Travel poems
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Driving Through by Mark Vinz: American Life in Poetry #91 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we've never been there before. And of course it seems familiar because much of the course of life is pretty much the same wherever we go, right down to the up-and-down fortunes of the football team and the unanswered love letters. Here's a poem by Mark Vinz.
Driving Through
Upon A Lowering Of Morning
© John Bunyan
Thus 'tis when gospel light doth usher in
To us both sense of grace and sense of sin;
Yea, when it makes sin red with Christ's blood,
Then we can weep till weeping does us good.
Go Work in My Vineyard
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
The hands whose touch sent thrills of joy
Through nerves unstrung and palsied rame,
The feet that travelled for our need,
Were nailed unto the cross of shame.
The Task: Book VI. -- The Winter Walk at Noon
© William Cowper
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitchd the ear is pleased
Evangeline: Part The First. I.
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Metamorphoses: Book The Second
© Ovid
The End of the Second Book.
Translated into English verse under the direction of
Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
William Congreve and other eminent hands
Aeneid
© Virgil
THE ARGUMENT.- Turnus takes advantage of AEneas's absence,
fires some of his ships (which are transformed into sea nymphs),
and assaults his camp. The Trojans, reduc'd to the last extremities,
send Nisus and Euryalus to recall AEneas; which furnishes the
poet with that admirable episode of their friendship, generosity, and
the conclusion of their adventures.
To Dr. Richard Helsham Upon My Recovery From A Dangerous Fit Of Sickness.
© Mary Barber
For fleeting Life recall'd, for Health restor'd,
Be first the God of Life and Health ador'd;
Whose boundless Mercy claims this Tribute due:
And next to Heav'n, I owe my Thanks to you;
A Storm in the Mountains
© Charles Harpur
Portentous silence! Time keeps breathing past
Yet it continues! May this marvel last?
This wild weird silence in the midst of gloom
So manifestly big with latent doom?
Tingles the boding ear; and up the glens
Instinctive dread comes howling from the wild-dogs dens.
On The Same (Oure Ladies Chyrche)
© Thomas Chatterton
STAY, curyous traveller, and pass not bye,
Until this fetive pile astounde thine eye.
Thou Walkest With Me
© Mathilde Blind
Thou walkest with me as the spirit-light
Of the hushed moon, high o'er a snowy hill,
Walks with the houseless traveller all the night,
When trees are tongueless and when mute the rill.
Moon of my soul, O phantasm of delight,
Thou walkest with me still.
Jerusalem Delivered - Book 05 - part 06
© Torquato Tasso
LXXXII
"Love hath Eustatio chosen, Fortune thee,
Clearance Sale
© Arthur Rimbaud
For what the Jews have not sold,
what neither nobility nor crime have tasted,
what is unknown to monstrous love
and to the infernal probity of the masses!
Leichhardt
© Henry Kendall
LORDLY harp, by lordly master wakened from majestic sleep,
Yet shall speak and yet shall sing the words which make the fathers weep!
My Light Thou Art
© John Wilmot
My light thou art, without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darkened with eternal night;
My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.
Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil: A Story From Boccaccio
© John Keats
I.
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
The Tower Beyond Tragedy
© Robinson Jeffers
I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
The Shattered Dream
© Edgar Albert Guest
I WAS somewhere off in Europe spending money like a king,
Owned a yacht like J. P. Morgan's, when the 'phone began to ring;
I was entertaining princes, dukes and earls, when wifie said:
"It's the telephone that's ringing, you must hustle out of bed."
And I wandered down the stairway, grumbling o'er my vanished joy,
Growled: "Hello;" and then he shouted: "You're an uncle! It's a boy!"
Quatrains
© Harriet Monroe
I
Give to brave deeds emblazoned shrines
Where reverent memories may throng.
For them Art draws her perfect lines
In stone, in color, and in song.
