Good poems
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Sekhmet, the Lion-headed Goddess of War
© Margaret Atwood
Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed. But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.
Song Of A Pilgrim-Soul
© Henry Van Dyke
March on, my soul, nor like a laggard stay!
March swiftly on. Yet err not from the way
Lines Written At Sea (I)
© Frances Anne Kemble
Dear, yet forbidden thoughts, that from my soul,
While shines the weary sun, with stern control
History of the Twentieth Century (A Roadshow)
© Joseph Brodsky
Ladies and gentlemen and the day!
All ye made of sweet human clay!
Let me tell you: you are o'kay.
In The Secular Night
© Margaret Atwood
In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
A Notable Dinner
© Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
Once the nation's chief was honored by the company of one,
Who to lift a fallen people had a work of worth begun,
Lofty things had he accomplished for a race so long despised,
In a land where naught but color by the whites are ever prized.
To The Right Honourable The Lady Penelope Dowager Of The Late Vis-Count Bayning
© William Strode
You know that Friends have Eares as well as Eyes,
We heare Hee's well and Living, that well dies.
Song Of The Redwood-Tree
© Walt Whitman
A prophecy and indirection-a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing-or hamadryads departing;
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.
The Rime Of The Betsy Jane
© Bert Leston Taylor
IT was the good ship Betsy Jane,
That sailed in a spanking breeze,
With a bunch of militant Suffs on board,
Condemned to an island unexplored
In far off southern seas.
On The Death Of The Right Honourable The Lord Viscount Bayning
© William Strode
Though after Death, Thanks lessen into Praise,
And Worthies be not crown'd with gold, but bayes;
Shall we not thank? To praise Thee all agree;
We Debtors must out doe it, heartily.
On The Death Of Sir Tho: Peltham
© William Strode
Meerly for man's death to mourne
Were to repine that man was borne.
When weake old age doth fall asleepe
Twere foule ingratitude to weepe:
On The Death Of Ladie Caesar
© William Strode
Though Death to good men be the greatest boone,
I dare not think this Lady dyde so soone.
She should have livde for others: Poor mens want
Should make her stande, though she herselfe should faynt.
On The Death Of Dr. Lancton President Of Maudlin College
© William Strode
When men for injuryes unsatisfy'd,
For hopes cutt off, for debts not fully payd,
For legacies in vain expected, mourne
Over theyr owne respects within the urne,
The Wanderings Of Oisin: Book III
© William Butler Yeats
Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke,
High as the Saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide;
And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke;
The immortal desire of Immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.
On John Dawson, Butler Of C.C.
© William Strode
Dawson the Butler's dead: Although I think
Poets were ne'er infusde with single drinke
Ile spend a farthing muse; some watry verse
Will serve the turne to cast upon his hearse;
On His Lady Denys
© William Strode
Denys hath merited no slender praise,
In that She well supplied the Formers daies.
Conceive how Good she was, whose very worst
Unto her Knight was This, that She dyed First.
The Haglets
© Herman Melville
There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly,
And follow, follow fast in wake
Where slides the cabin-lustre shy,
And sharks from man a glamour take,
Seething along the line of light
In lane that endless rules the war-ship's flight.
