Great poems
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A Voice From The Factories
© Caroline Norton
WHEN fallen man from Paradise was driven,
Forth to a world of labour, death, and care;
Still, of his native Eden, bounteous Heaven
Resolved one brief memorial to spare,
Hymn XVII: Jesus, From Whom All Blessings Grow
© Charles Wesley
Jesus, from whom all blessings flow,
Great builder of thy church below,
If now thy Spirit moves my breast,
Hear, and fulfil thine own request!
Unsolved
© John McCrae
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
The Englishman
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Born in the flesh, and bred in the bone,
Some of us harbour still
The Unconquered Dead
© John McCrae
Not we the conquered! Not to us the blame
Of them that flee, of them that basely yield;
Nor ours the shout of victory, the fame
Of them that vanquish in a stricken field.
Victoria
© Alfred Austin
The lark went up, the mower whet his scythe,
On golden meads kine ruminating lay,
And all the world felt young again and blithe,
Just as to-day.
The First Rule Of Golf
© Edgar Albert Guest
(In which Ye Ed attempts the millionaire's game and obeys the first rule of golf, which is to put back the turf.)
The Captain
© John McCrae
Here all the day she swings from tide to tide,
Here all night long she tugs a rusted chain,
A masterless hulk that was a ship of pride,
Yet unashamed: her memories remain.
But the Greatest of These is Charity
© George Essex Evans
Give: we are pawns upon the board;
We see not how Fates dice are thrown.
The life swung by a trembling cord
Might be your own.
Channels
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
Channel 1's no fun.
Channel 2's just news.
Channel 3's hard to see.
Channel 4 is just a bore.
Improved Farm Land
© Carl Sandburg
Tall timber stood here once, here on a corn belt farm along the Monon.
Here the roots of a half-mile of trees dug their runners deep in the loam for a grip and a hold against wind storms.
Then the axemen came and the chips flew to the zing of steel and handle-the lank railsplitters cut the big ones first, the beeches and the oaks, then the brush.
Dynamite, wagons, and horses took the stumps-the plows sunk their teeth in-now it is first class corn land-improved property-and the hogs grunt over the fodder crops.
It would come hard now for this half mile of improved farm land along the Monon corn belt, on a piece of Grand Prairie, to remember once it had a great singing family of trees.
Equality
© John McCrae
I saw a King, who spent his life to weave
Into a nation all his great heart thought,
Unsatisfied until he should achieve
The grand ideal that his manhood sought;
A Christmas Hymn
© Hannah More
O now wondrous is the story
Of our blest Redeemer's birth?
See the mighty Lord of Glory
Leaves his heaven to visit earth!
Disarmament
© John McCrae
One spake amid the nations, "Let us cease
From darkening with strife the fair World's light,
We who are great in war be great in peace.
No longer let us plead the cause by might."
Of The Nature Of Things: Book IV - Part 03 - The Senses And Mental Pictures
© Lucretius
Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
From certain things flow odours evermore,
Truly Great
© William Henry Davies
My walls outside must have some flowers,
My walls within must have some books;
A house that's small; a garden large,
And in it leafy nooks.
The Moon
© William Henry Davies
Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul,
Oh, thou fair Moon, so close and bright;
Thy beauty makes me like the child
That cries aloud to own thy light:
The little child that lifts each arm
To press thee to her bosom warm.
The Hermit
© William Henry Davies
WHAT moves that lonely man is not the boom
Of waves that break agains the cliff so strong;
Nor roar of thunder, when that travelling voice
Is caught by rocks that carry far along.
Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Pleasure. Book II.
© Matthew Prior
My full design with vast expense achieved,
I came, beheld, admired, reflected, grieved:
I chid the folly of my thoughtless haste,
For, the work perfected, the joy was past.
Under Ben Bulben
© William Butler Yeats
SWEAR by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.
