Great poems
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Ecclesiastes
© Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
UNDER the fluent folds of needlework,
Where Balkis prick'd the histories of kings
An Old Lament Renewed
© Vernon Scannell
The soil is savoury with their bones' lost marrow;
Down among dark roots their polished knuckles lie,
And no one could tell one peeled head from another;
Earth packs each crater that once gleamed with eye.
Laodamia
© William Wordsworth
O terror! what hath she perceived?-O joy!
What doth she look on?-whom doth she behold?
Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy?
His vital presence? his corporeal mould?
It is-if sense deceive her not-'tis He!
And a God leads him, wingèd Mercury!
The Way To Happiness
© Thomas Parnell
How long ye miserable blind
Shall idle dreams engage your mind,
Anagke
© Mathilde Blind
So sternly dost thou tower above us, Fate!
For still our eager hearts exultant beat,
Borne in the hurrying tide of life elate,
And dashing break against thy marble feet.
But would Hope's rainbow-aureole round us fleet,
Without these hurtling shocks of man's estate?
The Ballad Of William Sycamore [1790-1871]
© Stephen Vincent Benet
My father, he was a mountaineer,
His fist was a knotty hammer;
He was quick on his feet as a running deer,
And he spoke with a Yankee stammer.
The Invocation
© William Blake
Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet's Song,
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro' your realms
Of terror and mild moony lustre, in soft Sexual delusions
Of varièd beauty, to delight the wanderer, and repose
The Bride Of The Nile - Act III
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
(Enter Barix and Boïlas conversing.)
Barix. I always said it, Boïlas, it must come at last,
The day of annexation. Things have moved on fast,
Faster than we quite thought a week or two ago.
The mills of Rome grind slowly--quite absurdly slow.
It comes to the same thing.
Sonnet. On Mrs. Kemble's Readings From Shakespeare
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O precious evenings! all too swiftly sped!
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages
The Sibyls
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Out of the seas that streamed
In ghostly turbulence moving and glimmering about me
I saw the rising of vast and visionary forms.
A Blessing
© Swami Vivekananda
The Mother's heart, the hero's will,
The softest flowers' sweetest feel;
The Winter Lakes
© William Wilfred Campbell
Lands that loom like spectres, whited regions of winter,
Wastes of desolate woods, deserts of water and shore;
A world of winter and death, within these regions who enter,
Lost to summer and life, go to return no more.
Come Slowly, Paradise
© James Benjamin Kenyon
O dawn upon me slowly, Paradise!
Come not too suddenly,
Lest my just-opened, unaccustomed eyes
Smitten with blindness be.
The Australian
© Arthur Henry Adams
ONCE more this Autumn-earth is ripe,
Parturient of another type.
Alfred. Book II.
© Henry James Pye
He ceasedbut still the accents of his tongue
Persuasive, on the attentive hearers hung:
The monarch and his warlike thanes around
Still listening sat, in silent wonder bound.
An Horation Ode Upon Cromwell's Return From Ireland
© Andrew Marvell
The forward Youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the Shadows sing
His Numbers languishing.
The Two Lovers Of Heaven: Chrysanthus And Daria - Act I
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Chrysanthus is seen seated near a writing table on which are several
books: he is reading a small volume with deep attention.
The Turtle And Sparrow. An Elegiac Tale
© Matthew Prior
Stretch'd on the bier Columbo lies,
Pale are his cheeks, and closed his eyes;
Those eyes, where beauty smiling lay,
Those eyes, where Love was used to play;
Ah! cruel Fate, alas how soon
That beauty and those joys are flown!
