Decorations

Related poetry:

1. Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats! Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me! (For what is my life, or any man’s life, but a conflict with foes-the old, the incessant war?) You degradations-you tussle with passions and appetites; You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds, the sharpest of all;) You toil of painful […]...
2. Ye Mariners of England 1 Ye Mariners of England 2 That guard our native seas, 3 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 4 The battle and the breeze 5 Your glorious standard launch again 6 To match another foe! 7 And sweep through the deep, 8 While the stormy winds do blow, 9 While the battle rages loud […]...
3. Life CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst. Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your […]...
4. Abel Melveny I bought every kind of machine that’s known Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers, Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers And all of them stood in the rain and sun, Getting rusted, warped and battered, For I had no sheds to store them in, And no use for most of them. And toward the last, when […]...
5. Sonnet On Approaching Italy I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned, Italia, my Italia, at thy name: And when from out the mountain’s heart I came And saw the land for which my life had yearned, I laughed as one who some great prize had earned: And musing on the marvel of thy fame I watched the […]...
6. San Francisco This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown. By accident, you put Your money in my Machine (#4) By accident, I put My money in another Machine (#6) On purpose, I put Your clothes in the Empty machine full Of water […]...
7. The Princess: A Medley: Thy Voice is Heard Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands: A moment, while the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee; The next, like fire he meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and […]...
8. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
9. The Sniper Because back home in Tennessee I was a champeen shot, They made a sniper outa me An’ ninety krouts I got: I wish to Christ I’d not! Athinkin’ o’ them blasted lives It’s kindo’ blue I be; Them lads no doubt had kids an’ wives An’ happy home like me: Them stiffs I still can […]...
10. Lesson In Grammar THE SENTENCE Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy. Imagine a machine, not yet assembled, Each part being quite necessary To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled And a vital piece mislaid The machine is quite valueless, The workers will not be paid. It is just the same when constructing […]...
11. Hate I had a bitter enemy, His heart to hate he gave, And when I died he swore that he Would dance upon my grave; That he would leap and laugh because A livid corpse was I, And that’s the reason why I was In no great haste to die. And then – such is the […]...
12. Poor Earth It is not heaven: bitter seed Leavens its entrails with despair It is a star where dragons breed: Devils have a footing there. The sky has bent it out of shape; The sun has strapped it to his wheel; Its course is crooked to escape Traps and gins of stone and steel. It balances on […]...
13. Nettles My son aged three fell in the nettle bed. ‘Bed’ seemed a curious name for those green spears, That regiment of spite behind the shed: It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears The boy came seeking comfort and I saw White blisters beaded on his tender skin. We soothed him till his […]...
14. An Inspiration However the battle is ended, Though proudly the victor comes With fluttering flags and prancing nags And echoing roll of drums. Still truth proclaims this motto, In letters of living light, – No Question is ever settled, Until it is settled right. Though the heel of the strong oppressor May grind the weak to dust, […]...
15. Settle The Question Right However the battle is ended, Though proudly the victor comes, With flaunting flags and neighing nags And echoing roll of drums; Still truth proclaims this motto In letters of living light, No question is ever settled Until it is settled right. Though the heel of the strong oppressor May grind the weak in the dust, […]...
16. General Roberts in Afghanistan ‘Twas in the year of 1878, and. the winter had set in, Lord Roberts and the British Army their march did begin, On their way to Afghanistan to a place called Cabul; And the weather was bitter cold and the rivers swollen and full. And the enemy were posted high up amongst the hills, And […]...
17. The Battle of Glencoe Twas in the month of October, and in the year of 1899, Which the Boers will remember for a very long time, Because by the British Army they received a crushing blow; And were driven from Smith’s Hill at the Battle of Glencoe. The Boers’ plan of the battle was devised with great skill, And […]...
18. God's Grief “Lord God of Hosts,” the people pray, “Make strong our arms that we may slay Our cursed foe and win the day.” “Lord God of Battles,” cries the foe, “Guide us to strike a bloody blow, And lay the adversary low.” But brooding o’er the battle smother Bewails the Lord: “Brother to brother, Why must […]...
19. Lord Roberts 1914 He passed in the very battle-smoke Of the war that he had descried. Three hundred mile of cannon spoke When the Master-Gunner died. He passed to the very sound of the guns; But, before his eye grew dim, He had seen the faces of the sons Whose sires had served with him, He had […]...
20. Thought OF what I write from myself-As if that were not the resumé; Of Histories-As if such, however complete, were not less complete than the preceding poems; As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as the preceding poems; As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of […]...
21. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
22. Beat! Beat! Drums! 1 BEAT! beat! drums!-Blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his […]...
23. The Warrior He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days, But with the night his little lamp-lit room Was bright with battle flame, or through a haze Of smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boom Of Bluecher’s guns; he shared Almeida’s scars, And from the close-packed deck, about to die, Looked up and saw the […]...
24. An Evening in Dandaloo It was while we held our races Hurdles, sprints and steplechases Up in Dandaloo, That a crowd of Sydney stealers, Jockeys, pugilists and spielers Brought some horses, real heelers, Came and put us through. Beat our nags and won our money, Made the game by np means funny, Made us rather blue; When the racing […]...
25. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
26. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
27. Excerpts from "Poetry&quot Poetry, I found you Where at last they chained and bound you; With devices all around you To torture and confound you, I found you-shivering, bare. They had shorn your raven hair And taken both your eyes Which, once cerulean as the skies, Had leapt at dawn to wild surmise Of what was waiting there. […]...
28. Young Fellow My Lad “Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad, On this glittering morn of May?” “I’m going to join the Colours, Dad; They’re looking for men, they say.” “But you’re only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad; You aren’t obliged to go.” “I’m seventeen and a quarter, Dad, And ever so strong, you know.” * * […]...
29. Something to shout about Captain AJ Shout, VC, MC, MID (& bar), who died at Gallipoli Of wounds and was posthumously awarded the VC, A rare and prestigious award for most conspicuous bravery, Could say, even in dying, it was something to shout about. He was a Kiwi serving in the Boer Campaign, mentioned In despatches, remained living in […]...
30. Enemy of Death (For Rossana Sironi) You should not have Ripped out your image Taken from us, from the world, A portion of beauty. What can we do We enemies of death, Bent to your feet of rose, Your breast of violet? Not a word, not a scrap Of your last day, a No To earth’s things, a […]...
31. Patroling Barnegat WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running, Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, Where through the […]...
32. Men with trivial scars We wear scars from our youth, trifling things Reflecting those earnings from growing days, Of battles raised and wounds worn in simple Praise of a Spring of early learning’s. I was there when you broke your arm, We were sliding a plank in mad array, Shouting hurrah, daring the day when you fell. A clean […]...
33. The Egg and the Machine He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail […]...
34. I saw Old General at Bay I SAW old General at bay; (Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;) His small force was now completely hemm’d in, in his works; He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines-a desperate emergency; I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks-but two or […]...
35. The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle.” “Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train.” “Let us cross the river and rest in the shade.” The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face All loth to turn away. And […]...
36. Storm-Music O Music hast thou only heard The laughing river, the singing bird, The murmuring wind in the poplar-trees, Nothing but Nature’s melodies? Nay, thou hearest all her tones, As a Queen must hear! Sounds of wrath and fear, Mutterings, shouts, and moans, Madness, tumult, and despair, All she has that shakes the air With voices […]...
37. Songs of Battle Old as the world no other things so old; Nay, older than the world, else, how had sprung Such lusty strength in them when earth was young? Stand valor and its passion hot and bold, Insatiate of battle. How, else, told Blind men, born blind, that red was fitting tongue Mute, eloquent, to show how […]...
38. Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem at the Consecration of Pulaski's Banner When the dying flame of day Through the chancel shot its ray, Far the glimmering tapers shed Faint light on the cowled head; And the censer burning swung, Where, before the altar, hung The crimson banner, that with prayer Had been consecrated there. And the nuns’ sweet hymn was heard the while, Sung low, in […]...
39. Strange Meeting It seemed that out of the battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, […]...
40. The Reckoning It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant, With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want; To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass, Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass. It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill, […]...