Truth poems
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Thomson Green and Harriet Hale
© William Schwenck Gilbert
Oh list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE;
Its truth in one remark you'll sum -
"Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!"
Franciscus De Verulamio Sic Cogitavit
© James Russell Lowell
That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon,
For, indeed, is't so easy to know
Just how much we from others have taken,
And how much our own natural flow?
Tamerton Church-Tower, Or, First Love
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
III.
You paint a leaflet, here and there;
And not the blossom: tell
What mysteries of good and fair
These blazon'd letters spell.
Epistle To J. Lapraik (excerpt)
© Robert Burns
I am nae poet, in a sense,
But just a rhymer like by chance,
An' hae to learning nae pretence;
Yet what the matter?
Whene'er my Muse does on me glance,
I jingle at her.
The Garment Of Good Ladies
© Robert Henryson
Would my good Lady love me best,
And work after my will,
I should ane garment goodliest
Gar mak her body till.
Home Truths for Varuss girl: to Varus
© Gaius Valerius Catullus
Varus drags me into his affairs
out of the Forum, where Im seen idling:
The Creed
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Whoever was begotten by pure love,
And came desired and welcome into life,
Is of immaculate conception. He
Whose heart is full of tenderness and truth,
On The Death Of Pushkin
© Mikhail Lermontov
"Hence is he, hence! His song out-rung,
The Singer even as the song he sung;
Who of a hot, heroic mood,
In death disgraceful shed his blood!"
Idyll XXIX. Loves
© Theocritus
Mindful of this, be gentle, is my prayer,
And love me, guileless, ev'n as I love thee;
So when thou has a beard, such friends as were
Achilles and Patroclus we may be."
A Musing On A Victory
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
Down by the Sutlej shore,
Where sound the trumpet and the wild tum-tum,
At winter's eve did come
A gaunt old northern lion, at whose roar
The myriad howlers of thy wilds are dumb,
Blood-stained Ferozepore!
Natalias Resurrection: Sonnet XVI
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Among the rest ('twas thus his dream went on
While Adrian slept) in more than courteous mood
And smiling welcome, fairer scarce was none,
That noble knight Natalia's husband stood,
Found Letter by Joshua Weiner: American Life in Poetry #123 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
There is a type of poem, the Found Poem, that records an author's discovery of the beauty that occasionally occurs in the everyday discourse of others. Such a poem might be words scrawled on a wadded scrap of paper, or buried in the classified ads, or on a billboard by the road. The poet makes it his or her poem by holding it up for us to look at. Here the Washington, D.C., poet Joshua Weiner directs us to the poetry in a letter written not by him but to him.
The Spirits for Good
© Henry Lawson
We come with peace and reason,
We come with love and light,
To banish black self-treason
And everlasting night.
To W.L. Garrison
© James Russell Lowell
In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man;
The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean;
Yet there the freedom of a race began.
Earth
© William Cullen Bryant
A midnight black with clouds is in the sky;
I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight
The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto II
© Richard Savage
What scene of agony the garden brings;
The cup of gall; the suppliant king of kings!
The crown of thorns; the cross, that felt him die;
These, languid in the sketch, unfinish'd lie.
The Barren Shore
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Full many sing to me and thee
Their riches gather'd by the sea;
Aurora Leigh: Book Seventh
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I broke on Marian there. "Yet she herself,
A wife, I think, had scandals of her own,-
A lover not her husband."
The Cry Of The People
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Fire! Fire! Fire! the cry rang out on the night air,
The roving winds caught it up, and the very heavens resounded.
Louder and louder still, by voices grown hoarse with terror,
The cry went up and out and a nation stood still to listen.
The Pleasures of Memory - Part II.
© Samuel Rogers
Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail,
To view the fairy-haunts of long-lost hours.
Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flowers.
