Great poems
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Nymphidia, The Court Of Fairy
© Michael Drayton
Old Chaucer doth of Thopas tell,
Mad Rabelais of Pantagruel,
Homer's Battle Of The Frogs And Mice. Book I
© Thomas Parnell
So pass'd Europa thro' the rapid Sea,
Trembling and fainting all the vent'rous Way;
With oary Feet the Bull triumphant rode,
And safe in Crete depos'd his lovely Load.
Ah safe at last! may thus the Frog support
My trembling Limbs to reach his ample Court.
Lines In Memory Of Edmund Morris
© Duncan Campbell Scott
How shall we transmit in tendril-like images,
The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether,
Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine,
The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom,
Before it begins to ache?
Poems, Chiefly Scientific
© Eli Siegel
1. To Settle As Chalk
Blankness and thickness
Took a walk;
And while walking decided
Almswomen
© Edmund Blunden
Many a time they kiss and cry, and pray
That both be summoned in the self-same day,
And wiseman linnet tinkling in his cage
End too with them the friendship of old age,
And all together leave their treasured room
Some bell-like evening when the may's in bloom.
A Valediction of the Book
© John Donne
I’ll tell thee now (dear Love) what thou shalt do
To anger destiny, as she doth us,
Sylvester’s Dying Bed
© Langston Hughes
I woke up this mornin’
’Bout half-past three.
All the womens in town
Was gathered round me.
Paradise Regain'd: Book III (1671)
© Patrick Kavanagh
SO spake the Son of God, and Satan stood
A while as mute confounded what to say,
The Recluse - Book First
© William Wordsworth
HOME AT GRASMERE
ONCE to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the adventurer's age
Hath now escaped his memory--but the hour,
Paradise Lost: Book IX (1674)
© Patrick Kavanagh
To whom the Virgin Majestie of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austeer composure thus reply'd,
The Painter Dreaming in the Scholar’s House
© Howard Nemerov
The painter’s eye follows relation out.
His work is not to paint the visible,
He says, it is to render visible.
All The Dead Dears
© Sylvia Plath
Rigged poker -stiff on her back
With a granite grin
This antique museum-cased lady
Lies, companioned by the gimcrack
Relics of a mouse and a shrew
That battened for a day on her ankle-bone.
Preparatory Meditations - First Series: 39
© Edward Taylor
My sin! My sin, my God, these cursed dregs,
Green, yellow, blue-streaked poison hellish, rank,
Bubs hatched in nature's nest on serpents' eggs,
Yelp, chirp, and cry; they set my soul a-cramp.
I frown, chide, strike, and fight them, mourn and cry
To conquer them, but cannot them destroy.
To Mr. Pope
© Thomas Parnell
To praise, and still with just respect to praise
A Bard triumphant in immortal bays,
The Learn'd to show, the Sensible commend,
Yet still preserve the province of the Friend,
What life, what vigour must the lines require?
What Music tune them, what affection fire?
On Virtue
© Phillis Wheatley
O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive
To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare
Rewards Of Earth
© Fulke Greville
REWARDS of earth, Nobility and Fame,
To senses glory and to conscience woe,
How little be you for so great a name?
Yet less is he with men what thinks you so.
For earthly power, that stands by fleshly wit,
Hath banished that truth which should govern it.
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: LXXXV
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
THE SAME CONTINUED
These flowers shall be my offering, living flowers
Which here shall die with you in sacrifice,
Flowers from the empty fields which once were yours
