A Prayer in Darkness by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Poet: GK Chesterton Poem: A Prayer in Darkness

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The Young Captive by Toru Dutt

Poem of the Week Poet: Toru Dutt British Indian 1856 – 1877

Children by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Poet: Letitia Elizabeth Landon Post-Romantic Era English 1802 - 1838

A Last Confession by William Butlers Yeats

William Butler Yeats was a poet and one of the foremost figures in 20th Century literature. In his later years he served as a senator of the Irish Free State for two terms. He studied poetry from an early age and became fascinated by Irish legends....

Leave the River Full of Lotuses by Narsinh Mehta

Unable to speak until he was 8 years old Narsinh Mehta, also known as Narsi Mehta or Narsi Bhagat was a saint poet and bhakta. He was an exponent of Vaishnava poetry. He is revered in Gujarati literature as an Adi Kavi and was a favourite of Muhatma Ghandi. He lost his parents when he was 5 years old and was raised by his grandmother.

For a Girl in a Book by Ben Jonson

Kim, composite of all my loves, less real than most, more real than all; of my making, all the good and some of the bad, yet of yourself; sole, unique, strong, alone, whole, independent, one: yet mine in that you cannot be unfaithful   Date: 1609 Poet: Ben Jonson English 1572 - 1637 Benjamin Jonson …

A Cabbage Patch by Robert William Service

Folk ask if I'm alive, Most think I'm not; Yet gaily I contrive To till my plot. The world its way can go, I little heed, So long as I can grow The grub I need. For though long overdue, The years to me, Have taught a lesson true, --Humility. Such better men than I …

About the Nightingale by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

From a letter from Coleridge to Wordsworth after writing The Nightingale: In stale blank verse a subject stale I send per post my Nightingale; And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth, You'll tell me what you think, my Bird's worth. My own opinion's briefly this-- His bill he opens not amiss; And when he has …

Requiem for the Croppies by Seamus Heaney

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley... No kitchens on the run, no striking camp... We moved quick and sudden in our own country. The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp. A people hardly marching... on the hike... We found new tactics happening each day: We'd cut through reins and rider with the …

Afternoon by Dorothy Parker

When I am old, and comforted And done with this desire With Memory to share my bed And Peace to share my fire I'll comb my hair in scalloped bands Beneath my laundered cap And watch my cool and fragile hands Lie light upon my lap And I will have a sprigged gown With lace …

Dear Chains by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

Rose-maiden, no, I do not quarrel With these dear chains, they don't demean. The nightingale embushed in laurel, The sylvan singers' feathered queen, Does she not bear the same sweet plight? Near the proud rose's beauty dwelling, And with her tender anthems thrilling The dusk of a voluptuous night Poet: Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin Romantic Era …

Cape Breton by Elizabeth Bishop

Out on the high "bird islands," Ciboux and Hertford, the razorbill auks and the silly-looking puffins all stand with their backs to the mainland in solemn, uneven lines along the cliff's brown grass-frayed edge, while the few sheep pastured there go "Baaa, baaa." (Sometimes, frightened by aeroplanes, they stampede and fall over into the sea …

Chorus from Hellas by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where …

America, A Prophecy by William Blake

The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc, When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode: His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron: Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood; A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night, …

A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray, And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the …

The Mother Moon by Louisa May Alcott

The moon upon the wide sea Placidly looks down, Smiling with her mild face, Though the ocean frown. Clouds may dim her brightness, But soon they pass away, And she shines out, unaltered, O'er the little waves at play. So 'mid the storm or sunshine, Wherever she may go, Led on by her hidden power …

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker by Richard Brautigan

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker Part 1 Baudelaire was driving a Model A across Galilee. He picked up a hitch-hiker named Jesus who had been standing among a school of fish, feeding them pieces of bread. "Where are you going?" asked Jesus, getting into the front seat. "Anywhere, anywhere out of this world!" shouted Baudelaire. "I'll go …

Advice to a Raven in Russia by Joel Barlow

Black fool, why winter here? These frozen skies, Worn by your wings and deafen'd by your cries, Should warn you hence, where milder suns invite, And day alternates with his mother night. You fear perhaps your food will fail you there, Your human carnage, that delicious fare That lured you hither, following still your friend …

Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light …

A Pair of Lovers in the Street by Arthur Henry Adams

A pair of lovers in the street! I dare not mock: with reverence meet My unforgetting heart I cheat. Ah, God, spare me—so soon again At the barred door to beat in vain, And find their dalliance such fierce pain! I, yearning up from Hell’s abyss, See, dreaming through their worlds of bliss, This Dante …

A Smile to Remember by Charles Bukowski

we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!' and she was right: it's better to be happy if you can but my father continued …

The Vampire by Charles Baudelaire

You who, like the stab of a knife, Entered my plaintive heart; You who, strong as a herd Of demons, came, ardent and adorned, To make your bed and your domain Of my humiliated mind — Infamous bitch to whom I'm bound Like the convict to his chain, Like the stubborn gambler to the game, …

Love Sonnet XXVII by Pablo Neruda

Naked you are simple as one of your hands; Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round. You've moon-lines, apple pathways Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat. Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba; You've vines and stars in your hair. Naked you are spacious and yellow As summer in a golden …

Genius by Mark Twain

Genius, like gold and precious stones, is chiefly prized because of its rarity. Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild, incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility, and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter. Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres far above the vulgar world and fills his soul with regal contempt for …

Astrophel by Edmund Spenser

Shepheards, that wont on pipes of oaten reed Oft times to plaine your loves concealed smart, And with your piteous layes have learnd to breed Compassion in a countrey lasses hart, Hearken, ye gentle shepheards, to my song, And place my dolefull plaint your plaints emong. To you alone I sing this mournfull verse, The …

Desire by Matthew Arnold

Thou, who dost dwell alone; Thou, who dost know thine own; Thou, to whom all are known, From the cradle to the grave,-- Save, O, save! From the world's temptations; From tribulations; From that fierce anguish Wherein we languish; From that torpor deep Wherein we lie asleep, Heavy as death, cold as the grave,-- Save, …

Squire Norton’s Song by Charles Dickens

The child and the old man sat alone In the quiet, peaceful shade Of the old green boughs, that had richly grown In the deep, thick forest glade. It was a soft and pleasant sound, That rustling of the oak; And the gentle breeze played lightly round As thus the fair boy spoke:- "Dear father, …

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and …

Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope

In these deep solitudes and awful cells, Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells, And ever-musing melancholy reigns; What means this tumult in a vestal's veins? Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat? Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat? Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came, And Eloisa yet must kiss the name. Dear fatal name! …

Ballad by John Clare

A faithless shepherd courted me, He stole away my liberty. When my poor heart was strange to men, He came and smiled and stole it then. When my apron would hang low, Me he sought through frost and snow. When it puckered up with shame, And I sought him, he never came. When summer brought …

On Shakespear by John Milton

What needs my Shakespear for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a …

Autumn River Song by Li Po

The moon shimmers in green water. White herons fly through the moonlight. The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts: into the night, singing, they paddle home together. Poet: Li Po Chinese 701 – 762

A Wink from Hesper by William Ernest Henley

A wink from Hesper, falling Fast in the wintry sky, Comes through the even blue, Dear, like a word from you… Is it good-bye? Across the miles between us I send you sigh for sigh. Good-Night, sweet friend, good-night: Till life and all take flight, Never good-bye Poet: William Ernest Henley English 1849 – 1903

Variations on the Word Love by Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug holes with. It's the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart- shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts. Add lace and you can sell it. We insert it also in the one empty space on the printed form …

Dedication by Lewis Carroll

Inscribed to a Dear Child: In Memory of Golden Summer Hours And Whispers of a Summer Sea Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task, Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask The tale he loves to tell. Rude spirits of the seething outer strife, …

Beacons by Charles Baudelaire

RUBENS, oblivious garden of indolence, Pillow of cool flesh where no man dreams of love, Where life flows forth in troubled opulence, As airs in heaven and seas in ocean move. LEONARD DA VINCI, sombre and fathomless glass, Where lovely angels with calm lips that smile, Heavy with mystery, in the shadow pass, Among the …

Ode to Beauty by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,— Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old; Or what was the service For which I was sold? When first my eyes saw thee, I found me thy thrall, By magical drawings, Sweet tyrant of all! …

A Rebus by Phillis Wheatley

I. A bird delicious to the taste, On which an army once did feast, Sent by an hand unseen; A creature of the horned race, Which Britain's royal standards grace; A gem of vivid green; II. A town of gaiety and sport, Where beaux and beauteous nymphs resort, And gallantry doth reign; A Dardan hero …

Flush or Faunus by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You see this dog. It was but yesterday I mused, forgetful of his presence here, Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear; When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay, A head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way Right sudden against my face,—two golden-clear Large eyes astonished mine,—a drooping ear Did flap …

Caged Bird 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 sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his …

I’ve Got a Golden Ticket by Roald Dahl

I never thought my life could be Anything but catastrophe But suddenly I begin to see A bit of good luck for me 'Cause I've got a golden ticket I've got a golden twinkle in my eye I never had a chance to shine Never a happy song to sing But suddenly half the world …

Oh Beauty, Passing Beauty by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet! How canst thou let me waste my youth in sighs? I only ask to sit beside thy feet. Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes, Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold My arms about thee ­ scarcely dare to speak. And nothing seems …

The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, "O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You …

In Paris With You by James Fenton

Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two. I'm one of your talking wounded. I'm a hostage. I'm maroonded. But I'm in Paris with you. Yes I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled And resentful at the mess I've been through. …

In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke

In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood— A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What’s madness but nobility of …

There Is Pleasure In the Pathless Woods by George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have …

Wind by Ted Hughes

This house has been far out at sea all night, The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills, Winds stampeding the fields under the window Floundering black astride and blinding wet Till day rose; then under an orange sky The hills had new places, and wind wielded Blade-light, luminous black and emerald, Flexing like the …

When We Two Parted by George Gordon Byron

When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow-- It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, …

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

PART I It is an ancient Mariner And he stoppeth one of three. ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ; The guests are met, the feast is set : Mayst hear the merry din.’ He holds …

Call It a Good Marriage by Robert Graves

Call it a good marriage - For no one ever questioned Her warmth, his masculinity, Their interlocking views; Except one stray graphologist Who frowned in speculation At her h's and her s's, His p's and w's. Though few would still subscribe To the monogamic axiom That strife below the hip-bones Need not estrange the heart, …