Great poems
/ page 428 of 549 /
The Ballad of East and West
© Rudyard Kipling
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!
Ireland
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
They are dying! they are dying! where the golden corn is growing;
They are dying! they are dying! where the crowded herds are lowing:
They are gasping for existence where the streams of life are flowing,
And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing!
Breitmann As A Bummer
© Charles Godfrey Leland
DER SHENERAL SHERMAN holts oop on his coorse,
He shtops at de gross-road und reins in his horse.
"Dere's a ford on de rifer dis day we moost dake,
Or elshe de grand army in bieces shall preak!"
Army Headquarters
© Rudyard Kipling
Ahasuerus Jenkins of the "Operatic Own,"
Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone.
His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer.
He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.
Arithmetic on the Frontier
© Rudyard Kipling
A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe --
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."
The Ballad Of The Battle Of Gibeon
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Sudden and still as a bolt shot right
Up on the city we went by night.
Never a bird of the air could say,
'This was the children of Israel's way.'
The Prodigal Son
© Rudyard Kipling
Here come I to my own again,
Fed, forgiven and known again,
Claimed by bone of my bone again
And cheered by flesh of my flesh.
Time's Hymn Of Hate
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,
How bitter and how black must be your self-invited fate,
While Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!
Inscription For A Stone Erected At The Sowing Of A Grove Of Oaks At Chillington, Anno 1791
© William Cowper
Reader! behold a monument
That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.
As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor
© James Wright
And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
On A Fan
© Henry Austin Dobson
Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
But where is the Pompadour, too?
This was the Pompadours Fan!
The Ancient World
© Mark Doty
Today the Masons are auctioning
their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans,
gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes
labeled inside the collar "Potentate"
My Love, Oh, She Is My Love
© Douglas Hyde
SHE casts a spell, oh, casts a spell!
Which haunts me more than I can tell.
Field Thistle
© Judith Skillman
A raucous noise,
the dawn of great beauty
and he with his tripod
matting the grasses as he walked.
The Sirens Cave At Tivoli
© Frances Anne Kemble
As o'er the chasm I breathless hung,
Thus from the depths the siren sung:
A Dedication
© Robert Burns
The Poet, some guid angel help him,
Or else, I fear, some ill ane skelp him!
He may do weel for a' he's done yet,
But only-he's no just begun yet.
Madness
© Henry James Pye
Here some grave Man whose head with prudence fraught
Was ne'er disturb'd by one eccentric thought,
Who without meaning rolls his leaden eyes,
And being stupid, fancies he is wise,
May with sagacious sneers my case deplore,
And urge the use of rest, and Hellebore.
