Great poems
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In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord God : A Hymn Sung as by the Shepherds
© Richard Crashaw
COME, we shepherds whose blest sight
Hath met Love's noon in Nature's night ;
Come lift up our loftier song,
And wake the sun that lies too long.
The Teares of the Muses
© Edmund Spenser
Nor since that faire Calliope did lose
Her loued Twinnes, the dearlings of her ioy,
Her Palici, whom her vnkindly foes
The fatall Sisters, did for spight destroy,
Whom all the Muses did bewaile long space;
Was euer heard such wayling in this place.
Careless Mathilda
© Ann Taylor
"AGAIN, Matilda, is your work undone!
Your scissors, where are they? your thimble, gone?
Your needles, pins, and thread and tapes all lost;
Your housewife here, and there your workbag toss'd.
Behram And Eddetma
© Madison Julius Cawein
Dazzled, six days he sat, a staring trance;
But on the seventh, casting stupor off,
Rose, and the straitness of the case that held
Him as with manacles of knitted fire,
Considered, and decided on a way....
The Policeman's Lot
© William Schwenck Gilbert
When a felon's not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
Humanities Lecture
© William Stafford
Aristotle was a little man with
eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak
down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet
much more important than the carved handles
on the coffins of the great.
Falling
© James Dickey
Of a virgin sheds the long windsocks of her stockings absurd
Brassiere then feels the girdle required by regulations squirming
Off her: no longer monobuttocked she feels the girdle flutter shake
In her hand and float upward her clothes rising off her ascending
Into cloud and fights away from her head the last sharp dangerous shoe
Like a dumb bird and now will drop in soon now will drop
Young September
© Madison Julius Cawein
With a look and a laugh where the stream was flowing,
September led me along the land;
Where the golden-rod and lobelia, glowing,
Seemed burning torches within her hand.
And faint as the thistle's or milk-weed's feather
I glimpsed her form through the sparkling weather.
The Night-Scene : A Dramatic Fragment.
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sandoval. You loved the daughter of Don Manrique?
Earl Henry. Loved?
Sandoval. Did you not say you wooed her?
Earl Henry. Once I loved
On The Best, Last, And Only Remaning Comedy Of Mr. Fletcher
© Richard Lovelace
I'm un-ore-clowded, too! free from the mist!
The blind and late Heaven's-eyes great Occulist,
Obscured with the false fires of his sceme,
Not half those souls are lightned by this theme.
My Greatest Need is You
© Rabia al Basri
Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
Of Some Renown by Jean L. Connor: American Life in Poetry #22 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
In this short poem by Vermont writer Jean L. Connor, an older speaker challenges the perception that people her age have lost their vitality and purpose. Connor compares the life of such a person to an egret fishing. Though the bird stands completely still, it has learned how to live in the world, how to sustain itself, and is capable of quick action when the moment is right.
Reynard The Fox - Part 2
© John Masefield
Down in the village men awoke,
The chimneys breathed with a faint blue smoke;
The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches,
Due to his dreams, ran down his flitches.
Our Guests
© William Henry Ogilvie
We welcome you,
Our guests from o'er the sea!
Together flew
Our flags till the world was free ;
And now they shall fly for us while we ride
In our rival friendship side by side.
"Violet Beauregarde..."
© Roald Dahl
"Dear friends, we surely all agree
There's almost nothing worse to see
Than some repulsive little bum
Who's always chewing chewing gum.
The Federal City
© Henry Lawson
OH! the folly, the waste, and the pity! Oh, the time that is flung behind!
They are seeking a site for a city, whose eyes shall be always blind,
Whose love for their ease grows greater, and whose care for their country less
They are seeking a site for a citya City of Selfishness.
The Black Sheep
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
"Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?"
"Yes, sir-yes, sir: a whole world full."
The Borough. Letter XVII: The Hospital And
© George Crabbe
Govenors
AN ardent spirit dwells with Christian love,
