Strength poems
/ page 98 of 186 /
Oxford
© Lionel Pigot Johnson
OVER, the four long years! And now there rings
One voice of freedom and regret: Farewell!
Now old remembrance sorrows, and now sings:
But song from sorrow, now, I cannot tell.
Winged Man
© Stephen Vincent Benet
The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.
Tuckered Out
© Edgar Albert Guest
YOU don't weigh more than thirty pounds,
Your legs are little, plump and fat,
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
© Stephen Vincent Benet
No herbage broke the barren flats of land,
No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,
Nor were there any brooks on either hand,
Only the dry, bright sand,
Naked and golden, lay before the seas.
A Confession
© Peter McArthur
DEAR little boy, with wondering eyes
That for the light of knowledge yearn,
M'Andrew's Hymn
© Rudyard Kipling
Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,
An', taught by time, I tak' it so - exceptin' always Steam.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God -
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright
As the blank windows set in glaring brick,
When the wind strengthens from the sea -- and night
Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick;
The Givers Of Life
© Bliss William Carman
I.
WHO called us forth out of darkness and gave us the gift of life,
Who set our hands to the toiling, our feet in the field of strife?
Darkly they mused, predestined to knowledge of viewless things,
To Mr. Vaughan, Silurist on His Poems
© Katherine Philips
Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
Got an antipathy to wit and sence,
And hug'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
'Twas good -- affection to be ignorant;
The World
© Katherine Philips
Wee falsely think it due unto our friends,
That we should grieve for their too early ends:
He that surveys the world with serious eys,
And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise,
The Debate Between Villon And His Heart
© Francois Villon
Who's that I hear?It's meWho?Your heart
Hanging on by the thinnest thread
I lose all my strength, substance, and fluid
When I see you withdrawn this way all alone
The Vanity Of Human Wishes
© Michael Wigglesworth
I walk'd and did a little Mole-hill view
Full peopled with a most industrious crew
Anguish
© Arthur Rimbaud
Is it possible that She will have me forgiven for ambitions continually crushed,--
that an affluent end will make up for the ages of indigence,--
In Memory of M. B.
© Anna Akhmatova
Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
Hymn To Death
© William Cullen Bryant
Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
Olney Hymn 51: Lively Hope And Gracious Fear
© William Cowper
I was a grovelling creature once,
And basely cleaved to earth:
I wanted spirit to renounce
The clod that gave me birth.
Four Quartets 2: East Coker
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
