Great poems
/ page 263 of 549 /Epitaph on her Son H. P.
© Katherine Philips
WHat on Earth deserves our trust ?
Youth and Beauty both are dust.
Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Henry Bartle Edward Frere
© Alfred Austin
Bend down and read-the birth, the death, the name.
Born in the year that Waterloo was won,
To Mrs. M. A. at Parting
© Katherine Philips
I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.
In memory of that excellent person Mrs. Mary Lloyd of Bodidrist in Denbigh-shire
© Katherine Philips
I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude,
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude,
And Folly too; for if Posterity
Should never hear of such a one as thee,
To My Antenor
© Katherine Philips
My dear Antenor now give o're,
For my sake talk of Graves no more;
Death is not in our power to gain,
And is both wish'd and fear'd in vain
To my dear Sister, Mrs. C. P. on her Nuptial
© Katherine Philips
We will not like those men our offerings pay
Who crown the cup, then think they crown the day.
We make no garlands, nor an altar build,
Which help not Joy, but Ostentation yield.
Where mirth is justly grounded these wild toyes
Are but a troublesome, and empty noise.
La Solitude de St. Amant
© Katherine Philips
1O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
Friendships Mystery, To My Dearest Lucasia
© Katherine Philips
Come, my Lucasia, since we see
That miracles Men's Faith do move,
By wonder and by prodigy
To the dull angry World let's prove
There's a Religion in our Love.
The World
© Katherine Philips
Wee falsely think it due unto our friends,
That we should grieve for their too early ends:
He that surveys the world with serious eys,
And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise,
A Retir'd Friendship
© Katherine Philips
Come, my Ardelia, to this bowre,
Where kindly mingling Souls a while,
Let's innocently spend an houre,
And at all serious follys smile
Ballade To Our Lady
© Francois Villon
I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
Albeit in nought I be commendable.
Would You Believe It?
© Ellis Parker Butler
One year ago I wished that I
A banker great might be
With a hundred million dollars
And financial majesty;
A God's Labour
© Sri Aurobindo
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
My jewelled dreams of you.
L'Avenir
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
I saw the human millions as the sand
Unruffled on the starlit wilderness.
To Marguerite
© Ellis Parker Butler
So great my debt to thee, I know my life
Is all too short to pay the least I owe,
And though I live it all in that sweet strife,
Still shall I be insolvent when I go.
How Many Demands...
© Anna Akhmatova
How many demands the beloved can make!
The woman discarded, none.
How glad I am that today the water
Under the colorless ice is motionless.
To Kate. (In Lieu Of A Valentine)
© Ellis Parker Butler
Sweet Love and I had oft communed;
We were, indeed, great friends,
And oft I sought his office, near
Where Courtship Alley ends.
To Ireland
© Alfred Austin
``What ails you, Sister Erin, that your face
Is, like your mountains, still bedewed with tears?