The Ballad Of The Hanged Men

Related poetry:

1. Epitaph In The Form Of A Ballade Freres humains qui apres nous vivez, N’ayez les coeurs contre nous endurcis… Men, brother men, that after us yet live, Let not your hearts too hard against us be; For if some pity of us poor men ye give, The sooner God shall take of you pity. Here are we five or six strung up, […]...
2. Why Is This Age Worse…? Why is this age worse than earlier ages? In a stupor of grief and dread Have we not fingered the foulest wounds And left them unhealed by our hands? In the west the falling light still glows, And the clustered housetops glitter in the sun, But here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses, […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. A Boston Ballad, 1854 TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; Here’s a good place at the corner-I must stand and see the show. Clear the way there, Jonathan! Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government cannon! Way for the Federal foot and dragoons-and the apparitions copiously tumbling. I love to look on […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. The Wise Brothers FIRST VOICE So long adrift, so fast aground, What foam and ruin have we found – We, the Wise Brothers? Could heaven and earth be framed amiss, That we should land in fine like this- We, and no others? SECOND VOICE Convoyed by what accursèd thing Made we this evil reckoning – We, the Wise […]...
8. Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring Seven stars in the still water, And seven in the sky; Seven sins on the King’s daughter, Deep in her soul to lie. Red roses are at her feet, (Roses are red in her red-gold hair) And O where her bosom and girdle meet Red roses are hidden there. Fair is the knight who lieth […]...
9. 519. Ballad on Mr. Heron's Election-No. 2 FY, let us a’ to Kirkcudbright, For there will be bickerin’ there; For Murray’s light horse are to muster, And O how the heroes will swear! And there will be Murray, Commander, And Gordon, the battle to win; Like brothers they’ll stand by each other, Sae knit in alliance and kin. And there will be […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. September 1913 What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they […]...
12. When You Go Away When you go away the wind clicks around to the north The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls Showing the black walls The clock goes back to striking the same hour That has no place in the years And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes In one breath I […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. A Ballad of Death Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs Upon the flesh to cleave, Set pains therein and many a […]...
16. 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, […]...
17. Ballad of the Army Carts The carts squeak and trundle, the horses whinny, the conscripts go by, each With a bow and arrows at his waist. Their fathers, mothers, wives, and children Run along beside them to see them off. The Hsien-yang Bridge cannot be seen for Dust. They pluck at the men’s clothes, stamp their feet, or stand in […]...
18. The Ballad Of The Northern Lights One of the Down and Out that’s me. Stare at me well, ay, stare! Stare and shrink say! you wouldn’t think that I was a millionaire. Look at my face, it’s crimped and gouged one of them death-mask things; Don’t seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings? Slouching […]...
19. Rudiger – A Ballad Author Note: Divers Princes and Noblemen being assembled in a beautiful and fair Palace, which was situate upon the river Rhine, they beheld a boat or Small barge make toward the shore, drawn by a Swan in a silver chain, The one end fastened about her neck, the other to the vessel; and in it […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. 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. […]...
22. Barb-Wire Bill At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim, When Bill Mc’Gee he says to me: “We’ve got to do it, Jim. We’ve got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river’s bad, But, oh! the little woman’s sick. . . why! don’t you savvy, lad?” And me! Well, yes, I […]...
23. 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; On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift […]...
24. Keepe On Your Maske (Version for his Mistress) Keepe on your maske and hide your eye For in beholding you I dye. Your fatall beauty Gorgon-like Dead with astonishment doth strike. Your piercing eyes that now I see Are worse than Basilisks to me. Shut from mine eyes those hills of snow, Their melting vally do not shew: Those azure paths lead to […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Irony An arid daylight shines along the beach Dried to a grey monotony of tone, And stranded jelly-fish melt soft upon The sun-baked pebbles, far beyond their reach Sparkles a wet, reviving sea. Here bleach The skeletons of fishes, every bone Polished and stark, like traceries of stone, The joints and knuckles hardened each to each. […]...
27. Leaf Sermon I have been spiritually poisoned By the unclean, in ignorance Blessed their springs. In consequence I withered And drifted down From green crown to brown humus, Thinned to a fishbone pattern Of cellulose threads. I washed into a stream Past stones squirming With black question marks Of dragonfly larvae, Slid through reeds Into eddying pools […]...
28. The Explosion On the day of the explosion Shadows pointed towards the pithead. In the sun the slagheap slept. Down the lane came men in pitboots Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke, Shouldering off the freshened silence. One chased after rabbits; lost them; Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs; Showed them; lodged them in the grasses. […]...
29. I Rose Up at the Dawn of Day I rose up at the dawn of day ‘Get thee away! get thee away! Pray’st thou for riches? Away! away! This is the Throne of Mammon grey.’ Said I: This, sure, is very odd; I took it to be the Throne of God. For everything besides I have: It is only for riches that I […]...
30. The Ballad Of Gum-Boot Ben He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim. He asked me for a grubstake, and the same I gave to him. He hinted of a hidden trove, and when I made so bold To question his veracity, this is the tale he told. “I do not seek the copper streak, nor yet […]...
31. Going Gone Over stone walls and barns, Miles from the black-eyed Susans, Over circus tents and moon rockets You are going, going. You who have inhabited me In the deepest and most broken place, Are going, going. An old woman calls up to you From her deathbed deep in sores, Asking, “What do you keep of her?” […]...
32. 26. John Barleycorn: A Ballad THERE was three kings into the east, Three kings both great and high, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die. They took a plough and plough’d him down, Put clods upon his head, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn was dead. But the cheerful Spring came kindly on, […]...
33. Bridal Ballad The ring is on my hand, And the wreath is on my brow; Satin and jewels grand Are all at my command, And I am happy now. And my lord he loves me well; But, when first he breathed his vow, I felt my bosom swell – For the words rang as a knell, And […]...
34. The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin I There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame, When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name; Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came. His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow; Deep in their […]...
35. The Haunted Oak Pray why are you so bare, so bare, Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw, Runs a shudder over me? My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I say in the moonlight dim and weird A […]...
36. The Ballad of the White Horse DEDICATION Of great limbs gone to chaos, A great face turned to night Why bend above a shapeless shroud Seeking in such archaic cloud Sight of strong lords and light? Where seven sunken Englands Lie buried one by one, Why should one idle spade, I wonder, Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder To […]...
37. The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding-House ‘T was Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house, Where sailor-men reside, And there were men of all the ports From Mississip to Clyde, And regally they spat and smoked, And fearsomely they lied. They lied about the purple Sea That gave them scanty bread, They lied about the Earth beneath, The Heavens overhead, For they had looked too […]...
38. The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty How he fell with a roll and a rumble And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple By the butt of the Magazine Wall, (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall, Hump, helmet and all? He was one time our King of the Castle Now he’s kicked about like a rotten […]...
39. The Ballad Of Hank The Finn Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow; “Let’s leave,” says he, “the lousy sea, and give the land a show. I’m fed up to the molar mark with wallopin’ the brine; I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin’ on me spine. Let’s hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are […]...
40. The Ballad Of The Foxhunter ‘Lay me in a cushioned chair; Carry me, ye four, With cushions here and cushions there, To see the world once more. ‘To stable and to kennel go; Bring what is there to bring; Lead my Lollard to and fro, Or gently in a ring. ‘Put the chair upon the grass: Bring Rody and his […]...