Work poems
/ page 307 of 355 /
A Death Song
© William Morris
What cometh here from west to east awending?
And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?
We bear the message that the rich are sending
Aback to those who bade them wake and know.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.
The White Cliffs
© Alice Duer Miller
Yet I have loathed those voices when the sense
Of what they said seemed to me insolence,
As if the dominance of the whole nation
Lay in that clear correct enunciation.
Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift
© Jonathan Swift
As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.
To Stella, Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems
© Jonathan Swift
As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
The Lady's Dressing Room
© Jonathan Swift
Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.
Baseball and Writing
© Marianne Clarke Moore
Fanaticism?No.Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
Marriage
© Marianne Clarke Moore
This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
The Pangolin
© Marianne Clarke Moore
Another armored animal--scale
lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central
tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped
To a Canadian Aviator Who Died for his Country in France
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Tossed like a falcon from the hunter's wrist,
A sweeping plunge, a sudden shattering noise,
And thou hast dared, with a long spiral twist,
The elastic stairway to the rising sun.
Withstanders
© William Barnes
When weakness now do strive wi' might
In struggles ov an e'thly trial,
Ode for the Keats Centenary
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Where, searching through the ferny breaks,
The moose-fawns find the springs;
Where the loon laughs and diving takes
Her young beneath her wings;
From Shadow
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Now the November skies,
And the clouds that are thin and gray,
That drop with the wind away;
A flood of sunlight rolls,
The Chinese Nightingale
© Vachel Lindsay
"I remember, I remember
That Spring came on forever,
That Spring came on forever,"
Said the Chinese nightingale.
At the Cedars
© Duncan Campbell Scott
You had two girls -- Baptiste --
One is Virginie --
Hold hard -- Baptiste!
Listen to me.
Women's Suffrage
© William Topaz McGonagall
Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty.
To Mr James Scrymgeour, Dundee
© William Topaz McGonagall
Success to James Scrymgeour,
He's a very good man,
And to gainsay it,
There's few people can;
The Wreck of the Steamer Stella
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the month of March and in the year of 1899,
Which will be remembered for a very long time;
The wreck of the steamer "Stella" that was wrecked on the Casquet Rocks,
By losing her bearings in a fog, and received some terrible shocks.
The Wreck of the Indian Chief
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on the 8th of January 1881,
That a terrific gale along the English Channel ran,
And spread death and disaster in its train,
Whereby the "Indian Chief" vessel was tossed on the raging main.
The Wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson
© William Topaz McGonagall
Twas in the year of 1842 and on the 27th of May
That six Companies of the 91st Regiment with spirits light and gay,
And forming the Second Battalion, left Naas without delay,
Commanded by Captain Bertie Gordon, to proceed to the Cape straightaway.
Six O'Clock
© Trumbull Stickney
Now burst above the city's cold twilight
The piercing whistles and the tower-clocks:
For day is done. Along the frozen docks
The workmen set their ragged shirts aright.
