Great poems
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The Mother Of A Poet
© Sara Teasdale
She is too kind, I think, for mortal things,
Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth;
God gave to her a shy and silver mirth,
And made her soul as clear
The Mother
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
"Ho! "said the child, "how fine the horses go,
With nodding plumes, with measured step and slow
Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church, Rome, The
© Robert Browning
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Amics Bernart de Ventadorn
© Bernard de Ventadorn
Bernartz, foudatz vos amena,
car aissi vos partetz d'amor,
per cui a om pretz e valor.
The Base Of All Metaphysics
© Walt Whitman
AND now, gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.
Bonduca
© Beaumont and Fletcher
{Bonduca the British queen, taking occasion from a defeat of the Romans to impeach their valor, is rebuked by Caratac.}
Queen Bonduca, I do not grieve your fortune.
Earth-Visitors
© Kenneth Slessor
(To N.L.)
THERE were strange riders once, came gusting down
Cloaked in dark furs, with faces grave and sweet,
And white as air. None knew them, they were strangers
The Race
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
On the hill they are crowding together,
In the stand they are crushing for room,
Like midge-flies they swarm on the heather,
They gather like bees on the broom;
Epilogue To A Comedy Acted At Bath,
© Mary Barber
Then had the Audience wept her Woes anew,
And own'd the Poet was prophetic too;
Foresaw Plantagenet's imperial Race
Would such a Heroine give us, in Your Grace.
Goatsucker
© Sylvia Plath
So fables say the Goatsucker moves, masked from men's sight
In an ebony air, on wings of witch cloth,
Well-named, ill-famed a knavish fly-by-night,
Yet it never milked any goat, nor dealt cow death
And shadows only-cave-mouth bristle beset-
Cockchafers and the wan, green luna moth.
The Great Minimum
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.
Hark The Thundring Drums Inviting
© Thomas Parnell
Hark the thundring Drums inviting
All our forward youth to arms
Earl Rodericks Bride
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
It was the Black Earl Roderick
Who rode towards the south;
The Troubadour
© Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
THE wind blows salt from off the sea
And sweet from where the land lies green;
I travel down the great highway
That runs so straight and white between--
I watch the sea-wind strain the sheet,
The land-wind toss the yellow wheat!
In the Height of Fashion
© Henry Lawson
SO at last a toll theyll levy
For the passing fool who sings
The Fourth Olympic Ode Of Pindar
© Henry James Pye
To Psaumis of Camarina, on his Victory in the Chariot Race. ARGUMENT. The Poet, after an invocation to Jupiter, extols Psaumis for his Victory in the Chariot Race, and for his desire to honor his country. From thence he takes occasion to praise him for his skill in managing horses, his hospitality, and his love of peace; and, mentioning the history of Erginus, excuses the early whiteness of his hair.
STROPHE.
I Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry
© Vachel Lindsay
Oh, sweating thieves, and hard-boiled scalawags,
That still will boast your pride until the doom,
Smashing every caste rule of the world,
Reaching at last your Hindu goal to smash
The caste rules of old India, and shout:
"Down with the Brahmins, let the Romany reign."
Dialogues
© Pietro Aretino
ANTONIA What did you see? Tell me, please!
NANNA In the cell I saw four sisters, the General, and the three milky-white and ruby-red young friars, who were taking off the reverend fathers cassock and garbing him in a big velvet coat. Then hid his tonsure under a small golden skullcap, over which they placed a velvet cap ornamented with crystal droplets and surmounted by a white plume. Then, having buckled his sword at his side, the blissful General, to speak frankly, started strutting back and forth with the big-balled stride of a Bartolomeo Colleoni. In the meantime the sisters removed their habits and the friars took off their tunics. The latter put on the sisters` robes and the sisters that is, three of them put on the friars`. The fourth nun rolled herself up in Generals cassock, seated herself pontifically, and began to imitate a superior laying down the law for the convent.
To The Napoleon Column
© Victor Marie Hugo
When with gigantic hand he placed,
For throne on vassal Europe based.
That column's lofty height,
Pillar, in whose dread majesty,
In double immortality,
Glory and bronze unite!
