Great poems
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America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity
© Gregory Corso
O this political air so heavy with the bells
and motors of a slow night, and no place to rest
Paradise Lost: Book IV
© Patrick Kavanagh
"Which of those rebel Spirits adjudg'd to Hell
Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison? and, transform'd,
Why satt'st thou like an enemy in wait,
Here watching at the head of these that sleep?"
Olney Hymn 37: Temptation
© William Cowper
The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to Thee I call, -
My fears are great, my strength is small.
Don Juan Aux Enfers (Don Juan In Hell)
© Charles Baudelaire
Quand Don Juan descendit vers l'onde souterraine
Et lorsqu'il eut donné son obole à Charon,
Un sombre mendiant, l'oeil fier comme Antisthène,
D'un bras vengeur et fort saisit chaque aviron.
Ode XVIII: To The Right Honourable Francis Earl Of Huntington
© Mark Akenside
I. 2.
Nor less prevailing is their charm
The vengeful bosom to disarm;
To melt the proud with human woe,
And prompt unwilling tears to flow.
Marenghi
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
II.
A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now...
The Hut by the Black Swamp
© Henry Kendall
Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound
About with clouds and racks of rain,
And dry, dead leaves go whirling round
In rings of dust, and sigh like pain
Across the plain.
Hymn to Life
© James Schuyler
The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp
And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass
Convergences
© Donald Hall
At sixteen he dismisses his mother with contempt.
She hears with dread the repulsive wave’s approach
and her fifty-year-old body smothers under water.
The Prayer Of Nature
© George Gordon Byron
Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
Salve Saturnia Tellus
© Oscar Wilde
I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned
Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
To Sir Henry Cary
© Benjamin Jonson
That neither fame nor love might wanting be
To greatness, Cary, I sing that and thee;
Kalamazoo
© Roald Dahl
Once, in the city of Kalamazoo,
The gods went walking, two and two,
With the friendly phoenix, the stars of Orion,
The speaking pony and singing lion.
For in Kalamazoo in a cottage apart
Lived the girl with the innocent heart.
A Lesson In Humility
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Where is thy greater virtue? Thinkest thou sin
Is but crime's record on the judgment seat?
Or must thou wait for death to be bowed down?
Oh for a righteous reading which should join
Thy deeds together in an accusing sheet,
And leave thee if thou couldst, to face men's frown!
Lichen Glows in the Moonlight
© John Kinsella
Lichen glows in the moonlight
so fierce only cloud blocking
the moon brings relief. Then passed by,
recharged it leaps up off rocks
Outlook
© Archibald Lampman
Not to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood
On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude
Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;
Sonnet LXXXVII: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
© William Shakespeare
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.
Business And Pleasure.
© Robert Crawford
He'll have his all; and though his heart is great,
Ay, prodigal of kindness, yet is he
A very Shylock in his bargaining.
Those soft, mild eyes of his grow hard as iron
To gauge the too, too little or too much,
When commerce puts his temper to the touch.
