Best Famous Reads Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Reads poems. This is a select list of the best famous Reads poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Reads poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of reads poems.

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• All Famous Reads Poems

Written by Robert William Service | The Ghosts Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen; Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then; Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling Flat in your face a soul-thought -- Bing! Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. "Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie stripped to the buff in swinish shame, If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name. Sober am I nonentitized; drunk am I more than half a god. Well, let the flesh be sacrificed; spirit shall speak and shame the clod. Who would not gladly, gladly give Life to do one thing that will live?" Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than brothers were those two. When in the wassail Smith would drown, Brown would rescue and pull him through. When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by, Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die. There Brown sat in the sick man's room, still as a stone in his despair; Smith bent on him his eyes of doom, shook back his lion mane of hair; Said: "Is there one in my chosen line, writer of forthright tales my peer? Look in that little desk of mine; there is a package, bring it here. Story of stories, gem of all; essence and triumph, key and clue; Tale of a loving woman's fall; soul swept hell-ward, and God! it's true. I was the man -- Oh, yes, I've paid, paid with mighty and mordant pain. Look! here's the masterpiece I've made out of my sin, my manhood slain. Art supreme! yet the world would stare, know my mistress and blaze my shame. I have a wife and daughter -- there! take it and thrust it in the flame. " Brown answered: "Master, you have dipped pen in your heart, your phrases sear. Ruthless, unflinching, you have stripped naked your soul and set it here. Have I not loved you well and true? See! between us the shadows drift; This bit of blood and tears means You -- oh, let me have it, a parting gift. Sacred I'll hold it, a trust divine; sacred your honour, her dark despair; Never shall it see printed line: here, by the living God I swear. " Brown on a Bible laid his hand; Smith, great writer of stories, sighed: "Comrade, I trust you, and understand. Keep my secret!" And so he died. Smith was buried -- up soared his sales; lured you his books in every store; Exquisite, whimsy, heart-wrung tales; men devoured them and craved for more. So when it slyly got about Brown had a posthumous manuscript, Jones, the publisher, sought him out, into his pocket deep he dipped. "A thousand dollars?" Brown shook his head. "The story is not for sale, " he said. Jones went away, then others came. Tempted and taunted, Brown was true. Guarded at friendship's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew. It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field; Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield. Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew, Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too. Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth: So at last with a faith divine, down and down to the Hunger-line. There as he stood in a woeful plight, tears a-freeze on his sharp cheek-bones, Who should chance to behold his plight, but the publisher, the plethoric Jones; Peered at him for a little while, held out a bill: "NOW, will you sell?" Brown scanned it with his twisted smile: "A thousand dollars! you go to hell!" Brown enrolled in the homeless host, sleeping anywhere, anywhen; Suffered, strove, became a ghost, slave of the lamp for other men; For What's-his-name and So-and-so in the abyss his soul he stripped, Yet in his want, his worst of woe, held he fast to the manuscript. Then one day as he chewed his pen, half in hunger and half despair, Creaked the door of his garret den; Dick, his brother, was standing there. Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail: "Save me, brother! I've robbed the bank; to-morrow it's ruin, capture, gaol. Yet there's a chance: I could to-day pay back the money, save our name; You have a manuscript, they say, worth a thousand -- think, man! the shame. . . . " Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, with his stern, starved face, and his lips stone-pale, Shuddered and smiled his twisted smile: "Brother, I guess you go to gaol. " While poor Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with God for the sacred fire, Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire; Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing; Two pale souls in the legion lost; lo! Love bent with a tender wing, Taught them a joy so deep, so true, it seemed that the whole-world fabric shook, Thrilled and dissolved in radiant dew; then Brown made him a golden book, Full of the faith that Life is good, that the earth is a dream divinely fair, Lauding his gem of womanhood in many a lyric rich and rare; Took it to Jones, who shook his head: "I will consider it," he said. While he considered, Brown's wife lay clutched in the tentacles of pain; Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain; Hinted Egypt, the South of France -- Brown with terror was tiger-gripped. Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful God! . . . the manuscript! A thousand dollars! his only hope! he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . . Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all. Told of his friend, his promise true; told like his very heart would break: "Oh, my dearest! what shall I do? shall I not sell it for your sake?" Ghostlike she lay, as still as doom; turned to the wall her weary head; Icy-cold in the pallid gloom, silent as death . . . at last she said: "Do! my husband? Keep your vow! Guard his secret and let me die. . . . Oh, my dear, I must tell you now -- the women he loved and wronged was I; Darling! I haven't long to live: I never told you -- forgive, forgive!" For a long, long time Brown did not speak; sat bleak-browed in the wretched room; Slowly a tear stole down his cheek, and he kissed her hand in the dismal gloom. To break his oath, to brand her shame; his well-loved friend, his worshipped wife; To keep his vow, to save her name, yet at the cost of what? Her life! A moment's space did he hesitate, a moment of pain and dread and doubt, Then he broke the seals, and, stern as fate, unfolded the sheets and spread them out. . . . On his knees by her side he limply sank, peering amazed -- each page was blank. (For oh, the supremest of our art are the stories we do not dare to tell, Locked in the silence of the heart, for the awful records of Heav'n and Hell. ) Yet those two in the silence there, seemed less weariful than before. Hark! a step on the garret stair, a postman knocks at the flimsy door. "Registered letter!" Brown thrills with fear; opens, and reads, then bends above: "Glorious tidings! Egypt, dear! The book is accepted -- life and love. "

Written by Marilyn Hacker | The Boy It is the boy in me who's looking out the window, while someone across the street mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette? (Because he flinched, because he didn't whirl around, face them, because he didn't hurl the challenge back—"Fascists?"—not "Faggots"—Swine! he briefly wonders—if he were a girl . . . ) He writes a line. He crosses out a line. I'll never be a man, but there's a boy crossing out words: the rain, the linen-mender, are all the homework he will do today. The absence and the priviledge of gender confound in him, soprano, clumsy, frail. Not neuter—neutral human, and unmarked, the younger brother in the fairy tale except, boys shouted "Jew!" across the park at him when he was coming home from school. The book that he just read, about the war, the partisans, is less a terrible and thrilling story, more a warning, more a code, and he must puzzle out the code. He has short hair, a red sweatshirt. They know something about him—that he should be proud of? That's shameful if it shows? That got you killed in 1942. In his story, do the partisans have sons? Have grandparents? Is he a Jew more than he is a boy, who'll be a man someday? Someone who'll never be a man looks out the window at the rain he thought might stop. He reads the sentence he began. He writes down something that he crosses out.

Written by Fleda Brown | The Women Who Loved Elvis All Their Lives She reads, of course, what he's doing, shaking Nixon's hand, dating this starlet or that, while he is faithful to her like a stone in her belly, like the actual love child, its bills and diapers. Once he had kissed her and time had stood still, at least some point seems to remain back there as a place to return to, to wait for. What is she waiting for? He will not marry her, nor will he stop very often. Desireé will grow up to say her father is dead. Desireé will imagine him standing on a timeless street, hungry for his child. She will wait for him, not in the original, but in a gesture copied to whatever lover she takes. He will fracture and change to landscape, to the Pope, maybe, or President Kennedy, or to a pain that darkens her eyes. "Once," she will say, as if she remembers, and the memory will stick like a fishbone. She knows how easily she will comply when a man puts his hand on the back of her neck and gently steers her. She knows how long she will wait for rescue, how the world will go on expanding outside. She will see her mother's photo of Elvis shaking hands with Nixon, the terrifying conjunction. A whole war with Asia will begin slowly, in her lifetime, out of such irreconcilable urges. The Pill will become available to the general public, starting up a new waiting in that other depth. The egg will have to keep believing in its timeless moment of completion without any proof except in the longing of its own body. Maris will break Babe Ruth's record while Orbison will have his first major hit with "Only the Lonely," trying his best to sound like Elvis. © 1999, Fleda Brown (first published in The Iowa Review, 29 [1999])

Written by Lisa Zaran | Girl She said she collects pieces of sky, cuts holes out of it with silver scissors, bits of heaven she calls them. Every day a bevy of birds flies rings around her fingers, my chorus of wives, she calls them. Every day she reads poetry from dusty books she borrows from the library, sitting in the park, she smiles at passing strangers, yet can not seem to shake her own sad feelings. She said that night reminds her of a cool hand placed gently across her fevered brow, said she likes to fall asleep beneath the stars, that their streaks of light make her believe that she too is going somewhere. Infinity, she whispers as she closes her eyes, descending into thin air, where no arms outstretch to catch her. Originally published in Magaera, Spring 2005. Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2005

Written by Charlotte Bronte | Pilates Wifes Dream I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­ The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall; Over against my bed, there shone a gleam Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream. It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom; How far is night advanced, and when will day Retinge the dusk and livid air with bloom, And fill this void with warm, creative ray ? Would I could sleep again till, clear and red, Morning shall on the mountain-tops be spread! I'd call my women, but to break their sleep, Because my own is broken, were unjust; They've wrought all day, and well-earned slumbers steep Their labours in forgetfulness, I trust; Let me my feverish watch with patience bear, Thankful that none with me its sufferings share. Yet, Oh, for light ! one ray would tranquilise My nerves, my pulses, more than effort can; I'll draw my curtain and consult the skies: These trembling stars at dead of night look wan, Wild, restless, strange, yet cannot be more drear Than this my couch, shared by a nameless fear. All black­one great cloud, drawn from east to west, Conceals the heavens, but there are lights below; Torches burn in Jerusalem, and cast On yonder stony mount a lurid glow. I see men stationed there, and gleaming spears; A sound, too, from afar, invades my ears. Dull, measured, strokes of axe and hammer ring From street to street, not loud, but through the night Distinctly heard­and some strange spectral thing Is now upreared­and, fixed against the light Of the pale lamps; defined upon that sky, It stands up like a column, straight and high. I see it all­I know the dusky sign­ A cross on Calvary, which Jews uprear While Romans watch; and when the dawn shall shine Pilate, to judge the victim will appear, Pass sentence­yield him up to crucify; And on that cross the spotless Christ must die. Dreams, then, are true­for thus my vision ran; Surely some oracle has been with me, The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan, To warn an unjust judge of destiny: I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know, Christ's coming death, and Pilate's life of woe. I do not weep for Pilate­who could prove Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway No prayer can soften, no appeal can move; Who tramples hearts as others trample clay, Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread, That might stir up reprisal in the dead. Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds; Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour, In whose gaunt lines, the abhorrent gazer reads A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power; A soul whom motives, fierce, yet abject, urge Rome's servile slave, and Judah's tyrant scourge. How can I love, or mourn, or pity him ? I, who so long my fettered hands have wrung; I, who for grief have wept my eye-sight dim; Because, while life for me was bright and young, He robbed my youth­he quenched my life's fair ray­ He crushed my mind, and did my freedom slay. And at this hour­although I be his wife­ He has no more of tenderness from me Than any other wretch of guilty life; Less, for I know his household privacy­ I see him as he is­without a screen; And, by the gods, my soul abhors his mien ! Has he not sought my presence, dyed in blood­ Innocent, righteous blood, shed shamelessly ? And have I not his red salute withstood ? Aye,­when, as erst, he plunged all Galilee In dark bereavement­in affliction sore, Mingling their very offerings with their gore. Then came he­in his eyes a serpent-smile, Upon his lips some false, endearing word, And, through the streets of Salem, clanged the while, His slaughtering, hacking, sacrilegious sword­ And I, to see a man cause men such woe, Trembled with ire­I did not fear to show. And now, the envious Jewish priests have brought Jesus­whom they in mockery call their king­ To have, by this grim power, their vengeance wrought; By this mean reptile, innocence to sting. Oh ! could I but the purposed doom avert, And shield the blameless head from cruel hurt! Accessible is Pilate's heart to fear, Omens will shake his soul, like autumn leaf; Could he this night's appalling vision hear, This just man's bonds were loosed, his life were safe, Unless that bitter priesthood should prevail, And make even terror to their malice quail. Yet if I tell the dream­but let me pause. What dream ? Erewhile the characters were clear, Graved on my brain­at once some unknown cause Has dimmed and rased the thoughts, which now appear, Like a vague remnant of some by-past scene;­ Not what will be, but what, long since, has been. I suffered many things, I heard foretold A dreadful doom for Pilate,­lingering woes, In far, barbarian climes, where mountains cold Built up a solitude of trackless snows, There, he and grisly wolves prowled side by side, There he lived famished­there methought he died; But not of hunger, nor by malady; I saw the snow around him, stained with gore; I said I had no tears for such as he, And, lo ! my cheek is wet­mine eyes run o'er; I weep for mortal suffering, mortal guilt, I weep the impious deed­the blood self-spilt. More I recall not, yet the vision spread Into a world remote, an age to come­ And still the illumined name of Jesus shed A light, a clearness, through the enfolding gloom­ And still I saw that sign, which now I see, That cross on yonder brow of Calvary. What is this Hebrew Christ ? To me unknown, His lineage­doctrine­mission­yet how clear, Is God-like goodness, in his actions shewn ! How straight and stainless is his life's career ! The ray of Deity that rests on him, In my eyes makes Olympian glory dim. The world advances, Greek, or Roman rite Suffices not the inquiring mind to stay; The searching soul demands a purer light To guide it on its upward, onward way; Ashamed of sculptured gods­Religion turns To where the unseen Jehovah's altar burns. Our faith is rotten­all our rites defiled, Our temples sullied, and methinks, this man, With his new ordinance, so wise and mild, Is come, even as he says, the chaff to fan And sever from the wheat; but will his faith Survive the terrors of to-morrow's death ? * * * * * I feel a firmer trust­a higher hope Rise in my soul­it dawns with dawning day; Lo ! on the Temple's roof­on Moriah's slope Appears at length that clear, and crimson ray, Which I so wished for when shut in by night; Oh, opening skies, I hail, I bless your light ! Part, clouds and shadows ! glorious Sun appear ! Part, mental gloom ! Come insight from on high ! Dusk dawn in heaven still strives with daylight clear, The longing soul, doth still uncertain sigh. Oh ! to behold the truth­that sun divine, How doth my bosom pant, my spirit pine ! This day, time travails with a mighty birth, This day, Truth stoops from heaven and visits earth, Ere night descends, I shall more surely know What guide to follow, in what path to go; I wait in hope­I wait in solemn fear, The oracle of God­the sole­true God­to hear.

Written by Robert Burns | 83. The Cotter's Saturday Night MY lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend! No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene, The native feelings strong, the guileless ways, What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween! November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh; The short’ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose: The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,— This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through To meet their dead, wi’ flichterin noise and glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie, His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile, The lisping infant, prattling on his knee, Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile, And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun’; Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neibor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown, In youthfu’ bloom-love sparkling in her e’e— Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet, And each for other’s weelfare kindly speirs: The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet: Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears. The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view; The mother, wi’ her needle and her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new; The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due. Their master’s and their mistress’ command, The younkers a’ are warned to obey; And mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand, And ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play; “And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway, And mind your duty, duly, morn and night; Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright. ” But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same, Tells how a neibor lad came o’er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel-pleased the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless rake. Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; A strappin youth, he takes the mother’s eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy, But blate an’ laithfu’, scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu’ and sae grave, Weel-pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave. O happy love! where love like this is found: O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare,— “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare— One cordial in this melancholy vale, ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other’sarms, breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale. ” Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o’er their child? Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild? But now the supper crowns their simple board, The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food; The sowp their only hawkie does afford, That, ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood: The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell; And aft he’s prest, and aft he ca’s it guid: The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How t’was a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell. The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace, The big ha’bible, ance his father’s pride: His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And “Let us worship God!” he says with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise, They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise; Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame; The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays: Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: How His first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command. Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,” 1 That thus they all shall meet in future days, There, ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator’s praise, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art; When men display to congregations wide Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart! The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul; And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll. Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That he who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs, That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, “An honest man’s the noblest work of God;” And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d! O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile! Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle. O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide, That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart, Who dar’d to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part: (The patriot’s God peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never Scotia’s realm desert; But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! Note 1. Pope’s “Windsor Forest. ”—R. B. [back]

Written by Vernon Scannell | They Did Not Expect This They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave And wearing only the beauty of youth's season They took the first turning quite unquestioningly And walked quickly without looking back even once. It was of course the wrong turning. First they were nagged By a small wind that tugged at their clothing like a dog; Then the rain began and there was no shelter anywhere, Only the street and the rows of houses stern as soldiers. Though the blood chilled, the endearing word burnt the tongue. There were no parks or gardens or public houses: Midnight settled and the rain paused leaving the city Enormous and still like a great sleeping seal. At last they found accommodation in a cold Furnished room where they quickly learnt to believe in ghosts; They had their hope stuffed and put on the mantelpiece But found, after a while, that they did not notice it. While she spends many hours looking in the bottoms of teacups He reads much about association football And waits for the marvellous envelope to fall: Their eyes are strangers and they rarely speak. They did not expect this.

Written by Bertolt Brecht | Questions From A Worker Who Reads Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished Who raised it up so many times? In what houses of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live? Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finnished Did the masons go? Great Rome Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song Only palaces for its inhabitans? Even in fabled Atlantis The night the ocean engulfed it The drowning still bawled for their slaves. The young Alexander conquered India. Was he alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. Did he not have even a cook with him? Philip of Spain wept when his armada Went down. Was he the only one to weep? Frederick the Second won the Seven Year's War. Who Else won it? Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors? Every ten years a great man? Who paid the bill? So many reports. So many questions.

Written by Emma Lazarus | In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot. No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent That an undying radiance was to shed. What prayers were in this temple offered up, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth, By these lone exiles of a thousand years, From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth! How as we gaze, in this new world of light, Upon this relic of the days of old, The present vanishes, and tropic bloom And Eastern towns and temples we behold. Again we see the patriarch with his flocks, The purple seas, the hot blue sky o'erhead, The slaves of Egypt, -- omens, mysteries, -- Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led. A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount, A man who reads Jehovah's written law, 'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare, Unto a people prone with reverent awe. The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp, In the rich court of royal Solomon -- Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains, -- The exiles by the streams of Babylon. Our softened voices send us back again But mournful echoes through the empty hall: Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound, And with unwonted gentleness they fall. The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, All found their comfort in the holy place, And children's gladness and men's gratitude 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise. The funeral and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall; For youth and happiness have followed age, And green grass lieth gently over all. Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod. Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God.

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | The Progress of Spring THE groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould, Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea, Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold That trembles not to kisses of the bee: Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves The spear of ice has wept itself away, And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day. She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run; The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair; Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun, Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar To breaths of balmier air; Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her, About her glance the ****, and shriek the jays, Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker, The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze, While round her brows a woodland culver flits, Watching her large light eyes and gracious looks, And in her open palm a halcyon sits Patient--the secret splendour of the brooks. Come Spring! She comes on waste and wood, On farm and field: but enter also here, Diffuse thyself at will thro' all my blood, And, tho' thy violet sicken into sere, Lodge with me all the year! Once more a downy drift against the brakes, Self-darken'd in the sky, descending slow! But gladly see I thro' the wavering flakes Yon blanching apricot like snow in snow. These will thine eyes not brook in forest-paths, On their perpetual pine, nor round the beech; They fuse themselves to little spicy baths, Solved in the tender blushes of the peach; They lose themselves and die On that new life that gems the hawthorn line; Thy gay lent-lilies wave and put them by, And out once more in varnish'd glory shine Thy stars of celandine. She floats across the hamlet. Heaven lours, But in the tearful splendour of her smiles I see the slowl-thickening chestnut towers Fill out the spaces by the barren tiles. Now past her feet the swallow circling flies, A clamorous cuckoo stoops to meet her hand; Her light makes rainbows in my closing eyes, I hear a charm of song thro' all the land. Come, Spring! She comes, and Earth is glad To roll her North below thy deepening dome, But ere thy maiden birk be wholly clad, And these low bushes dip their twigs in foam, Make all true hearths thy home. Across my garden! and the thicket stirs, The fountain pulses high in sunnier jets, The blackcap warbles, and the turtle purrs, The starling claps his tiny castanets. Still round her forehead wheels the woodland dove, And scatters on her throat the sparks of dew, The kingcup fills her footprint, and above Broaden the glowing isles of vernal blue. Hail ample presence of a Queen, Bountiful, beautiful, apparell'd gay, Whose mantle, every shade of glancing green, Flies back in fragrant breezes to display A tunic white as May! She whispers, 'From the South I bring you balm, For on a tropic mountain was I born, While some dark dweller by the coco-palm Watch'd my far meadow zoned with airy morn; From under rose a muffled moan of floods; I sat beneath a solitude of snow; There no one came, the turf was fresh, the woods Plunged gulf on gulf thro' all their vales below I saw beyond their silent tops The steaming marshes of the scarlet cranes, The slant seas leaning oll the mangrove copse, And summer basking in the sultry plains About a land of canes; 'Then from my vapour-girdle soaring forth I scaled the buoyant highway of the birds, And drank the dews and drizzle of the North, That I might mix with men, and hear their words On pathway'd plains; for--while my hand exults Within the bloodless heart of lowly flowers To work old laws of Love to fresh results, Thro' manifold effect of simple powers-- I too would teach the man Beyond the darker hour to see the bright, That his fresh life may close as it began, The still-fulfilling promise of a light Narrowing the bounds of night. ' So wed thee with my soul, that I may mark The coming year's great good and varied ills, And new developments, whatever spark Be struck from out the clash of warring wills; Or whether, since our nature cannot rest, The smoke of war's volcano burst again From hoary deeps that belt the changeful West, Old Empires, dwellings of the kings of men; Or should those fail, that hold the helm, While the long day of knowledge grows and warms, And in the heart of this most ancient realm A hateful voice be utter'd, and alarms Sounding 'To arms! to arms!' A simpler, saner lesson might he learn Who reads thy gradual process, Holy Spring. Thy leaves possess the season in their turn, And in their time thy warblers rise on wing. How surely glidest thou from March to May, And changest, breathing it, the sullen wind, Thy scope of operation, day by day, Larger and fuller, like the human mind ' Thy warmths from bud to bud Accomplish that blind model in the seed, And men have hopes, which race the restless blood That after many changes may succeed Life, which is Life indeed.