War poems
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The Name of France
© Henry Van Dyke
Give us a name to fill the mind
With the shining thoughts that lead mankind,
The glory of learning, the joy of art, --
A name that tells of a splendid part
Sicily, December 1908
© Henry Van Dyke
Is Nature, then, a strife of jealous powers,
And man the plaything of unconscious fate?
Not so, my troubled heart! God reigns above
And man is greatest in his darkest hours:
Walking amid the cities desolate,
The Son of God appears in human love.
Peace
© Henry Van Dyke
IIN EXCELSISTwo dwellings, Peace, are thine.
One is the mountain-height,
Uplifted in the loneliness of light
Beyond the realm of shadows,--fine,
New Year's Eve
© Henry Van Dyke
I The other night I had a dream, most clear
And comforting, complete
In every line, a crystal sphere,
And full of intimate and secret cheer.
Milton
© Henry Van Dyke
Lover of Liberty at heart wast thou,
Above all beauty bright, all music clear:
To thee she bared her bosom and her brow,
Breathing her virgin promise in thine ear,
And bound thee to her with a double vow, --
Exquisite Puritan, grave Cavalier!
Mare Liberum
© Henry Van Dyke
You dare to say with perjured lips,
"We fight to make the ocean free"?
You, whose black trail of butchered ships
Bestrews the bed of every sea
Love's Reason
© Henry Van Dyke
But for a something in thy form and face,
Thy looks and ways, of primal harmony;
A certain soothing charm, a vital grace
That breathes of the eternal womanly,
And makes me feel the warmth of Nature's breast,
When in her arms, and thine, I sink to rest.
Love in a Look
© Henry Van Dyke
Let me but feel thy look's embrace,
Transparent, pure, and warm,
And I'll not ask to touch thy face,
Or fold thee with mine arm.
Liberty Enlightening the World
© Henry Van Dyke
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhatten Bay,
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away:
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.
Late Spring
© Henry Van Dyke
I Ah, who will tell me, in these leaden days,
Why the sweet Spring delays,
And where she hides, -- the dear desire
Of every heart that longs
Christ of Everywhere
© Henry Van Dyke
"Christ of the Andes," Christ of Everywhere,
Great lover of the hills, the open air,
And patient lover of impatient men
Who blindly strive and sin and strive again, --
The Nightjar
© Sir Henry Newbolt
We loved our nightjar, but she would not stay with us.
We had found her lying as dead, but soft and warm,
Under the apple tree beside the old thatched wall.
Two days we kept her in a basket by the fire,
Drake's Drum
© Sir Henry Newbolt
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time O' Plymouth Hoe.
Troll Sat Alone on His Seat of Stone
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Theoden
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning
With thane and captain rode Thengel's son:
To Edoras he came, the ancient halls
Of the Mark-wardens mist-enshrouded;
The Little House of Lost Play (Mar Vanwa Tyalieva)
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
We knew that land once, You and I,
and once we wandered there
in the long days now long gone by,
a dark child and a fair.
Earendil
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
The Burden Of Itys
© Oscar Wilde
This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
Ave Imperatrix
© Oscar Wilde
Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?
Italia
© Oscar Wilde
Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen
Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!
Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
