Strength poems
/ page 107 of 186 /August
© Hilaire Belloc
This is sheer manhood; this is Charlemagne,
When he with his wide host came conquering home
From vengeance under Roncesvalles ta'en.
Or when his bramble beard flaked red with foam
Of bivouac wine-cups on the Lombard plain,
What time he swept to grasp the world at Rome.
Caroline Chisholm
© Henry Kendall
THE PRIESTS and the Levites went forth, to feast at the courts of the Kings;
They were vain of their greatness and worth, and gladdened with glittering things;
They were fair in the favour of gold, and they walked on, with delicate feet,
Where, famished and faint with the cold, the women fell down in the street.
Naucratia; Or Naval Dominion. Part III.
© Henry James Pye
Arm'd in her cause, on Chalgrave's fatal plain,
Where sorrowing Freedom mourns her Hambden slain,
Say, shall the moralizing bard presume
From his proud hearse to tear one warlike plume,
Because a Cæsar or a Cromwell wore
An impious wreath, wet with their country's gore?
The Pains of Sleep
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
To One Of The Author's Children
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
THOU wak'st from happy sleep to play
With bounding heart, my boy!
Before thee lies a long bright day
Of summer and of joy.
In The Harbour: A Fragment
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.
Thyrsis: A Monody, to Commemorate the Author's Friend, Arthur Hugh Clough
© Matthew Arnold
How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;
Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament
© Alfred Tennyson
To whom the King, "Peace to thine eagle-borne
Dead nestling, and this honour after death,
Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse
Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone
Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn,
And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear."
Isaiah LXIII
© Phillis Wheatley
His eye the ample field of battle round
Survey'd, but no created succours found;
His own omnipotence sustain'd the right,
His vengeance sunk the haughty foes in night;
Beneath his feet the prostrate troops were spread,
And round him lay the dying, and the dead.
Persimmons
© Li-Young Lee
In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose
His Farewell to Sack
© Robert Herrick
Farewell thou thing, time past so known, so dear
To me as blood to life and spirit; near,
Hannah
© Thomas Parnell
Then Seek ye Subject & its song be mine
Whose numbers next in Sacred story shine;
Go brightly-working thought, prepard to fly
Above ye page on hov'ring pinnions ly,
& beat with stronger force to make thee rise
Where beautious Hannah meets ye searching eyes.
Ode Read At The One Hundreth Anniversary Of The Fight At Concord Bridge
© James Russell Lowell
I
Who cometh over the hills,
The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts
© William Wordsworth
. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Sonnet To George Keats: Written In Sickness
© John Keats
Brother belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek:
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength regain,
America
© Phillis Wheatley
New England first a wilderness was found
Till for a continent 'twas destin'd round
Gloria Mundi
© Walter de la Mare
Upon a bank, easeless with knobs of gold,
Beneath a canopy of noonday smoke,
I saw a measureless Beast, morose and bold,
With eyes like one from filthy dreams awoke,
Who stares upon the daylight in despair
For very terror of the nothing there.
Prince Athanase
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and gray before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel
from The Botanic Garden, “The Economy of Vegetation”: Canto I
© Erasmus Darwin
Argument
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun’s Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon’s Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Nothern Constellations. Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.