Good poems
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A Satire, in Imitation of the Third of Juvenal
© John Oldham
Though much concern'd to leave my dear old friend,I must however his design commendOf fixing in the country: for were IAs free to choose my residence, as he;The Peak, the Fens, the Hundreds, or Land's End,I would prefer to Fleet Street, or the Strand
Where the Brumbies Come to Water
© William Henry Ogilvie
There's a lonely grave half hidden where the blue-grass droops above,And the slab is rough that marks it, but we planted it for love;There's a well-worn saddle hanging in the harness-room at homeAnd a good old stock-horse waiting for the steps that never come;There's a mourning rank of riders closing in on either handO'er the vacant place he left us -- he, the best of all the band,Who is lying cold and silent with his hoarded hopes unwonWhere the brumbies come to water at the setting of the sun
Song for a Fishing Party near Burlington, on the Delaware, in 1776
© Odell Jonathan
How sweet is the season, the sky how serene;On Delaware's banks how delightful the scene;The Prince of the Rivers, his waves all asleep,In silence majestic glides on to the Deep.
Ode
© O'Shaughnessy Arthur
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; --World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams:Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems
The Dance at McDougall's
© O'Hagan Thomas
In a little log house near the rim of the forest With its windows of sunlight, its threshold of stone,Lived Donald McDougall, the quaintest of Scotchmen, And Janet his wife, in their shanty, alone:By day the birds sang them a chorus of welcome, At night they saw Scotland again in their dreams;They toiled full of hope 'mid the sunshine of friendship, Their hearts leaping onward like troutlets in streams, In the little log home of McDougall's
Voice of the Twentieth Century
© Robert Norwood
Voice of our Century, whose heart is broken,Weeping for those who will not come again--Lord Christ! hast thou been crucified in vain?--Challenge the right of every Tyrant's token:The fist of mail; the sceptre; ancient, oakenCoffers of gold for which thy sons are slain;The pride of place, which from the days of CainHath for the empty right of Power spoken!
Be like a trumpet blown from clouds of doomAgainst whatever seeks to bind on earth;Bring from the blood of battle, from the wombOf women weeping for their dead, the birthOf better days with banishment of wrong,Love in all hearts, on every lip--a song
Darwin
© Robert Norwood
Eternal night and solitude of space;Breath as of vapour crimsoning to flame;Far constellations moving in the sameInvariable order and the paceThat times the sun, or earth's elliptic raceAmong the planets: Life--dumb, blind and lame--Creeping from form to form, until her shameBlends with the beauty of a human face!
Death can not claim what Life so hardly wonOut of her ancient warfare with the Void--O Man! whose day is only now begun,Go forth with her and do what she hath done;Till thy last enemy--Death--be destroyed,And earth outshine the splendour of the sun
Little Jack Horner
© Mother Goose
Little Jack HornerSat in a corner,Eating of Christmas pye;He put in his thumb,And pull'd out a plumb,And what a good boy was I.
Boys and Girls Come out to Play
© Mother Goose
Boys and girls come out to play,The moon does shine as bright as day;Come with a hoop, and come with a call,Come with a good will or not at all
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung
© William Morris
But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious girth;But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread,And bathed in the light returning, she cried aloud and said:"All hail, O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things!Hail, following Night, and thy Daughter that leadeth thy wavering wings!Look down With unangry eyes on us today alive,And give us the hearts victorious, and the gain for which we strive!All hail, ye Lords of God-home, and ye Queens of the House of Gold!Hail, thou dear Earth that bearest, and thou Wealth of field and fold!Give us, your noble children, the glory of wisdom and speech,And the hearts and the hands of healing, and the mouths and hands that teach!"
Then they turned and were knit together; and oft and o'er againThey craved, and kissed rejoicing, and their hearts were full and fain
Lost Content
© Moritz Albert Frank
You couples lyingwhere moon-scythes and day-scythes reaped you,browning fruit falls and sleepsin tangled nests, the wild grass,falls from your apple tree that still grows here:cry for your dead hero, his weak sword, his flight,that you were slaughtered and your bed poured whiteness,the issue of murdered marriage dawns
Sonnet XXIII: Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint
© John Milton
Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint
Sonnet XII: I did but Prompt the Age to Quit their Clogs
© John Milton
I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When straight a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs:As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny Which after held the sun and moon in fee
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 I (1671)
© John Milton
I Who e're while the happy Garden sung,By one mans disobedience lost, now singRecover'd Paradise to all mankind,By one mans firm obedience fully tri'dThrough all temptation, and the Tempter foil'dIn all his wiles, defeated and repuls't,And Eden rais'd in the wast Wilderness
