Great poems
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Waterin Th' Horses
© Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
I took th' horses to th' brook - to water 'em you know,
Th' air was cold with just a touch o' frost;
And as we went a-joggin' down I couldn't help but
think,
O' city folk an' all the things they lost.
Nightmare At Noon
© Stephen Vincent Benet
But do not call it loud. There is plenty of time.
There is plenty of time, while the bombs on London fall
And turn the world to wind and water and fire.
There is time to sleep while the fire-bombs fall on London,
They are stubborn people in London.
The Ghost - Book I
© Charles Churchill
With eager search to dart the soul,
Curiously vain, from pole to pole,
Ode On Venice
© George Gordon Byron
I.
Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
The Diver
© George MacDonald
"Which of you, knight or squire, will dare
Plunge into yonder gulf?
A golden beaker I fling in it-there!
The black mouth swallows it like a wolf!
Who brings me the cup again, whoever,
It is his own-he may keep it for ever!"
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto I.
© George Gordon Byron
Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.
Laurance - [Part 1]
© Jean Ingelow
I.
He knew she did not love him; but so long
As rivals were unknown to him, he dwelt
At ease, and did not find his love a pain.
The Old Age Of Queen Maeve
© William Butler Yeats
A certain poet in outlandish clothes
Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,
Dejection
© Leon Gellert
Point thy battered prow to the dark shore
Thou hoary son of Erebus, and dip thy blades
The Triumph Of Melancholy
© James Beattie
Memory, be still! why throng upon the thought
These scenes deep-stain'd with Sorrow's sable dye?
Hast thou in store no joy-illumined draught,
To cheer bewilder'd Fancy's tearful eye?
Puzzled
© Carolyn Wells
There lived in ancient Scribbletown a wise old writer-man,
Whose name was Homer Cicero Demosthenes McCann.
He'd written treatises and themes till, "For a change," he said,
"I think I'll write a children's book before I go to bed."
From The Inverted Torch: When In The First Great Hour
© Edith Matilda Thomas
Yet as some muser, when the embers fall,
The low lamp flickers out, starts up dismayed,
So I awoke, to find me still Times thrall,
Times sport,nor by thy warm, safe presence stayed.
Nothing and Something
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
It is nothing to me, the young man cried:
In his eye was a flash of scorn and pride;
I heed not the dreadful things ye tell:
I can rule myself I know full well.
Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd, Pondering
© Walt Whitman
Manhatten's streets I saunter'd, pondering,
On time, space, reality-on such as these, and abreast with them,
prudence.
Bessie Dreaming Bear by Marnie Walsh: American Life in Poetry #3 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20
© Ted Kooser
A poem need not go on at great length to accomplish the work of conveying something meaningful to its readers. In the following poem by the late Marnie Walsh, just a few words, written as if they'd been recorded in exactly the manner in which they'd been spoken, tell us not only about the missing woman in the red high heels, but a little something about the speaker as well.
Bessie Dreaming Bear
we all went to town one day
went to a store
bought you new shoes
red high heels
The City Tree
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
I stand within the stony, arid town,
I gaze for ever on the narrow street;
I hear for ever passing up and down,
The ceaseless tramp of feet.
