History poems
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The Third Monarchy, being the Grecian, beginning under Alexander the Great in the 112. Olympiad.
© Anne Bradstreet
Great Alexander was wise Philips son,
He to Amyntas, Kings of Macedon;
The Sun Wields Mercy
© Charles Bukowski
and the sun wields mercy
but like a jet torch carried to high,
Ragnarok
© Kenneth Allott
Our Trojan world is polarised to mourn;
To dream and find a black spot on the sun,
And wake to love and find our lover gone.
"Sed Nos Qui Vivimus"
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
How beautiful is life--the physical joy of sense and breathing;
The glory of the world which has found speech and speaks to us;
The robe which summer throws in June round the white bones of winter;
The new birth of each day, itself a life, a world, a sun!
The Columbiad: Book I
© Joel Barlow
Ah, lend thy friendly shroud to veil my sight,
That these pain'd eyes may dread no more the light;
These welcome shades shall close my instant doom,
And this drear mansion moulder to a tornb.
The Rain
© Zbigniew Herbert
When my older brother
came back from war
he had on his forehead a little silver star
and under the star
an abyss
The Great Conch Train Robbery
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
'Twas sunset down in old Key West
The locals all were high.
Donn Piatt Of Mac-O-Chee
© James Whitcomb Riley
Donn Piatt--of Mac-o-chee,--
Not the one of History,
Kings College Chapel
© Charles Causley
When to the music of Byrd or Tallis,
The ruffed boys singing in the blackened stalls,
The candles lighting the small bones on their faces,
The Tudors stiff in marble on the walls.
Often rebuked, yet always back returning
© Emily Jane Brontë
OFTEN rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
Freedoms Plow
© Langston Hughes
First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.
History of the Twentieth Century (A Roadshow)
© Joseph Brodsky
Ladies and gentlemen and the day!
All ye made of sweet human clay!
Let me tell you: you are o'kay.
Captain Kidd
© Stephen Vincent Benet
This person in the gaudy clothes
Is worthy Captain Kidd.
They say he never buried gold.
I think, perhaps, he did.
In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen ELIZABETH
© Anne Bradstreet
3.1 Here sleeps T H E Queen, this is the royal bed
3.2 O' th' Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red,
3.3 Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air,
3.4 This Rose is withered, once so lovely fair:
3.5 On neither tree did grow such Rose before,
3.6 The greater was our gain, our loss the more.
Epitaphs
© Anne Bradstreet
Her Mother's EpitaphHere lies
A worthy matron of unspotted life,
A loving mother and obedient wife,
A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor,
The Patriot Engineer
© George Meredith
'Sirs! may I shake your hands?
My countrymen, I see!
I've lived in foreign lands
Till England's Heaven to me.
A hearty shake will do me good,
And freshen up my sluggish blood.'
June.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soon between us rise to sight
Valleys cool, with bushes light,
Streams and meadows; next appear
How A Fair One No Hope To His Highness Accorded
© Guy Wetmore Carryl
The Moral: The people across the brine
Are exceedingly strong on Auld Lang Syne,
But they're lost in the push when they strike a gang
That is strong on American new line slang!
