Great poems
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Noah’s Wife
© Michael Rosen
is doing her usual for comic relief.
She doesn’t
see why she should get on the boat, etc.,
You Ask Me, Why, Tho' Ill at Ease
© Alfred Tennyson
You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
To J. S.
© Alfred Tennyson
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.
Symphony of a Mexican Garden
© Grace Hazard Conkling
But all across the trudging ragged chords
That are the tangled grasses in the heat,
The mariposa lilies fluttering
Like trills upon some archangelic flute,
Wingfoot Lake
© Rita Dove
to God.) Where she came from
was the past, 12 miles into town
where nobody had locked their back door,
and Goodyear hadn’t begun to dream of a park
under the company symbol, a white foot
sprouting two small wings.
Song of the Open Road
© Walt Whitman
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
To James Fenton
© John Fuller
The poet’s duties: no need to stress
The subject’s dullness, nonetheless
Here’s an incestuous address
In Robert Burns’ style
To one whom all the Muses bless
At Great Turnstile.
Grandeur of Ghosts
© Siegfried Sassoon
When I have heard small talk about great men
I climb to bed; light my two candles; then
Consider what was said; and put aside
What Such-a-one remarked and Someone-else replied.
Let the Light Enter
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
The Dying Words of Goethe
“Light! more light! the shadows deepen,
Summer in a Small Town
© Tony Hoagland
Yes, the young mothers are beautiful,
with all the self-acceptance of exhaustion,
still dazed from their great outpouring,
pushing their strollers along the public river walk.
Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle II: To a Lady on the Characters of Women
© Alexander Pope
Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
An Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty
© Edmund Spenser
Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights,
To a Captive Owl
© Henry Timrod
I should be dumb before thee, feathered sage!
And gaze upon thy phiz with solemn awe,
But for a most audacious wish to gauge
The hoarded wisdom of thy learned craw.
To De Witt Miller
© Eugene Field
Dear Miller: You and I despise
The cad who gathers books to sell 'em,
Be they but sixteen-mos in cloth
Or stately folios garbed in vellum.
The Missionary - Canto Second
© William Lisle Bowles
The night was still and clear, when, o'er the snows,
Andes! thy melancholy Spirit rose,--
A shadow stern and sad: he stood alone,
Upon the topmost mountain's burning cone;
And whilst his eyes shone dim, through surging smoke,
Thus to the spirits of the fire he spoke:--
