Power poems
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The Sum-Up
© Robert William Service
It is not power and fame
That make success;
It is not rank or name
Rate happiness.
The Choice
© Robert William Service
Some inherit manly beauty,
Some come into worldly wealth;
Some have lofty sense of duty,
Others boast exultant health.
My Guardian Angel
© Robert William Service
When looking back I dimly see
The trails my feet have trod,
Some hand divine, it seems to me,
Has pulled the strings with God;
Success
© Robert William Service
You ask me what I call Success -
It is, I wonder, Happiness?It is not wealth, it is not fame,
Nor rank, nor power nor honoured name.
It is not triumph in the Arts -
Mud
© Robert William Service
Mud is Beauty in the making,
Mud is melody awaking;
Laughter, leafy whisperings,
Butterflies with rainbow wings;
Blue Girls
© John Crowe Ransom
Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.
Threshold
© Rabindranath Tagore
When in the morning I looked upon the light
I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world,
that the inscrutable without name and form
had taken me in its arms in the form of my own mother.
The Last Bargain
© Rabindranath Tagore
"Come and hire me," I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road.
Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot.
He held my hand and said, "I will hire you with my power."
But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot.
Purity
© Rabindranath Tagore
Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing
that thy living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing
that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my
love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart. And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it
Prisoner
© Rabindranath Tagore
`It was my master,' said the prisoner.
`I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power,
and I amassed in my own treasure-house the money due to my king.
When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my lord,
and on waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'
Closed Path
© Rabindranath Tagore
I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,---that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
To Himself
© Giacomo Leopardi
Now will you rest forever,
My tired heart. Dead is the last
deception,
That I thought eternal. Dead. Well I
The Growth of Love
© Robert Seymour Bridges
So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due.
Samuel Palmer prepares to etch " The Lonely Tower ".
© Ian Emberson
I must return
to that valley of vision,
gather again to me
flocks, crescent moon and star;
Psalm 07
© John Milton
Lord my God if I have thought
Or done this, if wickedness
Be in my hands, if I have wrought
Ill to him that meant me peace,
Or to him have render'd less,
And fre'd my foe for naught;
From 'Samson Agonistes' i
© John Milton
OH how comely it is and how reviving
To the Spirits of just men long opprest!
When God into the hands of thir deliverer
Puts invincible might
Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book
© John Milton
Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
When the Assault Was Intended to the City
© John Milton
Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity
© John Milton
IT was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe,
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Paradise Regained: The Second Book
© John Milton
Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen
Him whom they heard so late expressly called
Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,
