Travel poems
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Prelude
© Steen Steensen Blicher
The time approaches for me to part!
Now winters voice is compelling;
A bird of passage, I know my heart
In other climes has its dwelling.
Ode
© William Wordsworth
I
IMAGINATION--ne'er before content,
But aye ascending, restless in her pride
From all that martial feats could yield
Prosopopoia : or, Mother Hubbards Tale
© Edmund Spenser
Yet he the name on him would rashly take,
Maugre the sacred Muses, and it make
A servant to the vile affection
Of such, as he depended most upon;
And with the sugrie sweete thereof allure
Chast Ladies eares to fantasies impure.
Things That Havent Been Done Before
© Edgar Albert Guest
The things that haven't been done before,
Those are the things to try;
Wingless Victory
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Worms feed upon the bodies of the brave
Who bled for us: but we bewildered see
Viler worms gnaw the things they died to save.
Old clouds of doubt and weariness oppress.
Happy the dead, we cry, not now to be
In the day of this dissolving littleness!
The Fear
© Pablo Neruda
They all ask me to jump
to invigorate and to play soccer,
to run, to swim and to fly.
Very well.
Ballad of Reading Gaol - I
© Oscar Wilde
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
Robert Parkes
© Henry Kendall
High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.
Masnawi
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
The Night Ride
© Kenneth Slessor
Gas flaring on the yellow platform; voices running up and down;
Milk-tins in cold dented silver; half-awake I stare,
Italy : 6. Jorasse
© Samuel Rogers
Jorasse was in his three-and-twentieth year;
Graceful and active as a stag just roused;
Gentle withal, and pleasant in his speech,
Yet seldom seen to smile. He had grown up
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire
© George Gordon Byron
These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott.
Troop Train
© Karl Shapiro
It stops the town we come through. Workers raise
Their oily arms in good salute and grin.
Songo River. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fourth)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nowhere such a devious stream,
Save in fancy or in dream,
Winding slow through bush and brake,
Links together lake and lake.
Something Nasty In The Bookshop
© Kingsley Amis
Between the Gardening and the Cookery
Comes the brief Poetry shelf;
By the Nonesuch Donne, a thin anthology
Offers itself.
Fit The Second - The Bellman's Speech
© Lewis Carroll
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
The Bakchesarian Fountain
© Alexander Pushkin
Has treason scaled the harem's wall,
Whose height might treason's self appal,
And slavery's daughter fled his power,
To yield her to the daring Giaour?
Poem For The Two Hundred And Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Founding Of Harvard College
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds,
And like the eagle soar above the clouds,
Must feel the pang that fallen angels know
When the red lightning strikes thee from below!
A Panegyric Of The Dean In The Person Of A Lady In The North
© Jonathan Swift
Resolved my gratitude to show,
Thrice reverend Dean, for all I owe,
Too long I have my thanks delay'd;
Your favours left too long unpaid;
