War poems
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An Orchard Dance
© Norman Rowland Gale
All work is over at the farm
And men and maids are ripe for glee;
The Firemen's Ball
© Vachel Lindsay
"Many's the heart that's breaking
If we could read them all
After the ball is over."
The Brave Days To Be.
© Arthur Henry Adams
I looked far in the future; down the dim
Echoless avenue of silent years,
And through the cold grey haze of Time I saw
The fair fulfilment of my spacious dream.
Ordination
© John Keble
'Twas silence in Thy temple, Lord,
When slowly through the hallowed air
The spreading cloud of incense soared,
Charged with the breath of Israel's prayer.
A Map of Verona
© Henry Reed
Quelle belle heure, quels bons bras
me rendront ces régions d'où mes
sommeils et mes moindres mouvements?
The Adieu
© George Gordon Byron
Written Under The Impression That The Author Would Soon Die.
Adieu, thou Hill! where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;
The Stealing Of The Mare - VII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when they had lit the fire, while Alia watched the kindling, behold, her fear was great, and her eyes looked to the right and to the left hand, because that Abu Zeyd had promised her that he would return to the camp; and while she was in this wise, suddenly she saw Abu Zeyd standing in the midst of the Arabs who were around her. And he was in disguisement as a dervish, or one of those who ask alms. And he saw that she was about to speak. But he signed to her that she should be silent: as it were he would say, ``Fear not, for I am here.'' And when she was sure that it was indeed he Abu Zeyd and none other, then smiled she on him very sweetly, and said, ``Thine be the victory, and I will be thy ransom. Nor shall thy enemies prevail against thee.'' But he answered with a sign, ``Of a surety thou shalt see somewhat that shall astonish thee.'' And this he said as the flames of the fire broke forth.
Now the cause of the coming of Abu Zeyd to the place was in this wise. After that he had gone away, and had taken with him the mare, and that his mind had entered into its perplexity as to what might befall Alia from her father, lest he should seize on her and inquire what had happened, and why she had cared nothing for her own people or for her wounded brother, and why she had cried to Abu Zeyd, then said he to himself, ``Of a surety I must return to her, and ascertain the event.'' And looking about him, he made discovery of a cave known as yet to no man, and he placed in it the mare, and gathered grass for her, and closed the door of the cave with stones. Then clothing himself as a dervish, he made his plan how he should return to the tents of Agheyl. And forthwith he found Alia in the straits already told, and he made his thought known to her by signs, and by signs she gave him to understand her answers.
And at this point the Narrator began again to sing, and it was in the following verses:
Heroism
© William Cowper
There was a time when Ætna's silent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire;
The Ideal
© Charles Harpur
Spirit of Dreams! When many a toilsome height
Shut paradise from exiled Adams sight,
The Perfect Marriage
© Vachel Lindsay
I hate this yoke; for the world's sake here put it on:
Knowing 'twill weigh as much on you till life is gone.
Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine
Knowing that love unchained has been our life's great wine:
Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none;
Of the two cups free love at last the deadly one).
The Passions. An Ode to Music
© William Taylor Collins
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
Ev'n at the sound himself had made.
The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race
© Vachel Lindsay
I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERYFat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
A deep rolling bass.
Hymn To Colour
© George Meredith
With Life and Death I walked when Love appeared,
And made them on each side a shadow seem.
Through wooded vales the land of dawn we neared,
Where down smooth rapids whirls the helmless dream
To fall on daylight; and night puts away
Her darker veil for grey.
To J.R.
© Robert Fuller Murray
Last Sunday night I read the saddening story
Of the unanswered love of fair Elaine,
The `faith unfaithful' and the joyless glory
Of Lancelot, `groaning in remorseful pain.'
With Scindia to Delphi
© Rudyard Kipling
More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
Brave Boys Are They!
© Henry Clay Work
Brave boys are they!
Gone at their country's call;
And yet, and yet we cannot forget
That many brave boys must fall.
The Winners
© Rudyard Kipling
What the moral? Who rides may read.
When the night is thick and the tracks are blind
A friend at a pinch is a friend, indeed,
But a fool to wait for the laggard behind.
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
The Widow at Windsor
© Rudyard Kipling
'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor
With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam -- she 'as millions at 'ome,
An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
