Poems begining by L
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Limerick: There was an Old Man of Vesuvius,
© Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of Vesuvius,
Who studied the works of Vitruvius;
When the flames burnt his book,
To drinking he took,
That morbid Old Man of Vesuvius.
Libera Me
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, befriend!
Long have I served thine altars, serve me now at the end,
Let me have peace of thee, truce of thee, golden one, send.
Lines To A Dragon Fly
© Walter Savage Landor
Life (priest and poet say) is but a dream;
I wish no happier one than to be laid
Beneath some cool syringa's scented shade
Or wavy willow, by the running stream,
Brimful of Moral, where the Dragon Fly
Wanders as careless and content as I.
Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch Ness
© Robert Burns
Among the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.
Life Is A Dream - Act I
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
THIS TRANSLATION
INTO ENGLISH IMITATIVE VERSE
OF
CALDERON'S MOST FAMOUS DRAMA,
Love Made In The First Age. To Chloris.
© Richard Lovelace
I.
In the nativity of time,
Chloris! it was not thought a crime
In direct Hebrew for to woe.
Laundry by Ruth Moose: American Life in Poetry #105 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
I've talked often in this column about how poetry can hold a mirror up to life, and I'm especially fond of poems that hold those mirrors up to our most ordinary activities, showing them at their best and brightest. Here Ruth Moose hangs out some laundry and, in an instant, an everyday chore that might have seemed to us to be quite plain is fresh and lovely.
Lines Upon My Sisters Portrait
© William Makepeace Thackeray
The castle towers of Bareacres are fair upon the lea,
Where the cliffs of bonny Diddlesex rise up from out the sea:
Love, You Must Be Blind
© George Ade
Tell me if you can, the rule by which a man
Selects his worse or better half.
Truly it would seem to be a lott'ry scheme,
The prizes often make one laugh.
Lettice
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
I said to Lettice, our sister Lettice,
While drooped and glistened her eyelash brown,
"Your man's a poor man, a cold and dour man,
There's many a better about our town."
Lines Composed In A Concert-Room
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Nor cold nor stern my soul! Yet I detest
These scented rooms, where to a gaudy throug,
Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast
In intricacies of laborious song.
Limerick: There was an Old Man of th' Abruzzi
© Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of th' Abruzzi,
So blind that he couldn't his foot see;
When they said, 'That's your toe,'
He replied, 'Is it so?'
That doubtful Old Man of th' Abruzzi.
Limerick: There was an Old Man with a Nose
© Edward Lear
There was an Old Man with a nose,
Who said, 'If you choose to suppose,
That my nose is too long,
You are certainly wrong!'
That remarkable Man with a nose.
le Lys Est Le Plus Beau
© André Marie de Chénier
Le lys est le plus beau des enfants du zéphire,
Il lève un front superbe et demande l'empire.
Leopards at Knole
© Victoria Mary Sackville-West
Leopards on the gable-ends,
Leopards on the painted stair,
Stiff the blazoned shield they bear,
Or and gules, a bend of vair,
Leopards on the gable-ends,
Leopards everywhere.
Lemnos Revisited
© Leon Gellert
Lemnos! Lemnos! Thine enfolding arms
Have held too much, they patterned hills are over shorn
Limerick: There was a Young Lady whose nose
© Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady whose nose,
Was so long that it reached to her toes;
So she hired an Old Lady,
Whose conduct was steady,
To carry that wonderful nose.
London Snow
© Robert Seymour Bridges
When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Lines Written Beneath A Picture
© George Gordon Byron
Dear object of defeated care!
Though now of Love and thee bereft,
To reconcile me with despair,
Thing image and any tears are left.
Letter
© Victor Marie Hugo
You can see it already: chalks and ochers;
Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines;
