Sports poems
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Les Très Riches Heures de Florida
© Debora Greger
At three p.m.
under sky coming to harm
something too red flashes from a limb,
from The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time
© André Breton
Not uselessly employ'd,
I might pursue this theme through every change
Of exercise and play, to which the year
Did summon us in its delightful round.
The Columbiad: Book VIII
© Joel Barlow
On fame's high pinnacle their names shall shine,
Unending ages greet the group divine,
Whose holy hands our banners first unfurl'd,
And conquer'd freedom for the grateful world.
Praeludium
© Benjamin Jonson
And must I sing? What subject shall I choose!
Or whose great name in poets' heaven use,
For the more countenance to my active muse?
The Shepherds Calendar - May
© John Clare
Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
Ferdiah; Or, The Fight At The Ford
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Time is it, O Cuchullin, to arise,
Time for the fearful combat to prepare;
For hither with the anger in his eyes,
To fight thee comes Ferdiah called the Fair.
The Candidate
© Charles Churchill
This poem was written in , on occasion of the contest between the
Earls of Hardwicke and Sandwich for the High-stewardship of the
The Shepherds Calendar - January- Winters Day
© John Clare
Withering and keen the winter comes
While comfort flyes to close shut rooms
And sees the snow in feathers pass
Winnowing by the window glass
The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto III
© Richard Savage
Ye traytors, tyrants, fear his stinging lay!
Ye pow'rs unlov'd, unpity'd in decay!
But know, to you sweet-blossom'd Fame he brings,
Ye heroes, patriots, and paternal kings!
But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance
© William Blake
They dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan,
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them to one another:
These are the sports of love, and these the sweet delights of amorous play,
Tears of the grape, the death sweat of the cluster, the last sigh
Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah.--
Alfs Eleventh Bit
© Ezra Pound
My great press cleaves the guts of men,
My great noise drowns their cries,
My sales beat all the other ten,
Because I print most lies.
Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament
© Alfred Tennyson
To whom the King, "Peace to thine eagle-borne
Dead nestling, and this honour after death,
Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse
Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone
Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn,
And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear."
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
© Patrick Kavanagh
PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Song: How sweet I roam'd from field to field
© William Blake
How sweet I roam'd from field to field,
And tasted all the summer's pride,
'Till I the prince of love beheld,
Who in the sunny beams did glide!
The Deserted Village
© Mark van Doren
Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheared the labouring swain,
Fears In Solitude. Written In April, 1798, During The Alarm Of An Invasion
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A green and silent spot, amid the hills,
A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place
No singing sky-lark ever poised himself.
The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,
