Great poems
/ page 424 of 549 /
Confession
© Boris Pasternak
Life returned with a cause-the way
Some strange chance once interrupted it.
Just as on that distant summer day,
I am standing in the same old street.
The Only Son
© Rudyard Kipling
She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire anew
For she heard a whimper under the sill and a great grey paw came through.
The fresh flame comforted the hut and shone on the roof-beam,
And the Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream.
Early Summer
© Charles Harpur
Tis the early summer season, when the skies are clear and blue;
When wide warm fields are glad with corn as green as ever grew,
And upland growths of wattles engolden all the view.
Oh! Is there conscious joyance in that heven so clearly blue?
And is it a felt happiness that thus comes beating through
Great natures mother heart, when the golden year is new?
The Vision Of The Maid Of Orleans - The First Book
© Robert Southey
The plumeless bat with short shrill note flits by,
And the night-raven's scream came fitfully,
Borne on the hollow blast. Eager the Maid
Look'd to the shore, and now upon the bank
Leaps, joyful to escape, yet trembling still
In recollection.
The Old Issue
© Rudyard Kipling
Here is nothing new nor aught unproven," say the Trumpets,
"Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
"It is the King--the King we schooled aforetime! "
(Trumpets in the marshes-in the eyot at Runnymede!)
The Naulahka
© Rudyard Kipling
Beware the man who's crossed in love;
For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
And lend him all the Continent.
The Native-Born
© Rudyard Kipling
And the children nine and ten (Stand up!),
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
With the weight of a two-fold blow!
The Barefooted Friar
© Sir Walter Scott
I'll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain,
To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;
But ne'er shall you find, should you search till you tire,
So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.
My New-Cut Ashler
© Rudyard Kipling
My New-Cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare.
By my own work before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.
My Lady's Law
© Rudyard Kipling
The Law whereby my lady moves
Was never Law to me,
But 'tis enough that she approves
Whatever Law it be.
The Hymn Of Man
© Khalil Gibran
I was,
And I am.
So shall I be to the end of time,
For I am without end.
Mowgli's Song
© Rudyard Kipling
The Song of Mowgli -- I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill -- would kill! At the
gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the
A Womans Sonnets: V
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Whate'er the cost to me, with this farewell,
I shall not see thee, speak to thee again.
If some on Earth must feel the pangs of Hell,
Mine only be it who have earned my pain.
The True Beatitude (Bouts-Rimes)
© Rupert Brooke
New sulphur on the sin-incarnadined . . .
Ah, Love! still temporal, and still atmospheric,
Teleologically unperturbed,
We share a peace by no divine divined,
An earthly garden hidden from any cleric,
Untrodden of God, by no Eternal curbed.
The Merchantmen
© Rudyard Kipling
Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again --
Where the paw shall head us or the full Trade suits --
Plain-sail -- storm-sail -- lay your board and tack again --
And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!
Beyond Kerguelen
© Henry Kendall
DOWN in the South, by the waste without sail on it
Far from the zone of the blossom and tree
Many Inventions
© Rudyard Kipling
'Less you want your toes trod of you'd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,
And the elephants bring the guns.
Mandalay
© Rudyard Kipling
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
