Great poems
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Jack Dunn of Nevertire
© Henry Lawson
It chanced upon the very day we'd got the shearing done,
A buggy brought a stranger to the West-o'-Sunday Run;
He had a round and jolly face, and he was sleek and stout,
He drove right up between the huts and called the super out.
How the Land was Won
© Henry Lawson
The future was dark and the past was dead
As they gazed on the sea once more
But a nation was born when the immigrants said
"Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore!
To Holmes: On His Seventy-Fifth Birthday
© James Russell Lowell
Dear Wendell, why need count the years
Since first your genius made me thrill,
If what moved then to smiles or tears,
Or both contending, move me still?
For Australia
© Henry Lawson
Now, with the wars of the world begun, they'll listen to you and me,
Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy,
Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right
All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White!
Wide Lies Australia
© Henry Lawson
Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her
Flow for her unity all states in one.
Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her
Never was conquest so peacefully won.
The Iron Wedding Rings
© Henry Lawson
In these days of peace and money, free to all the Commonweal,
There are ancient dames in Buckland wearing wedding rings of steel;
Wedding rings of steel and iron, worn on wrinkled hands and old,
And the wearers would not give them, not for youth nor wealth untold.
Sonnet: To Time
© Sylvia Plath
Today we move in jade and cease with garnet
Amid the ticking jeweled clocks that mark
Our years. Death comes in a casual steel car, yet
We vaunt our days in neon and scorn the dark.
In the Street
© Henry Lawson
Where the needle-woman toils
Through the night with hand and brain,
Till the sickly daylight shudders like a spectre at the pain
Till her eyes seem to crawl,
And her brain seems to creep
Here Died
© Henry Lawson
There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home,
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come;
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate;
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back is straight.
Of The Wooing Of Halbiorn The Strong
© William Morris
A STORY FROM THE LAND-SETTLING BOOK OF ICELAND, CHAPTER XXX.
To The Muse Of The North
© William Morris
O muse that swayest the sad Northern Song,
Thy right hand full of smiting & of wrong,
A Story At Dusk
© Ada Cambridge
An evening all aglow with summer light
And autumn colour-fairest of the year.
Goldilocks And Goldilocks
© William Morris
It was Goldilocks woke up in the morn
At the first of the shearing of the corn.
To A Friend In Bereavement
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
No comfort, nay, no comfort. Yet would I
In Sorrow's cause with Sorrow intercede.
The Escape
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Destiny drives a crooked plough
And sows a careless seed;
Now through a heart she cuts, and now
She helps a helpless need.
O Black And Unknown Bards
© James Weldon Johnson
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
Dublinesque
© Philip Larkin
Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is pewter
And afternoon mist
Brings lights on in shops
Above race-guides and rosaries,
A funeral passes.
His Lady Of The Sonnets X
© Robert Norwood
I looked on you and breathed upon your hair
Your hair of such soft, brown, translucent gold!
Nor did you know that I knelt down in prayer,
Clasped hands, and worshipped you for the untold
Magnificence of womanhood divine
God's miracle of Water turned to Wine!
The Moon-Path
© Archibald Lampman
The full, clear moon uprose and spread
Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea;
On The Victory Obtained By Blake Over the Spaniards, In The
© Andrew Marvell
Now does Spains Fleet her spatious wings unfold,
Leaves the new World and hastens for the old:
But though the wind was fair, the slowly swoome
Frayted with acted Guilt, and Guilt to come:
