Good poems
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Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
© Jonathan Swift
Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
It's the Little Towns I Like
© Thomas Lux
It’s the little towns I like
with their little mills making ratchets
Song: If you refuse me once, and think again
© Sir John Suckling
If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv’d, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.
For Laurel and Hardy on My Workroom Wall
© David Wagoner
Theyre tipping their battered derbies and striding forward
In step for a change, chipper, self-assured,
Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
© Patrick Kavanagh
Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave,
The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 15
© William Langland
Ac after my wakynge it was wonder longe
Er I koude kyndely knowe what was Dowel.
The Princess (part 4)
© Alfred Tennyson
But when we planted level feet, and dipt
Beneath the satin dome and entered in,
There leaning deep in broidered down we sank
Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold.
The Veteran
© William Henry Ogilvie
He asks no favour from the Field, no forward place demands
Save what he claims by fearless heart and light and dainty hands;
No man need make a way for him at ditch or gap or gate,
He rides on level terms with all, if not at equal weight
King Goodheart
© William Schwenck Gilbert
There lived a King, as I've been told
In the wonder-working days of old,
Amoretti XIII: "In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth"
© Edmund Spenser
In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth,
Whiles her faire face she reares up to the skie:
The Pillar Towers of Ireland
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
The pillar towers of Ireland, how wondrously they stand
By the lakes and rushing rivers through the valleys of our land;
In mystic file, through the isle, they lift their heads sublime,
These gray old pillar temples, these conquerors of time!
Returning of Issue
© Henry Reed
Tomorrow will be your last day here. Someone is speaking:
A familiar voice, speaking again at all of us.
And beyond the windows it is inside now, and autumn
On a wind growing daily harsher, small things to the earth
Are turning and whirling, small. Tomorrow will be
Your last day here,
Maud XVIII: I have led her Home, my love, my only friend
© Alfred Tennyson
I have led her home, my love, my only friend,
There is none like her, none.
And never yet so warmly ran my blood
And sweetly, on and on
Calming itself to the long-wished-for end,
Full to the banks, close on the promised good.
Bixby’s Landing
© Robinson Jeffers
They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down here in an iron car
On a long cable; here the ships warped in
from Omeros
© Derek Walcott
In hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez,
the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane
down the archipelago’s highways. The first breeze
Hymn XI: God, the Offended God Most High
© Charles Wesley
God, the offended God most high,
Ambassadors to rebels sends;
His messengers his place supply,
And Jesus begs us to be friends.
Psalm 84
© Mary Sidney Herbert
How lovely is thy dwelling,
Great god, to whom all greatness is belonging!
