The World's Best Poetry ...

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J. D. Morris, 1904

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Page 416 - Ay me, I fondly dream ! Had ye been there, for what could that have done ? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself, for her enchanting son Whom universal Nature did lament...
Page 158 - My grandmamma has said — Poor old lady ! she is dead Long ago — That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow. But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here ; But the old three-cornered hat And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer...
Page 416 - Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears : " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.
Page 142 - MY HEART aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk...
Page 400 - THERE is no flock, however watched and tended But one dead lamb is there ! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair ! The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead ; The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Will not be comforted...
Page 253 - Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes — Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; Forbade to wade thro...
Page 224 - But that the dread of something after death, — The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, — puzzles the will ; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
Page 197 - OUT of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
Page 181 - With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags Plying her needle and thread — Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! In poverty, hunger and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the rich ! She sang this "Song of the Shirt.
Page 224 - The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make, With a bare bodkin?

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