Great poems
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The Death of Pompey the Great
© Alaric Alexander Watts
States vanish, ages fly;
But leave one task unchangedâto suffer and to die. ~ HEMANS.
Inspection
© Wilfred Owen
'You! What d'you mean by this?' I rapped.
'You dare come on parade like this?'
'Please, sir, it's-' ''Old yer mouth,' the sergeant snapped.
'I takes 'is name, sir?'-'Please, and then dismiss.'
Maiden May
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.
Sonnet XIII
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I LAY in dusky solitude reclined,
The shadow of sleep just hovering o'er mine eyes,
When from the cloudland in the western skies
Rose the strange breathings of a tremulous wind.
Riding Round the Lines
© Henry Lawson
Dust and smoke against the sunrise out where grim disaster lurks
And a broken sky-line looming like unfinished railway works,
And a trot, trot, trot and canter down inside the belt of mines:
It is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is riding round his lines.
Sacred Gipsy Carol - Prologue
© John Kenyon
FIRST GIPSY. But still at the end of the vital line
A secret untold remains to divine.
Give again, sweet Babe! thy palm to spell,
And a charming secret we can tell.
But, first, the tester we must hold;
Without it, nothing can be told.
Driving Through by Mark Vinz: American Life in Poetry #91 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we've never been there before. And of course it seems familiar because much of the course of life is pretty much the same wherever we go, right down to the up-and-down fortunes of the football team and the unanswered love letters. Here's a poem by Mark Vinz.
Driving Through
Address To A Haggis
© Robert Burns
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Hudibras: Part 1 - Canto III
© Samuel Butler
Quoth RALPHO, Truly that is no
Hard matter for a man to do,
That has but any guts in 's brains,
And cou'd believe it worth his pains;
But since you dare and urge me to it,
You'll find I've light enough to do it.
Guy Of The Temple
© John Hay
Night hangs above the valley; dies the day
In peace, casting his last glance on my cross,
And warns me to my prayers. _Ave Maria!
Mother of God! the evening fades
On wave and hill and lea_,
Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. Interlude I.
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Yes, well your story pleads the cause
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech,
Dara
© James Russell Lowell
When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand
Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land
Was hovered over by those vulture ills
That snuff decaying empire from afar,
Then, with a nature balanced as a star,
Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.
The Father
© Katharine Tynan
Ever his eyes are fixed on a glorious sight.
A boy is leading, calls his men to come on:
Light as a deer he leaps, slender and bright,
Up the hill, irresistible: it is won!
Satire I
© John Donne
Away thou fondling motley humorist,
Leave mee, and in this standing woodden chest,
Celebration Of Peace
© Friedrich Hölderlin
The holy, familiar hall, built long ago,
Is aired, and filled with heavenly,
Love's Bower.
© Robert Crawford
On the white bosom, 'tween the breasts
Of Helen Love has made his bower,
As in a sweet and secret tower
Where mid the world's decay he rests
The Borough. Letter IV: Sects And Professions In Religion
© George Crabbe
"SECTS in Religion?"--Yes of every race
We nurse some portion in our favour'd place;
