Work poems
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Winged Man
© Stephen Vincent Benet
The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.
The Hemp
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
© Stephen Vincent Benet
No herbage broke the barren flats of land,
No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,
Nor were there any brooks on either hand,
Only the dry, bright sand,
Naked and golden, lay before the seas.
M'Andrew's Hymn
© Rudyard Kipling
Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,
An', taught by time, I tak' it so - exceptin' always Steam.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God -
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.
A Terre
© Wilfred Owen
Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me -- brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.
Asleep
© Wilfred Owen
Under his helmet, up against his pack,
After the many days of work and waking,
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.
And in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
"An idle poet, dreaming"
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
AN idle poet, dreaming in the sun,
One given to much unhallowed vagrancy
Of thought and step; who, when he comes to die.
In the broad world can point to nothing done;
In memory of that excellent person Mrs. Mary Lloyd of Bodidrist in Denbigh-shire
© Katherine Philips
I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude,
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude,
And Folly too; for if Posterity
Should never hear of such a one as thee,
The Death Of Grant
© Ambrose Bierce
Father! whose hard and cruel law
Is part of thy compassion's plan,
Thy works presumptuously we scan
For what the prophets say they saw.
A God's Labour
© Sri Aurobindo
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
My jewelled dreams of you.
To Kate. (In Lieu Of A Valentine)
© Ellis Parker Butler
Sweet Love and I had oft communed;
We were, indeed, great friends,
And oft I sought his office, near
Where Courtship Alley ends.
The Vanity Of Human Wishes
© Michael Wigglesworth
I walk'd and did a little Mole-hill view
Full peopled with a most industrious crew
The Charge of the Second Iowa Cavalry
© Ellis Parker Butler
Comrades, many a year and day
Have fled since that glorious 9th of May
When we made the charge at Farmington.
But until our days on earth are done
The Tempters
© Edgar Albert Guest
EVERY gentle breeze that's blowing is a tempter very knowing,
For it penetrates my armor in its weakest, thinnest spot;
No Beer, No Work
© Ellis Parker Butler
The shades of night was fallin slow
As through New York a guy did go
And nail on evry barroom door
A card that this here motter bore:
No beer, no work.
Sonnet XIII: Youth's Antiphony
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn
How much I love you? You I love even so,
