Sonnet VI by William Shakespeare Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface, In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That’s for thy self to breed […]
Poems in History
The Figure-Head by Herman Melville
The Figure-Head by Herman Melville The Charles-and-Emma seaward sped, (Named from the carven pair at prow,) He so smart, and a curly head, She tricked forth as a bride knows how: Pretty stem for the port, I trow! But iron-rust and alum-spray And chafing gear, and sun and dew Vexed this lad and lassie gay, […]
Nightingales by Robert Bridges
Nightingales Robert Bridges Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long! Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: […]
To S. M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works by Phillis Wheatley
To S. M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works by Phillis Wheatley TO show the lab’ring bosom’s deep intent, And thought in living characters to paint, When first thy pencil did those beauties give, And breathing figures learnt from thee to live, How did those prospects give my soul delight, A new creation […]
The Poet and the Lily by A. B. S. Tennyson
The Poet and the Lily by A. B. S. Tennyson A poet was born in a modern time, ‘Neath Saturn and his Rings, He was a child of the world’s prime, Knew all beautiful things. He was a child of morning and mirth, Laughing for joy of the sun, His nostrils drank the scent of […]
Only A Woman’s Hair by Lewis Carroll
Only A Woman’s Hair by Lewis Carroll Only a woman’s hair! Fling it aside! A bubble on Life’s mighty stream: Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide Bright with the western beam. Nay! In those words there rings from other years The echo of a long low cry, Where a proud spirit wrestles […]
Wild Asters by Sara Teasdale
Wild Asters by Sara Teasdale In the spring I asked the daisies If his words were true, And the clever little daisies Always knew. Now the fields are brown and barren, Bitter autumn blows, And of all the stupid asters Not one knows. Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American lyric poet known for her intimate […]
Indifference by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Indifference by Edna St. Vincent Millay I said, for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come, “I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed; But I’ll never leave my pillow, though there be some As would let him in and take him in with tears!” I said. […]
Inspiration by Aldous Huxley
Inspiration by Aldous Huxley Noonday upon the Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows Translucent are and bright. It seems a glory that nought surpasses Passion of angels in form and hue? When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grasses Leaps a lightning of sudden blue. Dimming the […]
In a Library by Emily Dickinson
In a Library by Emily Dickinson A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to […]
The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats
The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst […]
Revolutions by Matthew Arnold
Revolutions by Matthew Arnold Before man parted for this earthly strand, While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, God put a heap of letters in his hand, And bade him make with them what word he could. And man has turn’d them many times; made Greece, Rome, England, France; yes, nor in vain […]
Poets by Joyce Kilmer
Poets by Joyce Kilmer Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine. Light songs we breathe that perish with our breath Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod. They shall […]
Exposure by Wilfred Owen
Exposure by Wilfred Owen I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . . Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, […]
One Day by Rupert Brooke
One Day by Rupert Brooke Today I have been happy. All the day I held the memory of you, and wove Its laughter with the dancing light o’ the spray, And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, And sent you following the white waves of sea, And crowned your head with fancies, nothing […]