Work poems
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The Devil Of Pope-Fig Island
© Jean de La Fontaine
ON t'other hand an island may be seen,
Where all are hated, cursed, and full of spleen.
We know them by the thinness of their face
Long sleep is quite excluded from their race.
Eclogue:--The Times
© William Barnes
Aye, John, I have, John; an' I ben't afeärd
To own it. Why, who woulden do the seäme?
We shant goo on lik' this long, I can tell ye.
Bread is so high an' wages be so low,
That, after workèn lik' a hoss, you know,
A man can't eärn enough to vill his belly.
How Many Seconds In A Minute?
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
How many seconds in a minute?
Sixty, and no more in it.
The Things That Count
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Now, dear, it isn't the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
The Two Painters: A Tale
© Washington Allston
At which, with fix'd and fishy
The Strangers both express'd amaze.
Good Sir, said they, 'tis strange you dare
Such meanness of yourself declare.
The Secret of the Machinery
© Rudyard Kipling
We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!
Sonnet 32: Morpheus The Lively Son
© Sir Philip Sidney
Morpheus the lively son of deadly sleep,
Witness of life to them that living die,
A prophet oft, and oft an history,
A poet eke, as humors fly or creep,
The Sleep of Sigismund
© Jean Ingelow
The doom'd king pacing all night through the windy fallow.
'Let me alone, mine enemy, let me alone,'
Never a Christian bell that dire thick gloom to hallow,
Or guide him, shelterless, succourless, thrust from his own.
Show The Flag
© Edgar Albert Guest
Show the flag and let it wave
As a symbol of the brave
Let it float upon the breeze
As a sign for each who sees
That beneath it, where it rides,
Loyalty to-day abides.
The Poor Little Toe
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
I am all tired out, said the mouth, with a pout,
I am all tired out with talk.
Just wait, said the knee, till you're lame as you can be-
And then have to walk-walk-walk.
from The Nerve Meter
© Antonin Artaud
An actor is seen as if through crystals.
Inspiration in stages.
One musnt let in too much literature.
Aspiration (excerpt)
© Thomas Traherne
For being freed from all defect
They feel no fleshly war,
Or rather both the flesh and mind
At length united are,
For joying in so rich a peace
They can admit no jar.
Do You?
© Edgar Albert Guest
YOU pay what you owe to your neighbor, I know,
You do the square thing by your brother,
Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leav{`e}d how thick! lac{`e}d they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build - but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Man the Monarch
© Mary Leapor
A tattling Dame, no matter where, or who;
Me it concerns not-and it need not you;
Once told this Story to the listening Muse,
Which we, as now it serves our Turn, shall use.
Wasps In A Garden
© Charles Lamb
The wall-trees are laden with fruit;
The grape, and the plum, and the pear,
The peach and the nectarine, to suit
Every taste, in abundance are there.
On Visiting the Graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau
© Jones Very
Beneath these shades, beside yon winding stream,
Lies Hawthorne's manly form, the mortal part!
The Progress Of Marriage
© Jonathan Swift
So have I seen within a pen,
Young ducklings fostered by a hen;
But when let out, they run and muddle,
As instinct leads them, in a puddle;
The sober hen, not born to swim,
With mournful note clucks round the brim.
The Fallen Elm
© Alfred Austin
The popinjay screamed from tree to tree,
Then was lost in the burnished leaves;
The sky was as blue as a southern sea,
And the swallow came back to the eaves.
