Great poems
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A Satirical Elegy
© Jonathan Swift
On the Death of a Late FAMOUS GENERAL
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
Intramuros
© Roddy Lumsden
She lies in her well-kept apartment
above the spick and span cathedral
in the heart of the walled city
above Manila Bay and she dreams
He "Digesteth Harde Yron"
© Marianne Clarke Moore
is not more suspicious.How
could he, prized for plumes and eggs and young
used even as a riding-beast, respect men
hiding actor-like in ostrich skins, with the right hand
making the neck move as if alive
and from a bag the left hand strewing grain, that ostriches
Spenser's Ireland
© Marianne Clarke Moore
has not altered;--
a place as kind as it is green,
the greenest place I've never seen.
Every name is a tune.
Marriage
© Marianne Clarke Moore
This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
The Message
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Wind of the gentle summer night,
Dwell in the lilac tree,
Sway the blossoms clustered light,
Then blow over to me.
The Height of Land
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Here is the height of land:
The watershed on either hand
Goes down to Hudson Bay
Or Lake Superior;
The Forsaken
© Duncan Campbell Scott
I
Once in the winter
Out on a lake
In the heart of the north-land,
The Ghosts Of The Trees
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
My brow I thrust,
Through sultry dust,
That the lean wolf howl'd upon;
I drove my tides,
Between the sides,
Of the bellowing canon.
Rapids at Night
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Here at the roots of the mountains,
Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks,
The rapids charge the ravine:
A little light, cast by foam under starlight,
Ode for the Keats Centenary
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Where, searching through the ferny breaks,
The moose-fawns find the springs;
Where the loon laughs and diving takes
Her young beneath her wings;
The Chinese Nightingale
© Vachel Lindsay
"I remember, I remember
That Spring came on forever,
That Spring came on forever,"
Said the Chinese nightingale.
Davids Child
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
IN face of a great sorrow like to death
How do we wrestle night and day with tears;
How do we fast and pray; how small appears
The outside world, while, hanging on some breath
Afterwards
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Her life was touched with early frost,
About the April of her day,
Her hold on earth was lightly lost,
And like a leaf she went away.
Young Munro the Sailor
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on a sunny morning in the month of May,
I met a pretty damsel on the banks o' the Tay;
I said, My charming fair one, come tell to me I pray,
Why do you walk alone on the banks o' the Tay.
Wreck of the Schooner Samuel Crawford
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1886, and on the 29th of November,
Which the surviving crew of the "Samuel Crawford" will long remember,
She was bound to Baltimore with a cargo of pine lumber;
But, alas! the crew suffered greatly from cold and hunger.
Women's Suffrage
© William Topaz McGonagall
Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty.
The Wreck of the Steamer Stella
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the month of March and in the year of 1899,
Which will be remembered for a very long time;
The wreck of the steamer "Stella" that was wrecked on the Casquet Rocks,
By losing her bearings in a fog, and received some terrible shocks.
The Wreck of the Steamer London
© William Topaz McGonagall
Then the captain cried, Lower down the small boats,
And see if either of them sinks or floats;
Then the small boats were launched on the stormy wave,
And each one tried hard his life to save
From a merciless watery grave.
The Wreck of the Indian Chief
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on the 8th of January 1881,
That a terrific gale along the English Channel ran,
And spread death and disaster in its train,
Whereby the "Indian Chief" vessel was tossed on the raging main.
