Truth poems
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Reflections
© George Crabbe
Beware then, Age, that what was won,
If life's past labours, studies, views,
Be lost not, now the labour's done,
When all thy part is,--not to lose:
When thou canst toil or gain no more,
Destroy not what was gain'd before.
Pharsalia - Book VIII: Death Of Pompeius
© Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Hard the task imposed;
Yet doffed his robe, and swift obeyed, the king
Wrapped in a servant's mantle. If a Prince
For safety play the boor, then happier, sure,
The peasant's lot than lordship of the world.
Lines On A Friend, Who Died Of A Frenzy Fever, Induced By Calumnious Reports
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Rest, injured shade! the poor man's grateful prayer
On heaven-ward wing thy wounded soul shall bear.
As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
And oft sit down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul, perhaps of -- fate!
I Have a Terrible Cold
© Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
Goodbye for ever, queen of fairies!
Your wings were made of sun, and I am walking here.
I shan't get well unless I go and lie down on my bed.
I never was well except lying down on the Universe.
HMS Pinafore: Act II
© William Schwenck Gilbert
Same Scene. Night. Awning removed. Moonlight. Captain
discovered singing on poop deck, and accompanying himself on
a mandolin. Little Buttercup seated on quarterdeck, gazing
sentimentally at him.
To the Reverend George Coleridge, of Ottery St. Mary, Devon
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A blessed lot hath he, who having past
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
The Wonder-Working Magician - Act I
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
TO THE MEMORY OF
SHELLEY,
WHOSE ADMIRATION FOR
"THE LIGHT AND ODOUR OF THE FLOWERY AND STARRY AUTOS"
IS THE HIGHEST TRIBUTE TO THE BEAUTY OF
CALDERON'S POETRY,
The Lady Of La Garaye - Part II
© Caroline Norton
A FIRST walk after sickness: the sweet breeze
That murmurs welcome in the bending trees,
When the cold shadowy foe of life departs,
And the warm blood flows freely through our hearts:
XXXII from Love Redeemed
© William Baylebridge
Love feeds, like Intellect, his lamp with truth;
In the clear truths he finds its flame is measured.
My Friend
© Khalil Gibran
My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear--a
care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee
from my negligence.
Courage
© Peter McArthur
THE dead are buried facing to the sun,
In foolish epitaphs their faith is told,
Italy : 42. Naples
© Samuel Rogers
This region, surely, is not of the earth.
Was it not dropt from heaven? Not a grove,
Citron or pine or cedar, not a grot
Sea-worn and mantled with a gadding vine,
Nathan The Wise - Act III
© Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
And when this moment comes,
And when this warmest inmost of my wishes
Shall be fulfilled, what then? what then?
King Billy's Skull.
© James Brunton Stephens
THE scene is the Southern Hemisphere;
The time oh, any time of the year
Metamorphoses: Book The Ninth
© Ovid
The End of the Ninth 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
A Question Of Privilege
© Francis Bret Harte
It was Andrew Jackson Sutter who, despising Mr. Cutter for remarks
he heard him utter in debate upon the floor,
Swung him up into the skylight, in the peaceful, pensive twilight,
and then keerlessly proceeded, makin' no account what WE did--
To wipe up with his person casual dust upon the floor.
"Along the Hard Crust..."
© Anna Akhmatova
Along the hard crust of deep snows,
To the secret, white house of yours,
So gentle and quiet we both
Are walking, in silence half-lost.
The Grave By The Lake
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles
Dimple round its hundred isles,
And the mountain's granite ledge
Cleaves the water like a wedge,
Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,
Rest the giant's mighty bones.
