The Night March by Herman Melville With banners furled and clarions mute, An army passes in the night; And beaming spears and helms salute The dark with bright. In silence deep the legions stream, With open ranks, in order true; Over boundless plains they stream and gleam No chief in view! Afar, in twinkling […]
Friends by W. B. Yeats
Friends by W. B. Yeats Now must I these three praise Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days; One that no passing thought, Nor those unpassing cares, No, not in these fifteen Many times troubled years, Could ever come between Heart and delighted heart; And one because her hand Had […]
Love’s Lantern by Joyce Kilmer
Love’s Lantern by Joyce Kilmer (For Aline) Because the road was steep and long And through a dark and lonely land, God set upon my lips a song And put a lantern in my hand. Through miles on weary miles of night That stretch relentless in my way My lantern burns serene and white, An […]
To Milton by Oscar Wilde
To Milton by Oscar Wilde Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers; This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey, And the age changed unto a mimic play Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours: For all our pomp and pageantry […]
The Moods by W. B. Yeats
The Moods by W. B. Yeats Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; What one in the rout Of the fire-born moods, Has fallen away?
Chinese Poet Among Barbarians by Louis Untermeyer
Chinese Poet Among Barbarians by Louis Untermeyer The rain drives, drives endlessly, Heavy threads of rain; The wind beats at the shutters, The surf drums on the shore; Drunken telegraph poles lean sideways; Dank summer cottages gloom hopelessly; Bleak factory-chimneys are etched on the filmy distance, Tepid with rain. It seems I have lived for […]
Anticipation by Amy Lowell
Anticipation by Amy Lowell I have been temperate always, But I am like to be very drunk With your coming. There have been times I feared to walk down the street Lest I should reel with the wine of you, And jerk against my neighbours As they go by. I am parched now, and my […]
Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise. And when lights begin to […]
Old Tunes by Sara Teasdale
Old Tunes by Sara Teasdale As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose, Float in the garden when no wind blows, Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows; So the old tunes float in my mind, And go from me leaving no trace behind, Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind. […]
Spoils of the Dead by Robert Frost
Spoils of the Dead by Robert Frost Two fairies it was On a still summer day Came forth in the woods With the flowers to play. The flowers they plucked They cast on the ground For others, and those For still others they found. Flower-guided it was That they came as they ran On something […]
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; […]
On Imagination by Phillis Wheatley
On Imagination by Phillis Wheatley Thy various works, imperial queen, we see, How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee! Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand, And all attest how potent is thine hand. From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend, Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend: To tell her glories with a […]
The West Wind by William Cullen Bryant
The West Wind by William Cullen Bryant It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils. It’s a fine land, the […]
William Shakespeare Sonnet VIII
Sonnet VIII by William Shakespeare Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly, Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do […]
The Hero by Siegfried Sassoon
The Hero by Siegfried Sassoon “Jack fell as he’d have wished,” the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she’d read. “The Colonel writes so nicely.” Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She half looked up. “We mothers are so proud Of our dead soldiers.” Then her face was […]