Great poems
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Truth And Falsehood
© James Russell Lowell
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
"Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures "
© Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of
Professors.
The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.
I find letters from the Dean dropt on my tableand every one is
Parisian War Song
© Arthur Rimbaud
Spring is evidently here;
for the ascent of Thiers
and Picard from the green Estates lays
its splendours wide open! O May!
He Prayeth Best Who Loveth Best
© Louisa May Alcott
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
The Secret of the Machinery
© Rudyard Kipling
We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!
I Think Continually
© Stephen Spender
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
To Thomas Clarkson
© William Wordsworth
ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE
MARCH 1807
CLARKSON! it was an obstinate hill to climb:
How toilsome--nay, how dire--it was, by thee
Nature's Hymn to the Deity
© John Clare
All nature owns with one accord
The great and universal Lord:
The Sleep of Sigismund
© Jean Ingelow
The doom'd king pacing all night through the windy fallow.
'Let me alone, mine enemy, let me alone,'
Never a Christian bell that dire thick gloom to hallow,
Or guide him, shelterless, succourless, thrust from his own.
The Poem Speaks
© Franklin Pierce Adams
Poet, ere you write me,
Stem the flowing ink;
Or that you indite me
Pause upon the brink.
Farewell to Salvini
© Henry Cuyler Bunner
Although a curtain of the salt sea-mist
May fall between the actor and our eyes
Although he change, for dear and softer skies,
These that the Spring has yet but coyly kist
The Poor Little Toe
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
I am all tired out, said the mouth, with a pout,
I am all tired out with talk.
Just wait, said the knee, till you're lame as you can be-
And then have to walk-walk-walk.
The Song
© Charles Mair
Here me, ye smokeless skies and grass-green earth,
Since by your sufferance still I breathe and live!
from The Nerve Meter
© Antonin Artaud
An actor is seen as if through crystals.
Inspiration in stages.
One musnt let in too much literature.
Maximus
© Adelaide Anne Procter
I hold him great who, for Love's sake,
Can give with generous, earnest will;
Yet he who takes for Love's sweet sake
I think I hold more generous still.
Aspiration (excerpt)
© Thomas Traherne
For being freed from all defect
They feel no fleshly war,
Or rather both the flesh and mind
At length united are,
For joying in so rich a peace
They can admit no jar.
Absence
© Frances Anne Kemble
What shall I do with all the days and hours
That must be counted ere I see thy face?
Cottage-Songs
© George MacDonald
Close her eyes: she must not peep!
Let her little puds go slack;
Slide away far into sleep:
Sis will watch till she comes back!
