All Poems

 / page 1666 of 3210 /
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from The Botanic Garden, “The Economy of Vegetation”: Canto I

© Erasmus Darwin

Argument

The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1.  She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59.  Addresses the Nymphs of Fire.  Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81.  I. Love created the Universe.  Chaos explodes.  All the Stars revolve.  God, 97.  II. Shooting Stars.  Lightning.  Rainbow.  Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies.  Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air.  Twilight.  Fire-balls.  Aurora Borealis.  Planets.  Comets.  Fixed Stars.  Sun’s Orb, 115.  III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre.  Animal Incubation, 137.  2. Volcanic Mountains.  Venus visits the Cyclops, 149.  IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air.  Phosphoric lights in the Evening.  Bolognian Stone.  Calcined Shells.  Memnon’s Harp, 173.  Ignis fatuus.  Luminous Flowers.  Glow-worm.  Fire-fly.  Luminous Sea-insects.  Electric Eel.  Eagle armed with Lightning, 189.  V. 1. Discovery of Fire.  Medusa, 209.  2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223.  3. Gunpowder, 237.  VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253.  Labours of Hercules.  Abyla and Calpe, 297.  VII. 1. Electric Machine.  Hesperian Dragon.  Electric Kiss.  Halo round the heads of Saints.  Electric Shock.  Fairy-rings, 335.  2. Death of Professor Richman, 371.  3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds.  Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383.  VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood.  The great Egg of Night, 399.  IX. Western Wind unfettered.  Naiad released.  Frost assailed.  Whale attacked, 421.  X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light.  Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457.  XI. Sirius.  Jupiter and Semele.  Nothern Constellations.  Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas.  Rainy Monsoons, 497.  XII. Points erected to procure Rain.  Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549.  Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.

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On Giving and Taking

© Khalil Gibran

Once there lived a man who had a valley-full of needles. And one
day the mother of Jesus came to him and said: "Friend, my son's
garment is torn and I must needs mend it before he goeth to the
temple. Wouldst thou not give me a needle?"

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Der Neue Welt-Bau

© Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Der Wein, der Wein macht nicht nur froh,

  Er macht auch zum Astronomo.

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The Day is a Poem

© Robinson Jeffers

(September 19, 1939)


This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we heard his voice.

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Ode To Neptune

© Phillis Wheatley

While raging tempests shake the shore,
While Aeolus' thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o'er the plain
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susanna skims the wat'ry way.

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Tenderness and Rot

© Kay Ryan

Tenderness and rot 
share a border. 
And rot is an 
aggressive neighbor 
whose iridescence 
keeps creeping over. 

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Of Life And Death

© Benjamin Jonson

The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:

Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.

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The Room in Which My First Child Slept

© Eavan Boland

After a while I thought of it this way:


It was a town underneath a mountain

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The Birch Tree

© Robert Laurence Binyon

Touched with beauty, I stand still and gaze
In the autumn twilight. Yellow leaves and brown
The grass enriching, gleam, or waver down
From lime and elm: far--glimmering through the haze
The quiet lamps in order twinkle; dumb
And fair the park lies; faint the city's hum.

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The Great Pax Whitie

© Nikki Giovanni

The genesis was life 
The genesis was death 
In the genesis of death 
Was the genesis of war
 be still peace be still

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A Poem For The Birth-Day Of The Right Honble The Lady Catharine Tufton

© Anne Kingsmill Finch

'Tis fit SERENA shou'd be sung.

High-born SERENA, Fair and Young,

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To the Cuckoo

© André Breton

O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

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Highland Mary

© Robert Burns

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around

 The castle o' Montgomery,

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Twenty-third

© Christina Pugh

And at the picnic table under the ancient elms,


one of my parents turned to me and said:

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[as freedom is a breakfastfood]

© Edward Estlin Cummings

as freedom is a breakfastfood

or truth can live with right and wrong

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A Bachelor-Bookworm’s Complaint Of The Late Presidential Election

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

A MAN of peace, I never dared to marry,
Lover of tranquil hours, I dwelt apart;
Outside the realm where noisy schemes miscarry;
My only handmaids, Science, Learning, Art;
Oh! home of pleasant thought, of calm affection,
All blasted now by this last vile election!

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Anthem for Doomed Youth

© Wilfred Owen

What candles may be held to speed them all?
 Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
 The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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The Daddy Long-Legs and the Fly

© Edward Lear

Once Mr Daddy Long-Legs,

Dressed in brown and gray,

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Lines on Locks (or Jail and the Erie Canal)

© John Logan

  1

Against the low, New York State

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The Lover And The Moon

© Paul Laurence Dunbar

A LOVER whom duty called over the wave,

With himself communed: "Will my love be true