Great poems
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Poetry
© Pablo Neruda
And it was at that age… Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
Of The Mole In The Ground
© John Bunyan
The mole's a creature very smooth and slick,
She digs i' th' dirt, but 'twill not on her stick;
Subway Wind
© Claude McKay
Far down, down through the city's great, gaunt gut,
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd's breath cut,
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.
Pan at Lane Cove
© Kenneth Slessor
SCALY with poison, bright with flame,
Great fungi steam beside the gate,
Run tentacles through flagstone cracks,
Or claw beyond, where meditate
The Harps of Heaven
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
On a solemn day
I clomb the shining bulwark of the skies:
The House Of Socrates
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
FOR Socrates a House was built,
Of but inferiour Size;
Not highly Arch'd, nor Carv'd, nor Gilt;
The Man, 'tis said, was Wise.
Outcast
© Claude McKay
For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
The Dancer Of The Daughters Of Herodias
© Arthur Symons
Is it the petals falling from the rose?
For in the silence I can hear a sound
A Boy At Christmas
© Edgar Albert Guest
If I could have my wish to-night it would not be for wealth or fame,
It would not be for some delight that men who live in luxury claim,
But it would be that I might rise at three or four a. m. to see,
With eager, happy, boyish eyes, my presents on the Christmas tree.
Throughout this world there is no joy, I know now I am growing gray,
So rich as being just a boy, a little boy on Christmas Day.
La Paloma in London
© Claude McKay
About Soho we went before the light;
We went, unresting six, craving new fun,
New scenes, new raptures, for the fevered night
Of rollicking laughter, drink and song, was done.
In Bondage
© Claude McKay
I would be wandering in distant fields
Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely,
And the old earth is kind, and ever yields
Her goodly gifts to all her children free;
The Trumpet Call
© Alfred Noyes
Trumpeter, sound for the last Crusade!
Sound for the fire of the red-cross kings,
Sound for the passion, the splendour, the pity
That swept the world for a dead Man's sake,
Italy : 40. Banditti
© Samuel Rogers
'Tis a wild life, fearful and full of change,
The mountain-robber's. On the watch he lies,
Levelling his carbine at the passenger;
And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep.
Noonday Grace
© John Crowe Ransom
MY good old father tucked his head,
(His face the color of gingerbread)
Over the table my mother had spread,
And folded his leathery hands and said:
To my dead friend Ben Johnson
© Henry King
I see that wreath which doth the wearer arm
'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder, is no charm
To keep off deaths pale dart. For, Johnson then
Thou hadst been number'd still with living men.
Beautiful Lofty Things
© William Butler Yeats
BEAUTIFUL lofty things: O'Leary's noble head;
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd:
The Voyage Of St. Brendan A.D. 545 - The Promised Land
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
As on this world the young man turns his eyes,
When forced to try the dark sea of the grave,
Thus did we gaze upon that Paradise,
Fading, as we were borne across the wave.
The Duellist - Book III
© Charles Churchill
Ah me! what mighty perils wait
The man who meddles with a state,
