Work poems
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Scene Between May and June
© James Thomson
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.
"He had served eighty masters. They'd have said"
© Lesbia Harford
He had served eighty masters. They'd have said
He "worked for these employers" to earn bread.
And they, if they had heard him, would have sneered
To brand him inefficient whom they feared.
For to know eighty masters is to know
What sort of thing men who are masters grow.
The Columbiad: Book IX
© Joel Barlow
Shrouded in deeper darkness now he veers
The vast gyration of a thousand years,
Strikes out each lamp that would illume his way,
Disputes his food with every beast of prey;
Imbands his force to fence his trist abodes,
A wretched robber with his feudal codes.
Hope, An Allegorical Sketch
© William Lisle Bowles
I am the comforter of them that mourn;
My scenes well shadowed, and my carol sweet,
Our Canal
© Harriet Monroe
"All that was writ shall be fulfilled at last.
Cometill we round the circle, end the story.
The west-bound sun leads forward to the past
The thundering cruisers and the caravels.
Tomorrow you shall hear our song of glory
Rung in the chime of India's temple bells."
The Cost Of Praise
© Edgar Albert Guest
THIS morning came a man to me, his smile was wonderful to see,
He shook my hand and doffed his hat then promptly took a chair;
Gitanjali
© Rabindranath Tagore
1.
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
The Pay Envelope
© Edgar Albert Guest
Is it all in the envelope holding your pay?
Is that all you're working for day after day?
Are you getting no more from your toil than the gold
That little enclosure of paper will hold?
Is that all you're after; is that all you seek?
Does that close the deal at the end of the week?
The Woodland Hallo
© Robert Bloomfield
In our cottage, that peeps from the skirts of the wood,
I am mistress, no mother have I;
Sonnet 108: When Sorrow
© Sir Philip Sidney
When sorrow (using mine own fire's might)
Melts down his lead into my boiling breast;
Through that dark furnace to my heart oppress'd
There shines a joy from thee, my only light;
The Boss's Boots
© Henry Lawson
The shearing super sprained his foot, as bosses sometimes do
And wore, until the shed cut out, one side-spring and one shoe;
And though he changed his pants at timessome worn-out and some neat
No tiger there could possibly mistake the Bosss feet.
Satisfaction For Suffering
© Robert Herrick
For all our works a recompence is sure;
'Tis sweet to think on what was hard t'endure.
Ballade adresse a Geoffrey Chaucer
© Eustache Deschamps
O Socratès plains de philosophie,
Seneque en meurs, Auglius en pratique,
Ovides grans en ta poëtrie,
Briés en parler, saiges en rethorique . . .
Grant translateur, noble Geoffrey Chaucier.
Fixing The Shame
© Edgar Albert Guest
They put him in jail for the thing he'd done,
For that was the law they'd made;
The Fairy Of The Fountains
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And a youthful warrior stands
Gazing not upon those bands,
Not upon the lovely scene,
But upon its lovelier queen,
Who with gentle word and smile
Courteous prays his stay awhile.
The Clear Vision
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I did but dream. I never knew
What charms our sternest season wore.
The Stealing Of The Mare - II
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when Abu Zeyd had made an end of speaking, and the Kadi Diab and the Sultan and Rih, and all had happened as hath been said, then the Emir Abu Zeyd mounted his running camel and bade farewell to the Arabs and was gone; and all they who remained behind were in fear thinking of his journey. But Abu Zeyd went on alone, nor stayed he before he came to the pastures of the Agheylat. And behold, in the first of their vallies as he journeyed onward the slaves of the Agheylat saw him and came upon him, threatening him with their spears, and they said to him, ``O Sheykh, who and what art thou, and what is thy story, and the reason of thy coming?'' And he said to them, ``O worthy men of the Arabs, I am a poet, of them that sing the praise of the generous and the blame of the niggardly.'' And they answered him, ``A thousand welcomes, O poet.'' And they made him alight and treated him with honour until night came upon their feasting, nor did he depart from among them until the night had advanced to a third, but remained with them, singing songs of praise, and reciting lettered phrases, until they were stirred by his words and astonished at his eloquence. And at the end of all he arrived at the praise of the Agheyli Jaber. Then stopped they him and said: ``He of whom thou speakest is the chieftain of our people, and he is a prince of the generous. Go thou, therefore, to him, and he shall give thee all, even thy heart's desire.'' And he answered them, ``Take ye care of my camel and keep her for me while I go forward to recite his praises, and on my return we will divide the gifts.'' And he left them. And as he went he set himself to devise a plan by which he might enter into the camp and entrap the Agheyli Jaber.
And the Narrator singeth of Abu Zeyd and of the herdsmen thus:
The Mouse That Gnawed The Oak-Tree Down
© Vachel Lindsay
The mouse that gnawed the oak-tree down
Began his task in early life.
He kept so busy with his teeth
He had no time to take a wife.
Personality
© James Lionel Michael
A change! no, surely, not a change,
The change must be before we die;
Death may confer a wider range,
From pole to pole, from sea to sky,
It cannot make me new or strange
To mine own Personality!
