Great poems
/ page 164 of 549 /The Four Seasons : Spring
© James Thomson
Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
The Second Booke Of Qvodlibets
© Robert Hayman
Epigrams are much like to Oxymell,
Hony and Vineger compounded well:
Hony, and sweet in their inuention,
Vineger in their reprehension.
As sowre, sweet Oxymell, doth purge though fleagme:
These are to purge Vice, take them as they meane.
Mr. Hosea Biglow's Speech In March Meeting
© James Russell Lowell
(N.B. Reporters gin'lly git a hint
To make dull orjunces seem 'live in print,
An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum,
I'll put th' applauses where they'd _ough' to_ come!)
The Dream Of Roderick
© Madison Julius Cawein
Below, the tawny Tagus swept
Past royal gardens, breathing balm;
Upon his couch the monarch slept;
The world was still; the night was calm.
Author's Apology For His Book
© John Bunyan
WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand
Carmina Festiva
© Henry Van Dyke
THE LITTLE-NECK CLAM
A modern verse-sequence, showing how a native American subject, strictly realistic, may be treated in various manners adapted to the requirements of different magazines, thus combining Art-for-Art's-Sake with Writing-for-the-Market. Read at the First Dinner of the American Periodical Publishers' Association, in Washington, April, 1904.
Sick I Am And Sorrowful
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Heard again the storm clouds roll hanging over Lugnaquilla,
Built dream castles from the sands of Killiney's golden shore.
If I saw the wild geese fly over the dark lakes of Kerry
Or could hear the secret winds, I could kneel and pray.
But 'tis sick I am and grieving, how can I be well again
Here, where fear and sorrow aremy heart so far away?
The Ruined Mill
© Madison Julius Cawein
There is the ruined water-mill
With its rotten wheel, that stands as still
A Rainy Day in Camp
© Anonymous
Tis a cheerless, lonesome evening
When the soaking, sodden ground
Will not echo to the footfall
of the sentinel's dull round.
Of The Nature Of Things: Book IV - Part 04 - Some Vital Functions
© Lucretius
In these affairs
We crave that thou wilt passionately flee
O Ship of State
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
The Anarchist.
© Arthur Henry Adams
THE dawn hangs heavy on the distant hill,
The darkness shudders slowly into light;
And from the weary bosom of the night
The pent winds sigh, then sink with horror still.
Tamar
© Robinson Jeffers
Grass grows where the flame flowered;
A hollowed lawn strewn with a few black stones
And the brick of broken chimneys; all about there
The old trees, some of them scarred with fire, endure the sea
wind.
A Prayer For The King's Majesty
© Edith Nesbit
God, by our memories of his Mother's face,
By the love that makes our heart her dwelling-place,
Grant to our sorrow this desired grace:
God save the King!
The Ruling Thought
© Giacomo Leopardi
Most sweet, most powerful,
Controller of my inmost soul;
The terrible, yet precious gift
Of heaven, companion kind
Of all my days of misery,
O thought, that ever dost recur to me;
Ode to Salvador Dali
© Federico Garcia Lorca
A rose in the high garden you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped bare of Impressionist fog,
The grays watching over the last balustrades.
A Christmas Carol
© Alfred Austin
Hark! In the air, around, above,
The Angelic Music soars and swells,
And, in the Garden that I love,
I hear the sound of Christmas Bells.