War poems
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The Fairy Of The Fountains
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And a youthful warrior stands
Gazing not upon those bands,
Not upon the lovely scene,
But upon its lovelier queen,
Who with gentle word and smile
Courteous prays his stay awhile.
The Wonder Night
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Now danced are all the dances,
And all the games are done,
The merry noise, the laughter,
Feasting and lights and fun;
The gifts unwrapt and given,
The forfeits paid and won.
The Clear Vision
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I did but dream. I never knew
What charms our sternest season wore.
The Surgeon's Warning
© Robert Southey
The Doctor whispered to the Nurse
And the Surgeon knew what he said,
And he grew pale at the Doctor's tale
And trembled in his sick bed.
The Customs Men
© Arthur Rimbaud
Those who say Gord Struth; those who say Swelp Me -
pensioned soldiers and sailors, the wreckage of Empire -
Song Of Despair
© Pablo Neruda
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.
The Stealing Of The Mare - II
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when Abu Zeyd had made an end of speaking, and the Kadi Diab and the Sultan and Rih, and all had happened as hath been said, then the Emir Abu Zeyd mounted his running camel and bade farewell to the Arabs and was gone; and all they who remained behind were in fear thinking of his journey. But Abu Zeyd went on alone, nor stayed he before he came to the pastures of the Agheylat. And behold, in the first of their vallies as he journeyed onward the slaves of the Agheylat saw him and came upon him, threatening him with their spears, and they said to him, ``O Sheykh, who and what art thou, and what is thy story, and the reason of thy coming?'' And he said to them, ``O worthy men of the Arabs, I am a poet, of them that sing the praise of the generous and the blame of the niggardly.'' And they answered him, ``A thousand welcomes, O poet.'' And they made him alight and treated him with honour until night came upon their feasting, nor did he depart from among them until the night had advanced to a third, but remained with them, singing songs of praise, and reciting lettered phrases, until they were stirred by his words and astonished at his eloquence. And at the end of all he arrived at the praise of the Agheyli Jaber. Then stopped they him and said: ``He of whom thou speakest is the chieftain of our people, and he is a prince of the generous. Go thou, therefore, to him, and he shall give thee all, even thy heart's desire.'' And he answered them, ``Take ye care of my camel and keep her for me while I go forward to recite his praises, and on my return we will divide the gifts.'' And he left them. And as he went he set himself to devise a plan by which he might enter into the camp and entrap the Agheyli Jaber.
And the Narrator singeth of Abu Zeyd and of the herdsmen thus:
Metho Drinker
© Judith Wright
Under the death of winter's leaves he lies
who cried to Nothing and the terrible night
to be his home and bread. "O take from me
the weight and waterfall ceaseless Time
The Shadow And The Light
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.
The Brave Old Ship, the Orient
© Robert Traill Spence Lowell
Woe for the brave ship Orient!
Woe for the old ship Orient!
For in broad, broad light, and with land in sight,
Where the waters bubbled white,
One great sharp shriek! One shudder of affright!
Anddown went the brave old ship, the Orient!
On A Music Box
© Frances Anne Kemble
Poor little sprite! in that dark, narrow cell
Caged by the law of man's resistless might!
Bayonet Song
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
For till you show me the Sacred Word
I'm for Peter and his good sword,
Only I hope if we'd drilled him here
He'd not have missed the head for the ear.
Paradise Lost : Book VI.
© John Milton
All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued,
Through Heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn,
Call to Arms
© Forough Farrokhzad
Only you, O Iranian woman, have remained
In bonds of wretchedness, misfortune, and cruelty;
If you want these bonds broken,
grasp the skirt of obstinacy
Winter Rose
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
GOD'S benison upon each happy day
Dead now and gone!--its gentle ghost our feet
Doth follow, singing faintly; and how sweet--
Tenderly sweet, as through a luminous mist--
A Judgment In Heaven
© Francis Thompson
Athwart the sod which is treading for God * the poet paced with his
splendid eyes;
Paradise-verdure he stately passes * to win to the Father of
Paradise,
Through the conscious and palpitant grasses * of inter-tangled
relucent dyes.
May Is A Pious Fraud
© James Russell Lowell
MaY is a pious fraud of the almanac.
A ghastly parody of real Spring
