War poems
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His Farewell to Sack
© Robert Herrick
Farewell thou thing, time past so known, so dear
To me as blood to life and spirit; near,
Dust
© Rupert Brooke
When the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night;
Fox Sleep
© William Stanley Merwin
On a road through the mountains with a friend many years ago
I came to a curve on a slope where a clear stream
An English Peasant
© George Crabbe
To pomp and pageantry in nought allied,
A noble peasant, Isaac Ashford, died.
My skeleton, my rival
© David Ignatow
Interesting that I have to live with my skeleton.
It stands, prepared to emerge, and I carry it
with me—this other thing I will become at death,
and yet it keeps me erect and limber in my walk,
my rival.
"I cry your mercy-pity-love! -aye, love!"
© John Keats
I cry your mercypitylove!aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
A Poem: To The Memory of Mrs. Oldfield
© Richard Savage
Oldfield's no more!-And can the Muse forbear,
O'er Oldfield's Grave to shed a grateful Tear?
Baby Villon
© Philip Levine
He tells me in Bangkok he’s robbed
Because he’s white; in London because he’s black;
In Barcelona, Jew; in Paris, Arab:
Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back.
They are hostile nations
© Margaret Atwood
In view of the fading animals
the proliferation of sewers and fears
the sea clogging, the air
nearing extinction
Marsh Song -- At Sunset.
© Sidney Lanier
Over the monstrous shambling sea,
Over the Caliban sea,
Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest:
Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, --
Thy Prospero I'll be.
How Fair Cinderella Disposed Of Her Shoe
© Guy Wetmore Carryl
The Moral: All the girls on earth
Exaggerate their proper worth.
They think the very shoes they wear
Are worth the average millionaire;
Whereas few pairs in any town
Can be half-sold for half a crown!
from Fanny
© Fitz-Greene Halleck
Dear to the exile is his native land,
In memory’s twilight beauty seen afar:
Dear to the broker is a note of hand,
Collaterally secured—the polar star
Is dear at midnight to the sailor’s eyes,
And dear are Bristed’s volumes at “half price;”
Ring Ring The Banjo
© Stephen C. Foster
De time is nebber dreary if de darkey nebber groans;
De ladies nebber weary wid de rattle of de bones:
Den come again Susanna by de gaslight ob de moon;
We'll tum de old Piano when de banjo's out ob tune.
Humidifier
© Louise Gluck
—After Robert Pinsky
Defier of closed space, such as the head, opener
Of the sealed passageways, so that
Sunlight entering the nose can once again
The Death of Allegory
© Billy Collins
I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions
that used to pose, robed and statuesque, in paintings
and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance
displaying their capital letters like license plates.
Belated
© Augusta Davies Webster
BLITHE summer blossom, born too late,
Wilt make my desert garden fair?
Lo Winter's hand is on the gate,
His breath is in the curdling air.
A Sentiment Offered At The Dinner To H. I. H. The Prince Napoleon
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
AT THE REVERE HOUSE,
SEPTEMBER 25,1861
Prince Athanase
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and gray before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel
from The Botanic Garden, “The Economy of Vegetation”: Canto I
© Erasmus Darwin
Argument
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun’s Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon’s Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Nothern Constellations. Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.
