Work poems
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In Response To A Rumor That The Oldest Whorehouse In Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned
© James Wright
I will grieve alone,
As I strolled alone, years ago, down along
The Ohio shore.
I hid in the hobo jungle weeds
Upstream from the sewer main,
Pondering, gazing.
The Courtship Of Miles Standish
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thereupon answered the youth: "Indeed I do not condemn you;
Stouter hearts that a woman's have quailed in this terrible winter.
Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;
So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage
Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!"
To the Comet of 1843 [late version]
© Charles Harpur
But human eyes
As many and beautifulyea, more sublime
And radiant in their passion, from a more
Enlarged communion with the spirit of truth,
Shall welcome thee instead, mysterious stranger,
When thou returnst anew.
Epochs
© Emma Lazarus
Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,
Reddening the road and deepening the green
On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;
Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between
These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen
But dimly on the far horizon's edge.
The Purgatory Of St. Patrick - Act III
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
LUIS. Oh, that name
Do not mention! do not kill me
By repeating what doth thrill me
To the centre of my frame
As with lightning. Yes, I know
That at length Polonia died.
Stella At Wood Park, A House Of Charles Ford, Esq., Near Dublin
© Jonathan Swift
Don Carlos, in a merry spight,
Did Stella to his house invite:
He entertain'd her half a year
With generous wines and costly cheer.
In The Workshop
© Bliss William Carman
And He who was bent on fashioning man
Moulded a shape from a clod,
And put the loyal heart therein;
While another stood watching by.
Wayside Ambition
© George Ade
I want to be a brakeman,
Dog gone!
Legs hangin' over the edge of a flat car,
Train goin' 'bout twenty-five miles 'n hour,
Kickin' the dog-fennel 'long the track
That's what a brakeman does.
The Three Foot Rule
© William John Macquorn Rankine
When I was bound apprentice, and learned to use my hands,
Folk never talked of measures that came from foreign lands:
Now I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school;
So whether the chisel or file I hold, I'll stick to my three-foot rule.
A Forest Hymn
© William Cullen Bryant
The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
There's A Regret
© William Ernest Henley
There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad.…
Do you not know it yet?
The Crum Appointment
© Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
You, no doubt, have heard the story told of Charleston by the sea,
How they persecute a Negro when a man he tries to be,
'Tis of national importance and the world enjoys the sport,
Caused by William Crum's appointment as collector of the port.
The Muses Threnodie: Seventh Muse
© Henry Adamson
To Moncrieff eastern, then to Wallace town,
To Fingask of Dundas; thence passing down
Unto the Rynd, as martial men we fare;
What life man's heart could wish more void of care?
Passing the river Earn, on the other side,
Drilling our sojers, vulgars were afraid.
Getting Stout
© William Henry Drummond
Eighteen, an' face lak de--w'ats de good?
Deres no use tryin' explain
Prothalamion
© Horace Smith
Go, like St. Simon, on your lonely tower,
Wish to make all men good, but want the power.
Freedom you'll have, but still will lack the thrall,--
The bond of sympathy, which binds us all.
Children and wives are hostages to fame,
But aids and helps in every useful aim.
Sister Songs-An Offering To Two Sisters - Part The First
© Francis Thompson
The leaves dance, the leaves sing,
The leaves dance in the breath of the Spring.
