Beauty and Beauty by Rupert Brooke When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After after Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth’s still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, […]
1800s Poetry
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were […]
A Valentine by Lewis Carroll
A Valentine by Lewis Carroll And cannot pleasures, while they last, Be actual unless, when past, They leave us shuddering and aghast, With anguish smarting And cannot friends be firm and fast, And yet bear parting And must I then, at Friendship’s call, Calmly resign the little all (Trifling, I grant, it is and small) […]
The Night March by Herman Melville
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 […]
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 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; […]
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 […]
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 […]
Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot I observe: “Our sentimental friend the moon! Or possibly (fantastic, I confess) It may be Prester John’s balloon Or an old battered lantern hung aloft To light poor travellers to their distress.” She then: “How you digress!” And I then: “Some one frames upon the keys That exquisite nocturne, […]
The Past-Present by Walt Whitman
The Past-Present by Walt Whitman I was looking a long while for the history of the past for myself, and for these chants and now I have found it. It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject;) It is no more in the legends than in all […]
The Three Kings By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Three Kings came riding from far away, Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar; Three Wise Men out of the East were they, And they traveled by night and they slept by day, For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. The star was so beautiful, large and clear, That […]
A Christmas Carol by James Russell Lowell
A Christmas Carol by James Russell Lowell “What means this glory round our feet,” The Magi mused, “more bright than morn?” And voices chanted clear and sweet, “To-day the Prince of Peace is born!” “What means that star,” the Shepherds said, “That brightens through the rocky glen?” And angels, answering overhead, Sang, “Peace on earth, […]
The Death of Robin Hood by Eugene Field
The Death of Robin Hood ?by Eugene Field “Give me my bow,” said Robin Hood, “An arrow give to me; And where ‘t is shot mark thou that spot, For there my grave shall be.” Then Little John did make no sign, And not a word he spake; But he smiled, altho’ with mickle woe […]
Ballade of Christmas by Andrew Lang
Ballade of Christmas by Andrew Lang Between the moonlight and the fire In winter twilights long ago, What ghosts we raised for your desire, To make your merry blood run slow! How old, how grave, how wise we grow! No Christmas ghost can make us chill, Save those that troop in mournful row, The ghosts […]
CHRISTMAS BELLS by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
CHRISTMAS BELLS by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on […]