Morning poems
/ page 270 of 310 /
Beautiful Edinburgh
© William Topaz McGonagall
Beautiful city of Edinburgh, most wonderful to be seen,
With your ancient palace of Holyrood and Queen's Park Green,
And your big, magnificent, elegant New College,
Where people from all nations can be taught knowledge.
An All-Night Sea Fight
© William Topaz McGonagall
Ye sons of Mars, come list to me,
And I will relate to ye
A great and heroic naval fight,
Which will fill your hearts with delight.
Adventures of King Robert the Bruce
© William Topaz McGonagall
King Robert the Bruce's deadly enemy, John of Lorn,
Joined the English with eight hundred Highlanders one morn,
All strong, hardy, and active fearless mountaineers,
But Bruce's men attacked them with swords and spears.
A Tale of the Sea
© William Topaz McGonagall
A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay,
A Tale of Elsinore
© William Topaz McGonagall
A little child stood thinking, sorrowfully and ill at ease,
In a forest beneath the branches of the tall pine trees -
And his big brown eyes with tears seemed dim,
While one soft arm rested on a huge dog close by him.
A New Year's Resolution to Leave Dundee
© William Topaz McGonagall
Welcome! thrice welcome! to the year 1893,
For it is the year I intend to leave Dundee,
Owing to the treatment I receive,
Which does my heart sadly grieve.
Spirit Dity Of No Fax Line Dial Tone
© Bob Hicok
The telephone company calls and asks what the fuss is.
Betty from the telephone company, who's not concerned
with the particulars of my life. For instance
if I believe in the transubstantiation of Christ
Why Brownlee Left
© Paul Muldoon
By noon Brownlee was famous;
They had found all abandoned, with
The last rig unbroken, his pair of black
Horses, like man and wife,
Shifting their weight from foot to
Foot, and gazing into the future.
Anseo
© Paul Muldoon
When the master was calling the roll
At the primary school in Collegelands,
You were meant to call back Anseo
And raise your hand
Cuba
© Paul Muldoon
My eldest sister arrived home that morning
In her white muslin evening dress.
'Who the hell do you think you are
Running out to dances in next to nothing?
Elementalist
© Robert William Service
Could Fate ordain a lot for me
Beyond all human ills,
I think that I would choose to be
A shephard of the hills;
Bed Sitter
© Robert William Service
He stared at me with sad, hurt eyes,
That drab, untidy man;
And though my clients I despise
I do the best I can
The Little Workgirl
© Robert William Service
Three gentlemen live close beside me --
A painter of pictures bizarre,
A poet whose virtues might guide me,
A singer who plays the guitar;
The Legless Man
© Robert William Service
My mind goes back to Fumin Wood, and how we stuck it out,
Eight days of hunger, thirst and cold, mowed down by steel and flame;
Waist-deep in mud and mad with woe, with dead men all about,
We fought like fiends and waited for relief that never came.
Eight days and nights they rolled on us in battle-frenzied mass!
"Debout les morts!" We hurled them back. By God! they did not pass.
Julot The Apache
© Robert William Service
You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
Room 4: The Painter Chap
© Robert William Service
He gives me such a bold and curious look,
That young American across the way,
As if he'd like to put me in a book
(Fancies himself a poet, so they say.)
Ah well! He'll make no "document" of me.
I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . .
While The Bannock Bakes
© Robert William Service
Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;
I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!
You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three,
Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
Five-Per-Cent
© Robert William Service
Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.
For in some procreative way that isn't very clear,
Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year.
Privacy
© Robert William Service
Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
(Though most of us seek to survive it)
Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die
Because she could never be private.
