Great poems
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Death & Fame
© Allen Ginsberg
When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
The Road
© Richard Jones
I, too, would ease my old car to a stop
on the side of some country road
and count the stars or admire a sunset
or sit quietly through an afternoon....
The Two Kings
© William Butler Yeats
King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had outridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire,
The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus
© William Butler Yeats
Behold that great Plotinus swim,
Buffeted by such seas;
Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him,
But the Golden Race looks dim,
The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers
© William Butler Yeats
The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
Have pulled the Immortal Rose;
And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,
The Polar Dragon slept,
Shepherd And Goatherd
© William Butler Yeats
Shepherd. He that was best in every country sport
And every country craft, and of us all
Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth,
Is dead.
The Grey Rock
© William Butler Yeats
'The Danish troop was driven out
Between the dawn and dusk,' she said;
'Although the event was long in doubt.
Although the King of Ireland's dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.
Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower'
© William Butler Yeats
Saddle and ride, I heard a man say,
Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea,
What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower?
All those tragic characters ride
The People
© William Butler Yeats
'What have I earned for all that work,' I said,
'For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defaned,
Under The Round Tower
© William Butler Yeats
'Although I'd lie lapped up in linen
A deal I'd sweat and little earn
If I should live as live the neighbours,'
Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne;
'Stretch bones till the daylight come
On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'
Model For The Laureate
© William Butler Yeats
On thrones from China to Peru
All sorts of kings have sat
That men and women of all sorts
proclaimed both good and great;
Mohini Chatterjee
© William Butler Yeats
I asked if I should pray.
But the Brahmin said,
'pray for nothing, say
Every night in bed,
A Statesman's Holiday
© William Butler Yeats
I lived among great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved
© William Butler Yeats
Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride;
They have spoken against you everywhere,
But weigh this song with the great and their pride;
I made it out of a mouthful of air,
Their children's children shall say they have lied.
The O'Rahilly
© William Butler Yeats
Sing of the O'Rahilly,
Do not deny his right;
Sing a 'the' before his name;
Allow that he, despite
The Nineteenth Century And After
© William Butler Yeats
Though the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.
Michael Robartes And The Dancer
© William Butler Yeats
He. Put it so;
But bear in mind your lover's wage
Is what your looking-glass can show,
And that he will turn green with rage
At all that is not pictured there.
A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth
© William Butler Yeats
Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit,
Baile And Aillinn
© William Butler Yeats
ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the
Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land
among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.
In Memory Of Alfred Pollexfen
© William Butler Yeats
Five-and-twenty years have gone
Since old William pollexfen
Laid his strong bones down in death
By his wife Elizabeth
