Famous poems
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Consolation
© William Taylor 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.
Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport by Kathleen Flenniken: American Life in Poetry #134 T
© Ted Kooser
When ancient people gathered around the fire at nightfall, I like to think that they told stories, about where each of them had been that day, and what that person had seen in the forest. Those were among our first stories, and we still venture into the world and return to tell others what happened. It's part of community. Here Kathleen Flenniken of Washington tells us about a woman she saw at an airport.
Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport
Paradise Lost : Book IV.
© John Milton
O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,
Sonnet LIV. Idle Hours.
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
YE idle hours of summer, not in vain,
To one by Nature's beauty fed, ye pass
Though sending through the mental camera glass
No philosophic lesson to the brain,
Translation Of The Famous Greek War Song
© George Gordon Byron
Sons of the Greeks, arise!
The glorious hour's gone forth,
And, worthy of such ties,
Display who gave us birth.
The Joke
© Charles Bukowski
then he leans back, thinks that I
have no sense of humor, have had a
bad day, or that he has overestimated my
intelligence.
Parody On The Recorders Speech To His Grace The Duke Of Ormond, 4th July, 1711
© Jonathan Swift
An ancient metropolis, famous of late
For opposing the Church, and for nosing the State,
For protecting sedition and rejecting order,
Made the following speech by their mouth, the Recorder:
First, to tell you the name of this place of renown,
Some still call it Dublin, but most Forster's town.
Battle Of Hastings - II
© Thomas Chatterton
OH Truth! immortal daughter of the skies,
Too lyttle known to wryters of these daies,
Programme
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
READER--gentle--if so be
Such still live, and live for me,
Will it please you to be told
What my tenscore pages hold?
To Maecenas
© Eugene Field
Than you, O valued friend of mine,
A better patron _non est_!
Come, quaff my home-made Sabine wine,--
You'll find it poor but honest.
The Riddle of the Dinosaur
© Bert Leston Taylor
Behold the mighty dinosaur,
Famous in prehistoric lore,
Scenes From The Faust Of Goethe
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
CHORUS:
Thy countenance gives the Angels strength,
Though none can comprehend Thee:
And all Thy lofty works
Are excellent as at the first day.
Tale XIV
© George Crabbe
dwell,
While he was acting (he would call it) well;
He bought as others buy, he sold as others sell;
There was no fraud, and he demanded cause
Why he was troubled when he kept the laws?"
"My laws!" said Conscience. "What," said he, "
The Golden Legend: Prologue & 1.
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
_Lucifer._ HASTEN! hasten!
O ye spirits!
From its station drag the ponderous
Cross of iron, that to mock us
Is uplifted high in air!
