Good poems
/ page 389 of 545 /
Reynard the Fox - Part 1
© John Masefield
Poor Polly's dying struck him queer,
He was a darkened man thereafter,
Cowed, silent, he would wince at laughter
And be so gentle it was strange
Even to see. Life loves to change.
Olney Hymn 9: The Contrite Heart
© William Cowper
The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow;
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
A contrite heart or no?
For'ard'
© Henry Lawson
It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep,
For there's near a hundred for'ard, and they're stowed away like sheep, --
They are trav'lers for the most part in a straight 'n' honest path;
But their linen's rather scanty, an' there isn't any bath --
Whisperings in Wattle-Boughs
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
Oh, gaily sings the bird! and the wattle-boughs are stirr'd
And rustled by the scented breath of spring;
Oh, the dreary wistful longing! Oh, the faces that are thronging!
Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering!
Trooper Campbell
© Henry Lawson
One day old Trooper Campbell
Rode out to Blackman's Run,
His cap-peak and his sabre
Were glancing in the sun.
When The `Army' Prays For Watty
© Henry Lawson
When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star,
Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar;
When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,
Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub.
The Cambaroora Star
© Henry Lawson
Then he stood up on a sudden, with a face as pale as death,
And he gripped my hand a moment, while he seemed to fight for breath:
`Tom, old friend,' he said, `I'm going, and I'm ready to -- to start,
For I know that there is something -- something crooked with my heart.
Tom, my first child died. I loved her even better than the pen --
Tom -- and while the STAR was dying, why, I felt like I did THEN.
Sweeney
© Henry Lawson
It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down,
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town;
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think --
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink.
Hermann And Dorothea - V. Polyhymnia
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE COSMOPOLITE.
BUT the Three, as before, were still sitting and talking together,
The Song Of Old Joe Swallow
© Henry Lawson
When I was up the country in the rough and early days,
I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays;
Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,
An' we useter draw the timber from the saw-pits in the range --
Load provisions for the stations, an' we'd travel far and slow
Through the plains an' 'cross the ranges in the days of long ago.
The Flour Bin
© Henry Lawson
By Lawson's Hill, near Mudgee,
On old Eurunderee
The place they called "New Pipeclay",
Where the diggers used to be
A Poets Daughter
© Fitz-Greene Halleck
"A lady asks the Minstrel's rhyme."
A lady asks? There was a time
When, musical as play-bell's chime
To wearied boy,
That sound would summon dreams sublime
Of pride and joy.
September On Jessore Road
© Allen Ginsberg
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
No place to shit but sand channel ruts
Peter Anderson And Co.
© Henry Lawson
They tried everything and nothing 'twixt the shovel and the press,
And were more or less successful in their ventures -- mostly less.
Once they ran a country paper till the plant was seized for debt,
And the local sinners chuckle over dingy copies yet.
The Paroo
© Henry Lawson
It was a week from Christmas-time,
As near as I remember,
And half a year since, in the rear,
We'd left the Darling timber.
The Wander-Light
© Henry Lawson
And my beds were camp beds and tramp beds and damp beds,
And my beds were dry beds on drought-stricken ground,
Hard beds and soft beds, and wide beds and narrow
For my beds were strange beds the wide world round.
The Oneness Of The Philosopher With Nature
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I love to see the little stars
All dancing to one tune;
I think quite highly of the Sun,
And kindly of the Moon.
Queen Hilda of Virland
© Henry Lawson
PART I
Queen Hilda rode along the lines,
And she was young and fair;
And forward on her shoulders fell
Corny Bill
© Henry Lawson
His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth,
His hat pushed from his brow,
His dress best fitted for the South --
I think I see him now;
The Vagabond
© Henry Lawson
And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize --
But I never went back again . . .
I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes
In many a face since then.
