Religion poems
/ page 15 of 35 /The Man of Sentiment
© Kenneth Slessor
Part One
[A walled garden of York. It is an August Sunday, and the baying of deep church-bells is blown faintly in a warm wind. Laurence Sterne, prebendary, aged forty-six, and Catherine de Fromantel, a girl who sings at Ranelagh, are dawdling through the arbours, and pause at a path which runs between hedges and cypress-trees round a corner some fifty yards away. Catherine has walked down such a path before, it is to be feared, and halts cautiously upon its fringes.]
Laurence:
Nay, 'tis no Devil's walk,
Expostulation
© William Cowper
Why weeps the muse for England? What appears
In England's case to move the muse to tears?
On Queen Anne's Peace, Anno 1713
© Thomas Parnell
Mother of plenty, daughter of the skies,
Sweet Peace, the troubl'd world's desire, arise;
Around thy poet weave thy summer shades,
Within my fancy spread thy flow'ry meads,
Amongst thy train soft ease and pleasure bring,
And thus indulgent sooth me whilst I sing.
The Victories Of Love. Book II
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
II
From Lady Clitheroe To Mary Churchill
A Hymn On Contentment
© Thomas Parnell
Lovely lasting Peace appear;
This World it self, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden bless'd,
And Man contains it in his Breast.
Hymn To Mercury
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER.
I.
Sing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,
The Herald-child, king of Arcadia
The Duellist - Book II
© Charles Churchill
Deep in the bosom of a wood,
Out of the road, a Temple stood:
AN EPITAPH On his most honoured Friend Richard Earl of Dorset
© Henry King
Let no profane ignoble foot tread neer
This hallow'd peece of earth, Dorset lies here.
A small sad relique of a noble spirit,
Free as the air, and ample as his merit;
An Apology For The Clergy,
© Mary Barber
How well these Laymen love to gibe,
And throw their Jests on Levi's Tribe!
Must One be toil'd to Death, they cry,
Whilst other Priests are yawning by?
Forgetful that He reaps the Gain,
Why should They waste their Lungs in vain?
The Wisdom Of Merlyn
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
These are the time--words of Merlyn, the voice of his age recorded,
All his wisdom of life, the fruit of tears in his youth, of joy in his manhood hoarded,
All the wit of his years unsealed, to the witless alms awarded.
Give Me That Old Time Religion
© Anonymous
Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
And it's good enough for me.
Threnodia Augustalis: Overture - A Solemn Dirge
© Oliver Goldsmith
ARISE, ye sons of worth, arise,
And waken every note of woe;
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below!
The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 06
© William Langland
"This were a wikkede wey but whoso hadde a gyde
That [myghte] folwen us ech a foot' - thus this folk hem mened.
Retrospection
© William Lisle Bowles
I turn these leaves with thronging thoughts, and say,
Alas! how many friends of youth are dead;
Elegy On Newstead Abbey
© George Gordon Byron
No mail-clad serfs, obedient to their lord,
In grim array the crimson cross demand;
Or gay assemble round the festive board
Their chief's retainers, an immortal band:
Eclogue
© John Donne
ALLOPHANES FINDING IDIOS IN THE COUNTRY IN
CHRISTMAS TIME, REPREHENDS HIS ABSENCE
FROM COURT, AT THE MARRIAGE OF THE EARL
OF SOMERSET ; IDIOS GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF
HIS PURPOSE THEREIN, AND OF HIS ACTIONS
THERE.
The Creed To Be.
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Our thoughts are molding unmade spheres,
And, like a blessing or a curse,
Derision
© James Baker
Your need to look at the sky
For answers that don't
Deserve a question
Is a familiar joke.