Work poems
/ page 232 of 355 /
The Lilac
© William Barnes
Zoo let me zee noo darksome cloud
Bedim to-day thy flow'ry sh'oud,
But let en bloom on ev'ry spraÿ,
Drough all the days o' zunny Maÿ.
Suicide Off Egg Rock
© Sylvia Plath
Everything shrank in the sun's corrosive
Ray but Egg Rock on the blue wastage.
He heard when he walked into the water
The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo
© Rudyard Kipling
This is the mouth-filling song of the race that was run by a Boomer.
Run in a single burst-only event of its kind-
Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma,
Old Man Kangaroo first, Yellow-Dog Dingo behind.
The Ferryman
© Emile Verhaeren
The ferryman, a green reed 'twixt his teeth,
With hand on oar, against the current strong
Had rowed and rowed so long.
The Glory of the Garden
© Rudyard Kipling
Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
Mary Magdalene
© George Herbert
When blessed Marie wip'd her Saviour's feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before)
And wore them for a jewell on her head,
Shewing his steps should be the street,
Wherein she thenceforth evermore
With pensive humblenesse would live and tread:
The Old Manor House
© Ada Cambridge
An old house, crumbling half away, all barnacled and lichen-grown,
Of saddest, mellowest, softest grey,-with a grand history of its own-
Grand with the work and strife and tears of more than half a thousand years.
Chanteys
© Harry Kemp
These are the songs that we sing with crowding feet,
Heaving up the anchor chain,
Or walking down the deck in the wind and sleet
And in the drizzle and rain.
At The Birth Of An Age
© Robinson Jeffers
V
GUDRUN (standing this side of the closing curtains; 'with Chrysothemis.
Carling has left her, going
Pigeon Post
© Katharine Lee Bates
White wing, white wing,
Lily of the air,
What word dost bring,
On whose errand fare?
MacDonalds Raid.A.D. 1780.
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I REMEMBER it well; 'twas a morn dull and gray,
And the legion lay idle and listless that day,
A thin drizzle of rain piercing chill to the soul,
And with not a spare bumper to brighten the bowl,
Hellbound Train
© Anonymous
A Texas cowboy lay down on a barroom floor,
Having drunk so much he could drink no more;
So he fell asleep with a troubled brain
To dream that he rode on a hell-bound train.
Lillians Reading
© Edgar Albert Guest
AIRY, fairy Lillian,
What a naughty thing to do,
By noon had read a Laura
Libbey paper novel through.
The Beam In Grenley Church
© William Barnes
In church at Grenley woone mid zee
A beam vrom wall to wall; a tree
That's longer than the church is wide,
An' zoo woone end o'n's drough outside,--
Not cut off short, but bound all round
Wi' lead, to keep en seäfe an' sound.
The Quaker Alumni
© John Greenleaf Whittier
From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine,
Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again;
And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool,
Play over the old game of going to school.
The Wife
© Lesbia Harford
He's out of work!
I tell myself a change should mean a chance,
And he must look for changes to advance,
And he, of all men, really needs a jerk.
The Columbiad: Book V
© Joel Barlow
Sage Franklin next arose with cheerful mien,
And smiled unruffled o'er the solemn scene;
His locks of age a various wreath embraced,
Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal graced;
Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,
And the tame thunder from the tempest torn.
