Courage poems
/ page 73 of 77 /
An Inspiration
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
However the battle is ended,
Though proudly the victor comes
With fluttering flags and prancing nags
And echoing roll of drums.
The Psalter
© Jean de La Fontaine
THE mother abbess sermonized and fired,
And seemed as if her tongue would ne'er be tired.
Again the culprit said, your Psalter, pray,
Good madam, haste to set the proper way;
On which the sisters looked, both young and old
THOSE 'gan to laugh, while THESE were heard to scold.
The Nightingale
© Jean de La Fontaine
NO easy matter 'tis to hold,
Against its owner's will, the fleece
Who troubled by the itching smart
Of Cupid's irritating dart,
The Bucking-Tub
© Jean de La Fontaine
THEY curst his coming; trouble o'er them spread;
Naught could be done but hide the lover's head;
Beneath a bucking-tub, in utmost haste,
Within the court, our gay gallant was placed.
Celestial Music
© John Donne
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.
Cleansings
© Michael Burch
Walk here among the walking scepters. Learn
inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave
to bone this tightly if their hearts believe
that G-d is good, and never mind the Urn.
See
© Michael Burch
For loveliness remains in her grave eyes, /
and courage in her still-delighted looks: /
each face presented like a picture books. /
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes. /
To my Lady Berkeley, Afflicted upon her Son, My Lord BERKELEY's Early Engaging in the Sea-Service
© Anne Killigrew
In bloody Conflicts he will Armour find,
In strongest Tempests he will rule the Wind,
He will through Thousand Dangers force a way,
And still Triumphant will his Charge convey.
And the All-ruling power that can act thus,
Will safe return your Dear Telemachus.
The Third Epigram. (On an ATHEIST)
© Anne Killigrew
POsthumus boasts he does not Thunder fear,
And for this cause would Innocent appear;
That in his Soul no Terrour he does feel,
At threatn'd Vultures, or Ixion's Wheel,
Alexandreis.
© Anne Killigrew
Th'Heroick Queen (whose high pretence to War
Cancell'd the bashful Laws and nicer Bar
Of Modesty, which did her Sex restrain)
First boldly did advance before her Train,
And thus she spake. All but a God in Name,
And that a debt Time owes unto thy Fame.
Lying In Grass
© Hermann Hesse
Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers,
And the down colors of the bright summer meadow,
The soft blue spread of heaven, the bees' song,
Is this everything only a god's
The Sale of Saint Thomas
© Lascelles Abercrombie
Captain Well, I hope so.
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind
To hug your belly to the slanted deck,
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat
Spins on an axlie in the hissing gales?
From "Vashti"
© Lascelles Abercrombie
WHAT thing shall be held up to woman's beauty?
Where are the bounds of it? Yea, what is all
The world, but an awning scaffolded amid
The waste perilous Eternity, to lodge
On The Loss Of The Royal George
© William Cowper
Toll for the brave!
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore.
Light Shining out of Darkness
© William Cowper
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
God Moves In A Mysterious Way
© William Cowper
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
The Castaway
© William Cowper
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
The Human Face
© Paul Eluard
Of all the springtimes of the world
This one is the ugliest
Of all of my ways of being
To be trusting is the best
Astrophel
© Edmund Spenser
Yet as they been, if any nycer wit
Shall hap to heare, or couet them to read:
Thinke he, that such are for such ones most fit,
Made not to please the liuing but the dead.
And if in him found pity euer place,
Let him be moou'd to pity such a case.
Ruins of Rome, by Bellay
© Edmund Spenser
1 Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest,
But not your praise, the which shall never die
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest;
