Pet poems
/ page 76 of 126 /from Omeros
© Derek Walcott
In hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez,
the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane
down the archipelago’s highways. The first breeze
Up at a VillaDown in the City
© Robert Browning
(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)
Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
After Reading Trollope's History Of Florence
© Eugene Field
My books are on their shelves again
And clouds lie low with mist and rain.
Afar the Arno murmurs low
The tale of fields of melting snow.
List to the bells of times agone
The while I wait me for the dawn.
Convict Once - Part First.
© James Brunton Stephens
I.
FREE again! Free again! eastward and westward, before me, behind me,
Wide lies Australia! and free are my feet, as my soul is, to roam!
Oh joy unwonted of space undetermined! No limit assigned me!
Freedom conditioned by nought save the need and desire of a home!
From The Wreck
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
"Turn out, boys!" - "What's up with our super. to-night?
The man's mad - Two hours to daybreak I'd swear -
Stark mad - why, there isn't a glimmer of light."
"Take Bolingbroke, Alec, give Jack the young mare;
Grant
© Henry Cuyler Bunner
Smile on, thou new-come Springif on thy breeze
The breath of a great man go wavering up
And out of this world's knowledge, it is well.
The Times
© Charles Churchill
The time hath been, a boyish, blushing time,
When modesty was scarcely held a crime;
The Slave Trade, A Poem
© Hannah More
If heaven has into being deign'd to call
Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all;
Epistle To A Young Friend
© Robert Burns
I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend,
A something to have sent you,
Tho' it should serve nae ither end
Than just a kind momento:
Refutatio Papatus
© Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Nein, nein! durchaus ich glaube nicht,
Was Petri falscher Folger spricht;
Dass jene Buecher goettlich waeren,
Die, zu der Juden steten Ehren,
Uns von des Maccabaeus Helden
Und ihren heilgen Schlachten melden.
Crusoe in England
© Elizabeth Bishop
A new volcano has erupted,
the papers say, and last week I was reading
A Psalm Of Fortitude
© Joseph Furphy
Are you, like me, a peevish brat,
With feelings extra-fine?
Are you disposed to whip the cat
When misadventure lays your flat?
Then paste this memo in your hat
A Man Should Never Whine.
Coquette And Her Lover
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
O, foolish querist! what if I,
Beholding your enamored face
And every well-attested trace
Of verdant, young idolatry,
Should, after my own fashion, choose
To play the subtly-amorous muse,
To Whistler, American
© Ezra Pound
On the loan exhibit of his paintings at the Tate Gallery.
You also, our first great,
Had tried all ways;
Tested and pried and worked in many fashions,
And this much gives me heart to play the game.