SEVERE POEMS

Last Night I Cried!

Last night l cried!

Again I have lied not once, not twice, but more than the eyes on the dice.
Has I sit back and analyzed why do I lied.
.....

Mark Burrell

The Cuckoo-clock

Wouldst thou be taught, when sleep has taken flight,
By a sure voice that can most sweetly tell,
How far off yet a glimpse of morning light,
And if to lure the truant back be well,
.....

William Wordsworth

Farewell Lines

"Hign bliss is only for a higher state,"
But, surely, if severe afflictions borne
With patience merit the reward of peace,
Peace ye deserve; and may the solid good,
.....

William Wordsworth

Venus And Adonis

Even as the sun with purple-coloured face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
.....

William Shakespeare

Elegy Iv. Ophilia's Urn. To Mr. Graves

Through the dim veil of evening's dusky shade,
Near some lone fane, or yew's funereal green,
What dreary forms has magic Fear survey'd!
What shrouded spectres Superstition seen!
.....

William Shenstone

Religio Laici

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
.....

John Dryden

To Cowper

Sweet are thy strains, celestial Bard;
And oft, in childhood's years,
I've read them o'er and o'er again,
With floods of silent tears.
.....

Anne Brontë

Absalom And Achitophel

In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man, on many, multipli'd his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd:
.....

John Dryden

My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslow

1922: the stone porch of my Grandfatherâ??s summer house

I
â??I wonâ??t go with you. I want to stay with Grandpa!â?
.....

Robert Lowell

Consolation

Mist clogs the sunshine.
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejection
.....

Matthew Arnold

Song Of The Moon

The moonlight breaks upon the city's domes,
And falls along cemented steel and stone,
Upon the grayness of a million homes,
Lugubrious in unchanging monotone.
.....

Claude Mckay

Faith

This much I know:
God does not wrong us here,
Though oft His judgments seem severe
And reason falters 'neath the blow,
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Psalm 07

Aug. 14. 1653.
Upon The Words Of Chush The Benjamite Against Him.

Lord my God to thee I flie
.....

John Milton

Hyperion: Book Ii

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings
Hyperion slid into the rustled air,
And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place
Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd.
.....

John Keats

The Deserted Village

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed:
.....

Oliver Goldsmith

There Is A Languor Of The Life

396

There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain-
.....

Emily Dickinson

The Odyssey: Book 23

Euryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her
dear husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and
her feet were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent
over her head to speak to her. “Wake up Penelope, my dear child,”
.....

Homer

The Iliad Of Homer: Translated Into English Blank Verse: Book I.

Argument Of The First Book.


The book opens with an account of a pestilence that prevailed in the Grecian camp, and the cause of it is assigned. A council is called, in which fierce altercation takes place between Agamemnon and Achilles. The latter solemnly renounces the field. Agamemnon, by his heralds, demands Brisë is, and Achilles resigns her. He makes his complaint to Thetis, who undertakes to plead his cause with Jupiter. She pleads it, and prevails. The book concludes with an account of what passed in Heaven on that occasion.
.....

William Cowper

The Hermit

Far in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a rev'rend hermit grew;
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well:
.....

Thomas Parnell

Windsor Forest

Thy forests, Windsor! and thy green retreats,
At once the Monarch's and the Muse's seats,
Invite my lays. Be present, sylvan maids!
Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.
.....

Alexander Pope

Motherhood

She sat on a shelf,
her breasts two bellies
on her poked-out belly,
on which the navel looked
.....

May Swenson

No, I'm Not Byron; I Am, Yet

No, I'm not Byron; I am, yet,
Another choice for the sacred dole,
Like him - a persecuted soul,
But only of the Russian set.
.....

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

Truth

Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd,
His ship half founder'd, and his compass lost,
Sees, far as human optics may command,
A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land;
.....

William Cowper

Aims At Happiness

HOW oft has sounded whip and wheel,
How oft is buckled spur to heel,
How many a steed in short relay
Stands harnessed on the king's highway,
.....

Jane Taylor

Memorials Of A Tour In Italy, 1837 - Xiv. - The Cuckoo At Laverna - May 25, 1837

List 'twas the Cuckoo. O with what delight
Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint,
Far off and faint, and melting into air,
Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again!
.....

William Wordsworth

Tale I

That all men would be cowards if they dare,
Some men we know have courage to declare;
And this the life of many a hero shows,
That, like the tide, man's courage ebbs and flows:
.....

George Crabbe

The Beasts' Confession

To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents

When beasts could speak (the learned say,
They still can do so ev'ry day),
.....

Jonathan Swift

Hyperion: Book I

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
.....

John Keats

Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
.....

John Keats

On The Bill Which Was Passed In England For Regulating The Slave-trade

The hollow winds of night no more
In wild, unequal cadence pour,
On musing fancy's wakeful ear,
The groan of agony severe
.....

Helen Maria Williams

The Odyssey: Book 10

Thence we went on to the Aeoli island where lives Aeolus son of
Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods. It is an island that floats (as
it were) upon the sea, iron bound with a wall that girds it. Now,
Aeolus has six daughters and six lusty sons, so he made the sons marry
.....

Homer

The Bard

“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
.....

Thomas Gray

The Disciple

I.

The times are changed, and gone the day
When the high heavenly land,
.....

George Macdonald

Inscription For A Rural Cemetery

Peace to the dead! The forest weaves,
Around your couch, its shroud of leaves;
While shadows dim and silence deep,
Bespeak the quiet of your sleep.
.....

Sam G. Goodrich

Sonnet

Upon my smile let none pass compliment
If it but gleam like an enchanting ray
Of sunshine caught from some sweet summer day,
In atmosphere of rose and jasmine scent
.....

Hattie Howard

Lord Lundy

Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career

Lord Lundy from his earliest years
Was far too freely moved to Tears.
.....

Hilaire Belloc

Frae The Friends And Land I Love

FRAE the friends and land I love,
Driv'n by Fortune's felly spite;
Frae my best belov'd I rove,
Never mair to taste delight:
.....

Robert Burns

The Clinging Vine

“Be calm? And was I frantic?
You'll have me laughing soon.
I'm calm as this Atlantic,
And quiet as the moon;
.....

Edwin Arlington Robinson

A Moral Vindicator

If Mr. Jones, Lycurgus B.,
Had one peculiar quality,
'Twas his severe advocacy
Of conjugal fidelity.
.....

Bret Harte

Discovery

Beauty walked over the hills and made them bright.
She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains
Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars,
But not like stars cold, severe, terrible.
.....

John Freeman

Major Bellenden's Song

And what though winter will pinch severe
Through locks of grey and a cloak that's old?
Yet keep up thy heart, bold cavalier,
For a cup of sack shall fence the cold.
.....

Sir Walter Scott

On The Eve Of Departure From O''

Loud beats the rain! The hollow, groan
Of rushing winds I hear,
That with a deep and sullen moan,
Pass slowly by the ear.
.....

Matilda Betham

A Portrait

Thoughtful in youth, but not austere in age;
Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage;
Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer,
And only just when seemingly severe;
.....

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Matrimony

(Matrimony-Advertiser would like to hear from well-
educated Protestant lady, under thirty, fair, with view to
above, who would have no objection to work Remington type-
writer, at home. Enclose photo. T. 99. This Office. Cork
.....

Andrew Lang

Satyr

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange prodigious Creatures Man)
A Spirit free, to choose for my own share,
What Case of Flesh, and Blood, I pleas'd to weare,
.....

John Wilmot

Holiday Home

Of all the sweet visions that come unto me
Of happy refreshment by land or by sea,
Like oases where in life's desert I roam,
Is nothing so pleasant as Holiday Home.
.....

Hattie Howard

The Needed One

'Twas not rare versatility,
Nor gift of poesy or art,
Nor piquant, sparkling jeux d'esprit
Which at the call of fancy come,
.....

Hattie Howard

Childhood, A Poem: Part I

Pictured in memory's mellowing glass, how sweet
Our infant days, our infant joys, to greet;
To roam in fancy in each cherish'd scene,
The village churchyard, and the village green,
.....

Henry Kirk White

Lamia

Part 1

Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
.....

John Keats

Pagett, M.p.

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where eath tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.
.....

Rudyard Kipling