Good poems
/ page 518 of 545 /
The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto IV (excerpts)
© Edmund Spenser
CANTO IIII
To sinfull house of Pride, Duessa
guides the faithfull knight,
Where brothers death to wreak Sansjoy
doth chalenge him to fight.
Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbard's Tale
© Edmund Spenser
By that he ended had his ghostly sermon,
The fox was well induc'd to be a parson,
And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire,
How to a benefice he might aspire.
Epithalamion
© Edmund Spenser
YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
The Tamed Deer
© Edmund Spenser
Like as a huntsman after weary chase
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:
The Faerie Queene: Book I, Canto I
© Edmund Spenser
THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QUEENE
Contayning
THE LEGENDE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE
RED CROSSE, OR OF HOLINESSEProemi
Sonnet 81
© Edmund Spenser
Fair is my love, when her fair golden hears
with the loose wind the waving chance to mark:
fair when the rose in her red cheeks appears,
or in her eyes the fire of love does spark.
Monadnoc
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I heard and I obeyed,
Assured that he who pressed the claim,
Well-known, but loving not a name,
Was not to be gainsaid.
The Forerunners
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Long I followed happy guides,
I could never reach their sides.
Their step is forth, and, ere the day,
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Ode To William H. Channing
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
Saadi
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
Hamatreya
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.
Uriel
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
IT fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.
Dirge
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?
The Park
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
The prosperous and beautiful
To me seem not to wear
The yoke of conscience masterful,
Which galls me everywhere.
The Problem
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?
The Bell
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I love thy music, mellow bell,
I love thine iron chime,
To life or death, to heaven or hell,
Which calls the sons of Time.
Dæmonic Love
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Each And All
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
Initial Love
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
He palmistry can understand,
Imbibing virtue by his hand
As if it were a living root;
The pulse of hands will make him mute;
With all his force he gathers balms
Into those wise thrilling palms.
Loss And Gain
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Virtue runs before the muse
And defies her skill,
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.
