Orlando Furioso Canto 18 by Ludovico Ariosto
ARGUMENT Gryphon is venged. Sir Mandricardo goes In search of Argier’s king. Charles wins the fight. Marphisa Norandino’s men o’erthrows. Due pains Martano’s cowardice requite. A favouring wind Marphisa’s gallery blows, For France with Gryphon bound and many a knight. The field Medoro and Cloridano tread, And find their monarch Dardinello dead. I High minded […]
Baltimore Was Always Blue by Michael Salcman
Baltimore Was Always Blue by Michael Salcman Goodbye America of the blue overalls and steel-toed boots, goodbye, goodbye. The headline in The Sun said it all today in type as tall as the re-election of a president: General Motors Closes Its Broening Highway Plant. Don’t you remember when they said what was good for GM […]
New York’s Bad Dream by Matthew Abuelo
New York’s Bad Dream by Matthew Abuelo New York used to be a squatters town and a misfits town and a union town. This is where you could find a cheap room at the Chelsea or the Dexter House with a bathroom down the hall. Or at the Commander. Many SROs vanished into the remains […]
Only Iraq by Mahmoud Darwish
I remember A’SSayyab*, shouting at the Gulf in vain: Iraq, Iraq, Only Iraq… And from echo comes the only answer. I remember A’SSayyab….at this Soumari space A female had triumphed over the sterility of haze And bequeathed us both the earth and the exile. I remember A’Ssayyab…that poetry is born in Iraq So be an […]
A Farewel To America to Mrs. S. W. by Phillis Wheatley
I. ADIEU, New-England’s smiling meads, Adieu, the flow’ry plain: I leave thine op’ning charms, O spring, And tempt the roaring main. II. In vain for me the flow’rets rise, And boast their gaudy pride, While here beneath the northern skies I mourn for health deny’d. III. Celestial maid of rosy hue, O let me feel […]
Memory Of My Father by Patrick Kavanagh
Memory Of My Father by Patrick Kavanagh Every old man I see Reminds me of my father When he had fallen in love with death One time when sheaves were gathered. That man I saw in Gardner Street Stumbled on the kerb was one, He stared at me half-eyed, I might have been his son. […]
The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley
OF SOLITUDE. “Nunquam minus solus, quam cum solis,” is now become a very vulgar saying. Every man and almost every boy for these seventeen hundred years has had it in his mouth. But it was at first spoken by the excellent Scipio, who was without question a most worthy, most happy, and the greatest of all […]
Bishop Blougram’s Apology by Robert Browning
NO more wine? then we’ll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, though: cool, i’ faith! We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. It’s different, preaching in basilicas, And doing duty in some masterpiece Like this of brother Pugin’s, bless his heart! I doubt if they’re half baked, those chalk […]
Ballad on Mr. Heron’s Election—No. 1 by Robert Burns
WHOM will you send to London town, To Parliament and a’ that? Or wha in a’ the country round The best deserves to fa’ that? For a’ that, and a’ that, Thro’ Galloway and a’ that, Where is the Laird or belted Knight The best deserves to fa’ that? Wha sees Kerroughtree’s open yett, (And […]
The Rhyme of the Three Captains by Rudyard Kipling
This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact. . . . At the close of a winter day, Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay; And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to […]
The Declaration of London by Rudyard Kipling
We were all one heart and one race When the Abbey trumpets blew. For a moment’s breathing-space We had forgotten you. Now you return to your honoured place Panting to shame us anew. We have walked with the Ages dead– With our Past alive and ablaze. And you bid us pawn our honour for bread, […]
The Craftsman by Rudyard Kipling
Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid, He to the overbearing Boanerges Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor, Blessed be the vintage!) Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold, He had made sure of his very Cleopatra, Drunk with enormous, salvation-con temning Love for a tinker. How, while he hid from Sir Thomas’s […]
The Conundrum of the Workshops by Rudyard Kipling
When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but […]
The Coastwise Lights by Rudyard Kipling
Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees; Our loins are battered ‘neath us by the swinging, smoking seas. From reef and rock and skerry — over headland, ness, and voe — The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go! Through the endless summer evenings, on the […]
The Broken Men by Rudyard Kipling
For things we never mention, For Art misunderstood — For excellent intention That did not turn to good; From ancient tales’ renewing, From clouds we would not clear — Beyond the Law’s pursuing We fled, and settled here. We took no tearful leaving, We bade no long good-byes; Men talked of crime and thieving, Men […]
Puck’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
See you the ferny ride that steals Into the oak-woods far? O that was whence they hewed the keels That rolled to Trafalgar. And mark you where the ivy clings To Bayham’s mouldering walls? O there we cast the stout railings That stand around St. Paul’s. See you the dimpled track that runs All hollow […]
Mandalay by Rudyard Kipling
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea, There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!” Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay: […]
A Tree Song by Rudyard Kipling
(A. D. 1200) Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs, (All of a Midsummer morn!) Surely we sing no little thing, In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! Oak of the […]
The Epic of Jack and Jill by Robby Charters
jack and jill went out to fetch the royal pail of water, but the only water in a mile radius flowed down the sewage gutter said jack to jill, ‘to reach the hill where the well is, we must move faster’ but jill nudged jack, he nudged her back, they broke out in a peal […]
The Epic of Jack and Jill by Robby Charters
jack and jill went out to fetch the royal pail of water, but the only water in a mile radius flowed down the sewage gutter said jack to jill, ‘to reach the hill where the well is, we must move faster’ but jill nudged jack, he nudged her back, they broke out in a peal […]
Dancing by Robert Hass
The radio clicks on—it’s poor swollen America, Up already and busy selling the exhausting obligation Of happiness while intermittently debating whether or not A man who kills fifty people in five minutes With an automatic weapon he has bought for the purpose Is mentally ill. Or a terrorist. Or if terrorists Are mentally ill. […]
Marks Of Disrespect by Graham Rowlands
It’s a tragedy for the Empire, almost said Mrs Thatcher. Mrs Gandhi was a woman of great courage, Mrs Thatcher almost didn’t say, thinking how she was a woman of great courage too—although now she’d transfer even her Northern Irish bodyguards. Could she be deeply shocked yet again— looking & sounding so unshocked, unshockable you […]
My Mind Keeps Movin’ by Shel Silverstein
Walk into a restaurant with chicken on my mind Look at the menu I want roastbeaf and wine A waitress comes up I order baked beans and bread Oh when she brings it I want ham’n eggs instead Because my mind keeps a movin’ bouncin’ and a groovin’ A flippin’ floppin’ every whichaway From minute […]
The Old Huntsman by Siegfried Sassoon
I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. ’Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough It cost me, what with my daft management, And the mean folk as owed and never paid me, And backing losers; and the local bucks Egging me on with […]
Deeply Morbid by Stevie Smith
Deeply Morbid by Stevie Smith Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters Always out of office hours running with her social betters But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her It was that […]
Gerontion by T. S. Eliot
Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both. HERE I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt […]
Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot
I Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been […]
A Wife In London by Thomas Hardy
December 1899 I She sits in the tawny vapour That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold-on-fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glimmers cold. A messenger’s knock cracks smartly, Flashed news in her hand Of meaning it dazes to understand Though shaped so shortly: He-he has fallen-in the far South Land… II […]
missing.html
!DOCTYPE html> html> head lang=”en-US”> title>Missing by A. A. Milne/title> /div> h1 class=”pageTitle”>Missing/h1> div class=”entry-content clearfix”> h2 class=”author”>by A. A. Milne/h2> div id=”content”> p>Has anybody seen my mouse?/p> p>I opened his box for half a minute,br /> Just to make sure he was really in it,br /> And while I was looking, he jumped outside!br […]
lines_and_squares.html
!DOCTYPE html> html> head lang=”en-US”> title>Lines and Squares by A. A. Milne/title> /div> h1 class=”pageTitle”>Lines and Squares/h1> div class=”entry-content clearfix”> h2 class=”author”>by A. A. Milne/h2> div id=”content”> p>Whenever I walk in a London street,br /> I’m ever so careful to watch my feet;br /> And I keep in the squares,br /> And the masses of […]
The Curse Upon Edward by Thomas Gray
The Curse Upon Edward by Thomas Gray WEAVE the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward’s race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roofs that ring, Shrieks of […]
The Bard by Thomas Gray
The Bard by Thomas Gray Pindaric Ode “Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait! Tho’ fanned by Conquest’s crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail, Nor e’en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s […]
The Leather Suitcase by Tom Berman
They don’t make suitcases like that any more. Time was, when voyage meant train, steamship distances unbridgeable waiting for a thinning mail weeks, then months, then nothing Time was, when this case was made solid, leather, heavy stitching with protective edges at the corners. Children’s train, across the Reich stops and starts again… Holland a […]
On the Building of Springfield by Vachel Lindsay
Let not our town be large, remembering That little Athens was the Muses’ home, That Oxford rules the heart of London still, That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome. Record it for the grandson of your son — A city is not builded in a day: Our little town cannot complete her soul Till countless […]
On the Building of Springfield by Vachel Lindsay
Let not our town be large, remembering That little Athens was the Muses’ home, That Oxford rules the heart of London still, That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome. Record it for the grandson of your son — A city is not builded in a day: Our little town cannot complete her soul Till countless […]
Mi ha el by Vinko Kalinić
Do not worry, I haven’t forgoten you even though we haven’t heard from each other for centuries. At some hollow time of the night, I’m still poetry writing because of you. And during the day, drinking often from that same invisible fountain, which makes me behave totaly childish. It happens at some blind time, when […]
Mi ha el by Vinko Kalinić
Do not worry, I haven’t forgoten you even though we haven’t heard from each other for centuries. At some hollow time of the night, I’m still poetry writing because of you. And during the day, drinking often from that same invisible fountain, which makes me behave totaly childish. It happens at some blind time, when […]
In Memory of Sigmund Freud by W. H. Auden
When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of a whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they die among us, those who were doing us some good, who knew it […]
Song of the Exposition. by Walt Whitman
1 AFTER all, not to create only, or found only, But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded, To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free; To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire; Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate; To obey, as well […]
Salut au Monde. by Walt Whitman
1 O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next! Each answering all—each sharing the earth with all. What widens within you, Walt Whitman? What waves and soils exuding? What climes? what persons and lands are here? Who are the infants? some […]