Great poems
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A poem, Sacred to the Glorious memory of King George
© Richard Savage
He said.-Again, with Majesty refin'd,
Up-wing'd to Realms of Bliss, th'Ætherial Mind.
Minor Litany
© Stephen Vincent Benet
This is for those who work and those who may not,
For those who suddenly come to a locked door,
And the work falls out of their hands;
For those who step off the pavement into hell,
Having not observed the red light and the warning signals
Because they were busy or ignorant or proud.
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part I: To Manon: X
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
ON HER FORGIVENESS OF A WRONG
This is not virtue. To forgive were great
If love were in the issue and not gold.
But wrongs there are 'tis treason to forget,
On The Misery Of Soldiers
© Confucius
Yellow now is all the grass;
All the days in marching pass.
On the move is every man;
Hard work, far and near, they plan.
The Child Of Earth
© Caroline Norton
I.
FAINTER her slow step falls from day to day,
Death's hand is heavy on her darkening brow;
Yet doth she fondly cling to earth, and say,
Credidimus Jovem Regnare
© James Russell Lowell
O days endeared to every Muse,
When nobody had any Views,
The Columbiad: Book II
© Joel Barlow
High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,
And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,
Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,
And raised new wonders to the Patriarch's view.
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LVII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
ON A LOST OPPORTUNITY
We might, if you had willed, have conquered Heaven.
Once only in our lives before the gate
Of Paradise we stood, one fortunate even,
By The Rosanna--To F.M. Stanzer Thal, Tyrol
© George Meredith
The old grey Alp has caught the cloud,
And the torrent river sings aloud;
The Decameron
© Aldous Huxley
Suddenly from the gate rises up a cry,
Hideous broken laughter, scarce human in sound;
Gaunt clawed hands, thrust through the bars despairingly,
Clutch fast at the scented air, while on the ground
Lie the poor plague-stricken carrions, who have found
Strength to crawl forth and curse the sunshine and die.
dim inkling
© Friedrich von Schlegel
Whoever has not arrived at the clear insight that there might be greatness entirely outside his own sphere for which he has no understanding, whoever does not have at least a dim inkling in which area of the human spirit this greatness might be situated: he is within his own sphere either without genius, or he has not educated himself up to the point of the classical attitude
Life Is A Dream - Act I
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
THIS TRANSLATION
INTO ENGLISH IMITATIVE VERSE
OF
CALDERON'S MOST FAMOUS DRAMA,
Belshazzar. A Sacred Drama
© Hannah More
Persons of the Drama :--
Belshazzar, King of Babylon.
Nitocris, the Queen-Mother.
Courtiers, Astrologers, Parasites.
Daniel, the Jewish Prophet.
Captive Jews, &c. &c.
The Marshes of Glynn
© Sidney Lanier
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, --
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, --
Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves,
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,
Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; --
Fragments - Lines 0425 - 0428
© Theognis of Megara
Not to be born is the best of all things for those who live on earth,
And not to gaze on the radiance of the keen-burning sun.
Once born, however, it is best to pass with all possible speed through Hades' gates
And to lie beneath a great heap of earth.
One-Man-One-Vote
© Henry Lawson
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! You hear the people shouting.
The walls of Mammon tremble ere they fall.
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! Is this a time for doubting?
The poets have been prophets after all.
