War poems
/ page 358 of 504 /
Genesis BK III
© Caedmon
(ll. 135-143) The day departed, hasting over the dwellings of
earth. And after the gleaming light the Lord, our maker, thrust
on the first of evenings. Murky gloom pressed hard upon the
heels of day; God called it night. Our Lord sundered them, one
from the other; and ever since they follow out the will of God to
do it on the earth.
The Mountain Splitter
© Henry Lawson
HE WORKS in the glen where the waratah grows,
And the gums and the ashes are tall,
Neath cliffs that re-echo the sound of his blows
When the wedges leap in from the mawl.
The Wallaby Brigade
© Anonymous
You often have been told of regiments brave and bold,
But we are the bravest in the land;
We're called the Tag-rag Band, and we rally in Queensland,
We are members of the Wallaby Brigade.
Fortune
© Zora Bernice May Cross
Dame Fortunes jade with a fanciful horn
Of silver ambitions she warns of the flame;
"Beneath a veil of milky white"
© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
Beneath a veil of milky white
Stands Isaac's like a hoary dovecote,
The crozier irritates the grey silences,
The heart understands the airy rite.
Life Returning
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
O LIFE, dear life, with sunbeam finger touching
This poor damp brow, or flying freshly by
On wings of mountain wind, or tenderly
In links of visionary embraces clutching
Me from the yawning grave--
Can I believe thou yet hast power to save?
The Philosopher's Oration: A Faun's Holiday
© Robert Nichols
Meanwhile, though nations in distress
Cower at a comet's loveliness
Shaken across the midnight sky;
Though the wind roars, and Victory,
The Empty Quatrain
© Henry Van Dyke
A flawless cup: how delicate and fine
The flowing curve of every jewelled line!
Look, turn it up or down, 't is perfect still,-
But holds no drop of life's heart-warming wine.
Lady At A Mirror
© Rainer Maria Rilke
As in sleeping-drink spices
softly she loosens in the liquid-clear
mirror her fatigued demeanor;
and she puts her smile deep inside.
April
© Rémy Belleau
April, pride of woodland ways,
Of glad days,
April, bringing hope of prime,
To the young flowers that beneath
Their bud sheath
Are guarded in their tender time;
Ode to Mr. Graham, the Aeronaut
© Thomas Hood
Dear Graham, whilst the busy crowd,
The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,
Their meaner flights pursue,
Let us cast off the foolish ties
That bind us to the earth, and rise
And take a bird's-eye view!
Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria
© Langston Hughes
LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
new Waldorf-Astoria:
Freedoms Plow
© Langston Hughes
First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.
February
© Thomas Chatterton
Now the rough goat withdraws his curling horns,
And the cold wat'rer twirls his circling mop:
Swift sudden anguish darts thro' alt'ring corns,
And the spruce mercer trembles in his shop.
