Peace poems
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When The `Army' Prays For Watty
© Henry Lawson
When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star,
Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar;
When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,
Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub.
Hermann And Dorothea - V. Polyhymnia
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE COSMOPOLITE.
BUT the Three, as before, were still sitting and talking together,
Peter Anderson And Co.
© Henry Lawson
They tried everything and nothing 'twixt the shovel and the press,
And were more or less successful in their ventures -- mostly less.
Once they ran a country paper till the plant was seized for debt,
And the local sinners chuckle over dingy copies yet.
Luminous mind, bright devil
© Pablo Neruda
Luminous mind, bright devil
of absolute clusterings, of upright noon---:
here we are at last, alone, without loneliness,
far from the savage city's delirium.
The Man Who Raised Charlestown
© Henry Lawson
They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge;
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.
Lemnos Visited
© Leon Gellert
Oh Peace! The Peace I knew. I thought thee dead!
And had not hoped again to see thy smile.
The Vagabond
© Henry Lawson
And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize --
But I never went back again . . .
I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes
In many a face since then.
The League of Nations
© Henry Lawson
Light on the towns and cities, and peace for evermore!
The Big Five met in the world's light as many had met before,
And the future of man is settled and there shall be no more war.
Black Bonnet
© Henry Lawson
A day of seeming innocence,
A glorious sun and sky,
And, just above my picket fence,
Black Bonnet passing by.
On the Wallaby
© Henry Lawson
Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead,
And the possums may gambol in trees overhead;
I am humping my bluey far out on the land,
And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand:
I am out on the wallaby humping my drum,
And I came by the tracks where the sundowners come.
The Fagot
© Jonathan Swift
Observe the dying father speak:
Try, lads, can you this bundle break?
Then bids the youngest of the six
Take up a well-bound heap of sticks.
A Vision Of Resurrection
© Robert Laurence Binyon
The Genius of an hour that fading day
Resigned to wide--haired Night's impending brow
Stole me apart, I knew not where nor how,
And from my sense ravished the world away.
Taking His Chance
© Henry Lawson
They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise;
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes:
`Oh! why did you come? -- it was mad of you, Jack;
You know that the troopers are out on your track.'
A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head --
`I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,' he said.
Night On The Prairies
© Walt Whitman
NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over-the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself-I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I
never realized before.
The Fight at Eureka Stockade
© Henry Lawson
"Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.
The Heart of Australia
© Henry Lawson
When the wars of the world seemed ended, and silent the distant drum,
Ten years ago in Australia, I wrote of a war to come:
And I pictured Australians fighting as their fathers fought of old
For the old things, pride or country, for God or the Devil or gold.
The Four Bridges
© Jean Ingelow
I love this gray old church, the low, long nave,
The ivied chancel and the slender spire;
No less its shadow on each heaving grave,
With growing osier bound, or living brier;
I love those yew-tree trunks, where stand arrayed
So many deep-cut names of youth and maid.
