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Best Famous Thickly Poems

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

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Written by John Ashbery | Create an image from this poem

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

 Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire Near where it joined the Cher.
The St.
Lawrence prods among black stones And mud.
But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's Surface.
The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber Is contained within steep banks.
The Isar Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water Courses over the flat land.
The Allegheny and its boats Were dark blue.
The Moskowa is Gray boats.
The Amstel flows slowly.
Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes Underneath.
The Liffey is full of sewage, Like the Seine, but unlike The brownish-yellow Dordogne.
Mountains hem in the Colorado And the Oder is very deep, almost As deep as the Congo is wide.
The plain banks of the Neva are Gray.
The dark Saône flows silently.
And the Volga is long and wide As it flows across the brownish land.
The Ebro Is blue, and slow.
The Shannon flows Swiftly between its banks.
The Mississippi Is one of the world's longest rivers, like the Amazon.
It has the Missouri for a tributary.
The Harlem flows amid factories And buildings.
The Nelson is in Canada, Flowing.
Through hard banks the Dubawnt Forces its way.
People walk near the Trent.
The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away; The Rubicon is merely a brook.
In winter the Main Surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song.
The Rhône slogs along through whitish banks And the Rio Grande spins tales of the past.
The Loir bursts its frozen shackles But the Moldau's wet mud ensnares it.
The East catches the light.
Near the Escaut the noise of factories echoes And the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly.
The Po too flows, and the many-colored Thames.
Into the Atlantic Ocean Pours the Garonne.
Few ships navigate On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen On the Elbe.
For centuries The Afton has flowed.
If the Rio ***** Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena The jungle flowers, the Tagus Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio Abrade its slate banks.
The tan Euphrates would Sidle silently across the world.
The Yukon Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed Bravely along.
The Dee caught the day's last flares Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose.
The Peace offered eternal fragrance Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud Like tan chalk-marks.
Near where The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes And the Pechora? The São Francisco Skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles.
The Liard's Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes Anthracite hummocks.
The Paraná stinks.
The Ottawa is light emerald green Among grays.
Better that the Indus fade In steaming sands! Let the Brazos Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must Find a way to freeze it hard.
The Ural Is freezing slowly in the blasts.
The black Yonne Congeals nicely.
And the Petit-Morin Curls up on the solid earth.
The Inn Does not remember better times, and the Merrimack's Galvanized.
The Ganges is liquid snow by now; The Vyatka's ice-gray.
The once-molten Tennessee s Curdled.
The Japurá is a pack of ice.
Gelid The Columbia's gray loam banks.
The Don's merely A giant icicle.
The Niger freezes, slowly.
The interminable Lena plods on But the Purus' mercurial waters are icy, grim With cold.
The Loing is choked with fragments of ice.
The Weser is frozen, like liquid air.
And so is the Kama.
And the beige, thickly flowing Tocantins.
The rivers bask in the cold.
The stern Uruguay chafes its banks, A mass of ice.
The Hooghly is solid Ice.
The Adour is silent, motionless.
The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice Like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks.
The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little And the Donets gurgles beneath the Huge blocks of ice.
The Manzanares gushes free.
The Illinois darts through the sunny air again.
But the Dnieper is still ice-bound.
Somewhere The Salado propels irs floes, but the Roosevelt's Frozen.
The Oka is frozen solider Than the Somme.
The Minho slumbers In winter, nor does the Snake Remember August.
Hilarious, the Canadian Is solid ice.
The Madeira slavers Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.
The Dvina soaks up the snow.
The Sava's Temperature is above freezing.
The Avon Carols noiselessly.
The Drôme presses Grass banks; the Adige's frozen Surface is like gray pebbles.
Birds circle the Ticino.
In winter The Var was dark blue, unfrozen.
The Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice; The Ardèche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.


Written by Galway Kinnell | Create an image from this poem

The Perch

There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend to show her the trees.
We set out down the road, turned in at the lane which a few weeks ago, when the trees were almost empty and the November snows had not yet come, lay thickly covered in bright red and yellow leaves, crossed the swamp, passed the cellar hole holding the remains of the 1850s farmhouse that had slid down into it by stages in the thirties and forties, followed the overgrown logging road and came to the trees.
I climbed up to the perch, and this time looked not into the distance but at the tree itself, its trunk contorted by the terrible struggle of that time when it had its hard time.
After the trauma it grows less solid.
It may be some such time now comes upon me.
It would have to do with the unaccomplished, and with the attempted marriage of solitude and happiness.
Then a rifle sounded, several times, quite loud, from across the valley, percussions of the custom of male mastery over the earth ¡ª the most graceful, most alert of the animals being chosen to die.
I looked to see if my friend had heard, but she was stepping about on her skis, studying the trees, smiling to herself, her lips still filled, for all we had drained them, with hundreds and thousands of kisses.
Just then she looked up ¡ª the way, from low to high, the god blesses ¡ª and the blue of her eyes shone out of the black and white of bark and snow, as lovers who are walking on a freezing day touch icy cheek to icy cheek, kiss, then shudder to discover the heat waiting inside their mouths.
Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

THE MARBLE FAUN

 ("Il semblait grelotter.") 
 
 {XXXVI., December, 1837.} 


 He seemed to shiver, for the wind was keen. 
 'Twas a poor statue underneath a mass 
 Of leafless branches, with a blackened back 
 And a green foot—an isolated Faun 
 In old deserted park, who, bending forward, 
 Half-merged himself in the entangled boughs, 
 Half in his marble settings. He was there, 
 Pensive, and bound to earth; and, as all things 
 Devoid of movement, he was there—forgotten. 
 
 Trees were around him, whipped by icy blasts— 
 Gigantic chestnuts, without leaf or bird, 
 And, like himself, grown old in that same place. 
 Through the dark network of their undergrowth, 
 Pallid his aspect; and the earth was brown. 
 Starless and moonless, a rough winter's night 
 Was letting down her lappets o'er the mist. 
 This—nothing more: old Faun, dull sky, dark wood. 
 
 Poor, helpless marble, how I've pitied it! 
 Less often man—the harder of the two. 
 
 So, then, without a word that might offend 
 His ear deformed—for well the marble hears 
 The voice of thought—I said to him: "You hail 
 From the gay amorous age. O Faun, what saw you 
 When you were happy? Were you of the Court? 
 
 "Speak to me, comely Faun, as you would speak 
 To tree, or zephyr, or untrodden grass. 
 Have you, O Greek, O mocker of old days, 
 Have you not sometimes with that oblique eye 
 Winked at the Farnese Hercules?—Alone, 
 Have you, O Faun, considerately turned 
 From side to side when counsel-seekers came, 
 And now advised as shepherd, now as satyr?— 
 Have you sometimes, upon this very bench, 
 Seen, at mid-day, Vincent de Paul instilling 
 Grace into Gondi?—Have you ever thrown 
 That searching glance on Louis with Fontange, 
 On Anne with Buckingham; and did they not 
 Start, with flushed cheeks, to hear your laugh ring forth 
 From corner of the wood?—Was your advice 
 As to the thyrsis or the ivy asked, 
 When, in grand ballet of fantastic form, 
 God Phoebus, or God Pan, and all his court, 
 Turned the fair head of the proud Montespan, 
 Calling her Amaryllis?—La Fontaine, 
 Flying the courtiers' ears of stone, came he, 
 Tears on his eyelids, to reveal to you 
 The sorrows of his nymphs of Vaux?—What said 
 Boileau to you—to you—O lettered Faun, 
 Who once with Virgil, in the Eclogue, held 
 That charming dialogue?—Say, have you seen 
 Young beauties sporting on the sward?—Have you 
 Been honored with a sight of Molière 
 In dreamy mood?—Has he perchance, at eve, 
 When here the thinker homeward went, has he, 
 Who—seeing souls all naked—could not fear 
 Your nudity, in his inquiring mind, 
 Confronted you with Man?" 
 
 Under the thickly-tangled branches, thus 
 Did I speak to him; he no answer gave. 
 
 I shook my head, and moved myself away; 
 Then, from the copses, and from secret caves 
 Hid in the wood, methought a ghostly voice 
 Came forth and woke an echo in my souls 
 As in the hollow of an amphora. 
 
 "Imprudent poet," thus it seemed to say, 
 "What dost thou here? Leave the forsaken Fauns 
 In peace beneath their trees! Dost thou not know, 
 Poet, that ever it is impious deemed, 
 In desert spots where drowsy shades repose— 
 Though love itself might prompt thee—to shake down 
 The moss that hangs from ruined centuries, 
 And, with the vain noise of throe ill-timed words, 
 To mar the recollections of the dead?" 
 
 Then to the gardens all enwrapped in mist 
 I hurried, dreaming of the vanished days, 
 And still behind me—hieroglyph obscure 
 Of antique alphabet—the lonely Faun 
 Held to his laughter, through the falling night. 
 
 I went my way; but yet—in saddened spirit 
 Pondering on all that had my vision crossed, 
 Leaves of old summers, fair ones of old time— 
 Through all, at distance, would my fancy see, 
 In the woods, statues; shadows in the past! 
 
 WILLIAM YOUNG 


 A LOVE FOR WINGED THINGS. 
 
 {XXXVII., April 12, 1840.} 


 My love flowed e'er for things with wings. 
 When boy I sought for forest fowl, 
 And caged them in rude rushes' mesh, 
 And fed them with my breakfast roll; 
 So that, though fragile were the door, 
 They rarely fled, and even then 
 Would flutter back at faintest call! 
 
 Man-grown, I charm for men. 


 




Written by Tony Hoagland | Create an image from this poem

Lucky

 If you are lucky in this life,
you will get to help your enemy
the way I got to help my mother
when she was weakened past the point of saying no.
Into the big enamel tub half-filled with water which I had made just right, I lowered the childish skeleton she had become.
Her eyelids fluttered as I soaped and rinsed her belly and her chest, the sorry ruin of her flanks and the frayed gray cloud between her legs.
Some nights, sitting by her bed book open in my lap while I listened to the air move thickly in and out of her dark lungs, my mind filled up with praise as lush as music, amazed at the symmetry and luck that would offer me the chance to pay my heavy debt of punishment and love with love and punishment.
And once I held her dripping wet in the uncomfortable air between the wheelchair and the tub, until she begged me like a child to stop, an act of cruelty which we both understood was the ancient irresistible rejoicing of power over weakness.
If you are lucky in this life, you will get to raise the spoon of pristine, frosty ice cream to the trusting creature mouth of your old enemy because the tastebuds at least are not broken because there is a bond between you and sweet is sweet in any language.
Written by Marge Piercy | Create an image from this poem

The Seven Of Pentacles

 Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water, if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food, if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars, if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees, then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen: reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always, for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.


Written by Amy Clampitt | Create an image from this poem

A Hedge Of Rubber Trees

 The West Village by then was changing; before long
the rundown brownstones at its farthest edge
would have slipped into trendier hands.
She lived, impervious to trends, behind a potted hedge of rubber trees, with three cats, a canary—refuse from whose cage kept sifting down and then germinating, a yearning seedling choir, around the saucers on the windowsill—and an inexorable cohort of roaches she was too nearsighted to deal with, though she knew they were there, and would speak of them, ruefully, as of an affliction that might once, long ago, have been prevented.
Unclassifiable castoffs, misfits, marginal cases: when you're one yourself, or close to it, there's a reassurance in proving you haven't quite gone under by taking up with somebody odder than you are.
Or trying to.
"They're my friends," she'd say of her cats—Mollie, Mitzi and Caroline, their names were, and she was forever taking one or another in a cab to the vet—as though she had no others.
The roommate who'd become a nun, the one who was Jewish, the couple she'd met on a foliage tour, one fall, were all people she no longer saw.
She worked for a law firm, said all the judges were alcoholic, had never voted.
But would sometimes have me to dinner—breaded veal, white wine, strawberry Bavarian—and sometimes, from what she didn't know she was saying, I'd snatch a shred or two of her threadbare history.
Baltic cold.
Being sent home in a troika when her feet went numb.
In summer, carriage rides.
A swarm of gypsy children driven off with whips.
An octogenarian father, bishop of a dying schismatic sect.
A very young mother who didn't want her.
A half-brother she met just once.
Cousins in Wisconsin, one of whom phoned her from a candy store, out of the blue, while she was living in Chicago.
What had brought her there, or when, remained unclear.
As did much else.
We'd met in church.
I noticed first a big, soaring soprano with a wobble in it, then the thickly wreathed and braided crimp in the mouse- gold coiffure.
Old? Young? She was of no age.
Through rimless lenses she looked out of a child's, or a doll's, globular blue.
Wore Keds the year round, tended otherwise to overdress.
Owned a mandolin.
Once I got her to take it down from the mantel and plink out, through a warm fuddle of sauterne, a lot of giddy Italian airs from a songbook whose pages had started to crumble.
The canary fluffed and quivered, and the cats, amazed, came out from under the couch and stared.
What could the offspring of the schismatic age and a reluctant child bride expect from life? Not much.
Less and less.
A dream she'd had kept coming back, years after.
She'd taken a job in Washington with some right-wing lobby, and lived in one of those bow-windowed mansions that turn into roominghouses, and her room there had a full-length mirror: oval, with a molding, is the way I picture it.
In her dream something woke her, she got up to look, and there in the glass she'd had was covered over—she gave it a wondering emphasis—with gray veils.
The West Village was changing.
I was changing.
The last time I asked her to dinner, she didn't show.
Hours— or was it days?—later, she phoned to explain: she hadn't been able to find my block; a patrolman had steered her home.
I spent my evenings canvassing for Gene McCarthy.
Passing, I'd see her shades drawn, no light behind the rubber trees.
She wasn't out, she didn't own a TV.
She was in there, getting gently blotto.
What came next, I wasn't brave enough to know.
Only one day, passing, I saw new shades, quick-chic matchstick bamboo, going up where the waterstained old ones had been, and where the seedlings— O gray veils, gray veils—had risen and gone down.
Written by Amy Lowell | Create an image from this poem

The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

 A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals and apples in high relief, and where the seams
Are worn with handling, through the polished crimson sheen,
Long streaks of black, the under lacquer, shine out clean.
Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights of players Sitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layers Of music to serve every instrument, are there, And on the apex a large flat-topped golden pear.
It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering lights, When the sun flares the old barn-chamber with its flights And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards, Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to glint, on hoards Of scythes, and spades, and dinner-horns, so the old tools Are little candles throwing brightness round in pools.
With Oriental splendour, red and gold, the dust Covering its flames like smoke and thinning as a gust Of brighter sunshine makes the colours leap and range, The strange old music-stand seems to strike out and change; To stroke and tear the darkness with sharp golden claws; To dart a forked, vermilion tongue from open jaws; To puff out bitter smoke which chokes the sun; and fade Back to a still, faint outline obliterate in shade.
Creeping up the ladder into the loft, the Boy Stands watching, very still, prickly and hot with joy.
He sees the dusty sun-mote slit by streaks of red, He sees it split and stream, and all about his head Spikes and spears of gold are licking, pricking, flicking, Scratching against the walls and furniture, and nicking The darkness into sparks, chipping away the gloom.
The Boy's nose smarts with the pungence in the room.
The wind pushes an elm branch from before the door And the sun widens out all along the floor, Filling the barn-chamber with white, straightforward light, So not one blurred outline can tease the mind to fright.
"O All ye Works of the Lord, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
O let the Earth Bless the Lord; Yea, let it Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
O ye Mountains and Hills, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
O All ye Green Things upon the Earth, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
" The Boy will praise his God on an altar builded fair, Will heap it with the Works of the Lord.
In the morning air, Spices shall burn on it, and by their pale smoke curled, Like shoots of all the Green Things, the God of this bright World Shall see the Boy's desire to pay his debt of praise.
The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gaze An altar meet and worthy, but each table and chair Has some defect, each piece is needing some repair To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs, The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn, And even a wide sofa has its cane seat torn.
Only in the gloom far in the corner there The lacquer music-stand is elegant and rare, Clear and slim of line, with its four wings outspread, The sound of old quartets, a tenuous, faint thread, Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme -- Black, and gold, and crimson, in one twisted scheme! A candle on the bookcase feels a draught and wavers, Stippling the white-washed walls with dancing shades and quavers.
A bed-post, grown colossal, jigs about the ceiling, And shadows, strangely altered, stain the walls, revealing Eagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled awry, And hands which fetch and carry things incessantly.
Under the Eastern window, where the morning sun Must touch it, stands the music-stand, and on each one Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones, And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones, An oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown, The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled, Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell, A blue jay feather, all together piled pell-mell The stand will hold no more.
The Boy with humming head Looks once again, blows out the light, and creeps to bed.
The Boy keeps solemn vigil, while outside the wind Blows gustily and clear, and slaps against the blind.
He hardly tries to sleep, so sharp his ecstasy It burns his soul to emptiness, and sets it free For adoration only, for worship.
Dedicate, His unsheathed soul is naked in its novitiate.
The hours strike below from the clock on the stair.
The Boy is a white flame suspiring in prayer.
Morning will bring the sun, the Golden Eye of Him Whose splendour must be veiled by starry cherubim, Whose Feet shimmer like crystal in the streets of Heaven.
Like an open rose the sun will stand up even, Fronting the window-sill, and when the casement glows Rose-red with the new-blown morning, then the fire which flows From the sun will fall upon the altar and ignite The spices, and his sacrifice will burn in perfumed light.
Over the music-stand the ghosts of sounds will swim, `Viols d'amore' and `hautbois' accorded to a hymn.
The Boy will see the faintest breath of angels' wings Fanning the smoke, and voices will flower through the strings.
He dares no farther vision, and with scalding eyes Waits upon the daylight and his great emprise.
The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening the wall When the Boy, fine-drawn by sleeplessness, started his ritual.
He washed, all shivering and pointed like a flame.
He threw the shutters open, and in the window-frame The morning glimmered like a tarnished Venice glass.
He took his Chinese pastilles and put them in a mass Upon the mantelpiece till he could seek a plate Worthy to hold them burning.
Alas! He had been late In thinking of this need, and now he could not find Platter or saucer rare enough to ease his mind.
The house was not astir, and he dared not go down Into the barn-chamber, lest some door should be blown And slam before the draught he made as he went out.
The light was growing yellower, and still he looked about.
A flash of almost crimson from the gilded pear Upon the music-stand, startled him waiting there.
The sun would rise and he would meet it unprepared, Labelled a fool in having missed what he had dared.
He ran across the room, took his pastilles and laid Them on the flat-topped pear, most carefully displayed To light with ease, then stood a little to one side, Focussed a burning-glass and painstakingly tried To hold it angled so the bunched and prismed rays Should leap upon each other and spring into a blaze.
Sharp as a wheeling edge of disked, carnation flame, Gem-hard and cutting upward, slowly the round sun came.
The arrowed fire caught the burning-glass and glanced, Split to a multitude of pointed spears, and lanced, A deeper, hotter flame, it took the incense pile Which welcomed it and broke into a little smile Of yellow flamelets, creeping, crackling, thrusting up, A golden, red-slashed lily in a lacquer cup.
"O ye Fire and Heat, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
O ye Winter and Summer, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
O ye Nights and Days, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
O ye Lightnings and Clouds, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him for ever.
" A moment so it hung, wide-curved, bright-petalled, seeming A chalice foamed with sunrise.
The Boy woke from his dreaming.
A spike of flame had caught the card of butterflies, The oriole's nest took fire, soon all four galleries Where he had spread his treasures were become one tongue Of gleaming, brutal fire.
The Boy instantly swung His pitcher off the wash-stand and turned it upside down.
The flames drooped back and sizzled, and all his senses grown Acute by fear, the Boy grabbed the quilt from his bed And flung it over all, and then with aching head He watched the early sunshine glint on the remains Of his holy offering.
The lacquer stand had stains Ugly and charred all over, and where the golden pear Had been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably.
His dear Treasures were puffs of ashes; only the stones were there, Winking in the brightness.
The clock upon the stair Struck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.
The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late.
Written by John Matthew | Create an image from this poem

The Bombay Train Song

 He hangs on dangling handholds
As the train sways and careens
Endless nondescript buildings unfold
Their secrets as the tired warrior returns.
The day is over the night falls Thickly through the barricaded windows The man’s sleepy head lolls On his shoulder in a dream disturbed.
The days are a hard white collar brawl The sleepless night stretches ahead There’s no space for a fly to crawl The morning paper is still unread.
You who sleep standing Don’t drool on his shirt It will cost him a lot of spending If you pour on him all your dirt.
Plastic bags, umbrellas, Tiffin The rack is full and the seats overflow What is that smell Peter Griffin? Is it the Sewri sewers overflowing? Beware of pickers of pockets Who surround and slash with knife Careful of your arm’s sockets Lest they dislocate and misery make life.
Welcome to Bombay’s bustling trains Hold on fast as if you are insane!
Written by Anne Bronte | Create an image from this poem

The Arbour

 I'll rest me in this sheltered bower,
And look upon the clear blue sky
That smiles upon me through the trees,
Which stand so thickly clustering by; 
And view their green and glossy leaves,
All glistening in the sunshine fair;
And list the rustling of their boughs,
So softly whispering through the air.
And while my ear drinks in the sound, My winged soul shall fly away; Reviewing long departed years As one mild, beaming, autumn day; And soaring on to future scenes, Like hills and woods, and valleys green, All basking in the summer's sun, But distant still, and dimly seen.
Oh, list! 'tis summer's very breath That gently shakes the rustling trees -­ But look! the snow is on the ground -­ How can I think of scenes like these? 'Tis but the frost that clears the air, And gives the sky that lovely blue; They're smiling in a winter's sun, Those evergreens of sombre hue.
And winter's chill is on my heart -­ How can I dream of future bliss? How can my spirit soar away, Confined by such a chain as this?
Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Create an image from this poem

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 was concluded, Of our hard-earned coin denuded Dandaloonies sat and brooded There in Dandaloo.
* * * * * Night came down on Johnson's shanty Where the grog was no way scanty, And a tumult grew Till some wild, excited person Galloped down the township cursing, "Sydney push have mobbed Macpherson, Roll up, Dandaloo!" Great St Denis! what commotion! Like the rush of stormy ocean Fiery horsemen flew.
Dust and smoke and din and rattle, Down the street they spurred their cattle To the war-cry of the battle, "Wade in, Dandaloo!" So the boys might have their fight out, Johnson blew the bar-room light out, Then, in haste, withdrew.
And in darkness and in doubting Raged the conflict and the shouting, "Give the Sydney push a clouting, Go it, Dandaloo!" Jack Macpherson seized a bucket, Every head he saw he struck it -- Struck in earnest, too; And a man from Lower Wattle, Whom a shearer tried to throttle, Hit out freely with a bottle There in Dandaloo.
Skin and hair were flying thickly, When a light was fetched, and quickly Brought a fact to view -- On the scene of the diversion Every single, solid person Come along to help Macpherson -- All were Dandaloo! When the list of slain was tabled -- Some were drunk and some disabled -- Still we found it true.
In the darkness and the smother We'd been belting one another; Jack Macpherson bashed his brother There in Dandaloo.
So we drank, and all departed -- How the "mobbing" yarn was started No one ever knew -- And the stockmen tell the story Of that conflict fierce and gory, How he fought for love and glory Up in Dandaloo.
It's a proverb now, or near it -- At the races you can hear it, At the dog-fights, too! Every shrieking, dancing drover As the canines topple over Yells applause to Grip or Rover, "Give him 'Dandaloo'!" And the teamster slowly toiling Through the deep black country, soiling Wheels and axles, too, Lays the whip on Spot and Banker, Rouses Tarboy with a flanker -- "Redman! Ginger! Heave there! Yank her Wade in, Dandaloo!"