Power poems
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For the Union Dead
© Robert Lowell
The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.
From Boethius: De Consolatione Philosophiae; Book II. Metre 4.
© Samuel Johnson
Wouldst thou to some steadfast seat,
Out of Fortune's power retreat?
Winter in the Country
© Claude McKay
Sweet life! how lovely to be here
And feel the soft sea-laden breeze
Strike my flushed face, the spruce's fair
Free limbs to see, the lesser trees'
The White House
© Claude McKay
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The Easter Flower
© Claude McKay
Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
Soft-scented in the air for yards around;
Elegy IX
© Henry James Pye
From the clear stream that o'er her grotto flows
The silver-slipper'd Avon slowly rose,
And pensive on her crystal urn reclin'd,
Pour'd forth in notes like these her anxious mind.
Poetry
© Claude McKay
Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower,
And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee.
Bowing my head in deep humility
Before the silent thunder of thy power.
S I W
© Wilfred Owen
I will to the King,
And offer him consolation in his trouble,
For that man there has set his teeth to die,
And being one that hates obedience,
Discipline, and orderliness of life,
I cannot mourn him.
Third Sunday In Advent
© John Keble
What went ye out to see
O'er the rude sandy lea,
Where stately Jordan flows by many a palm,
Or where Gennesaret's wave
Delights the flowers to lave,
That o'er her western slope breathe airs of balm.
Chicago
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Men said at vespers: "All is well!"
In one wild night the city fell;
Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain
Before the fiery hurricane.
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
© John Keble
"Wake, arm Divine! awake,
Eye of the only Wise!
Now for Thy glory's sake,
Saviour and God, arise,
And may Thine ear, that sealed seems,
In pity mark our mournful themes!"
Futility
© Claude McKay
Oh, I have tried to laugh the pain away,
Let new flames brush my love-springs like a feather.
But the old fever seizes me to-day,
As sickness grips a soul in wretched weather.
Africa
© Claude McKay
The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light,
The sciences were sucklings at thy breast;
When all the world was young in pregnant night
Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best.
The Duellist - Book III
© Charles Churchill
Ah me! what mighty perils wait
The man who meddles with a state,
The Dance To Death. Act I
© Emma Lazarus
This play is dedicated, in profound veneration and respect, to the
memory of George Eliot, the illustrious writer, who did most among
the artists of our day towards elevating and ennobling the spirit
of Jewish nationality.
Back To The Machine Gun
© Charles Bukowski
the young housewife next door shakes a rug
out of her window and sees me:
"hello, Hank!"
A Comparison
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I THINK, ofttimes, that lives of men may be
Likened to wandering winds that come and go,
Not knowing whence they rise, whither they blow
O'er the vast globe, voiceful of grief or glee.
Sonnet 88: Out, Traitor Absence
© Sir Philip Sidney
Out, traitor Absence, darest thou counsel me
From my dear captainess to run away,
Because in brave array here marched she
That to win me, oft shows a present pay?
