Pet poems
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The Servant Girl Justified
© Jean de La Fontaine
LET us proceed, howe'er (our plan explained
A pretty servant-girl a man retain'd.
She pleas'd his eye, and presently he thought,
With ease she might to am'rous sports be brought;
He prov'd not wrong; the wench was blithe and gay,
A buxom lass, most able ev'ry way.
An Invective Written By Mr. George Chapman Against Mr. Ben Jonson
© George Chapman
Great, learned, witty Ben, be pleased to light
The world with that three-forked fire; nor fright
The Door Of Humility
© Alfred Austin
ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;
The Old-Fashioned Pair
© Edgar Albert Guest
'Tis a little old house with a squeak in the stairs,
And a porch that seems made for just two easy chairs;
The Hall And The Wood
© William Morris
Twas in the water-dwindling tide
When July days were done,
Sir Rafe of Greenhowes, gan to ride
In the earliest of the sun.
Epilogue
© Edgar Lee Masters
You're dreaming worlds. I'm in the King row.
Move as you will, if I can't wreck you
I'll thwart you, harry you, rout you, check you.
San Stefano
© Sir Henry Newbolt
She'd a right fighting company, three hundred men and more,
Nine and forty guns in tackle running free;
And they cheered her from the shore for her colours at the fore,
When the bold _Menelaus_ put to sea.
The Dunciad: Book III.
© Alexander Pope
But in her Temple's last recess inclos'd,
On Dulness' lap th' Anointed head repos'd.
Sleep by Todd Davis: American Life in Poetry #136 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Here's a fine seasonal poem by Todd Davis, who lives and teaches in Pennsylvania. It's about the drowsiness that arrives with the early days of autumn. Can a bear imagine the future? Surely not as a human would, but perhaps it can sense that the world seems to be slowing toward slumber. Who knows?
Sleep
Merlin And Vivien
© Alfred Tennyson
A storm was coming, but the winds were still,
And in the wild woods of Broceliande,
Before an oak, so hollow, huge and old
It looked a tower of ivied masonwork,
At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay.
The Dundee Flower Show:Dedicated to the Right Honourable Earl of Dalhousie
© William Topaz McGonagall
Twas in the year of 1886 and in the 2nd day of September
Which the lovers of horticultural beauty will long remember
Especially those that visited the Flower Show, on the Magdalen Green, Dundee,
Must confess it was really a most magnificent sight to see
Ophelia
© Arthur Rimbaud
On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily ;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.
In Ampezzo
© Trumbull Stickney
Only once more and not again-the larches
Shake to the wind their echo, "Not again,"-
We see, below the sky that over-arches
Heavy and blue, the plain
The Woodsman In The Foundry
© Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
WHERE the trolley's rumble
Jars the bones,
He hears waves that tumble
Green-linked weed along the golden stones.
