Good poems
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The Naulahka
© Rudyard Kipling
Beware the man who's crossed in love;
For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
And lend him all the Continent.
Natural Theology
© Rudyard Kipling
We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week. . .
The bottom is out of the Universe!
The Native-Born
© Rudyard Kipling
And the children nine and ten (Stand up!),
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
With the weight of a two-fold blow!
The Barefooted Friar
© Sir Walter Scott
I'll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain,
To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;
But ne'er shall you find, should you search till you tire,
So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.
My New-Cut Ashler
© Rudyard Kipling
My New-Cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare.
By my own work before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.
Roses and Rue
© Oscar Wilde
Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love's song,
We are parted too long
Morning Song in the Jungle
© Rudyard Kipling
One moment past our bodies cast
No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
And we run home again.
The True Beatitude (Bouts-Rimes)
© Rupert Brooke
New sulphur on the sin-incarnadined . . .
Ah, Love! still temporal, and still atmospheric,
Teleologically unperturbed,
We share a peace by no divine divined,
An earthly garden hidden from any cleric,
Untrodden of God, by no Eternal curbed.
Merrow Down
© Rudyard Kipling
There runs a road by Merrow Down--
A grassy track to-day it is--
An hour out Guildford town,
Above the river Wey it is.
The Merchantmen
© Rudyard Kipling
Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again --
Where the paw shall head us or the full Trade suits --
Plain-sail -- storm-sail -- lay your board and tack again --
And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!
The Men That Fought at Minden
© Rudyard Kipling
The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time --
So was them that fought at Waterloo!
All the 'ole command, yuss, from Minden to Maiwand,
They was once dam' sweeps like you!
Mary, Pity Women!
© Rudyard Kipling
Nice while it lasted, an' now it is over --
Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to you lover!
What's the use o' grievin', when the mother that bore you
(Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you?
The Mary Gloster
© Rudyard Kipling
I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim --
Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!
Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied.
I shall go under by morning, and -- Put that nurse outside.
The Mare's Nest
© Rudyard Kipling
Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
Was very, very bad indeed.
He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced -- but this she did not know.
The Cellar Door
© John Clare
By the old tavern door on the causey there lay
A hogshead of stingo just rolled from a dray,
The Traveller And The Farm-Maiden
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
HE.
CANST thou give, oh fair and matchless maiden,
The Lovers' Litany
© Rudyard Kipling
Eyes of grey -- a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
Loot
© Rudyard Kipling
If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back,
If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line,
If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack,
You will understand this little song o' mine.
The Long Trail
© Rudyard Kipling
The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass,
And The Deuce knows we may do
But we're back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
We're down, hull-down, on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new!
Metamorphoses: Book The Fourth
© Ovid
The End of the Fourth Book.
Translated into English verse under the direction of
Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
William Congreve and other eminent hands
