Work poems
/ page 132 of 355 /
Keep Your Whip In Your Hand
© George Ade
Each man is like a noble steed;
When he's a colt I take him;
Cleaning The Furnace
© Edgar Albert Guest
Last night Pa said to Ma: "My dear, it's gettin' on to fall,
It's time I did a little job I do not like at all.
I wisht 'at I was rich enough to hire a man to do
The dirty work around this house an' clean up when he's through,
But since I'm not, I'm truly glad that I am strong an' stout,
An' ain't ashamed to go myself an' clean the furnace out."
The Stars
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
NO cloud obscures the summer sky,
The moon in brightness walks on high,
And, set in azure, every star
Shines, like a gem of heaven, afar!
Queen Marys Letter To Bothwell
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Pitiful gods! Have pity on my passion.
Teach me the road how I a certain proving
Shall make to him I love of my great loving,
My faith unchanged, nor plead it in fool's fashion.
The Wheels Of The System
© George Essex Evans
Where is God, whilst all around us sounds the jarring of the wheels,
When the cry of human anguish starwards thro His glory steals?
There is neither hope nor pity underneath the moving wheels.
Woe to him who slips or falters whilst the wheels are moving on!
Woe to him who stays to breathe him when the goal is nearly won!
There they lieand lie for everover whom the wheels have gone!
Freedom
© Alfred Tennyson
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
Pharsalia - Book IX: Cato
© Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Such were the words he spake; and soon the fleet
Had dared the angry deep: but Cato's voice
While praising, calmed the youthful chieftain's rage.
Martha
© Robert Laurence Binyon
A woman sat, with roses red
Upon her lap before her spread,
On that high bridge whose parapet
Wide over turbulent Thames is set,
The Four Angels
© Rudyard Kipling
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree
The Angel of the Earth came down, and offered Earth in fee;
The Empty Glass
© Henry Lawson
THERE ARE three lank bards in a borrowed room
Ah! The number is one too few
Expostulation
© William Cowper
Why weeps the muse for England? What appears
In England's case to move the muse to tears?
Hymn For The Celebration Of Emancipation At Newburyport
© John Greenleaf Whittier
NOT unto us who did but seek
The word that burned within to speak,
Not unto us this day belong
The triumph and exultant song.
Wash Lowry's Reminiscence
© James Whitcomb Riley
And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
Brisbane Ladies
© Anonymous
Farewell and adieu to you, Brisbane ladies
Farewell and adieu, you maids of Toowong
We've sold all our cattle and we have to get a movin'
But we hope we shall see you again before long.
Hermann And Dorothea - VIII. Melpomene
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But she conceal'd the pain which she felt, and jestingly spoke thus
"It betokens misfortune,--so scrupulous people inform us,--
For the foot to give way on entering a house, near the threshold.
I should have wish'd, in truth, for a sign of some happier omen!
Let us tarry a little, for fear your parents should blame you
For their limping servant, and you should be thought a bad landlord."
Modern Greece
© Richard Monckton Milnes
As, in the legend which our childhood loved,
The destined prince was guided to the bed,
Where, many a silent year, the charmèd Maid
Lay still, as though she were not; nor could wake,
Lost Mr. Blake
© William Schwenck Gilbert
He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner
sort of way.
Virgils Gnat
© Edmund Spenser
And whatsoeuer other flowre of worth,
And whatso other hearb of louely hew
The iouyous Spring out of the ground brings forth,
To cloath her selfe in colours fresh and new;
He planted there, and reard a mount of earth,
In whose high front was writ as doth ensue.
Tired
© Augusta Davies Webster
No not to-night, dear child; I cannot go;
I'm busy, tired; they knew I should not come;
you do not need me there. Dear, be content,
and take your pleasure; you shall tell me of it.
There, go to don your miracles of gauze,
and come and show yourself a great pink cloud.
