Good poems
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The Hero
© John Greenleaf Whittier
"O for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear;
My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!
The Golden Apple
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
She saw on the far bank a golden apple,
A glowing apple, poor little Eve,
Battle Of Hastings - I
© Thomas Chatterton
From Chatelet hys launce Erle Egward drew,
And hit Wallerie on the dexter cheek;
Peerc'd to his braine, and cut his tongue in two.
There, knyght, quod he, let that thy actions speak --
The Princess (part 7)
© Alfred Tennyson
'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream,
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself:
But if you be that Ida whom I knew,
I ask you nothing: only, if a dream,
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die tonight.
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'
Dover To Munich
© Charles Stuart Calverley
Farewell, farewell! Before our prow
Leaps in white foam the noisy channel,
A tourist's cap is on my brow,
My legs are cased in tourists' flannel:
No My Friends No!
© William Gay
Hail foes to oppression, and lovers of freedom!
Your day has arrived, and your power you know:-
A Father's Prayer
© Edgar Albert Guest
Lord, make me tolerant and wise;
Incline my ears to hear him through;
Let him not stand with downcast eyes,
Fearing to trust me and be true.
Instruct me so that I may know
The way my son and I should go.
"Sed Nos Qui Vivimus"
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
How beautiful is life--the physical joy of sense and breathing;
The glory of the world which has found speech and speaks to us;
The robe which summer throws in June round the white bones of winter;
The new birth of each day, itself a life, a world, a sun!
Ode to My Socks
© Pablo Neruda
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
So Far, So Near
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
THOU so far, we grope to grasp thee
Thou, so near, we cannot clasp thee
Thou, so wise, our prayers grow heedless
Thou, so loving, they are needless!
I Met a Lady in the Wood
© Patrick Barrington
I met a lady in the wood.
No mortal maid, I knew, was she;
She was no thing of flesh and blood,
No child of human ancestry.
Maha-Bharata, The Epic Of Ancient India - Book II - Swayamvara (The Bride's Choice)
© Romesh Chunder Dutt
The mutual jealousies of the princes increased from day to day, and
when Yudhishthir, the eldest of all the princes and the eldest son of
the late Pandu, was recognised heir-apparent, the anger of Duryodhan
and his brothers knew no bounds. And they formed a dark scheme to
kill the sons of Pandu.
The Waggoner - Canto First
© William Wordsworth
'TIS spent--this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,--
That solitary bird
Life, A Language.
© Robert Crawford
Life is a language every man must use,
Some with a wondrous faculty, and some
So blindly that they seem like Caliban
Or e'er the good and great magician took
Pity upon his impotence, and made
The discord of his reason musical.
Psychological Warfare
© Henry Reed
Be that as it may, some time in the very near future,
We are to expect Invasion… and invasion not from the sea.
Vast numbers of troops will be dropped, probably from above,
Superbly equipped, determined and capable; and this above all,
Remember: they will be very brave men, and chosen as such.
The Inward Judge
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The soul itself its awful witness is.
Say not in evil doing, "No one sees,"
And so offend the conscious One within,
Whose ear can hear the silences of sin.
The Sorrows of a Simple Bard
© Henry Lawson
WHEN I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark
And a wink of mighty meaning at their confidential clerk.
With Wordsworth At Rydal
© James Thomas Fields
THE GRASS hung wet on Rydal banks,
The golden day with pearls adorning,
When side by side with him we walked
To meet midway the summer morning.
