Great poems
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One of the Shepherds
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
There on the straw the mother lay
Wan and white,
But her look was so holy and rapt and mild
That it seemed to shed a marvellous light,
Faint as the first rare gleam of day,
Around the child.
Off to the Fishing Ground
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
There's a piping wind from a sunrise shore
Blowing over a silver sea,
There's a joyous voice in the lapsing tide
That calls enticingly;
Midnight in Camp
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
Night in the unslumbering forest! From the free,
Vast pinelands by the foot of man untrod,
Blows the wild wind, roaming rejoicingly
This wilderness of God;
Genius
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
A hundred generations have gone into its making,
With all their love and tenderness, with all their dreams and tears;
Their vanished joy and pleasure, their pain and their heart-breaking,
Have colored this rare blossom of the long-unfruitful years.
Down Stream
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
Comrades, up! Let us row down stream in this first rare dawnlight,
While far in the clear north-west the late moon whitens and wanes;
Before us the sun will rise, deep-purpling headland and islet,
It is well to meet him thus, with the life astir in our veins!
By an Autumn Fire
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,
Here we have largess of summer in fee
Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,
At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,
While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping
In the fairest meadow of memory!
At the Long Sault
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
A prisoner under the stars I lie,
With no friend near;
To-morrow they lead me forth to die,
The stake is ready, the torments set,
An Autumn Evening
© Lucy Maud Montgomery
Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky
Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below
The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie
Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow
And wake among the harps of leafless trees
Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.
Tower Of Song
© Leonard Cohen
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
Salvage
© Amy Clampitt
Daily the cortege of crumpled
defunct cars
goes by by the lasagna-
layered flatbed
truckload: hardtop
Nothing Stays Put
© Amy Clampitt
In memory of Father Flye, 1884-1985
The strange and wonderful are too much with us.
The protea of the antipodesa great,
globed, blazing honeybee of a bloom
A Silence
© Amy Clampitt
behind the mask
the milkfat shivering
sinew isinglass
uncrumpling transient
greed to reinvest
His Winding-sheet
© Robert Herrick
Come thou, who art the wine and wit
Of all I've writ;
The grace, the glory, and the best
Piece of the rest;
Peace Not Permanent
© Robert Herrick
Great cities seldom rest; if there be none
T' invade from far, they'll find worse foes at home.
The Fairy Temple; Or, Oberon's Chapel
© Robert Herrick
RARE TEMPLES THOU HAST SEEN, I KNOW,
AND RICH FOR IN AND OUTWARD SHOW;
SURVEY THIS CHAPEL BUILT, ALONE,
WITHOUT OR LIME, OR WOOD, OR STONE.
THEN SAY, IF ONE THOU'ST SEEN MORE FINE
THAN THIS, THE FAIRIES' ONCE, NOW THINE.
A Pastoral Sung To The King
© Robert Herrick
MONTANO, SILVIO, AND MIRTILLO, SHEPHERDSMON. Bad are the times. SIL. And worse than they are we.
MON. Troth, bad are both; worse fruit, and ill the tree:
The feast of shepherds fail. SIL. None crowns the cup
Of wassail now, or sets the quintel up:
To The Genius Of His House
© Robert Herrick
Command the roof, great Genius, and from thence
Into this house pour down thy influence,
That through each room a golden pipe may run
Of living water by thy benizon;
The Lily In A Crystal
© Robert Herrick
You have beheld a smiling rose
When virgins' hands have drawn
O'er it a cobweb-lawn:
And here, you see, this lily shows,
Oberon's Feast
© Robert Herrick
Hapcot! To thee the Fairy State
I with discretion, dedicate.
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious, and un-familiar.
To Primroses Filled With Morning Dew
© Robert Herrick
Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears
Speak grief in you,
Who were but born
just as the modest morn
