Good poems
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The Copernican System
© Thomas Chatterton
The Sun revolving on his axis turns,
And with creative fire intensely burns;
Impell'd by forcive air, our Earth supreme,
Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam.
Song from Aella
© Thomas Chatterton
O SING unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be:
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.
The Rock Cries Out to Us Today
© Maya Angelou
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
This Life
© Grace Paley
the people who usually look up
and call jump jump did not see him
the life savers who creep around the back staircases
and reach the roof's edge just in time
never got their chance he meant it he wanted
only one person to know
The Pobble Who Has No Toes
© Edward Lear
The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
© Edward Lear
I On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-B?.
The Two Old Bachelors
© Edward Lear
Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin, -
"We might cook this little Mouse, if we only had some Stuffin'!
"If we had but Sage and Onion we could do extremely well,
"But how to get that Stuffin' it is difficult to tell!" -
Year of Meteors, 1859 60.
© Walt Whitman
YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia;
How Solemn as One by One.
© Walt Whitman
HOW solemn, as one by one,
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweatyas the men file by where I stand;
As the faces, the masks appearas I glance at the faces, studying the masks;
(As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;)
Centenarians Story, The.
© Walt Whitman
GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;
The hill-top is nighbut a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)
Up the path you have followd me well, spite of your hundred and extra years;
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;
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.
Ox Tamer, The.
© Walt Whitman
IN a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen:
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds, to break them;
He will take the wildest steer in the world, and break him and tame him;
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;
Sing of the Banner at Day-Break.
© Walt Whitman
POET.
O A NEW song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the winds voice and that of the drum,
Now List to my Mornings Romanza.
© Walt Whitman
1
NOW list to my mornings romanzaI tell the signs of the Answerer;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.
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,
Debris.
© Walt Whitman
HE is wisest who has the most caution,
He only wins who goes far enough.
Any thing is as good as established, when that is established that will produce it and
continue
it.
Rise, O Days.
© Walt Whitman
1
RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devourd what the earth gave me;
Long I roamd the woods of the northlong I watchd Niagara pouring;
