Power poems
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A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XVI
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Gods, what a moral! Yet in vain I jest.
The France which has been, and shall be again,
Is the most serious, and perhaps the best,
Of all the nations which have power with men.
The Columbiad: Book IX
© Joel Barlow
Shrouded in deeper darkness now he veers
The vast gyration of a thousand years,
Strikes out each lamp that would illume his way,
Disputes his food with every beast of prey;
Imbands his force to fence his trist abodes,
A wretched robber with his feudal codes.
That Last Invocation
© Walt Whitman
At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks-from the keep of the well-closed
doors,
Let me be wafted.
Our Canal
© Harriet Monroe
"All that was writ shall be fulfilled at last.
Cometill we round the circle, end the story.
The west-bound sun leads forward to the past
The thundering cruisers and the caravels.
Tomorrow you shall hear our song of glory
Rung in the chime of India's temple bells."
Song of Nature
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.
To William Camden
© Benjamin Jonson
Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that I am in arts, all that I know
Gitanjali
© Rabindranath Tagore
1.
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
Our Atlas
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,
Bore such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled
The evils of old festering lands-yea, hurled them in their might
And left him standing all alone, to set the wrong things right.
Mary Magdalen
© William Cullen Bryant
The greatest of thy follies is forgiven,
Even for the least of all the tears that shine
On that pale cheek of thine.
Thou didst kneel down, to Him who came from heaven,
Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise
Holy, and pure, and wise.
Ballade adresse a Geoffrey Chaucer
© Eustache Deschamps
O Socratès plains de philosophie,
Seneque en meurs, Auglius en pratique,
Ovides grans en ta poëtrie,
Briés en parler, saiges en rethorique . . .
Grant translateur, noble Geoffrey Chaucier.
The Rebel
© Caroline Norton
WITH none to heed or mark
The prisoner in his cell,
In a dungeon, lone and dark,
He tuned his wild farewell.
The Fairy Of The Fountains
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And a youthful warrior stands
Gazing not upon those bands,
Not upon the lovely scene,
But upon its lovelier queen,
Who with gentle word and smile
Courteous prays his stay awhile.
Songs Set To Music: 15. Set By Mr. De Fesch
© Matthew Prior
Farewell, Amynta, we must part;
The charm has lost its power
Which held so fast my captived heart
Until this fatal hour.
The Voices Of The Death Chamber
© Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
The night lamp is faintly gleaming
Within my chamber still,
The Stealing Of The Mare - II
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when Abu Zeyd had made an end of speaking, and the Kadi Diab and the Sultan and Rih, and all had happened as hath been said, then the Emir Abu Zeyd mounted his running camel and bade farewell to the Arabs and was gone; and all they who remained behind were in fear thinking of his journey. But Abu Zeyd went on alone, nor stayed he before he came to the pastures of the Agheylat. And behold, in the first of their vallies as he journeyed onward the slaves of the Agheylat saw him and came upon him, threatening him with their spears, and they said to him, ``O Sheykh, who and what art thou, and what is thy story, and the reason of thy coming?'' And he said to them, ``O worthy men of the Arabs, I am a poet, of them that sing the praise of the generous and the blame of the niggardly.'' And they answered him, ``A thousand welcomes, O poet.'' And they made him alight and treated him with honour until night came upon their feasting, nor did he depart from among them until the night had advanced to a third, but remained with them, singing songs of praise, and reciting lettered phrases, until they were stirred by his words and astonished at his eloquence. And at the end of all he arrived at the praise of the Agheyli Jaber. Then stopped they him and said: ``He of whom thou speakest is the chieftain of our people, and he is a prince of the generous. Go thou, therefore, to him, and he shall give thee all, even thy heart's desire.'' And he answered them, ``Take ye care of my camel and keep her for me while I go forward to recite his praises, and on my return we will divide the gifts.'' And he left them. And as he went he set himself to devise a plan by which he might enter into the camp and entrap the Agheyli Jaber.
And the Narrator singeth of Abu Zeyd and of the herdsmen thus:
The Shadow And The Light
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.
Sonnet To A Stilton Cheese
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
Come, Sinners, to the Gospel Feast
© Charles Wesley
Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,
Let every soul be Jesu's guest;
Ye need not one be left behind,
For God hath bidden all mankind.
Paradise Lost : Book VI.
© John Milton
All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued,
Through Heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn,
The Glance
© George Herbert
When first thy sweet and gracious eye
Vouchsaf'd ev'n in the midst of youth and night
