Good poems
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A West Country Ballad
© Anonymous
This is the tale of Norton
Who vowed a vow, by zounds,
To catch the varlet Gardiner
And win a thousand pounds.
What My Father Left Behind
© Georg Trakl
Jam jar of cigarette ends and ashes on his workbench,
hammer he nailed our address to a stump with,
balsa wood steamship, half-finished—
Medea in Athens
© Augusta Davies Webster
Dimly I recall
some prophecy a god breathed by my mouth.
It could not err. What was it? For I think;-
it told his death¹.
Up And Down Old Brandywine
© James Whitcomb Riley
Up and down old Brandywine,
In the days 'at's past and gone--
It would be neat if with the New Year
© James Russell Lowell
I keep wearing them because they fit so good
and I need them, especially when I love so hard,
where I go up those boulder strewn trails,
where flowers crack rocks in their defiant love for the light.
The Cottager
© John Clare
True as the church clock hand the hour pursues
He plods about his toils and reads the news,
Jolly Good Ale and Old
© William Stevenson
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
Alea Jacta
© Alfred Austin
Dearest, I know thee wise and good,
Beloved by all the best;
With fancy like Ithuriel's spear,
A judgment proof 'gainst rage or fear,
Heart firm through many a stormy year,
And conscience calm in rest.
Wild With All Regrets
© Wilfred Owen
Which I shan't manage now. Unless it's yours.
I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours.
You'll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest,
And climb your throat on sobs, until it's chased
On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
Gertrude's Prayer
© Rudyard Kipling
That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,
Nor water out of bitter well make clean;
All evil thing returneth at the end,
Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.
Whereby the more is sorrow in certaine-
Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe.
Golden State
© Frank Bidart
I
To see my father
lying in pink velvet, a rosary
twined around his hands, rouged,
After Thomas Kempis
© George MacDonald
Who follows Jesus shall not walk
In darksome road with danger rife;
But in his heart the Truth will talk,
And on his way will shine the Life.
Despair
© Edith Nesbit
SMILE on me, mouth of red--so much too red,
Shine on me, eyes which darkened lashes shade,
To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney
© Mary Sidney Herbert
(Variant printed in Samuel Daniel’s 1623 Works)
To thee, pure spirit, to thee alone addressed
The Forest Boy
© Charlotte Turner Smith
THE trees have now hid at the edge of the hurst
The spot where the ruins decay
Of the cottage, where Will of the Woodland was nursed,
And lived so beloved, till the moment accursed
I Know, I Remember, But How Can I Help You
© Hayden Carruth
The northern lights. I wouldn’t have noticed them
if the deer hadn’t told me
