War poems
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For The Commemoration Services
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
FOUR summers coined their golden light in leaves,
Four wasteful autumns flung them to the gale,
Four winters wore the shroud the tempest weaves,
The fourth wan April weeps o'er hill and vale;
The Slave Dealer
© Thomas Pringle
From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame
By the ill course he had run.
Sonnet XLIV: Cloud and Wind
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Love, should I fear death most for you or me?
Yet if you die, can I not follow you,
Dressing The Doll
© William Brighty Rands
THIS is the way we dress the Doll:
You may make her a shepherdess, the Doll,
If you give her a crook with a pastoral hook,
But this is the way we dress the Doll.
Chorus
Love's Saint
© William Baylebridge
Some lip will use her name-a rapt surprise,
Passing the heart's set ward, upon me steals.
The Knightly Guerdon
© William Makepeace Thackeray
Untrue to my Ulric I never could be,
I vow by the saints and the blessed Marie,
Since the desolate hour when we stood by the shore,
And your dark galley waited to carry you o'er:
My faith then I plighted, my love I confess'd,
As I gave you the BATTLE-AXE marked with your crest!
The Sense Of Your Bidding
© Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin
The sense of your bidding is unclear:
to pray, to curse, is it, to fight
you bid me, inscrutable genius?
The spring slackens, niggard, meager,
and Benozzo Gozzoli's courier
dozes in the drowsy thickets.
The Lady Of La Garaye - Part III
© Caroline Norton
And either tries to hide the thoughts that wring
Their secret hearts; and both essay to bring
Some happy topic, some yet lingering dream,
Which they with cheerful words shall make their theme;
But fail,--and in their wistful eyes confess
All their words never own of hopelessness.
A Modest Request
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
SCENE,--a back parlor in a certain square,
Or court, or lane,--in short, no matter where;
Time,--early morning, dear to simple souls
Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked rolls;
Persons,--take pity on this telltale blush,
That, like the AEthiop, whispers, "Hush, oh hush!"
Apes And Ivory
© Alfred Noyes
Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,
Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,
Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,
O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.
The Spirit Of The Ideal
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Sweet sister spirits, ye whose starlight tresses
Stream on the night-winds as ye float along,
Missioned with hope to man-and with caresses
Aforetime
© Thomas Sturge Moore
Thou findest parables;
With fond imagination
Adorning truth
For the successive
Unpersuaded
Generations.
Tale I
© George Crabbe
THE DUMB ORATORS; OR THE BENEFIT OF SOCIETY.
That all men would be cowards if they dare,
Christmas Day
© Charles Kingsley
How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?
A northern Christmas, such as painters love,
The Vanities Of Life
© John Clare
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.--_Solomon_
What are life's joys and gains?
Metrical Letter, Written From London.
© Robert Southey
Margaret! my Cousin!--nay, you must not smile;
I love the homely and familiar phrase;
Sonnet For Christmas
© Judith Wright
I saw our golden years on a black gale,
our time of love spilt in the furious dust.
"O we are winter-caught, and we must fail,"
said the dark dream, "and time is overcast."
Tamerton Church-Tower, Or, First Love
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
III.
You paint a leaflet, here and there;
And not the blossom: tell
What mysteries of good and fair
These blazon'd letters spell.
