John Ballard

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1. John Rouat the Fisherman Margaret Simpson was the daughter of humble parents in the county of Ayr, With a comely figure, and face of beauty rare, And just in the full bloom of her womanhood, Was united to John Rouat, a fisherman good. John’s fortune consisted of his coble, three oars, and his fishing-gear, Besides his two stout boys, […]...
2. 350. Epistle to John Maxwell, Esq., of Terraughty HEALTH to the Maxwell’s veteran Chief! Health, aye unsour’d by care or grief: Inspir’d, I turn’d Fate’s sibyl leaf, This natal morn, I see thy life is stuff o’ prief, Scarce quite half-worn. This day thou metes threescore eleven, And I can tell that bounteous Heaven (The second-sight, ye ken, is given To ilka Poet) […]...
3. The Spur You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?...
4. Hiawathas' photographing ( Part II ) First the Governor, the Father: He suggested velvet curtains Looped about a massy pillar; And the corner of a table, Of a rosewood dining-table. He would hold a scroll of something, Hold it firmly in his left-hand; He would keep his right-hand buried (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat; He would contemplate the distance With a […]...
5. John Kinsella's Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore I A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose. He might have had my sister, My cousins by the score, But nothing satisfied the fool But my dear Mary Moore, None other knows what pleasures man At table or in […]...
6. No, Thank You John I never said I loved you, John: Why will you tease me day by day, And wax a weariness to think upon With always “do” and “pray”? You Know I never loved you, John; No fault of mine made me your toast: Why will you haunt me with a face as wan As shows an […]...
7. Enoch Dunlap How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause? Sometimes because you were ill; Or your grandmother was ill; Or you drank too much and fell asleep; Or […]...
8. XVII (I do not love you…) 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 […]...
9. Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a 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 […]...
10. Mrs. Sibley The secret of the stars, gravitation. The secret of the earth, layers of rock. The secret of the soil, to receive seed. The secret of the seed, the germ. The secret of man, the sower. The secret of woman, the soil. My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find....
11. To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star! If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since […]...
12. Mine Own John Poynz Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know The cause why that homeward I me draw, And flee the press of courts, whereso they go, Rather than to live thrall under the awe Of lordly looks, wrappèd within my cloak, To will and lust learning to set a law: It is not for because […]...
13. Perry Zoll My thanks, friends of the County Scientific Association, For this modest boulder, And its little tablet of bronze. Twice I tried to join your honored body, And was rejected, And when my little brochure On the intelligence of plants Began to attract attention You almost voted me in. After that I grew beyond the need […]...
14. HIS AGE:DEDICATED TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKES, UNDER THE NAME OFPOSTUMUS Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly And leave no sound: nor piety, Or prayers, or vow Can keep the wrinkle from the brow; But we must on, As fate does lead or draw us; none, None, Posthumus, could e’er decline The doom of cruel Proserpine. The pleasing wife, the house, the ground Must all be […]...
15. On Receiving a Crown of Ivy from John Keats It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind, Thus to be topped with leaves; to have a sense Of honour-shaded thought, an influence As from great nature’s fingers, and be twined With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind, As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence A head that bows to her benevolence, Midst pomp of […]...
16. Kinsey Keene Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank; Coolbaugh Wedon, editor of the Argus; Rev. Peet, pastor of the leading church; A. D. Blood, several times Mayor of Spoon River; And finally all of you, members of the Social Purity Club Your attention to Cambronne’s dying words, Standing with heroic remnant Of Napoleon’s guard on […]...
17. John Donne – The Paradox No Lover saith, I love, nor any other Can judge a perfect Lover; Hee thinkes that else none can, nor will agree That any loves but hee; I cannot say I’lov’d. for who can say Hee was kill’d yesterday? Lover withh excesse of heat, more yong than old, Death kills with too much cold; Wee […]...
18. A Ballad of John Nicholson It fell in the year of Mutiny, At darkest of the night, John Nicholson by Jalбndhar came, On his way to Delhi fight. And as he by Jalбndhar came, He thought what he must do, And he sent to the Rajah fair greeting, To try if he were true. “God grant your Highness length of […]...
19. John Brown Though for your sake I would not have you now So near to me tonight as now you are, God knows how much a stranger to my heart Was any cold word that I may have written; And you, poor woman that I made my wife, You have had more of loneliness, I fear, Than […]...
20. John Wasson Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, Lengthening out the farewell to me off to the war with the British, And then the long, hard years down to the day of Yorktown. And then […]...
21. John Cabanis Neither spite, fellow citizens, Nor forgetfulness of the shiftlessness, And the lawlessness and waste Under democracy’s rule in Spoon River Made me desert the party of law and order And lead the liberal party. Fellow citizens! I saw as one with second sight That every man of the millions of men Who give themselves to […]...
22. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
23. John M. Church I was attorney for the “Q” And the Indemnity Company which insured The owners of the mine. I pulled the wires with judge and jury, And the upper courts, to beat the claims Of the crippled, the widow and orphan, And made a fortune thereat. The bar association sang my praises In a high-flown resolution. […]...
24. John Hancock Otis As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born, Was second to none in Spoon River In my devotion to the cause of Liberty? While my contemporary, Anthony Findlay, Born in a shanty and beginning life As a water carrier to the […]...
25. AN EVENING WITH JOHN HEATH-STUBBS Alone in Sutton with Fynbos my orange cat A long weekend of wind and rain drowning The tumultuous flurry of mid-February blossom A surfeit of letters to work through, a mountain Of files to sort, some irritation at the thought Of travelling to Kentish Town alone when My mind was flooded with the mellifluous voice […]...
26. The Surface It has a hole in it. Not only where I concentrate. The river still ribboning, twisting up, into its re- Arrangements, chill enlightenments, tight-knotted quickenings And loosenings whispered messages dissolving the messengers The river still glinting-up into its handfuls, heapings. glassy Forgettings under the river of My attention And the river of my attention laying […]...
27. An Epitaph On Sr John Walter, Lord Cheife Baron Farewell Example, Living Rule farewell; Whose practise shew’d goodness was possible, Who reach’d the full outstretch’d perfection Of Man, of Lawyer, and of Christian. Suppose a Man more streight than Reason is, Whose grounded Habit could not tread amisse Though Reason slepd; a Man who still esteem’d His wife his Bone; who still his children […]...
28. Since so Ye Please Since so ye please to hear me plain, And that ye do rejoice my smart, Me list no lenger to remain To such as be so overthwart. But cursed be that cruel heart Which hath procur’d a careless mind For me and mine unfeigned smart, And forceth me such faults to find. More than too […]...
29. The Legend of Evil I This is the sorrowful story Told when the twilight fails And the monkeys walk together Holding their neighbours’ tails: “Our fathers lived in the forest, Foolish people were they, They went down to the cornland To teach the farmers to play. “Our fathers frisked in the millet, Our fathers skipped in the wheat, Our […]...
30. 70. Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r, Or in gulravage rinnin scowr To pass the time, To you I dedicate the hour In idle rhyme. My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet, Is grown right eerie now she’s done it, Lest […]...
31. To A Cat Mirrors are not more silent Nor the creeping dawn more secretive; In the moonlight, you are that panther We catch sight of from afar. By the inexplicable workings of a divine law, We look for you in vain; More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun, Yours is the solitude, yours the secret. […]...
32. The Goose-Girl Spring rides no horses down the hill, But comes on foot, a goose-girl still. And all the loveliest things there be Come simply, so, it seems to me. If ever I said, in grief or pride, I tired of honest things, I lied: And should be cursed forevermore With Love in laces, like a whore, […]...
33. St. John's, Cambridge I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade Thy western window, Chapel of St. John! And hear its leaves repeat their benison On him, whose hand thy stones memorial laid; Then I remember one of whom was said In the world’s darkest hour, “Behold thy son!” And see him living still, and wandering on And […]...
34. Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats I weep for Adonais he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, And teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me Died Adonais; till the Future dares […]...
35. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
36. To earn it by disdaining it To earn it by disdaining it Is Fame’s consummate Fee He loves what spurns him Look behind He is pursuing thee. So let us gather every Day The Aggregate of Life’s Bouquet Be Honor and not shame...
37. 176. On the Death of John M'Leod, Esq SAD thy tale, thou idle page, And rueful thy alarms: Death tears the brother of her love From Isabella’s arms. Sweetly deckt with pearly dew The morning rose may blow; But cold successive noontide blasts May lay its beauties low. Fair on Isabella’s morn The sun propitious smil’d; But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds Succeeding […]...
38. Two valentines I. TO MISTRESS BARBARA There were three cavaliers, all handsome and true, On Valentine’s day came a maiden to woo, And quoth to your mother: “Good-morrow, my dear, We came with some songs for your daughter to hear!” Your mother replied: “I’ll be pleased to convey To my daughter what things you may sing or […]...
39. The Song of the Beasts (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.) Come away! Come away! Ye are sober and dull through the common day, But now it is night! It is shameful night, and God is asleep! (Have you not felt the quick fires that creep Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight, And […]...
40. Travels With John Hunter We who travel between worlds Lose our muscle and bone. I was wheeling a barrow of earth When agony bayoneted me. I could not sit, or lie down, Or stand, in Casualty. Stomach-calming clay caked my lips, I turned yellow as the moon And slid inside a CAT-scan wheel In a hospital where I met […]...