Good poems
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Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels
© Ellis Parker Butler
I well recall (and who does not)
The circus bill-board hippopotamus,
whose wide distended jaws
For fear and terror were good cause.
Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures
© Ellis Parker Butler
The cruelty of P. L. Brown
(He had ten toes as good as mine)
Was known to every one in town,
And, if he never harmed a noun,
He loved to make verbs shriek and whine.
Judgment Day
© Ellis Parker Butler
Saint Peter stood, at Heaven's gate,
All souls claims to adjudicate
Saying to some souls, "Enter in!"
"Go to Hell," to others, "you are steeped in sin."
When The Dressmaker Comes
© Edgar Albert Guest
WHEN the dressmaker comes I am told to clear out,
For they don't want me anywhere hanging about;
Circumstantial Evidence
© Ellis Parker Butler
She does not mind a good cigar
(The kind, that is, I smoke);
She thinks all men quite stupid are,
(But laughs wheneer I joke).
A Lost Angel
© Ellis Parker Butler
When first we met she seemed so white
I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
I neared her;
Courage
© Celia Thaxter
Because I hold it sinful to despond,
And will not let the bitterness of life
Blind me with burning tears, but look beyond
Its tumult and its strife;
Good - Better - Best
© Ellis Parker Butler
When young, in tones quite positive
I said, "The world shall see
That I can keep myself from sin;
A good man I will be."
The Spelling Bee At Angels
© Francis Bret Harte
Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,
And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.
I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys fierce and wild,
For I hold it is unchristian to deceive a simple child;
But as from school yer driftin' by, I thowt ye'd like to hear
Of a "Spelling Bee" at Angels that we organized last year.
The Round Table or, King Arthur's Feast
© Thomas Love Peacock
His speech was cut short by a general dismay;
For William the Second had fainted away,
At the smell of some New Forest venison before him;
But a tweak on the nose, Arthur said, would restore him.
Thunder
© Anna Akhmatova
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say She asked for storms. The entire
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.
Hymn To Death
© William Cullen Bryant
Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
Twenty-First. Night. Monday
© Anna Akhmatova
Twenty-first. Night. Monday.
Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.
Some good-for-nothing -- who knows why --
made up the tale that love exists on earth.
Bird With Two Right Wings
© Lawrence Ferlinghetti
And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
Real Lessons
© Edgar Albert Guest
These are the lessons I would learn,
Not how to climb above all men,
Thoughts On The Works Of Providence
© Phillis Wheatley
A R I S E, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise
To praise the monarch of the earth and skies,
Whose goodness and benificence appear
As round its centre moves the rolling year,
To The Right Honourable William, Earl Of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary Of The State For North-America,
© Phillis Wheatley
HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
On The Death Of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield
© Phillis Wheatley
HAIL, happy saint, on thine immortal throne,
Possest of glory, life, and bliss unknown;
We hear no more the music of thy tongue,
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.
