Great poems
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The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The Third
© Mark Akenside
See! in what crouds the uncouth forms advance:
Each would outstrip the other, each prevent
Our careful search, and offer to your gaze,
Unask'd, his motley features. Wait awhile,
My curious friends! and let us first arrange
In proper order your promiscuous throng.
Down-Hall. A Ballad.
© Matthew Prior
I sing not old Jason who travell'd through Greece
To kiss the fair maids and possess the rich fleece,
Nor sing I AEneas, who, led by his mother,
Got rid of one wife and went far for another.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Phaethon--Attempted In Galliambic Measure
© George Meredith
Lither, noisy in the breezes now his sisters shivering weep,
By the river flowing smooth out to the vexed sea of Adria,
Where he fell, and where they suffered sudden change to the
tremulous
Ever-wailful trees bemoaning him, a bruised purple cyclamen.
Noli Aemulari
© Arthur Hugh Clough
In controversial foul impureness
The peace that is thy light to thee
Quench not: in faith and inner sureness
Possess thy soul and let it be.
A Dream In A Gondola
© Richard Monckton Milnes
I had a dream of waters: I was borne
Fast down the slimy tide
Of eldest Nile, and endless flats forlorn
Stretched out on either side,--
Georgic 3
© Publius Vergilius Maro
Thee too, great Pales, will I hymn, and thee,
Amphrysian shepherd, worthy to be sung,
The Swagman and His Mate
© Henry Lawson
I hope theyll find the squatter white,
The cook and shearers straight,
When they have reached the shed to-night
The swagman and his mate.
The Earl Of Shaou's Work
© Confucius
As the young millet, by the genial rain
Enriched, shoots up luxuriant and tall,
So, when we southward marched with toil and pain,
The Earl of Shaou cheered and inspired us all.
Two Riddles. -- 1710
© Matthew Prior
Sphinx was a monster that would eat
Whatever stranger she could get,
Unless his ready wit disclosed
The subtile riddle she proposed.
An After-Dinner Poem
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
IN narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse,
In closest frock and Cinderella shoes,
Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display,
One zephyr step, and then dissolve away!
A Reading Of Life--The Test Of Manhood
© George Meredith
That quiet dawn was Reverence; whereof sprang
Ethereal Beauty in full morningtide.
Another sun had risen to clasp his bride:
It was another earth unto him sang.
Er Commercio Libbero (The Free Trade)
© Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli
Be'? So' pputtana, venno la mi' pelle:
Fo la miggnotta, si, sto ar cancelletto:
Lo pijo in quello largo e in quello stretto:
C'è gnent'antro da dì? Che cose belle!
A New Year's Morning Song
© Anna Laetitia Waring
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody,
This new year's morning, call me from my sleep;
A Ballad Of Religion And Marriage
© Amy Levy
Grant, in a million years at most,
Folk shall be neither pairs nor odd
Alas! we sha'n't be there to boast
"Marriage has gone the way of God!"
Cease To Do Evil Learn To Do Well
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Oh! thou whom sacred duty hither calls,
Some glorious hours in freedom's cause to dwell,
Read the mute lesson on thy prison walls,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well."
The Night Walk
© Robert Laurence Binyon
The night wind over the great downs
Streams along the sky.
In the solitude of the hill--side
There is only you and I.
Another Song Of A Fool
© William Butler Yeats
This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.
The Stone Fleet
© Herman Melville
I have a feeling for those ships,
Each worn and ancient one,
With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam:
Ay, it was unkindly done.
But so they serve the Obsolete-
Even so, Stone Fleet!
