Great poems
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Boris Godunov
© Alexander Pushkin
Boyars, The People, Inspectors, Officers, Attendants, Guests,
a Boy in attendance on Prince Shuisky, a Catholic Priest, a
Polish Noble, a Poet, an Idiot, a Beggar, Gentlemen, Peasants,
Guards, Russian, Polish, and German Soldiers, a Russian
Prisoner of War, Boys, an old Woman, Ladies, Serving-women.
Joy
© Robinson Jeffers
Though joy is better than sorrow joy is not great;
Peace is great, strength is great.
Hilaire Belloc - The South Country
© Hilaire Belloc
When I am living in the Midlands
That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind.
Balin and Balan
© Alfred Tennyson
Then Balan added to their Order lived
A wealthier life than heretofore with these
And Balin, till their embassage returned.
Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine
© Hilaire Belloc
But since I would not, since I could not stay,
Let me remember even in this my day
How, when the ephemeral vision's lure is past
All, all, must face their Passion at the last
For A War Memorial
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The hucksters haggle in the mart
The cars and carts go by;
Senates and schools go droning on;
For dead things cannot die.
Worth Forest
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Come, Prudence, you have done enough to--day--
The worst is over, and some hours of play
We both have earned, even more than rest, from toil;
Our minds need laughter, as a spent lamp oil,
The Glove and the Lions
© James Henry Leigh Hunt
King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.
Coole Park And Ballylee, 1931
© William Butler Yeats
Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
The Young Man's Song
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
At last the curse has run its date!
The heavens grow clear above,
And on the purple plains of Hate,
We'll build the throne of Love!
The Dead Czar
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
But this man? Ah! for him
Funereal state, and ceremonial grand,
The stone-engraved sarcophagus, and then
Oblivion.
Satire II:The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse
© Sir Thomas Wyatt
MY mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That for because her livelood was but thin [livelihood]
Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
Of the Mean and Sure Estate
© Sir Thomas Wyatt
My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,
My Galley, Charged with Forgetfulness
© Sir Thomas Wyatt
My galley, chargèd with forgetfulness,
Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine en'my, alas,
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;
Mine Own John Poynz
© Sir Thomas Wyatt
Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know
The cause why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the press of courts, whereso they go,
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Forget Not Yet
© Sir Thomas Wyatt
Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant
My great travail so gladly spent
Forget not yet.
Grey Hairs
© Marina Tsvetaeva
These are ashes of treasures:
Of hurt and loss.
These are ashes in face of which
Granite is dross.
Malade
© David Herbert Lawrence
And if the day outside were mine! What is the day
But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths hanging
Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly from them
Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over
The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the floor of the cave!
I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.
Dreams Nascent
© David Herbert Lawrence
My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
An endless tapestry the past has women drapes
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.
