Great poems
/ page 463 of 549 /
Venus' Runaway
© Benjamin Jonson
Beauties, have ye seen this toy,
Called Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blind;
Cruel now, and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say?
He is Venus' runaway.
When A Woman Loves A Man
© David Lehman
When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
as I stand disconsolate at the window."
Appropriate To A Sacrifice To King Wan
© Confucius
My offerings here are given,
A ram, a bull.
Accept them, mighty Heaven,
All-bountiful.
A Parting II
© Edith Nesbit
I WILL not wake you, dear; no tears shall creep
To chill the still bed where you lie asleep;
What Best I See In Thee
© Walt Whitman
WHAT best I see in thee,
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Sonnet XVIII: With What Sharp Checks
© Sir Philip Sidney
With what sharp checks I in myself am shent,
When into Reason's audit I do go:
And by just counts myself a bankrupt know
Of all the goods, which heav'n to me hath lent:
The Third Satire Of Dr. John Donne
© Thomas Parnell
Compassion checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies
The tears a passage thro' my swelling eyes;
To laugh or weep at sins, might idly show,
Unheedful passion, or unfruitful woe.
Satyr! arise, and try thy sharper ways,
If ever Satyr cur'd an old disease.
The Swan Song of Parson Avery
© John Greenleaf Whittier
When the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late,
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight,
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop "Watch and Wait."
Sonnet XXV: The Wisest Scholar
© Sir Philip Sidney
The wisest scholar of the wight most wise
By Phoebus' doom, with sugar'd sentence says,
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;
Sonnet XXVI: Though Dusty Wits
© Sir Philip Sidney
Though dusty wits dare scorn astrology,
And fools can think those lamps of purest light
Whose numbers, ways, greatness, eternity,
Promising wonders, wonder do invite,
Psalm Concerning The Castle
© Denise Levertov
Let me be at the place of the castle.
Let the castle be within me.
O Star Of France
© Walt Whitman
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale-a mastless hulk;
And 'mid its teeming, madden'd, half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
Sonnet XXI: Your Words, My Friend
© Sir Philip Sidney
Your words, my friend, (right healthful caustics) blame
My young mind marr'd, whom Love doth windlass so,
That mine own writings like bad servants show
My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame;
Psalm 19: Coeli Enarrant
© Sir Philip Sidney
The heavenly frame sets forth the fame
Of him that only thunders;
The firmament, so strangely bent,
Shows his handworking wonders.
Sonnet XXVII: Because I Oft
© Sir Philip Sidney
Because I oft in dark abstracted guise
Seem most alone in greatest company,
With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,
To them that would make speech of speech arise,
Moonstruck
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
I have quarrelled with the Moon. I loved her once,
As all boys love one face supremely fair.
I had heard her praised, and I too, happy dunce,
Let my tongue wag and made her my heart's prayer.
Sonnet I: 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;
Astrophel and Stella: I
© Sir Philip Sidney
ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I
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,
Of The Nature Of Things: Book VI - Part 01 - Proem
© Lucretius
And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults
Are mortal and that sky is fashioned
Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er
Therein go on and must perforce go on
Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show
© 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
