Great poems
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The Day's Ration
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I was born,
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
Saying, This be thy portion, child; this chalice,
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw
The Sphynx
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thorough a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame,
"Who telleth one of my meanings,
Is master of all I am."
Saadi
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
The Sphinx
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."
Blight
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give me truths,
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition. If I knew
Only the herbs and simples of the wood,
Merlin
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I
Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Each And All
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
Ode To Beauty
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Cold Morning
© Eamon Grennan
Through an accidental crack in the curtain
I can see the eight o'clock light change from
charcoal to a faint gassy blue, inventing things
Ballad of the Old Cypress
© Tu Fu
In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches
are like green bronze; its roots like rocks; around its great girth of forty
spans its rimy bark withstands the washing of the rain. Its jet-colored top
rises two thousand feet to greet the sky. Prince and statesman have long since
Redbud Trail - Winter
© James Lee Jobe
Once up on the ridge, the view takes me,
Brushy Sky High Mountain looms above
like an overanxious parent, the creek sings
old songs for the valley oaks, for the deer grass.
Less muddy, I kick my boots a little cleaner
on a rock that is maybe as old as the earth.
The Premier and the Socialist
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"If we should try to raise some cash
On assets of our own,
Do you suppose," the Premier said,
"That we could float a loan?"
"I doubt it," said the Socialist,
And groaned a doleful groan.
The Quest Eternal
© Andrew Barton Paterson
In the march of the boys through Palestine when the noontide fervour glowed,
Over the desert in thirsty line our sunburnt squadrons rode.
They looked at the desert lone and drear, stone ridges and stunted scrub,
And said, "We should have had Ginger here, I bet he'd have found a pub!"
What Have the Cavalry Done?
© Andrew Barton Paterson
What have the cavalry done?
Cantered and trotted about,
Routin' the enemy out,
Causin' the beggars to run!
The Rhyme of the O'Sullivan
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"For many years I led
The people's onward march;
I was the 'Fountain Head',
The 'Democratic Arch'.
The Two Devines
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas a wether flock that had come to hand,
Great struggling brutes, that shearers shirk,
For the fleece was filled with the grass and sand,
And seventy sheep was a big day's work.
"At a pound a hundred it's dashed hard lines
To shear such sheep," said the two Devines.
The Gundaroo Bullock
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There came a low informer to the Grabben Gullen side,
And he said to Smith the squatter, "You must saddle up and ride,
For your bullock's in the harness-cask of Morgan Donahoo --
He's the greatest cattle-stealer in the whole of Gundaroo."
The Hypnotist
© Andrew Barton Paterson
With dragging footsteps and downcast head
The hypnotiser went home to bed,
And since that very successful test
He has given the magic art a rest;
Had he tried the ladies, and worked it right,
What curious tales might have come to light!
"In re a Gentleman, One"
© Andrew Barton Paterson
We see it each day in the paper,
And know that there's mischief in store;
That some unprofessional caper
Has landed a shark on the shore.
The Winds Message
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There came a whisper down the Bland between the dawn and dark,
Above the tossing of the pines, above the river's flow;
It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart iron-bark;
It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below;
