Great poems
/ page 11 of 549 /A Changeling
© Nicholls Marjory
When nurse won't talk of fairies And says that I'm a bother,'Tis then I run away and hide, Or seek my eldest brother.
Drake's Drum
© Newbolt Henry John
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?),Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung
© William Morris
But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious girth;But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread,And bathed in the light returning, she cried aloud and said:"All hail, O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things!Hail, following Night, and thy Daughter that leadeth thy wavering wings!Look down With unangry eyes on us today alive,And give us the hearts victorious, and the gain for which we strive!All hail, ye Lords of God-home, and ye Queens of the House of Gold!Hail, thou dear Earth that bearest, and thou Wealth of field and fold!Give us, your noble children, the glory of wisdom and speech,And the hearts and the hands of healing, and the mouths and hands that teach!"
Then they turned and were knit together; and oft and o'er againThey craved, and kissed rejoicing, and their hearts were full and fain
Lost Content
© Moritz Albert Frank
You couples lyingwhere moon-scythes and day-scythes reaped you,browning fruit falls and sleepsin tangled nests, the wild grass,falls from your apple tree that still grows here:cry for your dead hero, his weak sword, his flight,that you were slaughtered and your bed poured whiteness,the issue of murdered marriage dawns
The Little Walls Before China
© Moritz Albert Frank
A courtier speaks to Ch'in Shih-huang-ti, ca. 210 B.C.
Home Again Home Again
© Moritz Albert Frank
Your parents had reached a long slow time,as animals do, the great center of their lives,when they gleam in their fells as though eternally,unchanging
The Erotic Civilization
© Moritz Albert Frank
The infinite erotic civilization we createdis declining now. Breast and penis wag in publicas in primitive times, when nothing was erotic but the gods,
The Earth for Sale
© Harold Monro
How perilous life will become on earthWhen the great breed of man has covered all
Sonnet XXIII: Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint
© John Milton
Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint
Sonnet VII: How soon hath Time, the Subtle Thief of Youth
© John Milton
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
© John Milton
PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad successThe Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope,So oft, and the perswasive RhetoricThat sleek't his tongue, and won so much on Eve,So little here, nay lost; but Eve was Eve,This far his over-match, who self deceiv'dAnd rash, before-hand had no better weigh'dThe strength he was to cope with, or his own:But as a man who had been matchless heldIn cunning, over-reach't where least he thought,To salve his credit, and for very spightStill will be tempting him who foyls him still,And never cease, though to his shame the more;Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr'd,Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;Or surging waves against a solid rock,Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew,Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end;So Satan, whom repulse upon repulseMet ever; and to shameful silence brought,Yet gives not o're though desperate of success,And his vain importunity pursues
Paradise Regain'd: Book III (1671)
© John Milton
SO spake the Son of God, and Satan stoodA while as mute confounded what to say,What to reply, confuted and convinc'tOf his weak arguing, and fallacious drift;At length collecting all his Serpent wiles,With soothing words renew'd, him thus accosts
Paradise Regain'd: Book II (1671)
© John Milton
MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'dAt Jordan with the Baptist, and had seenHim whom they heard so late expresly call'dJesus Messiah Son of God declar'd,And on that high Authority had believ'd,And with him talkt, and with him lodg'd, I meanAndrew and Simon, famous after knownWith others though in Holy Writ not nam'd,Now missing him thir joy so lately found,So lately found, and so abruptly gone,Began to doubt, and doubted many days,And as the days increas'd, increas'd thir doubt:Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,And for a time caught up to God, as onceMoses was in the Mount, and missing long;And the great Thisbite who on fiery wheelsRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come
Paradise Regain'd: Book I (1671)
© John Milton
I Who e're while the happy Garden sung,By one mans disobedience lost, now singRecover'd Paradise to all mankind,By one mans firm obedience fully tri'dThrough all temptation, and the Tempter foil'dIn all his wiles, defeated and repuls't,And Eden rais'd in the wast Wilderness
Paradise Lost: Books II-III: Editorial Summary
© John Milton
BOOK II presents the "great consult": Moloch urges open war against Heaven, while Belial counsels complete passivity lest worse befall them, and Mammon proposes exploiting the riches of Hell; Beelzebub offers what purports to be a compromise, but is really the plan predetermined by Satan, namely, an attack, by guile, not force, against God through his latest creation, man