Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727 | This day, whate'er the Fates decree, Shall still be kept with joy by me: This day then let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old; Nor think on our approaching ills, And talk of spectacles and pills. To-morrow... | Jonathan Swift |
An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley | I
O come you pious youth! adore The wisdom of thy God,
In bringing thee from distant shore, To learn His holy word.
II
Thou mightst been left behind Amidst a dark abode;
God's tender mercy still combin'd Thou hast the holy... | Jupiter Hammon |
The Charge Of The Light Brigade | HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death Rode the six... | Alfred Lord Tennyson |
Renascence | All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to... | Edna St. Vincent Mi… |
Cold Blooded Creatures | Man, the egregious egoist,
(In mystery the twig is bent,)
Imagines, by some mental twist,
That he alone is sentient
Of the intolerable load
Which on all living creatures lies,
Nor stoops to pity in the toad
The speechless sorrow of its... | Elinor Wylie |
The Little Rock 9 | It is Monday, I am twelve years old,
summer still feel like summer to me...
Ernest Green
My elementary school principal was white
I only had one white teacher, she was named
after the juice the... | Afaa Michael Weaver |
The New Colossus | Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her... | Emma Lazarus |
Think Not All Is Over | Think not, when the wailing winds of autumn
Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,—
Think not all is over: spring returneth,
Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt see.
Think not, when the earth lies cold and sealed,
And the weary birds... | Harriet Beecher Sto… |
Alphabet, No. 6. | down, and hurt his Arm, against a bit of wood,
said. "My Boy, oh, do not cry; it cannot do you good!"
said, "A Cup of Coffee hot can't do you any harm."
said, "A Doctor should be fetched, and he would cure the arm."
said, "An... | Edward Lear |
Red Meat: Fragments of Stesichoros | I. GERYON
Geryon was a monster everything about him was red
Put his snout out of the covers in the morning it was red
How stiff the red landscape where his cattle scraped against
Their hobbles in the red wind
Burrowed himself down in the red... | ANNE CARSON |
The Dong with a Luminous Nose | When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights; --
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore; --
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the... | Edward Lear |
Incidents in the life of my Uncle Arly | O my aged Uncle Arly!
Sitting on a heap of Barley
Thro' the silent hours of night,
Close beside a leafy thicket:
On his nose there was a Cricket,
In his hat a Railway-ticket
(But his shoes were far too... | Edward Lear |
The Table And The Chair | Said the Table to the Chair,
'You can hardly be aware
How I suffer from the heat,
And from chilblains on my feet!
If we took a little walk,
We might have a little talk!
Pray let us take the air!'
Said the Table to the... | Edward Lear |
The New Vestments | There lived an old man in the kingdom of Tess,
Who invented a purely original dress;
And when it was perfectly made and complete,
He opened the door, and walked into the... | Edward Lear |
The Daddy Long-Legs and the Fly | Once Mr Daddy Long-Legs,
Dressed in brown and gray,
Walked about upon the sands
Upon a summer's day;
And there among the pebbles,
When the wind was rather cold,
He met with Mr Floppy Fly,
All dressed in blue and gold.
And as it was too soon to dine,... | Edward Lear |
The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs | The Nutcrackers sate by a plate on the table,
The Sugar-tongs sate by a plate at his side;
And the Nutcrackers said, 'Don't you wish we were able
'Along the blue hills and green meadows to ride?
'Must we drag on this stupid existence for ever,
'So... | Edward Lear |
The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo | I... | Edward Lear |
Imitation of The Olden Poets | Time is a taper waning fast!
Use it, man, well whilst it doth last:
Lest burning downwards it consume away,
Before thou hast commenced the labour of the... | Edward Lear |
The Pobble Who Has No Toes | The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said "The World in general knows... | Edward Lear |
The Quangle Wangle's Hat | I. On the top of the Crumpetty Tree The Quangle Wangle sat, But his face you could not see, On account of his Beaver Hat. For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide, With ribbons and bibbons on every side And bells, and... | Edward Lear |
To a Marsh Hawk in Spring | There is health in thy gray wing,
Health of nature’s furnishing.
Say, thou modern-winged antique,
Was thy mistress ever sick?
In each heaving of thy wing
Thou dost health and leisure bring,
Thou dost waive disease and pain
And resume new life again.... | Henry David Thoreau |
My Star | All, that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird;... | Robert Browning |
Thank You | If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise... | Ross Gay |
Jabberwocky | 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths... | Lewis Carroll |
A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight | They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of... | James Joyce |
Richard Cory | Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially... | Edwin Arlington Rob… |
The Cremation Of Sam McGee | There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see... | Robert William Serv… |
Count That Day Lost | If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went --
Then you may count... | George Eliot |
The Stolen Child | Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the... | William Butler Yeats |
Iowa City: Early April | This morning a cat—bright orange—pawing at the one patch of new grass in the sand-and tanbark-colored leaves.
And last night the sapphire of the raccoon's eyes in the beam of the flashlight.
He was climbing a tree beside the house, trying to get... | Robert Hass |
Light | Another drought morning after a too brief dawn downpour,
unaccountable silvery glitterings on the leaves of the withering maples—
I think of a troop of the blissful blessed approaching Dante,
"a hundred spheres shining," he rhapsodizes, "the... | Charles Kenneth Wil… |
Love is More Thicker than Forget | is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always... | Edward Estlin Cummi… |
Bat | IN broad daylight
He should not be:
Yet toward and froward,
Froward and toward
He weaves a flight.
Who will guide him back to his cave,
A little Bat astray,
Where he'll rest on the breast of night,
Away from day's bright miscreation?
The linnet... | Padraic Colum |
The City Clocks | THE City clocks point out the hours
They look like moons on their darkened towers-
And I who was shown my destination
Thrice, but have no sense of location,
Am back again at one or the other
Looming clocks that have changed the... | Padraic Colum |
Tree-Home | A bird sings to my childhood,
Through red of oak foliage,
Trickling down centuries old bark,
And young rusted nails.
The little boy calls out,
From all those years ago,
Who use to leave his cries,
On the autumn wind.
Now Stands before... | London Holbrook |
Childhood Memories and Melancholy Dreams | Painted dolls with porcelain wings
Clockwork hearts and childhood things
Stuck in thy Absent Memory
As my father use to say to me
"You Pathetic soul your life is wasted"
For the life I lead is not the life you've tasted
For I am just a harlequin... | Israel Landon Datch… |
All In The Golden Afternoon | All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretense
Our wanderings to... | Lewis Carroll |
The Crocodile | How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden... | Lewis Carroll |
Hym To God, My God In My Sickness | Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore, I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here... | John Donne |
After the Winter | Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning's white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We'll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
And... | Claude McKay |
If We Must Die | If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In... | Claude McKay |
The Arrow and the Song | I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its... | Henry Wadsworth Lon… |
536. Ode | But it will not be long 100 Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 105
That Life brings... | William Wordsworth … |