Great poems
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Little Aggie
© Marriott Edgar
When Joe Dove took his elephants out on the road
He made each one hold fast with his trunk
To the tail of the elephant walking in front
To stop them from doing a bunk.
Canute the Great
© Marriott Edgar
I'll tell of Canute, King of England,
A native of Denmark was he,
His hobbies was roving and raiding
And paddling his feet in the sea.
Balbus
© Marriott Edgar
I'll tell you the story of Balbus,
You know, him as builded a wall;
I'll tell you the reason he built it,
And the place where it happened an' all.
Albert and the Lion
© Marriott Edgar
There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.
The Storm
© Theodore Roethke
We creep to our bed, and its straw mattress.
We wait; we listen.
The storm lulls off, then redoubles,
Bending the trees half-way down to the ground,
Shaking loose the last wizened oranges in the orchard,
Flattening the limber carnations.
The Waking
© Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Lament for the Makers
© William Dunbar
I THAT in heill was and gladness
Am trublit now with great sickness
And feblit with infirmitie:--
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
Of Politics & Art
© Norman Dubie
Today I listened to a woman say
That Melville might
Be taught in the next decade. Another woman asked, "And why not?"
The first responded, "Because there are
No women in his one novel."
The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals
© Norman Dubie
You were never told, Mother, how old Illyawas drunk
That last holiday, for five days and nightsHe stumbled through Petersburg forming
A choir of mutes, he dressed them in pink ascension gownsAnd, then, sold Father's Tirietz stallion so to rent
A hall for his Christmas recital: the audienceWas rowdy but Illya in his black robes turned on them
The Chronicle Of The Drum
© William Makepeace Thackeray
"'Though Europe against me was arm'd,
Your chiefs and my people are true;
I still might have struggled with fortune,
And baffled all Europe with you.
To Althea, From Prison
© Richard Lovelace
When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet
© Tony Hoagland
At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn
My Mother Would Be a Falconress
© Robert Duncan
My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
where I dream in my little hood with many bells
jangling when I'd turn my head.
Green Fields
© William Stanley Merwin
By this part of the century few are left who believe
in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
are sounds of shadows that possess no future
For A Coming Extinction
© William Stanley Merwin
Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
Modern Love XXXVIII: Give to Imagination
© George Meredith
Give to imagination some pure light
In human form to fix it, or you shame
The devils with that hideous human game:
Imagination urging appetite!
Modern Love XXXI: This Golden Head
© George Meredith
This golden head has wit in it. I live
Again, and a far higher life, near her.
Some women like a young philosopher;
Perchance because he is diminutive.
Modern Love XXIX: Am I Failing
© George Meredith
Am I failing ? For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
Modern Love XXIV: The Misery Is Greater
© George Meredith
The misery is greater, as I live!
To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense,
That she does penance now for no offence,
Save against Love. The less can I forgive!
Modern Love XXIII: 'Tis Christmas Weather
© George Meredith
'Tis Christmas weather, and a country house
Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get
An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret
At that, it is half-said. The great carouse
