Ballad for Gloom

Related poetry:

1. BALLAD OF THE BANISHED AND RETURNING COUNT [Goethe began to write an opera called Lowenstuhl, Founded upon the old tradition which forms the subject of this Ballad, But he never carried out his design.] OH, enter old minstrel, thou time-honour’d one! We children are here in the hall all alone, The portals we straightway will bar. Our mother is praying, our father […]...
2. Question And Answer he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer night, running the blade of the knife under his fingernails, smiling, thinking of all the letters he had received telling him that the way he lived and wrote about that it had kept them going when all seemed truly hopeless. putting the blade on the […]...
3. The Ballad Of The Brand ‘Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare, Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair; Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand, Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land; Deeming her […]...
4. 293. The Whistle: A Ballad I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth, I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North. Was brought to the court of our good Scottish King, And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring. Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal, The god of the bottle sends down from his […]...
5. The delectable ballad of the waller lot Up yonder in Buena Park There is a famous spot, In legend and in history Yclept the Waller Lot. There children play in daytime And lovers stroll by dark, For ‘t is the goodliest trysting-place In all Buena Park. Once on a time that beauteous maid, Sweet little Sissy Knott, Took out her pretty doll […]...
6. A Ballad of John Silver We were schooner-rigged and rakish, With a long and lissome hull, And we flew the pretty colours of the crossbones and the skull; We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore, And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore. We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted […]...
7. The Ballad of the Carpet Bag Ho! Darkies, don’t you hear dose voters cryin’ Pack dat carpet bag! You must get to de Poll, you must get there flyin’; Pack dat carpet bag! You must travel by de road, you must travel by de train, And the things what you’ve done you will have to explain, And the things what you’ve […]...
8. A Last Confession What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily. Flinging from his arms I laughed To think his passion such He fancied that I gave a soul Did but our […]...
9. Ballad by the Fire Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade: They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go. Then, with a melancholy glee […]...
10. Ballad of the Goodly Fere Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere=Mate, Companion. Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all For the priests and the gallows tree? Aye lover he was of brawny men, O’ ships and the open sea. When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man His smile was good to see, “First let these […]...
11. The Ballad Of The Hanged Men Men my brothers who after us live, Have your hearts against us not hardened. For-if of poor us you take pity, God of you sooner will show mercy. You see us here, attached. As for the flesh we too well have fed, Long since it’s been devoured or has rotted. And we the bones are […]...
12. Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful; it is out of very jealousy and proper pride that we entered the veil. On the day when we cast of the body’s veil from the soul, you will see that we are the envy of despair of man and the Polestars. Wash your face and […]...
13. The Lightning playeth all the while The Lightning playeth all the while But when He singeth then Ourselves are conscious He exist And we approach Him stern With Insulators and a Glove Whose short sepulchral Bass Alarms us tho’ His Yellow feet May pass and counterpass Upon the Ropes above our Head Continual with the News Nor We so much as […]...
14. A Ballad of Hell ‘A letter from my love to-day! Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!’ She struck a happy tear away, And broke the crimson seal. ‘My love, there is no help on earth, No help in heaven; the dead-man’s bell Must toll our wedding; our first hearth Must be the well-paved floor of hell.’ The colour died from out […]...
15. Morning (Love Sonnet XXVII) 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 […]...
16. Mary – A Ballad Author Note: The story of the following ballad was related to me, when a school boy, as a fact which had really happened in the North of England. I have Adopted the metre of Mr. Lewis’s Alonzo and Imogene a poem deservedly Popular. I. Who is she, the poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix’d eyes Seem a […]...
17. DIFFERENT EMOTIONS ON THE SAME SPOT THE MAIDEN. I’VE seen him before me! What rapture steals o’er me! Oh heavenly sight! He’s coming to meet me; Perplex’d, I retreat me, With shame take to flight. My mind seems to wander! Ye rocks and trees yonder, Conceal ye my rapture. Conceal my delight! THE YOUTH. ‘Tis here I must find her, ‘Twas […]...
18. The Ballad of the Red Earl (It is not for them to criticize too minutely The methods the Irish followed, though they might deplore some of Their results. During the past few years Ireland had been going Through what was tantamount to a revolution. EARL SPENCER) Red Earl, and will ye take for guide The silly camel-birds, That ye bury your […]...
19. 403. The Soldier's Return: A Ballad WHEN wild war’s deadly blast was blawn, And gentle peace returning, Wi’ mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning; I left the lines and tented field, Where lang I’d been a lodger, My humble knapsack a’ my wealth, A poor and honest sodger. A leal, light heart was in my breast, My […]...
20. The Ballad of the King's Jest When spring-time flushes the desert grass, Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. Lean are the camels but fat the frails, Light are the purses but heavy the bales, As the snowbound trade of the North comes down To the market-square of Peshawur town. In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill, A kafila camped at […]...
21. The Ballad Of Casey's Billy-Goat You’ve heard of “Casey at The Bat,” And “Casey’s Tabble Dote”; But now it’s time To write a rhyme Of “Casey’s Billy-goat.” Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus, Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace. And sure enough that animal was eminently famous For masticating every rag of […]...
22. The Ballad Of Lenin's Tomb This is the yarn he told me As we sat in Casey’s Bar, That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug In the Land of the Crimson Star; That Soviet guy with the single eye, And the face like a flaming scar. Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait To […]...
23. The Ballad of East and West Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth! Kamal […]...
24. The Ballad Of Reading Gaol (In memoriam C. T. W. Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards Obiit H. M. prison, Reading, Berkshire July 7, 1896) I He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom […]...
25. The Ballad Of Father O'Hart Good Father John O’Hart In penal days rode out To a Shoneen who had free lands And his own snipe and trout. In trust took he John’s lands; Sleiveens were all his race; And he gave them as dowers to his daughters. And they married beyond their place. But Father John went up, And Father […]...
26. The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames. A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems. Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore, To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn’t seeking gore; The which it must have often been, for Major Percy […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. 39. Ballad on the American War WHEN Guilford good our pilot stood An’ did our hellim thraw, man, Ae night, at tea, began a plea, Within America, man: Then up they gat the maskin-pat, And in the sea did jaw, man; An’ did nae less, in full congress, Than quite refuse our law, man. Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes, I […]...
29. Ballad Of The Despairing Husband My wife and I lived all alone, Contention was our only bone. I fought with her, she fought with me, And things went on right merrily. But now I live here by myself With hardly a damn thing on the shelf, And pass my days with little cheer Since I have parted from my dear. […]...
30. Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait The bows glided down, and the coast Blackened with birds took a last look At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye; The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck. Then good-bye to the fishermanned Boat with its anchor free and fast As a bird hooking over the sea, High and dry by the top of […]...
31. The Ballad of Rudolph Reed Rudolph Reed was oaken. His wife was oaken too. And his two good girls and his good little man Oakened as they grew. “I am not hungry for berries. I am not hungry for bread. But hungry hungry for a house Where at night a man in bed “May never hear the plaster Stir as […]...
32. A Ballad Of Suicide The gallows in my garden, people say, Is new and neat and adequately tall; I tie the noose on in a knowing way As one that knots his necktie for a ball; But just as all the neighbours-on the wall – Are drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!” The strangest whim has seized me. […]...
33. The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall: “We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew’s Ball. Yon squakin’ saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes. I’m sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes.” “Alas! it’s true,” said Tam MacCall. “The young folk of to-day Are fox-trot mad and dinna […]...
34. A Ballad of Dreamland I hid my heart in a nest of roses, Out of the sun’s way, hidden apart; In a softer bed then the soft white snow’s is, Under the roses I hid my heart. Why would it sleep not? why should it start, When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred? What made sleep flutter his […]...
35. Donica – A Ballad Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein Very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which Foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer Belonging to the […]...
36. The Revenge – A Ballad of the Fleet At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: ‘Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted’ Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ”Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And […]...
37. The Naked And The Nude For me, the naked and the nude (By lexicographers construed As synonyms that should express The same deficiency of dress Or shelter) stand as wide apart As love from lies, or truth from art. Lovers without reproach will gaze On bodies naked and ablaze; The Hippocratic eye will see In nakedness, anatomy; And naked shines […]...
38. The Ballad Of Touch-The-Button Nell Beyond the Rocking Bridge it lies, the burg of evil fame, The huts where hive and swarm and thrive the sisterhood of shame. Through all the night each cabin light goes out and then goes in, A blood-red heliograph of lust, a semaphore of sin. From Dawson Town, soft skulking down, each lewdster seeks his […]...
39. The Ballad Of The Leather Medal Only a Leather Medal, hanging there on the wall, Dingy and frayed and faded, dusty and worn and old; Yet of my humble treasures I value it most of all, And I wouldn’t part with that medal if you gave me its weight in gold. Read the inscription: For Valour – presented to Millie MacGee. […]...
40. The Ballad Of One-Eyed Mike This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye, As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky; As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of “hooch” was dry. A man once aimed that my life be shamed, […]...