Great poems
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Pity For Poor Africans
© William Cowper
I own I am shocked at the purchase of slaves,
And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves;
What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans
Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.
The Little Hurts
© Edgar Albert Guest
Every night she runs to me
With a bandaged arm or a bandaged knee,
A stone-bruised heel or a swollen brow,
And in sorrowful tones she tells me how
She fell and "hurted herse'f to-day"
While she was having the "bestest play."
The Old Flute
© Henry Van Dyke
The time will come when I no more can play
This polished flute: the stops will not obey
The Donkey In The Cart To The Horse In The Carriage
© George MacDonald
I say! hey! cousin there! I mustn't call you brother!
Yet you have a tail behind, and I have another!
You pull, and I pull, though we don't pull together:
You have less hardship, and I have more weather!
The Princes Quest - Part the Sixth
© William Watson
Even as one voice the great sea sang. From out
The green heart of the waters round about,
Consolation of Early Death
© Beaumont and Fletcher
Sweet prince, the name of Death was never terrible
To him that knew to live; nor the loud torrent
Ego
© John Greenleaf Whittier
On page of thine I cannot trace
The cold and heartless commonplace,
A statue's fixed and marble grace.
Eloped
© Hristo Botev
In the glade a pipe is played,
By the forest green and still,
Where Stoyana, fair, sweet maid,
Runs for water to the rill.
A Torchbearer
© Edith Wharton
Great cities rise and have their fall; the brass
That held their glories moulders in its turn.
Eliza Crossing The River
© Harriet Beecher Stowe
From her resting-place by the trader chased,
Through the winter evening cold,
Eliza came with her boy at last,
Where a broad deep river rolled.
The House Of Dust: {Complete}
© Conrad Aiken
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
The Way To Arcady
© Henry Cuyler Bunner
OH, what's the way to Arcady,
To Arcady, To Arcady;
Oh, what's the way to Arcady,
Where all the leaves are merry?
For The Centennial Dinner
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
DEAR friends, we are strangers; we never before
Have suspected what love to each other we bore;
But each of us all to his neighbor is dear,
Whose heart has a throb for our time-honored pier.
Anhelli - Chapter 3
© Juliusz Slowacki
And lo, once on a time at night the Shaman waked Anhelli,
saying to him : "Sleep not, but come with me,
for there are mighty matters in the wilderness."
The Winner
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand looked like a drunk old fool,
And I knew that if I hit him right, I could knock him off that stool.
But everybody said, "Watch out, that's Tiger Man McCool.
He's had a whole lot of fights, and he always come out the winner.
Yeah, he's a winner."
Fireflies
© Bliss William Carman
THE fireflies across the dusk
Are flashing signals through the gloom
Courageous messengers of light
That dare immensities of doom.
The Little Worn Out Pony
© Anonymous
There's a little worn-out pony this side of Hogan's shack
With a snip upon his nuzzle and a mark upon his back;
Just a common little pony is what most people say,
But then of course they've never heard what happened in his day:
I was droving on the Leichhardt with a mob of pikers wild,
When this tibby little pony belonged to Hogan's child.
Rokeby: Canto V.
© Sir Walter Scott
"Summer eve is gone and past,
Summer dew is falling fast;
I have wander'd all the day,
Do not bid me farther stray!
Gentle hearts, of gentle kin,
Take the wandering harper in."
Fourth Sunday After Trinity
© John Keble
It was not then a poet's dream,
An idle vaunt of song,
Such as beneath the moon's soft gleam
On vacant fancies throng;
