Every Man Should have a Rifle

Related poetry:

1. Rita And The Rifle Between Rita and my eyes There is a rifle And whoever knows Rita Kneels and plays To the divinity in those honey-colored eyes And I kissed Rita When she was young And I remember how she approached And how my arm covered the loveliest of braids And I remember Rita The way a sparrow remembers […]...
2. Flag of the Southern Cross Sons of Australia, be loyal and true to her – Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Sing a loud song to be joyous and new to her – Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Stain’d with the blood of the diggers who died by it, Fling out the flag to the […]...
3. Delicate Cluster DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining! Flag of death! (how I watch’d you through the smoke of battle pressing! How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and […]...
4. Being Me! Wild are my ways, wilder than you think You will find me standing a little left of frame You will find me a little away from the meeting place I am that and much more, insignificant me. Yes I am the one with the faraway look Of sailors of vast dreamy oceans I look at […]...
5. I would to heaven that I were so much clay I would to heaven that I were so much clay, As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling – Because at least the past were passed away – And for the future – (but I write this reeling, Having got drunk exceedingly today, So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) I say – […]...
6. We say we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to louts We’re sick of all this fuss We say blame the teachers Or the preachers They’re all the same to us […]...
7. Song Unsung The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument. The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; Only there is the agony of wishing in my heart. The blossom has not opened; only the wind […]...
8. Harry Wilmans I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle’s Opera House. “The honor of the flag must be upheld,” he said, “Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs Or the greatest power in Europe.” And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he […]...
9. Black Morning Lovesong In love’s dances, in love’s dances One retreats and one advances, One grows warmer and one colder, One more hesitant, one bolder. One gives what the other needed Once, or will need, now unheeded. One is clenched, compact, ingrowing While the other’s melting, flowing. One is smiling and concealing While the other’s asking kneeling. One […]...
10. Dram-Shop Ditty I drink my fill of foamy ale I sing a song, I tell a tale, I play the fiddle; My throat is chronically dry, Yet savant of a sort am I, And Life’s my riddle. For look! I raise my arm to drink- A voluntary act, you think (Nay, Sir, you’re grinning)> You’re wrong: this […]...
11. Thick-Sprinkled Bunting THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner! -Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival’d? […]...
12. Bathed in War's Perfume BATHED in war’s perfume-delicate flag! (Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,) O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman! O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy! O to see you leap and beckon from […]...
13. Hawker, the Standard Bearer The grey gull sat on a floating whale, On a floating whale sat he, And he told his tale of the storm and the gale, And the ships that he saw with steam and sail, As he flew by the Northern Sea. “I have seen a sign that is strange and new, That I never […]...
14. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
15. At The Beating Of A Drum Fear ye not the stormy future, for the Battle Hymn is strong, And the armies of Australia shall not march without a song; The glorious words and music of Australia’s song shall come When her true hearts rush together at the beating of a drum. We may not be there to hear it – ’twill […]...
16. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
17. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
18. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
19. Twas One of Those Dreams ‘TWAS one of those dreams, that by music are brought, Like a bright summer haze, o’er the poet’s warm thought When, lost in the future, his soul wanders on, And all of this life, but its sweetness, is gone. The wild notes he heard o’er the water were those He had taught to sing Erin’s […]...
20. To A Beautiful Quaker Sweet girl! though only once we met, That meeting I shall ne’er forget; And though we ne’er may meet again, Remembrance will thy form retain. I would not say, “I love,” but still My senses struggle with my will: In vain, to drive thee from my breast, My thoughts are more and more represt; In […]...
21. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
22. The Spirit lasts but in what mode The Spirit lasts but in what mode Below, the Body speaks, But as the Spirit furnishes Apart, it never talks The Music in the Violin Does not emerge alone But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch Alone is not a Tune The Spirit lurks within the Flesh Like Tides within the Sea That make […]...
23. Half An Hour I never had you, nor will I ever have you I suppose. A few words, an approach As in the bar yesterday, and nothing more. It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art Sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only For a short while, we create pleasure Which almost seems real. […]...
24. Parting THERE’S no use in weeping, Though we are condemned to part: There’s such a thing as keeping A remembrance in one’s heart: There’s such a thing as dwelling On the thought ourselves have nurs’d, And with scorn and courage telling The world to do its worst. We’ll not let its follies grieve us, We’ll just […]...
25. The Christ of the 'Never&#039 With eyes that are narrowed to pierce To the awful horizons of land, Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce White heat-waves that flow on the sand; Through the Never Land westward and nor’ward, Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track, Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward The Christ of the Outer Out-back. For […]...
26. Said Grenfell to my Spirit Said Grenfell to my spirit, “You’ve been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law, Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw: So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat: […]...
27. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
28. On the March So the time seems come at last, And the drums go rolling past, And above them in the sunlight Labour’s banners float and flow; They are marching with the sun, But I look in vain for one Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago. They were men who did the […]...
29. Sonnet 42 – 'My future will not copy fair my past&#039 ‘My future will not copy fair my past’- I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life-angel justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried By […]...
30. Victory The schools marched in procession in happiness and pride, The city bands before them, the soldiers marched beside; Oh, starched white frocks and sashes and suits that high schools wear, The boy scout and the boy lout and all the rest were there, And all flags save Australia’s flag waved high in sun and air! […]...
31. God's Battleground God dwells in you; in pride and shame, In all you do to blight or bless; In all you are of praise and blame, In beauty or in ugliness. “Divine Creation” – What a fraud! God did not make you. . . You make God. God lives in me, in all I feel Of love […]...
32. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
33. Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
34. Sonnet 03 Not to thee Bedford mournful is the tale Of days departed. Time in his career Arraigns not thee that the neglected year Has past unheeded onward. To the vale Of years thou journeyest. May the future road Be pleasant as the past! and on my friend Friendship and Love, best blessings! still attend, ‘Till full […]...
35. Poor Peter Blind Peter Piper used to play All up and down the city; I’d often meet him on my way, And throw a coin for pity. But all amid his sparkling tones His ear was quick as any To catch upon the cobble-stones The jingle of my penny. And as upon a day that shone He […]...
36. And Doth Not a Meeting Like This And doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I’ve been wandering away To see thus around me my youth’s early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day? Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine, The snow fall of time may be stealing what […]...
37. A Wife at daybreak I shall be A Wife at daybreak I shall be Sunrise Hast thou a Flag for me? At Midnight, I am but a Maid, How short it takes to make a Bride Then Midnight, I have passed from thee Unto the East, and Victory Midnight Good Night! I hear them call, The Angels bustle in the Hall Softly […]...
38. To An Old Mate Old Mate! In the gusty old weather, When our hopes and our troubles were new, In the years spent in wearing out leather, I found you unselfish and true I have gathered these verses together For the sake of our friendship and you. You may think for awhile, and with reason, Though still with a […]...
39. Simple pleasures that you bring Do you mind if I write a few lines for you tonight? I’m fuelled for sure, perhaps a bit ebullient, (now there’s a rhyme that will be hard to find A word to suit!) I’ll try, but time will surely take A pensive break and provide a chance to make A consequence. Am I afraid […]...
40. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...