Great poems
/ page 254 of 549 /The Princess's Finger-Nail: A Tale Of Nonsense Land
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
75. Halloween
© Robert Burns
UPON that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans 2 dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
25. My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad
© Robert Burns
MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;
He bade me act a manly part, though I had neer a farthing, O;
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.
68. The Holy Fair
© Robert Burns
UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
When Natures face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
An snuff the caller air.
On Australian Hills
© Ada Cambridge
Oh, to be there to-night!
To see that rose of sunset flame and fade
On ghostly mountain height,
The soft dusk gathering each leaf and blade
From the departing light,
Each tree-fern feather of the wildwood glade.
112. A Dream
© Robert Burns
Note 1. The American colonies had recently been lost. [back]
Note 2. King Henry V.R. B. [back]
Note 3. Sir John Falstaff, vid. Shakespeare.R. B. [back]
Note 4. Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain Royal sailors amour.R. B. This was Prince William Henry, third son of George III, afterward King William IV. [back]
A Monument For The Soldiers
© James Whitcomb Riley
A monument for the Soldiers!
And what will ye build it of?
130. Natures Law: A Poem
© Robert Burns
LET other heroes boast their scars,
The marks of sturt and strife:
And other poets sing of wars,
The plagues of human life:
To B. R. Haydon
© William Wordsworth
HIGH is our calling, Friend!--Creative Art
(Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,)
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
59. Death and Dr. Hornbook
© Robert Burns
But just as he began to tell,
The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell
Some wee short hour ayont the twal,
Which raisd us baith:
I took the way that pleasd mysel,
And sae did Death.
The Art Of War. Book VI.
© Henry James Pye
If chiefs like these in combat vers'd have found
Their honors fade as fortune sudden frown'd,
If they have fall'n from fortune's giddy height,
What can ye hope yet novices in fight?
Scarce wean'd by fierce Bellona's fostering arms,
Young in the field, and new to War's alarms.
Life Is A Dream - Act II
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
CLOTALDO. Reasons fail me not to show
That the experiment may not answer;
But there is no remedy now,
For a sign from the apartment
Tells me that he hath awoken
And even hitherward advances.
Haidouks
© Hristo Botev
Father and Son
Come, Grandfather, blow on your pipe now,
And I will take up the tune
With songs of our heroes, of haidouks,
Egotism
© Jane Taylor
But 'tis not only with the loud and rude
That self betrays its nature unsubdued ;
Polite attention and refined address
But ill conceal it, and can ne'er suppress :
One truth, despite of manner, stands confest--
They love themselves unspeakably the best.
To India
© Sarojini Naidu
O YOUNG through all thy immemorial years!
Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom,
And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,
Beget new glories from thine ageless womb!
To A Happy Warrior
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Glory to God who made a man like this!
To God be praise who in the empty heaven
Set Earth's gay globe
With its green vesture given
Life
© Sarojini Naidu
CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
Or carnival of careless joys that leap
About your hearts like billows on the deep
In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Harvest Hymn
© Sarojini Naidu
Lord of the rainbow, lord of the harvest,
Great and beneficent lord of the main!
Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows,
Rural Architecture
© William Wordsworth
THERE'S George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore,
Three rosy-cheeked school-boys, the highest not more
Than the height of a counsellor's bag;
To the top of Great How did it please them to climb:
And there they built up, without mortar or lime,
A Man on the peak of the crag.