
Fell under the dominion of a taste
Less spiritual, with microscopic view
Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?
Fatality
© Rubén Dario
The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient;
the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing:
there is no pain as great as being alive,
no burden heavier than that of conscious life.
Mother Of Nations - Why?
© Albert Durrant Watson
Does the Mother of Nations draw the sword
To rescue her children oppressed ?
They have all that the richest lands afford;
They sit content at an ample board
As safe as a bird in its nest.
To A Young Ass, Its Mother Being Tethered Near It
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poor little Foal of an oppressed race!
I love the languid patience of thy face: