Power poems
/ page 173 of 324 /
Influence
© Emma Lazarus
The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep,
Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square,
The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air,
The revelation of the star-strewn deep,
Man Listening To Disc
© Billy Collins
This is not bad --
ambling along 44th Street
with Sonny Rollins for company,
his music flowing through the soft calipers
of these earphones,
Picnic, Lightning
© Billy Collins
It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
The Progress of Poesy
© Thomas Gray
A Pindaric OdeAwake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
Hymn To Adversity
© Thomas Gray
Daughter of Jove, relentless Power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!
Troilus And Criseyde: Book 04
© Geoffrey Chaucer
'For thilke day that I for cherisshinge
Or drede of fader, or of other wight,
Or for estat, delyt, or for weddinge,
Be fals to yow,
Troilus And Criseyde: Book 05
© Geoffrey Chaucer
'As wel thou mightest lyen on Alceste,
That was of creatures, but men lye,
That ever weren, kindest and the beste.
For whanne hir housbonde was in Iupartye
To dye him-self, but-if she wolde dye,
She che
The Man of Law's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Plight: pulled; the word is an obsolete past tense from
"pluck."
The Friar's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
"Peace, with mischance and with misaventure,"
Our Hoste said, "and let him tell his tale.
Now telle forth, and let the Sompnour gale,* *whistle; bawl
Nor spare not, mine owen master dear."
The Miller's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Pilate, an unpopular personage in the mystery-plays of the
middle ages, was probably represented as having a gruff, harsh
voice.
The Wife of Bath's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
7. "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and
silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and
some to dishonour." -- 2 Tim. ii 20.
The General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
There was also a Reeve, and a Millere,
A Sompnour, and a Pardoner also,
A Manciple, and myself, there were no mo'.
The Knight's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
Upon that other side, Palamon,
When that he wist Arcita was agone,
Much sorrow maketh, that the greate tower
Resounded of his yelling and clamour
The pure* fetters on his shinnes great *very
Were of his bitter salte teares wet.
I See A Woman Making Up
© Luis Benitez
I see a woman any woman making up and change
first she is thinking of something else (because when
a woman
begins to make up she hasn't yet separated this act
The Science Of The Night
© Stanley Kunitz
I touch you in the night, whose gift was you,
My careless sprawler,
And I touch you cold, unstirring, star-bemused,
That have become the land of your self-strangeness.
Tractor
© Ted Hughes
Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-shit.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks -
The Copernican System
© Thomas Chatterton
The Sun revolving on his axis turns,
And with creative fire intensely burns;
Impell'd by forcive air, our Earth supreme,
Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam.
Narva and Mored
© Thomas Chatterton
Recite the loves of Narva and Mored
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said.
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung,
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung:
Heccar and Gaira
© Thomas Chatterton
Where the rough Caigra rolls the surgy wave,
Urging his thunders thro' the echoing cave;
Where the sharp rocks, in distant horror seen,
Drive the white currents thro' the spreading green;
Eclogues
© Thomas Chatterton
Syke Nigel sed, whan from the bluie sea
The upswol sayle dyd daunce before hys eyne;
Swefte as the wishe, hee toe the beeche dyd flee,
And found his fadre steppeynge from the bryne.
Letter thyssen menne, who haveth sprite of loove,
Bethyncke unto hemselves how mote the meetynge proove.
