Famous poems
/ page 19 of 40 /
A Grammarian's Funeral Shortly After The Revival Of Learning
© Robert Browning
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars
© William Shakespeare
Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlooked for joy in that I honour most.
Santa Christina
© Robert Laurence Binyon
At Tiro, in her father's tower,
The young Cristina had her bower,
Over blue Bolsena's lake,
Where small frolic ripples break
Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. Prelude
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Then down the road, with mud besprent,
And drenched with rain from head to hoof,
The rain-drops dripping from his mane
And tail as from a pent-house roof,
A jaded horse, his head down bent,
Passed slowly, limping as he went.
from the Ansty Experience
© Rg Gregory
(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
Spring Offensive
© Wilfred Owen
Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept. But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Henry Bartle Edward Frere
© Alfred Austin
Bend down and read-the birth, the death, the name.
Born in the year that Waterloo was won,
A Farewel To America to Mrs. S. W.
© 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.
Old Deuteronomy
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
Old Deuteronomy lies on the floor
Of the Fox and French Horn for his afternoon sleep;
And when the men say: "There's just time for one more,"
Then the landlady from her back parlour will peep
And say: "New then, out you go, by the back door,
For Old Deuteronomy mustn't be woken--
Gus: The Theatre Cat
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before,
Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss
To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
His visits are occasional to the Senior Educational
And it is against the rules
For any one Cat to belong both to that
And the Joint Superior Schools.
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
The Old Women
© Arthur Symons
They pass upon their old, tremulous feet,
Creeping with little satchels down the street,
And they remember, many years ago,
Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow
Consolation
© Billy Collins
How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.
Candle Hat
© Billy Collins
In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.
The Sompnour's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Carrack: A great ship of burden used by the Portuguese; the
name is from the Italian, "cargare," to load
The Miller's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Pilate, an unpopular personage in the mystery-plays of the
middle ages, was probably represented as having a gruff, harsh
voice.
