Power poems
/ page 19 of 324 /Disappointment
© Robert Laurence Binyon
And were they but for this, those passionate schemes
Of joy, that I have nursed? indeed for this
That longings, day and night, have filled my dreams?
Now it has come, the hour of bliss,
How different it seems!
Contentment
© Ada Cambridge
Then vice be with us, although blood be shed.
No pact with powers partizan and blind;
No peace with Custom that makes right of wrong.
We shall content us when the starved are fed
When men and brothers are agreed and kind,
And there is fair play between weak and strong.
Tale IX
© George Crabbe
course,"
Replied the Youth; "but has it power to force?
Unless it forces, call it as you will,
It is but wish, and proneness to the ill."
"Art thou not tempted?"--"Do I fall?" said
To My Father (Translated From Milton)
© William Cowper
Oh that Pieria's spring would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
What the Frost Casts Up by Ed Ochester: American Life in Poetry #150 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
There's a world of great interest and significance right under our feet, but most of us don't think to look down. We spend most of our time peering off into the future, speculating on how we will deal with whatever is coming our way. Or dwelling on the past. Here Ed Ochester stops in the middle of life to look down.
What the Frost Casts Up
Songs Set To Music: 18. Set By Mr. Smith
© Matthew Prior
Since we your husband daily see
So jealous out of season,
Phillis, let you and I agree
To make him so with reason.
The Progress Of The Rose
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
The days of old, the good old days,
Whose misty memories haunt us still,
Demand alike our blame and praise,
And claim their shares of good and ill.
Zoo-Keeper's Wife
© Sylvia Plath
I can stay awake all night, if need be ---
Cold as an eel, without eyelids.
Like a dead lake the dark envelops me,
Blueblack, a spectacular plum fruit.
Summum Bonum
© Louise Imogen Guiney
Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense
In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest,
A praying more than prayer: "Great good have I,
Till it be greater good to lay it by;
Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence,
For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!"
The Beasts In The Tower
© Charles Lamb
Within the precincts of this yard,
Each in his narrow confines barred,
The Lady And The Dame
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
So thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,
To keep Time's perishing touch at bay
The Piper
© Francis William Bourdillon
The dews were on the hedges,
The mist was on the mead,
When down among the sedges
I wrought my pipe of reed.
Pharsalia - Book X: Caesar In Egypt
© Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Caesar's ears in vain
Had she implored, but aided by her charms
The wanton's prayers prevailed, and by a night
Of shame ineffable, passed with her judge,
She won his favour.
To Ethna
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
First loved, last loved, best loved of all I've loved!
Ethna, my boyhood's dream, my manhood's light,
Ode On The Sailing Of Our Troops For France
© John Jay Chapman
Go fight for Freedom, Warriors of the West!
At last the word is spoken: Go!
Lay on for Liberty. 'Twas at her breast
The tyrant aimed his blow;
And ye were wounded with the rest
In Belgium's overthrow.
September, 1819
© William Wordsworth
Nor doth the example fail to cheer
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough:-
Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!
Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed
Around a younger brow!