Great poems

/ page 456 of 549 /

Order by :

1
. . .
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
. . .
549

Suspiria

© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Take them, O Death! and bear away
Whatever thou canst call thine own!
Thine image, stamped upon this clay,
Doth give thee that, but that alone!

Of Such Simplicity

© Ivan Donn Carswell

You and me,
the proof is there to see,
our lives are held within the spell of great simplicity,
were free of all the shadows dwelling in the hall,

The problem was the manner of choice
(or whether there was a choice for that matter)
as you had taken those options to yourself,
choosing as you had to do, and as it was right for you,
there is no shame in that and no reproving,
but my alternatives were emptied by your doing.

Mornings Reflections

© Ivan Donn Carswell

Were meetings predestined then ours was intended,
great oracles decreed it as fate, and the auguries chattered
with sweet benefactors and fêted to chance with a face.
We were then both separate and free in our choosing

Moocooboola Dam

© Ivan Donn Carswell

For more than a billion years weve been
nearly out of water; sincerely, a need repeatedly
exposed in calamitous reports of the tragic-comic sort
glibly cognising a collective we as the principle cause

Lawstudent And Coach

© Lesbia Harford

Each day I sit in an ill-lighted room
To teach a boy;
For one hour by the clock great words and dreams
Are our employ.

It seldom snowed, they said - Part I

© Ivan Donn Carswell

It seldom snowed, they said, it might get cold but it wont be snow;
well, one should guess the locals know the weather best and I was new,
so when I left the warmth of the limited express and descended onto
a dimly lit, deserted siding I was not impressed to find the ground at

It seldom snowed Part IV

© Ivan Donn Carswell

It seldom snowed they said,
perhaps theyre right
although seldom was never
in that endless summer

Krishna And His Three Handmaidens

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

AND where he sat beneath the mystic stars,
Nigh the twin founts of Immortality,
That feed fair channels of the Stream of Trance,--
To Krishna once his three handmaidens came,

In Romney Marsh

© John Davidson

As I went down to Dymchurch Wall,
I heard the South sing o'er the land
I saw the yellow sunlight fall
On knolls where Norman churches stand.

I Mark Your Courage

© Ivan Donn Carswell

I had no profound feelings of shock or surprise
to those matter-of-fact revelations
which spelled the end of this chapter of your life.
It was, as you put it, too late for recriminations,
and the horrendous realities could be no worse
for having faced them.

The Nativity

© William Cowper

Upon my meanness, poverty, and guilt,
The trophy of thy glory shall be built;
My selfdisdain shall be the unshaken base,
And my deformity its fairest grace;
For destitute of good, and rich in ill,
Must be my state and my description still.

Having each of you as friends

For more than 40 years weve been good friends,
since 1963 in fact, from college where we met
(and managed there to build a strong quartet
of campus friendship which kept those years intact,

Haircut today

I am having a haircut today, it is not
a complex event requiring excellent
foresight, careful planning or indecent
logistical arrangement; not to my way

E.c.b.

Before the grass grew over me,
I knew one good man through and through,
And knew a soul and body joined
Are stronger than the heavens are blue.

Charles Webster

The pine woods on the hill,

And the farmhouse miles away,

In Time of Revolt

You say I am your brothers only son.
I know it. And, What of it? I reply.
My hearts resolved. Something must be done.
So shall I curb, so baffle, so suppress
This too avuncular officiousness,
Intolerable consanguinity.