Great poems

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TO My Lord Colrane, In Answer to his Complemental Verses sent me under the Name of CLEANOR

© Anne Killigrew

LOng my dull Muse in heavy slumbers lay,
Indulging Sloth, and to soft Ease gave way,
Her Fill of Rest resolving to enjoy,
Or fancying little worthy her employ.

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The Miseries of Man

© Anne Killigrew

As a fit Place to take the sad Relief
Of Sighs and Tears, to ease oppressing Grief.
Near to the Mourning Nimph she chose a Seat,
And these Complaints did to the Shades repeat.

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HERODIAS Daughter presenting to her Mother St. JOHN's Head in a Charger, also Painted by her self

© Anne Killigrew

BEhold, dear Mother, who was late our Fear,
Disarm'd and Harmless, I present you here;
The Tongue ty'd up, that made all Jury quake,
And which so often did our Greatness shake;

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To the Queen.

© Anne Killigrew

I saw that Pitch was not sublime,
Compar'd with this which now I climb;
His Glories sunk, and were unseen,
When once appear'd the Heav'n-born Queen:
Victories, Laurels, Conquer'd Kings,
Took place among inferiour things.

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Alexandreis.

© Anne Killigrew

Th'Heroick Queen (whose high pretence to War
Cancell'd the bashful Laws and nicer Bar
Of Modesty, which did her Sex restrain)
First boldly did advance before her Train,
And thus she spake. All but a God in Name,
And that a debt Time owes unto thy Fame.

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Gregory Corso

© Gregory Corso

Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe

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Song from Judith 3

© Lascelles Abercrombie

BALKIS was in her marble town,
And shadow over the world came down.
Whiteness of walls, towers and piers,
That all day dazzled eyes to tears,

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The Sale of Saint Thomas

© Lascelles Abercrombie

Captain Well, I hope so.
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind
To hug your belly to the slanted deck,
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat
Spins on an axlie in the hissing gales?

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Hymn to Love

© Lascelles Abercrombie

We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee,
As théou, Léove, were the déep thought
And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we,
Thy fires of thought out-spoken:

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Futurity

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

AND, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich

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From ‘The Soul’s Travelling’

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God, God!
With a child’s voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly—
God, God!

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Lord Walter's Wife

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

XXI
'I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a week,
For the sake of . . . what is it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on the cheek?

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The Prisoner

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I count the dismal time by months and years
Since last I felt the green sward under foot,
And the great breath of all things summer-
Met mine upon my lips. Now earth appears

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Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[Book 1]
I am like,
They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows
Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth

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De Profundis

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.

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Human Life’s Mystery

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born…
For earnest or for jest?

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Sonnet 25 - A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn

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Mother and Poet

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

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Sonnet 05 - I lift my heavy heart up solemnly

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

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The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,