Happy poems
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Shakuntala Act 1
© Kalidasa
King Dushyant in a chariot, pursuing an antelope, with a bow and quiver, attended by his Charioteer.
Suta (Charioteer). [Looking at the antelope, and then at the king]
When I cast my eye on that black antelope, and on thee, O king, with thy braced bow, I see before me, as it were, the God Mahésa chasing a hart (male deer), with his bow, named Pináca, braced in his left hand.
The Plaint
© Adelaide Crapsey
Musicians O Musicians: Heartsease
Heartsease: an you will have me live play heartsease.
A Royal Home-Coming
© Alfred Austin
Welcome, right welcome home, to these blest Isles,
Where, unforgotten, loved Victoria sleeps,
But now with happy pride your Father smiles,
Your Mother weeps.
His Youth
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Dying? I am not dying. Are you mad?
You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
\I\ think \you\ are a fiend, who would be glad
To see me struggle in death's cold embrace.
Idyll VII. Harvest-Home
© Theocritus
He spake and paused; and thereupon spake I.
"I too, friend Lycid, as I ranged the fells,
Have learned much lore and pleasant from the Nymphs,
Whose fame mayhap hath reached the throne of Zeus.
But this wherewith I'll grace thee ranks the first:
Thou listen, since the Muses like thee well.
The Nest
© James Russell Lowell
When oaken woods with buds are pink,
And new-come birds each morning sing,
When fickle May on Summer's brink
Pauses, and knows not which to fling,
Whether fresh bud and bloom again,
Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,
Ariadne Waking
© James Henry Leigh Hunt
The moist and quiet morn was scarcely breaking,
When Ariadne in her bower was waking;
Mary, the Maid o' the Tay
© William Topaz McGonagall
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Tay,
Whaur me and my Mary oft did stray;
But noo she is dead and gone far away,
Sae I maun mourn for lovely Mary, the Maid o' the Tay,
The Last Bison
© Charles Mair
A gentle vale, with rippling aspens clad,
Yet open to the breeze, invited rest.
So there I lay, and watched the sun's fierce beams
Reverberate in wreathed ethereal flame;
Or gazed upon the leaves which buzzed o'erhead,
Like tiny wings in simulated flight.
Epistle (to the author of The Three Impostors)
© Voltaire
I see from afar that era coming, those happy days,
When philosophy, enlightening humanity,
Must lead them in peace to the feet of the common master;
Frightful fanaticism will tremble to appear there:
There will be less dogma with more virtue.
Poem For The Two Hundred And Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Founding Of Harvard College
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds,
And like the eagle soar above the clouds,
Must feel the pang that fallen angels know
When the red lightning strikes thee from below!
"Little Jack Janitor"
© James Whitcomb Riley
Then he tried
And rapped the little drawer in the side,
And called out sharply "Are you in there, Jack?"
And then a little, squeaky voice came back,--
"_Of course I'm in here--ain't you got the key
Turned on me!_"
Deborah
© Thomas Parnell
O King subdu'd! O Woman born to fame!
O Wake my fancy for the glorious theme,
O wake my fancy with the sense of praise,
O wake with warblings of triumphant lays.
The Land you rise in sultry suns invade,
But where you rise to sing you'le find a shade.
My Daughter
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THOU hast thy mother's eyes, my child--
Her deep dark eyes: the undefiled
Sweetness which breathes around her mouth,
A perfect rosebud of the south,
June Thunder
© Louis MacNeice
The Junes were free and full, driving through tiny
Roads, the mudguards brushing the cowparsley,
Through fields of mustard and under boldly embattled
Mays and chestnuts
The Hours Of Illness
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
How slow creeps time! I hear the midnight chime,
And now late revellers prepare for sleep;
To The Birds
© Peter McArthur
HOW dare you sing such cheerful notes?
You show a woful lack of taste;
How dare you pour from happy throats
Such merry songs with raptured haste,
While all our poets wail and weep,
And readers sob themselves to sleep?
To An Amiable Friend Mourning The Death Of An Excellent Father
© Mercy Otis Warren
LET deep dejection hide her pallid face,
And from thy breast each painful image rase;
Forbid thy lip to utter one complaint,
But view the glories of the rising saint,
Ripe for a crown, and waiting the reward
Of watching long the vineyard of the Lord.
Thoughts On Jesus Christ's Decent Into Hell
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A mighty army marches on
By thousand millions follow'd, lo,
To yon dark place makes haste to go
