All Poems
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M'Andrew's Hymn
© Rudyard Kipling
Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,
An', taught by time, I tak' it so - exceptin' always Steam.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God -
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.
Talk
© Stephen Vincent Benet
And so it goes -- an idle speech and aimless,
A few chance phrases; yet I see behind
The empty words the gleam of a beauty tameless,
Friendship and peace and fire to strike men blind,
Till the whole world seems small and bright to hold --
Of all our youth this hour is pure gold.
Debout Sur Mon Orgueil Je Veux Montrer Au Soir
© Delmira Agustini
Debout sur mon orgueil je veux montrer au soir
L'envers de mon manteau endeuillé de tes charmes,
Son mouchoir infini, son mouchoir noir et noir,
Trait à trait, doucement, boira toutes mes larmes.
Road and Hills
© Stephen Vincent Benet
I shall go away
To the brown hills, the quiet ones,
The vast, the mountainous, the rolling,
Sun-fired and drowsy!
Ring the Bell, Watchman!
© Henry Clay Work
High is the belfry the old sexton stands,
Grasping the rope with his thin bony hands;
Fix'd is his gaze, as by some magic spell,
Till he hears the distant murmmer,
Ring, ring the bell.
The Bold Princess Royal
© Robert Burns
O on the fourteenth day of February we sailed from the land
In the bold Princess Royal bound for Newfoundland.
We had forty bright sailors for our ship's companie,
And boldly from the eastward to the westward sailed we.
Portrait of a Boy
© Stephen Vincent Benet
After the whipping he crawled into bed,
Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping.
How funny uncle's hat had looked striped red!
He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping
"Forever you, the unwashed Russia!"
© Mikhail Lermontov
Forever you, the unwashed Russia!
The land of slaves, the land of lords:
And you, the blue-uniformed ushers,
And people who worship them as gods.
Poor Devil!
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk,
The tiresome noises, all the common things
I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke.
I longed for the cool quiet and the dark,
We Need A Few More Optimists
© Edgar Albert Guest
We need a few more optimists,
The kind that double up their fists
Song: Oh! Go to Sleep
© Joseph Rodman Drake
Oh! go to sleep, my baby dear,
And I will hold thee on my knee;
May Morning
© Stephen Vincent Benet
This is the time of all-sufficing laughter
At idiotic things some one has done,
And there is neither past nor vague hereafter.
And all your body stretches in the sun
And drinks the light in like a liquid thing;
Filled with the divine languor of late spring.
Old Tin Liz
© Alice Guerin Crist
We have scrubbed, and scoured and polished, till she's looking just like new,
And her good old engines singing, and our hearts are singing too,
While the magpies pipe a chorus, and the air's like a sparkling fizz.
And we're going to the races in the Old Tin Liz.
Love in Twilight
© Stephen Vincent Benet
There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships --
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,
Lonely Burial
© Stephen Vincent Benet
The clotted earth piled roughly up about
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,
Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,
The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.
Going Back to School
© Stephen Vincent Benet
The boat ploughed on. Now Alcatraz was past
And all the grey waves flamed to red again
At the dead sun's last glimmer. Far and vast
The Sausalito lights burned suddenly
Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo
© William Schwenck Gilbert
This is SIR BARNABY BAMPTON BOO,
Last of a noble race,
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright
As the blank windows set in glaring brick,
When the wind strengthens from the sea -- and night
Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick;
