Great poems
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The Wind Our Enemy
© Marriott Anne
Windflattening its gaunt furious self againstthe naked siding, knifing in the woundsof time, pausing to tear aside the lastold scab of paint.
From Tamburlaine the Great, Part One ("What is Beauty? saith my sufferings, then")
© Christopher Marlowe
What is Beauty? saith my sufferings then,If all the pens that poets ever heldHad fed the feeling of their master's thoughts,And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,Their minds, and muses on admired themes,If all the heavenly quintessence they stillFrom their immortal flowers of Poesy,Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceiveThe highest reaches of a human wit,If these had made one poem's periodAnd all combined in Beauty's worthiness,Yet should there hover in their restless headsOne thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,Which into words no virtue can digest
From Tamburlaine the Great, Part One ("Nature that framed us of four elements")
© Christopher Marlowe
Nature that framed us of four elements,Warring within our breast for regiment,Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:Our souls, whose faculties can comprehendThe wondrous architecture of the worldAnd measure every wandering planet's course,Still climbing after knowledge infiniteAnd always moving as the restless spheres,Wills us to wear ourselves and never restUntil we reach the ripest fruit of all,That perfect bliss and sole felicity,The sweet fruition of an earthly crown
Lincoln, Man of the People [1922 version]
© Edwin Markham
When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind HourGreatening and darkening as it hurried on,She left the Heaven of Heroes and came downTo make a man to meet the mortal need
The Song of the New Jesus
© MacDonald Wilson Pugsley
All the fat and shiny preachers From their pulpits say:
John Graydon
© MacDonald Wilson Pugsley
I own John Graydon's place--His elm trees moving with a lovely graceAs slow and stately as a minuet,His great lawns wearing shadows like black lace,Too lovely to forget
Eve
© MacDonagh Thomas
I am Eve, great Adam's wife,I that wrought my children's loss,I that wronged Jesus of life,Mine by right had been the cross.
Swan
© David Herbert Lawrence
Far-offat the core of spaceat the quickof timebeatsand goes stillthe great swan upon the waters of all endingsthe swan within vast chaos, within the electron.
People
© David Herbert Lawrence
The great gold apples of nightHang from the street's long bough Dripping their lightOn the faces that drift below,On the faces that drift and blowDown the night-time, out of sight In the wind's sad sough
Man and Bat
© David Herbert Lawrence
When I went into my room, at mid-morning,Say ten o'clock ...My room, a crash-box over that great stone rattleThe Via de' Bardi ....
Salve Deus Rex Iudæorum
© Lanyer Æmilia
Now Pontius Pilate is to judge the CauseOf faultlesse Jesus, who before him stands;Who neither hath offended Prince, nor Lawes,Although he now be brought in woefull bands:O noble Governour, make thou yet a pause,Doe not in innocent blood imbrue thy hands; But heare the words of thy most worthy wife, Who sends to thee, to beg her Sauiours life
The Ahkoond of Swat
© Lanigan George Thomas
What, what, what,What's the news from Swat? Sad news, Bad news,Comes by the cable ledThrough the Indian Ocean's bed,Through the Persian Gulf, the RedSea and the Med-Iterranean--he's dead;The Ahkoond is dead!
For the Ahkoond I mourn
The Obstructionist
© Knox Edmund George Valpy
She was not built upon a beauteous plan; I did not like her face or features much,The lady who was talking to the man Behind the little hutch.
Gentlemen-Rankers
© Rudyard Kipling
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please
