Great poems
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Above The Gaspereau
© Bliss William Carman
How still through the sweet summer sun, through the soft summer rain,
They have stood there awaiting the summons should bid them attain
The freedom of knowledge, the last touch of truth to explain
The great golden gist of their brooding, the marvellous train
Of thought they have followed so far, been so strong to sustain,
The white gospel of sun and the long revelations of rain!
The Shepherds Calendar - January- Winters Day
© John Clare
Withering and keen the winter comes
While comfort flyes to close shut rooms
And sees the snow in feathers pass
Winnowing by the window glass
The Love Of Narcissus
© Alice Meynell
His dreams are far among the silent hills;
His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain
With winds at night; strange recognition thrills
His lonely heart with piercing love and pain;
He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills,
His weary tears that touch him with the rain.
Drury-lane Prologue Spoken by Mr. Garrick at the Opening of the Theatre in Drury-Lane, 1747
© Henry James Pye
When Learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes
First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespear rose;
The God Of The Poor
© William Morris
There was a lord that hight Maltete,
Among great lords he was right great,
On poor folk trod he like the dirt,
None but God might do him hurt.
Deus est Deus pauperum.
The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto III
© Richard Savage
Ye traytors, tyrants, fear his stinging lay!
Ye pow'rs unlov'd, unpity'd in decay!
But know, to you sweet-blossom'd Fame he brings,
Ye heroes, patriots, and paternal kings!
No Second Troy
© William Butler Yeats
WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
An Offering for Patricia
© Anthony Evan Hecht
The work has been going forward with the greatest difficulty, chiefly because I cannot concentrate. I have no feeling about whether what I am writing is good or bad, and the whole business is totally without excitement and pleasure for me. And I am sure I know the reason. It’s that I can’t stand leaving unresolved my situation with Pat. I hear from her fairly frequently, asking when I plan to come back, and she knows that I am supposed to appear at the poetry reading in the middle of January. It is not mainly loneliness I feel, though I feel it; but I have been lonely before. It is quite frankly the feeling that nothing is really settled between us, and that in the mean time I worry about how things are going to work out. This has made my work more difficult than it has ever been before.
Idyll I. The Death of Daphnis
© Theocritus
GOATHERD.
Shepherd, thy lay is as the noise of streams
Falling and falling aye from yon tall crag.
If for their meed the Muses claim the ewe,
Be thine the stall-fed lamb; or if they choose
The lamb, take thou the scarce less-valued ewe.
Out Of The Depths: Written After The Reformation Of A Brilliant And Talented Man
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Out of the midnight, rayless and cheerless,
Into the morning's golden light;
Lancelot And Elaine
© Alfred Tennyson
How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name?
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.
Robert Frost at Eighty
© John Howard Payne
I think there are poems greater and stranger than any I have known.
I would like to find them.
Hymn to Science
© Mark Akenside
But first with thy resistless light,
Disperse those phantoms from my sight,
Those mimic shades of thee;
The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant,
The visionary bigot's rant,
The monk's philosophy.
The Victory
© Anna Akhmatova
Over a pier, the first beacon inflamed --
The vanguard of other sea-rangers;
The mariner cried and bared his head;
He sailed with death beside and ahead
In seas, packed with furious dangers.
The Exiles Secret
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
Why tell each idle guess, each whisper vain?
Enough: the scorched and cindered beams remain.
He came, a silent pilgrim to the West,
Some old-world mystery throbbing in his breast;
Close to the thronging mart he dwelt alone;
He lived; he died. The rest is all unknown.
An Essay on Criticism: Part 3
© Alexander Pope
Learn then what morals critics ought to show,
For 'tis but half a judge's task, to know.
'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join;
In all you speak, let truth and candour shine:
That not alone what to your sense is due,
All may allow; but seek your friendship too.
Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto III
© Samuel Butler
What made thee, when they all were gone,
And none but thou and I alone,
To act the Devil, and forbear
To rid me of my hellish fear?
The Triumph Of Man
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes,
I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise,
And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,
Monkeying each other like a line of apes.
