Famous Long Old Poems

Famous Long Old Poems. Long Old Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Old long poems

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 I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said 'Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.'

I faltered, taking up the word:
'Not so, my lord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.

'For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me.'

'Therefore,' the voice said, 'shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
From the summits of love a curse is driven,
As lightning is from the tops of heaven.'

'Not so,' I answered. 'Evermore
My heart is sore
For my own land's sins: for little feet
Of children bleeding along the street:

'For parked-up honors that gainsay
The right of way:
For almsgiving through a door that is
Not open enough for two friends to kiss:

'For love of freedom which abates
Beyond the Straits:
For patriot virtue starved to vice on
Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion:

'For an oligarchic parliament,
And bribes well-meant.
What curse to another land assign,
When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?'

'Therefore,' the voice said, 'shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Because thou hast strength to see and hate
A foul thing done within thy gate.'

'Not so,' I answered once again.
'To curse, choose men.
For I, a woman, have only known
How the heart melts and the tears run down.'

'Therefore,' the voice...
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 AN INDIAN LEGEND.

[This very fine Ballad was also first given in the Horen.]
(MAHADEVA is one of the numerous names of Seeva, the destroyer,--
the great god of the Brahmins.)


MAHADEVA,* Lord of earth

For the sixth time comes below,

As a man of mortal birth,--

Like him, feeling joy and woe.

Hither loves he to repair,

And his power behind to leave;

If to punish or to spare,

Men as man he'd fain perceive.
And when he the town as a trav'ller hath seen,
Observing the mighty, regarding the mean,
He quits it, to go on his journey, at eve.


He was leaving now the place,

When an outcast met his eyes,--

Fair in form, with painted face,--

Where some straggling dwellings rise.

"Maiden, hail!"--"Thanks! welcome here!

Stay!--I'll join thee in the road.'

"Who art thou?"--"A Bayadere,

And this house is love's abode."
The cymbal she hastens to play for the dance,
Well skill'd in its mazes the sight to entrance,
Then by her with grace is the nosegay bestow'd.



Then she draws him, as in play,

O'er the threshold eagerly:

"Beauteous stranger, light as day

Thou shalt soon this cottage see.

I'll refresh thee, if thou'rt tired,

And will bathe thy weary feet;

Take whate'er by thee's desired,

Toying, rest, or rapture sweet."--
She busily seeks his feign'd suff'rings to ease;
Then smiles the Immortal; with pleasure he sees
That with kindness...
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 A farmer's wife, both young and gay,
And fresh as op'ning buds of May;
Had taken to herself, a Spouse,
And plighted many solemn vows,
That she a faithful mate would prove,
In meekness, duty, and in love!
That she, despising joy and wealth,
Would be, in sickness and in health,
His only comfort and his Friend--
But, mark the sequel,--and attend!

This Farmer, as the tale is told--
Was somewhat cross, and somewhat old!
His, was the wintry hour of life,
While summer smiled before his wife;
A contrast, rather form'd to cloy
The zest of matrimonial joy!

'Twas Christmas time, the peasant throng
Assembled gay, with dance and Song:
The Farmer's Kitchen long had been
Of annual sports the busy scene;
The wood-fire blaz'd, the chimney wide
Presented seats, on either side;
Long rows of wooden Trenchers, clean,
Bedeck'd with holly-boughs, were seen;
The shining Tankard's foamy ale
Gave spirits to the Goblin tale,
And many a rosy cheek--grew pale.

It happen'd, that some sport to shew
The ceiling held a MISTLETOE.
A magic bough, and well design'd
To prove the coyest Maiden, kind.
A magic bough, which DRUIDS old
Its sacred mysteries enroll'd;
And which, or gossip Fame's a liar,
Still warms the soul with vivid fire;
Still promises a store of bliss
While bigots snatch their Idol's kiss.

This MISTLETOE was doom'd to be
The talisman of Destiny;
Beneath its ample boughs we're told
Full...
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 Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;
Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.

Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes,
Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies,
But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies,
Dies and is burnt up in the fire of fight.

Hearts bruised with loss and eaten through with shame
Turn at the time's touch to devouring flame;
Grief stands as one that knows not her own name,
Nor if the star she sees bring day or night.

No song breaks with it on the violent air,
But shrieks of shame, defeat, and brute despair;
Yet something at the star's heart far up there
Burns as a beacon in our shipwrecked sight.

O strange fierce light of presage, unknown star,
Whose tongue shall tell us what thy secrets are,
What message trembles in thee from so far?
Cry wellaway. but well befall the right.

From shores laid waste across an iron sea
Where the waifs drift of hopes that were to be,
Across the red rolled foam we look for thee,
Across the fire we look up for the light.

From days laid waste across disastrous years,
From hopes cut down across a world of fears,
We gaze...
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 Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, on twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves,
And harps of gold, where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the heights,
The wind was moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread,
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale,
And men looked up with faces pale.
The dragon's ire, more fierce than fire,
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon.
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled the hall to dying...
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 YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying;
Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?
I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying,
If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies,
As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems and plays and romances
Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!

You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,
And take all you want, not a copper they cost,--
What is there to hinder your picking out phrases
For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?

Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero,
Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean;
Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero
Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.

There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother
That boarding-school flavor of which we're afraid,
There is "lush"is a good one, and "swirl" is another,--
Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made.

With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes
You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell
You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, 
And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!"

Perhaps you will...
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 We've drunk to the Queen -- God bless her! --
 We've drunk to our mothers' land;
We've drunk to our English brother,
 (But he does not understand);
We've drunk to the wide creation,
 And the Cross swings low for the mom,
Last toast, and of Obligation,
 A health to the Native-born!

They change their skies above them,
 But not their hearts that roam!
We learned from our wistful mothers
 To call old England "home";
We read of the English skylark,
 Of the spring in the English lanes,
But we screamed with the painted lories
 As we rode on the dusty plains!

They passed with their old-world legends --
 Their tales of wrong and dearth --
Our fathers held by purchase,
 But we by the right of birth;
Our heart's where they rocked our cradle,
 Our love where we spent our toil,
And our faith and our hope and our honour
 We pledge to our native soil!

I charge you charge your glasses --
 I charge you drink with me
To the men of the Four New Nations,
 And the Islands of the Sea --
To the last least lump of coral
 That none may stand outside,
And our own good pride shall teach us
 To praise our comrade's pride,

To the hush of the breathless...
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I was a little boy, at home with strangers.   
I liked my playmates, and knew well,   
Whence all their parents came; 
From England, Scotland, royal France   
From Germany and oft by chance 
The humble Emerald Isle. 

But my brown skin and close-curled hair 
Was alien, and how it grew, none knew; 
Few tried to say, some dropped a wonderful word or stray; 
Some laughed and stared. 

And then it came: I dreamed.   
I placed together all I knew 
All hints and slurs together drew.   
I dreamed. 

I made one picture of what nothing seemed   
I shuddered in dumb terror 
In silence screamed, 
For now it seemed this I had dreamed; 

How up from Hell, a land had leaped 
A wretched land, all scorched and seamed   
Covered with ashes, chained with pain   
Streaming with blood, in horror lain   
Its very air a shriek of death 
And agony of hurt. 

Anon I woke, but in one corner of my soul   
I stayed asleep. 
Forget I could not, 
But never would I remember   
That hell-hoist ghost   
Of slavery and...
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 When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of the west.

The first thing you discover, as you maunder through the hall,
Is a curious little clock upon a bracket on the wall;
'T was made by Stoddard's father, and it's very, very old--
The connoisseurs assure me it is worth its weight in gold;
And I, who've bought all kinds of clocks, 'twixt Denver and the Rhine,
Cast envious eyes upon that clock, and wish that it were mine.

But in the parlor. Oh, the gems on tables, walls, and floor--
Rare first editions, etchings, and old crockery galore.
Why, talk about the Indies and the wealth of Orient things--
They couldn't hold a candle to these quaint and sumptuous things;
In such profusion, too--Ah me! how dearly I recall
How I have sat and watched 'em and wished I had 'em all.

Now, Mr. Stoddard's study is on the second floor,
A wee blind dog barks at me as I enter...
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 Under what withering leprous light
The very grass as hair is grey,
Grass in the cracks of the paven courts
Of gods we graved but yesterday.
Senate, republic, empire, all
We leaned our backs on like a wall
And blessed as stron as strong and blamed as stolid--
Can it be these that waver and fall?
And what is this like a ghost returning,
A dream grown strong in the strong daylight?
The all-forsaken, the unforgotten,
The ever-behind and out of sight.
We turned our backs and our blind flesh felt it
Growing and growing, a tower in height.

Ah, not alone the evil splendour
And not the insolent arms alone
Break with the ramrod, stiff and brittle,
The sceptre of the nordic throne;
But things of manlier renown
Reel in the wreck of throne and crown,
With tyrannous tyranny, tyrannous loyalty
Tyrannous liberty, all gone down.

(There is never a crack in the ivory tower
Or a hinge to groan in the house of gold
Or a leaf of the rose in the wind to wither
And she grows young as the world grows old.
A Woman clothed with the sun returning
to clothe the sun when the sun is cold.)

Ah, who had guessed that in a moment
Great Liberty that loosed the tribes,
the Republic of the young men's battles
Grew stale and stank of old men's...
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 'Twas in scientific circles 
That the great Professor Brown 
Had a world-wide reputation 
As a writer of renown. 
He had striven finer feelings 
In our natures to implant 
By his Treatise on the Morals 
Of the Red-eyed Bulldog Ant. 
He had hoisted an opponent 
Who had trodden unawares 
On his "Reasons for Bare Patches 
On the Female Native Bears". 
So they gave him an appointment 
As instructor to a band 
Of the most attractive females 
To be gathered in the land. 
'Twas a "Ladies' Science Circle" -- 
Just the latest social fad 
For the Nicest People only, 
And to make their rivals mad. 
They were fond of "science rambles" 
To the country from the town -- 
A parade of female beauty 
In the leadership of Brown. 
They would pick a place for luncheon 
And catch beetles on their rugs; 
The Professor called 'em "optera" -- 
They calld 'em "nasty bugs". 
Well, the thing was bound to perish 
For no lovely woman can 
Feel the slightest interest 
In a club without a Man -- 
The Professor hardly counted 
He was crazy as a loon, 
With a countenance suggestive 
Of an elderly baboon. 
But the breath of Fate blew on it...
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 Long ago in a poultry yard 
One dull November morn, 
Beneath a motherly soft wing 
A little goose was born. 

Who straightway peeped out of the shell 
To view the world beyond, 
Longing at once to sally forth 
And paddle in the pond. 

"Oh! be not rash," her father said, 
A mild Socratic bird; 
Her mother begged her not to stray 
With many a warning word. 

But little goosey was perverse, 
And eagerly did cry, 
"I've got a lovely pair of wings, 
Of course I ought to fly." 

In vain parental cacklings, 
In vain the cold sky's frown, 
Ambitious goosey tried to soar, 
But always tumbled down. 

The farmyard jeered at her attempts, 
The peacocks screamed, "Oh fie! 
You're only a domestic goose, 
So don't pretend to fly." 

Great cock-a-doodle from his perch 
Crowed daily loud and clear, 
"Stay in the puddle, foolish bird, 
That is your proper sphere," 

The ducks and hens said, one and all, 
In gossip by the pool, 
"Our children never play such pranks; 
My dear, that fowl's a fool." 

The owls came out and flew about, 
Hooting above the rest, 
"No useful egg was ever hatched 
From transcendental nest." 

Good little goslings at their...
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 There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
 And the ricks stand grey to the sun,
Singing: "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the dover,
 "And your English summer's done."
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song -- how long? how long?
 Pull out on the trail again!
Ha' done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass,
We've seen the seasons through,
And it's time to turn the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail-the trail that is always new!

It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun
 Or South to the blind Hom's hate;
Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,
 Or West to the Golden Gate --
 Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
 And the wildest tales are true,
 And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 And life runs large on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

The days are sick and cold, and the skies are grey and old
 And the twice-breathed airs blow damp;
And I'd sell...
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 CALL it to mind, O my love.
Dear were your eyes as the day,
Bright as the day and the sky;
Like the stream of gold and the sky above,
Dear were your eyes in the grey.
We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love!
Now along the silent river, azure
Through the sky's inverted image,
Softly swam the boat that bore our love,
Swiftly ran the shallow of our love
Through the heaven's inverted image,
In the reedy mazes round the river.
See along the silent river,

See of old the lover's shallop steer.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Heaven below and only heaven above.
Through the sky's inverted image
Swiftly swam the boat that bore our love.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Mirrored flower and shallop gliding by.
All the earth and all the sky were ours,
Silent sat the wafted lovers,
Bound with grain and watched by all the sky,
Hand to hand and eye to . . . eye.

Days of April, airs of Eden,
Call to mind how bright the vanished angel hours,
Golden hours of evening,
When our boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
O darling, call them to mind; love the past, my love.
Days of April, airs of Eden.
How the glory died through golden hours,
And the shining moon arising;
How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
Age and...
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 The squatter saw his pastures wide 
Decrease, as one by one 
The farmers moving to the west 
Selected on his run; 
Selectors took the water up 
And all the black soil round; 
The best grass-land the squatter had 
Was spoilt by Ross's Ground. 

Now many schemes to shift old Ross 
Had racked the squatter's brains, 
But Sandy had the stubborn blood 
Of Scotland in his veins; 
He held the land and fenced it in, 
He cleared and ploughed the soil, 
And year by year a richer crop 
Repaid him for his toil. 

Between the homes for many years 
The devil left his tracks: 
The squatter pounded Ross's stock, 
And Sandy pounded Black's. 
A well upon the lower run 
Was filled with earth and logs, 
And Black laid baits about the farm 
To poison Ross's dogs. 

It was, indeed, a deadly feud 
Of class and creed and race; 
But, yet, there was a Romeo 
And a Juliet in the case; 
And more than once across the flats, 
Beneath the Southern Cross, 
Young Robert Black was seen to ride 
With pretty Jenny Ross. 

One Christmas time, when months of drought 
Had parched the western creeks, 
The bush-fires started in the north...
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