Great poems
/ page 44 of 549 /
The Princes' Ques -Part the Eighth
© William Watson
Now as it chanced, the day was almost spent
When down the lonely mountain-side he went,
Fragments Of An Unfinished Poem
© James Russell Lowell
I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam,
And have some reason to surmise that I descend from Adam;
Loves Me? Loves Me Not?
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Under the earth goes the last new-comer,
What were the life of her, winter-summer!
What if her silent grave holds one only
Who loved her well, and who left her lonely?
Rose Lorraine
© Henry Kendall
Sweet water-moons, blown into lights
Of flying gold on pool and creek,
Ogrin The Hermit
© Edith Wharton
Ogrin the Hermit in old age set forth
This tale to them that sought him in the extreme
Ancient grey wood where he and silence housed:
Piety: Or, The Vision
© Thomas Parnell
But still I fear, unwarm'd with holy flame,
I take for truth the flatt'ries of a dream;
And barely wish the wond'rous gift I boast,
And faintly practise what deserves it most.
Peruvian Tales: Cora, Tale IV
© Helen Maria Williams
ALMAGRO'S expedition to Chili-His troops suffer great hardships from cold, in crossing the Andes-They reach Chili-The Chilians make a brave resistance-The revolt of the Peruvians in Cuzco--They are led on by MANCO CAPAC , the successor of ATALIBA -Parting with CORA , his wife-The Peruvians regain half their city-ALMAGRO leaves Chili-To avoid the Andes, he crosses a vast desert-His troops can find no water-They divide into two bands-ALPHONSO leads the second band, which soon reaches a fertile valley-The Spaniards observe that the natives are employed in searching the streams for gold-They resolve to attack them.
The Abencerrage : Canto III.
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Onward their slow and stately course they bend
To where the Alhambra's ancient towers ascend,
Reared and adorned by Moorish kings of yore,
Whose lost descendants there shall dwell no more.
The Lost Letter
© Henry Clay Work
Two lives wreck'd by a zephyr!
Two hearts crush'd by the fall,
When that most precious missive, that love laden letter,
Flutter'd down thro' the gap in the wall.
A Sunset
© Francis Thompson
Oh gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion,
Their unimagined shapes accord:
Under their waves at intervals flames a pale levin through,
As if some giant of the air amid the vapours drew
A sudden elemental sword.
Occasion'd By Seeing The Honourable --- Treat A Person Of Merit With Insolence
© Mary Barber
Contented in my humble State,
I look with Pity on the Great;
Who only Birth, or Wealth, respect,
And treat true Merit with neglect.
In Midas' Country
© Sylvia Plath
Meadows of gold dust. The silver
Currents of the Connecticut fan
And meander in bland pleatings under
River-verge farms where rye-heads whiten.
All's polished to a dull luster
Hate
© Edgar Albert Guest
They say we must not hate, nor fight in hate.
I've thought it over many a solemn hour,
Three Short Poems
© Mao Zedong
Mountains!
I whip my swift horse, glued to my saddle.
I turn my head startled,
The sky is three foot above me!
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Antwerp)
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Messieurs, le Dieu des peintres: We felt odd:
'Twas Rubens, sculptured. A mean florid church
Sonnet 1: Loving In Truth
© Sir Philip Sidney
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
Hexameters
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
All my hexameters fly, like stags pursued by the staghounds,
Breathless and panting, and ready to drop, yet flying still onwards,
I would full fain pull in my hard-mouthed runaway hunter;
But our English Spondeans are clumsy yet impotent curb-reins;
And so to make him go slowly, no way left have I but to lame him.
To Italy
© Katharine Lee Bates
BRIGHT valor, smitten by so shrewd a blow,
Drooping thy golden wing like wounded plover,
