Great poems
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Mon Frere Camille
© William Henry Drummond
Mon frere Camille he was first class blood
W'en he come off de State las' fall,
Pharsalia - Book IX: Cato
© Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Such were the words he spake; and soon the fleet
Had dared the angry deep: but Cato's voice
While praising, calmed the youthful chieftain's rage.
Martha
© Robert Laurence Binyon
A woman sat, with roses red
Upon her lap before her spread,
On that high bridge whose parapet
Wide over turbulent Thames is set,
Remembrance
© Friedrich Hölderlin
The northeast blows,
my favorite among winds,
since it promises fiery spirit
and a good voyage to mariners.
The Empty Glass
© Henry Lawson
THERE ARE three lank bards in a borrowed room
Ah! The number is one too few
Natural Theology
© Andrew Lang
So Qing, King Nqsha's Bushman hunter, spoke,
Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair,
When all were weary, and soft clouds of smoke
Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air:
And suddenly in each man's heart there woke
A pang, a sacred memory of prayer.
Expostulation
© William Cowper
Why weeps the muse for England? What appears
In England's case to move the muse to tears?
Wash Lowry's Reminiscence
© James Whitcomb Riley
And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
Hermann And Dorothea - VIII. Melpomene
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But she conceal'd the pain which she felt, and jestingly spoke thus
"It betokens misfortune,--so scrupulous people inform us,--
For the foot to give way on entering a house, near the threshold.
I should have wish'd, in truth, for a sign of some happier omen!
Let us tarry a little, for fear your parents should blame you
For their limping servant, and you should be thought a bad landlord."
Modern Greece
© Richard Monckton Milnes
As, in the legend which our childhood loved,
The destined prince was guided to the bed,
Where, many a silent year, the charmèd Maid
Lay still, as though she were not; nor could wake,
Virgils Gnat
© Edmund Spenser
And whatsoeuer other flowre of worth,
And whatso other hearb of louely hew
The iouyous Spring out of the ground brings forth,
To cloath her selfe in colours fresh and new;
He planted there, and reard a mount of earth,
In whose high front was writ as doth ensue.
Tired
© Augusta Davies Webster
No not to-night, dear child; I cannot go;
I'm busy, tired; they knew I should not come;
you do not need me there. Dear, be content,
and take your pleasure; you shall tell me of it.
There, go to don your miracles of gauze,
and come and show yourself a great pink cloud.
Sonnet 26: Though Dusty Wits
© Sir Philip Sidney
Though dusty wits dare scorn astrology,
And fools can think those lamps of purest light
Whose numbers, ways, greatness, eternity,
Promising wonders, wonder do invite,
The Coming Of Te Rauparaha.
© Arthur Henry Adams
BLUE, the wreaths of smoke, like drooping banners
From the flaming battlements of sunset
Hung suspended; and within his whare
Hipe, last of Ngatiraukawa's chieftains,
St. Bartholomew
© John Keble
Hold up thy mirror to the sun,
And thou shalt need an eagle's gaze,
So perfectly the polished stone
Gives back the glory of his rays:
On Queen Anne's Peace, Anno 1713
© Thomas Parnell
Mother of plenty, daughter of the skies,
Sweet Peace, the troubl'd world's desire, arise;
Around thy poet weave thy summer shades,
Within my fancy spread thy flow'ry meads,
Amongst thy train soft ease and pleasure bring,
And thus indulgent sooth me whilst I sing.
Mr. Molonys Account Of The Ball
© William Makepeace Thackeray
O will ye choose to hear the news,
Bedad I cannot pass it o'er:
The 'Sad Ditty' Born Of The Story Of Isabella
© John Payne
I planted it with majoram about,
When May was blithe and new;
Yea, thrice I watered it, week in, week out,
And watched how well it grew:
But now, for sure, away from me 'tis ta'en.
