STEEL POEMS

Waring

I

What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
.....

Robert Browning

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

Lower New York'a Storm

White wing'd below the darkling clouds
The driven sea-gulls wheel;
The roused sea flings a storm against
The towers of stone and steel.
.....

Don Marquis

The Roll Of The Kettledrum; Or, The Lay Of The Last Charger

“You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?”-Byron.
.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Oina-morul

After an address to Malvina, the daughter of Toscar, Ossian proceeds to relate his own expedition to Fuärfed, an island of Scandinavia. Mal-orchol, king of Fuärfed, being hard pressed in war by Ton-thormod, chief of Sar-dronto (who had demanded in vain the daughter of Mal-orchol in marriage,) Fingal sent Ossian to his aid. Ossian, on the day after his arrival, came to battle with Ton-thormod, and took him prisoner. Mal-orchol offers his daughter, Oina-morul, to Ossian; but he, discovering her passion for Ton-thormod, generously surrenders her to her lover, and brings about a reconciliation between the two kings.



.....

James Macpherson

The Sonnets Cxxxiii - Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart To Groan

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!
Is't not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
.....

William Shakespeare

The English Flag

Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack,
remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately
when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts,
and seemed to see significance in the incident. -- DAILY PAPERS.
.....

Rudyard Kipling

The Mystery

I was not; now I am-a few days hence
I shall not be; I fain would look before
And after, but can neither do; some Power
Or lack of power says “no” to all I would.
.....

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Flower And The Leaf: Or, The Lady In The Arbour.[1]

A VISION.


Now turning from the wintry signs, the sun,
.....

John Dryden

Punishment In Kindergarten

Today the world is a little more my own.
No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
.....

Kamala Das

Adonais

I weep for Adonais-he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
.....

Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Wounded Deer'leaps Highest

165

A Wounded Deer-leaps highest-
I've heard the Hunter tell-
.....

Emily Dickinson

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

The Mood Of Depression

You dark mouth inside me,
You are strong , shape
Composed of autumn cloud,
And golden evening stillness;
.....

Georg Trakl

To The River Rhone

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower
In chambers purple with the Alpine glow,
Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow
And rocked by tempests!--at the appointed hour
.....

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sweet—safe—houses

457

Sweet—safe—Houses—
Glad—gay—Houses—
.....

Emily Dickinson

My Friends

The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;
And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;
A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief.

.....

Robert Service

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die-
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
.....

Robert Service

Memorial Day

“Dulce et decorum est”


The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
.....

Joyce Kilmer

The Young British Soldier

When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
.....

Rudyard Kipling

Strange Are The Ways Of Men

STRANGE are the ways of men,
And strange the ways of God!
We tread the mazy paths
That all our fathers trod.
.....

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Haystack In The Floods

Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
.....

William Morris

Er Commercio Libbero (the Free Trade)

Be'? So' pputtana, venno la mi' pelle:
Fo la miggnotta, si, sto ar cancelletto:
Lo pijo in quello largo e in quello stretto:
C'è gnent'antro da dì? Che cose belle!
.....

Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli

The Songs Of Selma

ARGUMENTAddress to the evening star:

An apostrophe to Fingal and his times. Minonasings before the king the song of the unfortunate Colma; and the bards exhibit other specimens of their poetical talents; according to an annual custom established by the monarchs of the ancient Caledonians.

.....

James Macpherson

To Winter

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'
.....

William Blake

Cassandra

Mirth the halls of Troy was filling,
Ere its lofty ramparts fell;
From the golden lute so thrilling
Hymns of joy were heard to swell.
.....

Friedrich Schiller

The Two Kings

King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had outridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire,
.....

William Butler Yeats

An Ode On The Popular Superstitions Of The Highlands Of Scotland, Considered As The Subject Of Poetr

Home, thou return'st from Thames, whose naiads long
Have seen thee ling'ring with a fond delay
'Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.
.....

William Collins

Ah, Teneriffe!

666

Ah, Teneriffe!
Retreating Mountain!
.....

Emily Dickinson

Blades

SOJOURNER, set down
Your skimming wheel;
Nothing is sharp
That we have of steel:
.....

Padraic Colum

Rhyme

I've got a stubborn goose whose gut's
Honeycombed with golden eggs,
Yet won't lay one.
She, addled in her goose-wit, struts
.....

Sylvia Plath

A Musical Instrument

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
.....

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Enemy Conscript

What are we fighting for,
We fellows who go to war?
fighting for Freedom's sake!
(You give me the belly-ache.)
.....

Robert Service

Let Zeus

I

I say, I am quite done,
quite done with this;
.....

H. D.

Trapped Dingo

So here, twisted in steel, and spoiled with red
your sunlight hide, smelling of death and fear,
they crushed out your throat the terrible song
you sang in the dark ranges. With what crying
.....

Judith Wright

To ------,

WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL.


Maiden! with the fair brown tresses
.....

John Greenleaf Whittier

Near Perigord

I
You'd have men's hearts up from the dust
And tell their secrets, Messire Cino,
Rigkt enough? Then read between the lines of Uc St. Circ,
.....

Ezra Pound

A Clasp Of Hands

SOFT, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers
That bask in heavenly heat
When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.
.....

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Vision

THE SUN had clos'd the winter day,
The curless quat their roarin play,
And hunger'd maukin taen her way,
To kail-yards green,
.....

Robert Burns

The Two Shades.

Along that gloomy river's brim,
Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar,
Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim,
Stood lingering on the dismal shore.
.....

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

A Romance

He looks at me with a madman's eyes -
It's your house and porch I know so well.
He gives me a kiss with his crimson lips -
Our ancestors had gone to war in scales of steel.
.....

Daniil Ivanovich Kharms

Fingal - Book Iii

ARGUMENT.

Cuthullin, pleased with the story of Carril, insists with that bard for more of his songs. He relates the actions of Fingal in Lochlin, and death of Agandecca, the beautiful sister of Swaran. He had scarce finished, when Calmar, the son of Matha, who had advised the first battle, came wounded from the field, and told them of Swaran's design to surprise the remains of the Irish army. He himself proposes to withstand singly the whole force of the enemy, in a narrow pass, till the Irish should make good their retreat. Cuthullin, touched with the gallant proposal of Calmar, resolves to accompany him and orders Carril to carry off the few that remained of the Irish. Morning comes, Calmar dies of his wounds; and the ships of the Caledonians appearing, Swaran gives over the pursuit of the Irish, and returns to oppose Fingal's landing. Cuthullin, ashamed, after his defeat, to appear before Fingal re tires to the cave of Tura. Fingal engages the enemy, puts them to flight: but the coming on of night makes the victory not decisive. The king, who had observed the gallant behavior of his grandson Oscar, gives him advice concerning his conduct in peace and war. He recommends to him to place the example of his fathers before his eyes, as the best model for his conduct; which introduces the episode concerning Fainasóllis, the daughter of the king of Craca, whom Fingal had taken under his protection in his youth. Fillan and Oscar are despatched to observe the motions of the enemy by night: Gaul, the son of Morni, desires the command of the army in the next battle, which Fingal promises to give him. Some general reflections of the poet close the third day.

.....

James Macpherson

Calthon And Colmal

This piece, as many more of Ossian's compositions, is addressed to one of the first Christian missionaries. The story of the poem is handed down by tradition thus:- In the country of the Britons, between the walls, two chiefs lived in the days of Fingal, Dunthalmo, Lord of Teutha, supposed to be the Tweed; and Rathmor, who dwelt at Clutha, well known to be the river Clyde. Rathmor was not more renowned for his generosity and hospitality, than Dunthalmo was infamous for his cruelty and ambition. Dunthalmo, through envy, or on account of some private feuds, which subsisted between the families, murdered Rathmor at a feast; but being afterward touched with remorse, he educated the two sons of Rathmor, Calthon and Colmar, in his own house. They growing up to man's estate, dropped some hints that they intended to revenge the death of their father, upon which Dunthalmo shut them up in two caves, on the banks of Teutha, intending to take them off privately. Colmal, the daughter of Dunthalmo, who was secretly in love with Calthon, helped him to make his escape from prison, and hied with him to Fingal, disguised in the habit of a young warrior, and implored his aid against Dunthalmo. Fingal sent Ossian with three hundred men to Colmar's relief. Dunthalmo, having previously murdered Colmar, came to a battle with Ossian, but he was killed by that hero, and his army totally defeated. Calthon married Colmal his deliverer; and Ossian returned to Morven.

Pleasant is the voice of thy song, thou lonely dweller of the rock! It comes on the sound of the stream, along the narrow vale. My soul awakes, O stranger, in the midst of my hall. I stretch my hand to the spear, as in the days of other years. I stretch my hand, but it is feeble: and the sigh of my bosom grows. Wilt thou not listen, son of the rock! to the song of Ossian? My soul is full of other times; the joy of my youth returns. Thus the sun appears in the west, after the steps of his brightness have moved behind a storm: the green hills lift their dewy heads: the blue streams rejoice in the vale. The aged hero comes forth on his stair; his gray hair glitters in the beam. Dost thou not behold, son of the rock! a shield in Ossian's hall? It is marked with the strokes of battle; and the brightness of its bosses has failed. That shield the great Dunthalmo bore, the chief of streamy Teutha. Dunthalmo bore it in battle before he fell by Ossian's spear. Listen, son of the rock! to the tale of other years.

.....

James Macpherson

Santa Fe In Winter

The city is closing for the night.
Stores draw their blinds one by one,
and it's dark again, save for the dim

.....

Deborah Ager

Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi

I.

Over the road from the three star Galaxy Hotel is our hotel,
the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street,
.....

S. K. Kelen

Sweet'safe'houses

457

Sweet-safe-Houses-
Glad-gay-Houses-
.....

Emily Dickinson

For The King

Northern Mexico, 1640


As you look from the plaza at Leon west
.....

Bret Harte

Unshriven

Oh! the sun rose on the lea, and the bird sang merrilie,
And the steed stood ready harness'd in the hall,
And he left his lady's bower, and he sought the eastern tower,
And he lifted cloak and weapon from the wall.
.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Bells

At six o'clock of an autumn dusk
With the sky in the west a rusty red,
The bells of the mission down in the valley
Cry out that the day is dead.
.....

Sara Teasdale

Comus

A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

.....

John Milton