Great poems
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Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun
© Emily Jane Brontë
Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored my earth to joy
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?
Reading the Bible Backwards
© Hugo Williams
All around the altar, huge lianas
curled, unfurled the dark green
How precious are thy thoughts of peace
© James Montgomery
How precious are thy thoughts of peace,
O God! to me; how great their sum!
New every morn, they never cease;
They were, they are, and yet shall come,
In number and in compass more
Than ocean's sand, or ocean's shore.
from The Task, Book VI: The Winter Walk at Noon
© William Cowper
(excerpt)
Thus heav’n-ward all things tend. For all were once
The Canon Of Aughrim
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
You ask me of English honour, whether your Nation is just?
Justice for us is a word divine, a name we revere,
Alas, no more than a name, a thing laid by in the dust.
The world shall know it again, but not in this month or year.
The Windhover
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
To Christ our LordTo Christ our Lord This epigraph dedicated the poem to Jesus while echoing the Latin phrase, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, the Jesuit motto meaning “To the Greater Glory of God.”
I caught this morning morning's minionminion favorite, darling; also, an underling or servant, king-
Hector
© David McKee Wright
We fought for Troy behind a mossy wall;
We burned the Grecian ships below a tree . . .
Ah, that great war was forty years ago !
Yet still I know that Hector did not fall;
For when the bell rang truce to friend and foe,
Achilles, lying Greek, was under me!
Nonsense Alphabet
© Edward Lear
A was an Area Arch
Where washerwomen sat;
They made a lot of lovely starch
To starch Papa's cravat.
Upon My Lady Carlisles Walking in Hampton Court Garden
© Sir John Suckling
Dull and insensible, couldst see
A thing so near a deity
Move up and down, and feel no change?
On Seeing A Piece Of Our Artillery Brought Into Action
© Wilfred Owen
Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Ferdiah; Or, The Fight At The Ford
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Time is it, O Cuchullin, to arise,
Time for the fearful combat to prepare;
For hither with the anger in his eyes,
To fight thee comes Ferdiah called the Fair.
Love, Death, And Reputation
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Reputation, Love, and Death,
(The Last all Bones, the First all Breath,
Laval: Noble Educator
© John Daniel Logan
Lo, now a people learned in all the arts
Greet thee to-day across the distant vale
Of Truth, where dwells obscure the Holy Grail.
And tho they commerce oft upon the marts
Of specious gain, they look beyond the mist
To thee, their first great Educationist.
from Venus and Adonis
© William Shakespeare
Even as the sunne with purple-colourd face,
Had tane his last leaue of the weeping morne,
Rose-cheekt Adonis hied him to the chace,
Hunting he lou'd, but loue he laught to scorne,
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amaine vnto him,
And like a bold fac'd suter ginnes to woo him.
The Song of Songs
© King Solomon
The Song of songs, which is Solomon's.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:
for thy love is better than wine.
Because of the savor of thy good ointments
thy name is as ointment poured forth,
therefore do the virgins love thee.
Marriage
© Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
No more alone sleeping, no more alone waking,
Thy dreams divided, thy prayers in twain;
Thy merry sisters tonight forsaking,
Never shall we see, maiden, again.
To My Old Oak Table
© Robert Bloomfield
Friend of my peaceful days! substantial friend,
Whom wealth can never change, nor int'rest bend,
