Work poems
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Paradise Regain'd : Book IV.
© John Milton
Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
Eccentricity
© Washington Allston
Who next appears thus stalking by his side?
Why that is one who'd sooner die than-ride!
No inch of ground can maps unheard of show
Untrac'd by him, unknown to every toe:
As if intent this punning age to suit,
The globe's circumf'rence meas'ring by the foot.
The Pioneer
© Edgar Lee Masters
From the wide miles of autumn corn,
Here to this sun-lit hill,
The wind wails for a hope forlorn,
And the grief of a ruined will.
"When I go up to work the young blue sea"
© Lesbia Harford
When I go up to work the young blue sea
Has not awaked from dreams:
It fades to meet the blue sky mistily:
It gleams.
The Progress Of Refinement. Part II.
© Henry James Pye
CONTENTS OF PART II. Introduction.Sketch of the Northern barbarians.Feudal system.Origin of Chivalry.Superstition.Crusades. Hence the enfranchisement of Vassals, and Commerce encouraged. The Northern and Western Europeans, struck with the splendor of Constantinople, and the superior elegance of the Saracens.Origin of Romance. The remains of Science confined to the monasteries, and in an unknown language.Hence the distinction of learning.Discovery of the Roman Jurisprudence, and it's effects.Classic writers begin to be admiredArts revive in Italy.Greek learning introduced there, on the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.That event lamented.Learning encouraged by Leo X.Invention of Printing.The Reformation.It's effects, even on those countries that retained their old Religion. It's establishment in Britain.Age of Elizabeth. Arts and Literature flourish.Spenser.Shakespear. Milton.Dryden.The Progress of the Arts checked by the Civil War.Patronized in France. Age of Lewis XIV.Taste hurt in England during the profligate reign of Charles II.Short and turbulent reign of his Successor.King William no encourager of the Arts.Age of Queen Anne.Manners.Science and Literature flourish.Neglected by the first Princes of the House of Brunswick.Patronage of Arts by his present Majesty.Poetry not encouraged.Address to the King.General view of the present state of Refinement. Among the European Nations.France. Britain.Italy.Spain.Holland and Germany. Increasing Influence of French manners. Russia.Greece.Asia.China.Africa. America.Newly discovered islands.European Colonies.
Heartsease And Rue: Friendship
© James Russell Lowell
Natures benignly mixed of air and earth,
Now with the stars and now with equal zest
Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest.
The Wood Carver's Wife
© Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
JEAN MARCHANT, the wood-carver.
DORETTE, his wife.
LOUIS DE LOTBINIERE.
SHAGONAS, an Indian lad.
A Business Deal
© George Ade
An ancient joker, grizzled and half-bald,
With the outward seeming and the attire
Eclogue:--Two Farms In Woone
© William Barnes
You'll lose your meäster soon, then, I do vind;
He's gwaïn to leäve his farm, as I do larn,
At Miëlmas; an' I be zorry vor'n.
What, is he then a little bit behind?
Canto 1: Narad
© Valmiki
To sainted Nárad, prince of those
Whose lore in words of wisdom flows.
Whose constant care and chief delight
Were Scripture and ascetic rite,
Pennsylvania Hall
© John Greenleaf Whittier
NOT with the splendors of the days of old,
The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold;
No weapons wrested from the fields of blood,
Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood,
Upon The Hour Glass
© John Bunyan
This glass, when made, was, by the workman's skill,
The sum of sixty minutes to fulfil.
No Use Sighin'
© Edgar Albert Guest
No use frettin' when the rain comes down,
No use grievin' when the gray clouds frown,
No use sighin' when the wind blows strong,
No use wailin' when the world's all wrong;
Only thing that a man can do
Is work an' wait till the sky gets blue.
To Mr. Murray (Strahan, Tonson Lintot Of The Times)
© George Gordon Byron
Strahan, Tonson Lintot of the times,
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
My Murray.
Critics Nightwatch
© Gwen Harwood
Once more he tried, before he slept,
to rule his ranks of words. They broke
from his planned choir, lolled, slouched and kept
their tone, their pitch, their meaning crude;
huddled in cliches; when pursued
turned with mock elegance to croak
Captain Von Esson of the Sebastopol
© Henry Lawson
Till each was sunk that the Russians leftwhile the buildings reeled with the shock,
Save the last of the Russian ships of warthe Sebastopolin dock.
And this is the reasontold in a linewhy there is a tale to tell:
The Sebastopol had a man for boss, and a crew that knew it well.
The Sunset
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
There late was One within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and death contended. None may know
Sonnet LIX: Unhappy Pen
© Samuel Daniel
Unhappy pen and ill-accepted papers,
That intimate in vain my chaste desires,
