Power poems
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Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto I
© Samuel Butler
Quoth she, I grant it is in vain.
For one that's basted to feel pain,
Because the pangs his bones endure
Contribute nothing to the cure:
Yet honor hurt, is wont to rage
With pain no med'cine can asswage.
Epitaphs Translated From Chiabrera
© William Wordsworth
I
WEEP not, beloved Friends! nor let the air
For me with sighs be troubled. Not from life
Have I been taken; this is genuine life
Crystal Gazer
© Sylvia Plath
Gerd sits spindle-shaped in her dark tent,
Lean face gone tawn with seasons ,
Skin worn down to the knucklebones
At her tough trade; without time's taint
The burnished ball hangs fire in her hands, a lens
Fusing time's three horizons.
From The Italian
© Fitz-Greene Halleck
EYES with the same blue witchery as those
Of Psyche, which caught Love in his own wiles;
Lips of the breath and hue of the red rose,
That move but with kind words, and sweetest smiles;
Wyoming
© Fitz-Greene Halleck
I.
THOU com'st, in beauty, on my gaze at last,
"On Susquehannah's side, fair Wyoming!"
Image of many a dream, in hours long past,
Valentine's Day
© William Shenstone
'Tis said that under distant skies,
Nor you the fact deny,
What first attracts an Indian's eyes
Becomes his deity.
Woodnotes
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
II
As sunbeams stream through liberal space
And nothing jostle or displace,
So waved the pine-tree through my thought
And fanned the dreams it never brought.
Easter-Day
© Robert Browning
XXXII.
Then did the Form expand, expand
I knew Him through the dread disguise,
As the whole God within his eyes
Embraced me.
Jack o' the Cudgel
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the famous town of Windsor, on a fine summer morn,
Where the sign of Windsor Castle did a tavern adorn;
And there sat several soldiers drinking together,
Resolved to make merry in spite of wind or weather.
On the Death of Stephen Grey, F.R.S.
© Samuel Johnson
The Electrician
Long hast thou borne the burden of the day,
Brahm
© Joseph Furphy
Our swarming brethren of the North
Whatever you may judge them worth
Sling Muck and Soogoo Ram,
Are fantoids like yourself and me,
Though differing somewhat in degree
Nothing exists but BRAHM.
The Ladle. A Tale
© Matthew Prior
Our gods the outward gates unbarr'd;
Our farmer met 'em in the yard;
Thought they were folks that lost their way,
And ask'd them civilly to stay;
Told 'em for supper or for bed
They might go on and be worse sped. -
The Vision Of Augustine And Monica
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Mother, because thine eyes are sealed in sleep,
And thy cheeks pale, and thy lips cold, and deep
In silence plunged, so fathomlessly still
Thou liest, and relaxest all thy will,
Il Y A Cent Ans
© George Meredith
That march of the funereal Past behold;
How Glory sat on Bondage for its throne;
How men, like dazzled insects, through the mould
Still worked their way, and bled to keep their own.
Edwin and Angela, A Ballad
© Oliver Goldsmith
'Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way,
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
The Wreck of the Whaler 'Oscar'
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on the 1st of April, and in the year of Eighteen thirteen,
That the whaler "Oscar" was wrecked not far from Aberdeen;
'Twas all on a sudden the wind arose, and a terrific blast it blew,
And the "Oscar" was lost, and forty-two of a gallant crew.
