Category: Poetry
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In Earliest Spring
In Earliest Spring William Dean Howells Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, Through all the moaning chimneys, and ‘thwart all the hollows and angles Round the shuddering house, threatening of winter and death. But in my heart I feel the life of the…
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Chorus from ‘Atalanta’
Chorus from ‘Atalanta’ Algernon Charles Swinburne When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign…
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Song
Song Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy I made another garden, yea, For my new Love: I left the dead rose where it lay And set the new above. Why did my Summer not begin? Why did my heart not haste? My old Love came and walk’d therein, And laid the garden waste. She enter’d with her…
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Three Poems for Christmas
All by Christina Rossetti In the Bleak Midwinter In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away…
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Jerusalem (from Milton)
Jerusalem William Blake And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God, On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold!…
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The Great Breath
The Great Breath George William Russell Its edges foam’d with amethyst and rose, Withers once more the old blue flower of day: There where the ether like a diamond glows, Its petals fade away. A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air; Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows; The great deep thrills—for through it everywhere…
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Forefathers
Forefathers Edmund Blunden Here they went with smock and crook, Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade, Here they mudded out the brook And here their hatchet cleared the glade: Harvest-supper woke their wit, Huntsmen’s moon their wooings lit. From this church they led their brides, From this church themselves were led Shoulder-high; on…
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Quia Amore Langueo
Quia Amore Langueo Anonymous IN a valley of this restles mind I sought in mountain and in mead, Trusting a true love for to find. Upon an hill then took I heed; A voice I heard (and near I yede) In great dolour complaining tho: See, dear soul, how my sides bleed Quia amore langueo.…
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The Knight of the Grail
The Knight of the Grail Anonymous Lully, lully; lully, lulley; The fawcon hath born my mak away. He bare hym vp, he bare hym down; He bare hym into an orchard brown. In that orchard ther was an hall, That was hangid with purpill and pall. And in that hall ther was a bede; Hit…
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Death
Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud John Donne Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then…
Dan Yingst 