History poems
/ page 23 of 51 /
A Poem Beginning With A Line From Pindar
© Robert Duncan
But the eyes in Goyas painting are soft,
diffuse with rapture absorb the flame.
Their bodies yield out of strength.
Waves of visual pleasure
wrap them in a sorrow previous to their impatience.
The Ballad of the White Horse
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night-
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?
A Little Grey Curl
© Louisa May Alcott
A little grey curl from my father's head
I find unburned on the hearth,
157. Prologue, spoken by Mr. Woods at Edinburgh
© Robert Burns
WHEN, by a generous Publics kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is grantedhonest fame;
Waen here your favour is the actors lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
Book Fifth-Books
© William Wordsworth
There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander!--many a time
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone
Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake,
Fifty Years (1863-1913)
© James Weldon Johnson
O brothers mine, to-day we stand
Where half a century sweeps our ken,
Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand,
Struck off our bonds and made us men.
Runnamede, A Tragedy. Acts I.-II.
© John Logan
Yet lost to fame is virtue's orient reign;
The patriot lived, the hero died in vain,
Dark night descended o'er the human day,
And wiped the glory of the world away:
Whirled round the gulf, the acts of time were tost,
Then in the vast abyss for ever lost.
Sonnet XCIII
© William Shakespeare
So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
The Century Of Garibaldi
© George Meredith
That aim, albeit they were of minds diverse,
Conjoined them, not to strive without surcease;
For them could be no babblement of peace
While lay their country under Slavery's curse.
Sordello: Book the Third
© Robert Browning
Whereat he rose.
The level wind carried above the firs
Clouds, the irrevocable travellers,
Onward.
confessions of a fool
© Rg Gregory
(i)
i believed in flower-power (the triumph of the meek)
the thought that what a wind could bend was not to be
derided for its weakness but known to draw its calm
from a corporate sense of self (its many-ed history)
that tyranny (in the long blow) lacked the will to break
Scum O' The Earth
© Robert Haven Schauffler
Newcomers all from the eastern seas,
Help us incarnate dreams like these.
Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong.
Help us to father a nation, strong
In the comradeship of an equal birth,
In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth.
absinthe and stained glass
© Rg Gregory
stained glass (you think) must be bystander
its leaded eyes seek far not near
the day's bleak dirt it learns to shrug off
ducks and wisdom
© Rg Gregory
[from a motif by Jean Dunand (1877-1942)]seven lacqueur ducks on a silver pond
their rippling held in a moveless frieze
nothing now can help them swim beyond
the stoned edges (invent a new-age breeze)
sea horn
© Rg Gregory
within the shell swim all the sea's fish
our ears too are compendiums of sound
the big bang exploded - such a long wish
waves and warps towards the present ground
The Exile's Choice
© Victor Marie Hugo
Since justice slumbers in the abysm,
Since the crime's crowned with despotism,
Since all most upright souls are smitten,
Since proudest souls are bowed for shame,
Since on the walls in lines of flame
My country's dark dishonour's written;
from imperfect Eden
© Rg Gregory
(1)
and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant)
burly men packed in round solid tables
but what the helle (drowned in hellespont)
