The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands...

Don’t Go Far Off by Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep...

Hands by Russell Edson

There was a road that leads him to go to find a certain time where he sits. Smokes quietly in the evening by the four legged table wagging its (well why not) tail, friendly chap...

Balbus by Marriott Edgar

I'll tell you the story of Balbus, You know, him as builded a wall; I'll tell you the reason he built it, And the place where it happened an' all...

The Absence by Paul Eluard

I speak to you across cities I speak to you across plains My mouth is upon your pillow...

Canute the Great by Mariott Edgar

I'll tell of Canute, King of England, A native of Denmark was he, His hobbies was roving and raiding And paddling his feet in the sea...

George and the Dragon by Marriott Edgar

I'll tell you the tale of an old country pub As fancied itself up to date, It had the word " Garage" wrote on t' stable door And a petrol pump outside the gate...

A Choice by Paul Laurence Dunbar

They please me not-- these solemn songs That hint of sermons covered up. 'Tis true the world should heed its wrongs...

Sea Rose by Hilda Doolittle

Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf...

Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor! by John Dryden

Farewell, ungrateful traitor! Farewell, my perjur'd swain! Let never injur'd woman Believe a man again. The pleasure of possessing Surpasses all expressing, But 'tis too short a blessing, And love too long a pain...

Bogland by Seamus Heaney

We have no prairies To slice a big sun at evening-- Everywhere the eye concedes to Encroaching horizon...

We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-- This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties....

Religio Laici by John Dryden

Dim, as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers, Is reason to the soul; and as on high, Those rolling fires discover but the sky Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray Was lent not to assure our doubtful way, But guide us upward to a better day...

A Child in the Garden by Henry Van Dyke

When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, That Eden lost unknown and found unsought....

Elegy V: His Picture by John Donne

Here take my picture; though I bid farewell, Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. 'Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more When we are shadows both than 'twas before...

The Victory Ball by Alfred Noyes

The cymbals crash, And the dancers walk, With long white stockings And arms of chalk, Butterfly skirts, And white breasts bare, And shadows of dead men...

Your Hay It Is Mow’d, And Your Corn Is Reap’d by John Dryden

Your hay it is mow'd, and your corn is reap'd; Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap'd: Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home...

Departure by Henry Van Dyke

Oh, why are you shining so bright, big Sun, And why is the garden so gay? Do you know that my days of delight are done, Do you know I am going away? If you covered your face with a cloud, I 'd dream You were sorry for me in my pain, And the heads of the flowers all bowed would seem To be weeping with me in the rain...

The Ant-Eater by Roald Dahl

Some wealthy folks from U.S.A., Who lived near San Francisco Bay, Possessed an only child called Roy, A plump and unattractive boy - Half-baked, half-witted and half-boiled, But worst of all, most dreadfully spoiled. Whatever Roy desired each day, His father bought him right away -...

Ode by John Dryden

Thou youngest Virgin Daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the blest; Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise, Rich with immortal green, above the rest:....

We are the time. We are the famous by Jorge Luis Borges

We are the time. We are the famous metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure. We are the water, not the hard diamond, the one that is lost, not the one that stands still...

Sea Poppies by Hilda Doolittle

Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain...

That One by Jorge Luis Borges

Oh days devoted to the useless burden of putting out of mind the biography of a minor poet of the Southem Hemisphere, to whom the fates or perhaps the stars have given a body which will leave behind no child...

Cassandra by Hilda Doolittle

Why do you blind my eyes? why do you dart and pulse till all the dark is home, then find my soul and ruthless draw it back? scaling the scaleless, opening the dark?...

Leda by Hilda Doolittle

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down of his soft breast uncurls his coral feet...

A Brown Girl Dead by Countee Cullen

With two white roses on her breasts, White candles at head and feet, Dark Madonna of the grave she rests; Lord Death has found her sweet...

Mac Flecknoe by John Dryden

All human things are subject to decay, And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey: This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long: In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute. This aged prince now flourishing in peace, And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with business, did at length debate To settle the succession of the State:...

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove...

Bob Smart’s Dream by Robert W Service

This is my dream of Whitehorse When fifty years have sped, As after the Rogers' Banquet I lay asleep in my bed. I tottered along the sidewalk That was made of real cement; A skyscraper loomed above me, Where once I remembered a tent...

Roosters by Elizabeth Bishop

At four o'clock in the gun-metal blue dark we hear the first crow of the first cock just below the gun-metal blue window and immediately there is an echo...

Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die...

Heat by Hilda Doolittle

O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters...

Pear Tree by Hilda Doolittle

Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver, higher than my arms reach you front us with great mass...

Dead Are My People by Khalil Gibran

Gone are my people, but I exist yet, Lamenting them in my solitude... Dead are my friends, and in their Death my life is naught but great Disaster....

Johnson’s Antidote by Banjo Paterson

Down along the Snakebite River, where the overlanders camp, Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp; Where the station-cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes, Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes: Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants, And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants: Where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat, There it was that William Johnson sought his snake-bite antidote...

Wash of Cold River by Hilda Doolittle

Wash of cold river in a glacial land, Ionian water, chill, snow-ribbed sand, drift of rare flowers, clear, with delicate shell- like leaf enclosing frozen lily-leaf, camellia texture, colder than a rose...

For A Poet by Countee Cullen

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, And laid them away in a box of gold; Where long will cling the lips of the moth...

On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die."...

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back Of the wind and floats downstream Till the current ends and dips his wing In the orange suns rays And dares to claim the sky...

That Bright Chimeric Beast by Countee Cullen

That bright chimeric beast Conceived yet never born, Save in the poet's breast, The white-flanked unicorn, Never may be shaken From his solitude; Never may be taken In any earthly wood...

Negative Love by John Donne

I never stoop'd so low, as they Which on an eye, cheeke, lip, can prey, Seldom to them, which soare no higher Than vertue or the minde to'admire, For sense, and understanding may Know, what gives fuell to their fire: My love, though silly, is more brave, For may I misse, when ere I crave, If I know yet, what I would have...

Saturday’s Child by Countee Cullen

Some are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the black racoon-- For implements of battle...

Elegy I: Jealousy by John Donne

Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die, And yet complain'st of his great jealousy; If swol'n with poison, he lay in his last bed, His body with a sere-bark covered, Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can The nimblest crocheting musician...

Immortality by Clare Harner

Do not stand By my grave, and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep—...

History Of The Night by Jorge Luis Borges

Throughout the course of the generations men constructed the night. At first she was blindness; thorns raking bare feet, fear of wolves...

For A Lady I Know by Countee Cullen

She even thinks that up in heaven Her class lies late and snores...

Let Me Die a Younger Man’s Death by Roger McGough

Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and inbetween the sheets holywater death not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death...

Celestial Music by 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...

Grief by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access...

Elegy by Jorge Luis Borges

Oh destiny of Borges to have sailed across the diverse seas of the world or across that single and solitary sea of diverse names, to have been a part of Edinburgh, of Zurich, of the two Cordobas, of Colombia and of Texas...