Great poems
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Loss From The Least
© Robert Herrick
Great men by small means oft are overthrown;
He's lord of thy life, who contemns his own.
A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton
© Robert Herrick
Till I shall come again, let this suffice,
I send my salt, my sacrifice
To thee, thy lady, younglings, and as far
As to thy Genius and thy Lar;
The Wounded Cupid
© Robert Herrick
Cupid as he lay among
Roses, by a Bee was stung.
Whereupon in anger flying
To his Mother, said thus crying;
A Hymn To Bacchus
© Robert Herrick
Bacchus, let me drink no more!
Wild are seas that want a shore!
When our drinking has no stint,
There is no one pleasure in't.
His Content In The Country
© Robert Herrick
HERE, Here I live with what my board
Can with the smallest cost afford;
Though ne'er so mean the viands be,
They well content my Prue and me:
The Country Life:
© Robert Herrick
TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF
THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTYSweet country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
The Hock-cart, or Harvest Home
© Robert Herrick
To the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of WestmorelandCome, sons of summer, by whose toil
We are the lords of wine and oil;
By whose tough labours, and rough hands,
We rip up first, then reap our lands.
A Pastoral Upon The Birth Of Prince Charles:presented To The King, And Set By Mr Nic. Laniere
© Robert Herrick
A PASTORAL UPON THE BIRTH OF PRINCE CHARLES:
PRESENTED TO THE KING, AND SET BY MR NIC. LANIERETHE SPEAKERS: MIRTILLO, AMINTAS, AND AMARILLISAMIN. Good day, Mirtillo. MIRT. And to you no less;
And all fair signs lead on our shepherdess.
AMAR. With all white luck to you. MIRT. But say,
Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself
© Robert Herrick
Tell, if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come
This camphire, storax, spikenard, galbanum,
These musks, these ambers, and those other smells
Sweet as the Vestry of the Oracles.
An Ode For Ben Jonson
© Robert Herrick
Ah Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,
To Daisies, Not To Shut So Soon
© Robert Herrick
Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.
California Plush
© Frank Bidart
is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing
Window
© Carl Sandburg
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
Washerwoman
© Carl Sandburg
THE WASHERWOMAN is a member of the Salvation Army.
And over the tub of suds rubbing underwear clean
She sings that Jesus will wash her sins away
And the red wrongs she has done God and man
Shall be white as driven snow.
Rubbing underwear she sings of the Last Great Washday.
Wars
© Carl Sandburg
IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet.
In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.
In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not
yet dreamed out in the heads of men.
Uplands In May
© Carl Sandburg
WONDER as of old things
Fresh and fair come back
Hangs over pasture and road.
Lush in the lowland grasses rise
And upland beckons to upland.
The great strong hills are humble.
Trinity Place
© Carl Sandburg
THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street.
The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops.
To Beachey, 1912
© Carl Sandburg
RIDING against the east,
A veering, steady shadow
Purrs the motor-call
Of the man-bird
To a Contemporary Bunkshooter
© Carl Sandburg
You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers
over your lips. . . always blabbing we're all
going to hell straight off and you know all about it.
Threes
© Carl Sandburg
I WAS a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, FraternityI asked
why men die for words.
