War poems
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Gascoigne's Lullaby
© George Gascoigne
Sing lullaby, as women do,Wherewith they bring their babes to rest;And lullaby can I sing to,As womanly as can the best
Hence, all you vain delights
© John Fletcher
Hence, all you vain delights,As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly,There's nought in this life sweet,If man were wise to see't But only melancholy, Oh, sweetest melancholy
The Petition for an Absolute Retreat
© Anne Finch - Countess of Winchilsea
(Inscribed to the Right Honourable Catharine Countess of Thanet, mentioned in the poem under the name of Arminda)
The Puff-adder
© Fairbridge Kingsley
Here where the grey rhenoster clothes the hill, Drowsing beside a boulder in the sun,Slumbrous-inert, so gloomy and so still, On the warm steep where aimless sheep-paths run,A short thick length of chevron-pattern's skin, A wide flat head so lazy on the sand,Unblinking eyes that warn of power within, Lies he, -- the limbless terror of the land
The Doubt of Future Foes
© Elizabeth I
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb,Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web
The Broken Bell
© Toru Dutt
'Tis bitter-sweet on winter nights to note,Beside the palpitating fire reclined,The chimes, across the fogs, upon the wind
To my Honor'd Friend, Dr. Charleton
© John Dryden
The longest tyranny that ever sway'dWas that wherein our ancestors betray'dTheir free-born reason to the Stagirite,And made his torch their universal light
Alexander's Feast
© John Dryden
I By Philip's warlike son: Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne; His valiant peers were plac'd around;Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: (So should desert in arms be crown'd
Ode to the Cambro-Britons and their Harp, His Ballad of Agincourt
© Michael Drayton
Fair stood the wind for France,When we our sails advance;Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry;But putting to the main,At Caux, the mouth of Seine,With all his martial train Landed King Harry.
Endimion and Phoebe
© Michael Drayton
In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,From whom that sea did first derive her name,The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,First unto Athens brought philosophy:In this fair region on a goodly plain,Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,Smiling to see the ocean billows play:Latmus, where young Endymion used to keepHis fairest flock of silver-fleeced sheep,To whom Silvanus often would resort,At barley-brake to see the Satyrs sport;And when rude Pan his tabret list to sound,To see the fair Nymphs foot it in a round,Under the trees which on this mountain grew,As yet the like Arabia never knew;For all the pleasures Nature could deviseWithin this plot she did imparadise;And great Diana of her special graceWith vestal rites had hallowed all the place
To Ennui
© Joseph Rodman Drake
Avaunt! arch enemy of fun, Grim nightmare of the mind;Which way great Momus! shall I run, A refuge safe to find?My puppy's dead -- Miss Rumor's breath Is stopt for lack of news,And Fitz is almost hyp'd to death, And Lang has got the blues
A Parable
© Doyle Arthur Conan
The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, And warmly debated the matter;The Orthodox said that it came from the air, And the Heretics said from the platter
The Guards Came Through
© Doyle Arthur Conan
Men of the Twenty-first Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,Weak with our wounds and our thirst, Wanting our sleep and our food,After a day and a night
To Sir Henry Wotton [Here's no more news, than virtue: I may as well...]
© John Donne
Here's no more news, than virtue: I may as wellTell you Calais, or Saint Michael's tales, as tellThat vice doth here habitually dwell.
