Famous Long Titles Poems

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

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 THE TURN
Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His rage with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!

THE COUNTER-TURN

Did wiser nature draw thee back,
From out the horror of that sack;
Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
Lay trampled on? The deeds of death and night
Urg'd, hurried forth, and hurl'd
Upon th' affrighted world;
Sword, fire and famine with fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set:
As, could they but life's miseries foresee,
No doubt all infants would return like thee.

THE STAND

For what is life, if measur'd by the space,
Not by the act?
Or masked man, if valu'd by his face,
Above his fact?
Here's one outliv'd his peers
And told forth fourscore years:
He vexed time, and busied the whole state;
Troubled both foes and friends;
But ever to no ends:
What did this stirrer but die late?
How well at twenty had he fall'n or stood!
For three of his four score he did no good.

THE TURN

He enter'd well, by virtuous parts
Got up, and thriv'd with honest arts;
He purchas'd friends, and fame, and honours...
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 WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
 An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
 In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
 Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
 That live sae bien an’ snug:
 I tent less, and want less
 Their roomy fire-side;
 But hanker, and canker,
 To see their cursed pride.


It’s hardly in a body’s pow’r
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
 To see how things are shar’d;
How best o’ chiels are whiles in want,
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
 And ken na how to wair’t;
But, Davie, lad, ne’er fash your head,
 Tho’ we hae little gear;
We’re fit to win our daily bread,
 As lang’s we’re hale and fier:
 “Mair spier na, nor fear na,” 1
 Auld age ne’er mind a feg;
 The last o’t, the warst o’t
 Is only but to beg.


To lie in kilns and barns at e’en,
When banes are craz’d, and bluid is thin,
 Is doubtless, great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev’n then, sometimes, we’d snatch a taste
 Of truest happiness.
The honest heart that’s free frae a’
 Intended...
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 My most respected
 comrades of posterity!
Rummaging among
 these days’ 
 petrified crap,
exploring the twilight of our times,
you,
 possibly,
 will inquire about me too.

And, possibly, your scholars
 will declare,
with their erudition overwhelming
 a swarm of problems;
once there lived
 a certain champion of boiled water,
and inveterate enemy of raw water.

Professor,
 take off your bicycle glasses!
I myself will expound
 those times
 and myself.

I, a latrine cleaner
 and water carrier,
by the revolution
 mobilized and drafted,
went off to the front
 from the aristocratic gardens 
of poetry - 
 the capricious wench
She planted a delicious garden,
the daughter,
 cottage,
 pond
 and meadow.

Myself a garden I did plant,
myself with water sprinkled it.
some pour their verse from water cans;
others spit water
 from their mouth - 
the curly Macks,
 the clever jacks - 
but what the hell’s it all about!
There’s no damming al this up - 
beneath the walls they mandoline:
“Tara-tina, tara-tine,
tw-a-n-g...” 
It’s no great honor, then,
 for my monuments
to rise from such roses
above the public squares,
 where consumption coughs,
where whores, hooligans and syphilis
 walk.

Agitprop
 sticks
 in my teeth too,
and I’d rather
 compose
 romances for you - 
more profit in it
 and more charm.

But I
 subdued
 myself,
 setting my heel
on the throat
 of my own song.
Listen,
 comrades of posterity,
to...
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 I.
HEre take no Care, take here no Care, my Muse,
 Nor ought of Art or Labour use:
 But let thy Lines rude and unpolisht go,
Nor Equal be their Feet, nor Num'rous let them flow.
 The ruggeder my Measures run when read,
They'l livelier paint th'unequal Paths fond Mortals tread.
 Who when th'are tempted by the smooth Ascents,
 Which flatt'ring Hope presents,
 Briskly they clime, and Great Things undertake;
 But Fatal Voyages, alas, they make:
 For 'tis not long before their Feet,
 Inextricable Mazes meet,
 Perplexing Doubts obstruct their Way,
 Mountains with-stand them of Dismay;
 Or to the Brink of black Dispaire them lead,
 Where's nought their Ruine to impede, 

 In vain for Aide they then to Reason call,
 Their Senses dazle, and their Heads turn round,
 The sight does all their Pow'rs confound,
And headlong down the horrid Precipice they fall:
 Where storms of Sighs for ever blow,
 Where raped streams of Tears do flow,
 Which drown them in a Briny Floud.
My Muse pronounce aloud, there's nothing Good,
 Nought that the World can show,
 Nought that it can bestow. 

II.
 Not boundless Heaps of its admired Clay,
 Ah, too successful to betray,
 When spread in our fraile Vertues way:
 For...
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 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never placed at council board 
 To speak my promptings. When awed strangers come 
 Who've seen Fox-Mazarin wince at the stings 
 In my epistles—and bring admiring votes 
 Of learned colleges, they strain to see 
 My figure in the glare—the usher utters, 
 "Behold and hearken! that's my Lord Protector's 
 Cousin—that, his son-in-law—that next"—who cares! 
 Some perfumed puppet! "Milton?" "He in black— 
 Yon silent scribe who trims their eloquence!" 
 Still 'chronicling small-beer,'—such is my duty! 
 Yea, one whose thunder roared through martyr bones 
 Till Pope and Louis Grand quaked on their thrones, 
 And echoed "Vengeance for the Vaudois," where 
 The Sultan slumbers sick with scent of roses. 
 He is but the mute in this seraglio— 
 "Pure" Cromwell's Council! 
 But to be dumb and blind is overmuch! 
...
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 Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp of transient interest,
Stand books we can but dimly see, their charm
Much greater that their titles are unread;
While on a level with the dusty floor
Others are ranged in orderly confusion,
And we must stoop in painful posture while
We read their names and learn their histories.
The little gallery winds round about
The middle of a most secluded room,
Midway between the ceiling and the floor.
A type of those high thoughts, which while we read
Hover between the earth and furthest heaven
As fancy wills, leaving the printed page;
For books but give the theme, our hearts the rest,
Enriching simple words with unguessed harmony
And overtones of thought we only know.
And as we sit long hours quietly,
Reading at times, and at times simply dreaming,
The very room itself becomes a friend,
The confidant of intimate hopes and fears;
A place where are engendered pleasant thoughts,
And possibilities before unguessed
Come to fruition born of sympathy.
And...
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 You have obey'd, you WINDS, that must fulfill 
The Great Disposer's righteous Will; 
Throughout the Land, unlimited you flew, 
Nor sought, as heretofore, with Friendly Aid 
Only, new Motion to bestow 
Upon the sluggish Vapours, bred below, 
Condensing into Mists, and melancholy Shade. 
No more such gentle Methods you pursue, 
But marching now in terrible Array, 
Undistinguish'd was your Prey: 
In vain the Shrubs, with lowly Bent, 
Sought their Destruction to prevent; 
The Beech in vain, with out-stretch'd Arms, 
Deprecates th' approaching Harms; 
In vain the Oak (so often storm'd) 
Rely'd upon that native Force, 
By which already was perform'd 
So much of his appointed Course, 
As made him, fearless of Decay, 
Wait but the accomplish'd Time 
Of his long-wish'd and useful Prime, 
To be remov'd, with Honor, to the Sea. 


The strait and ornamental Pine 
Did in the like Ambition joyn, 
And thought his Fame shou'd ever last, 
When in some Royal Ship he stood the planted Mast; 
And shou'd again his Length of Timber rear, 
And new engrafted Branches wear 
Of fibrous Cordage and impending Shrouds, 
Still trimm'd with human Care, and water'd by the Clouds. 
But oh, you Trees! who solitary stood; 
Or you, whose Numbers...
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THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. Dell' aureo albergo con l' Aurora innanzi.  Behind Aurora's wheels the rising sunHis voyage from his golden shrine begun,With such ethereal speed, as if the HoursHad caught him slumb'ring in her rosy bowers.[Pg 395]With lordly eye, that reach'd the world's extreme,Methought he look'd, when, gliding on his beam,That wingèd power approach'd that wheels his carIn its wide annual range from star to star,Measuring vicissitude; till, now more near,Methought these thrilling accents met my ear:—"New laws must be observed if mortals claim,Spite of the lapse of time, eternal fame.Those laws have lost their force that Heaven decreed,And I my circle run with fruitless speed;If fame's loud breath the slumb'ring dust inspire,And bid to live with never-dying fire,My power, that measures mortal things, is cross'd,And my long glories in oblivion lost.If mortals on yon planet's shadowy face,Can match the tenor of my heavenly race,I strive with fruitless speed from year to yearTo keep precedence o'er a lower sphere.In vain yon flaming coursers I prepare,In vain the watery...
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 [As a Tribute of Esteem and Admiration this Poem is inscribed to ROBERT MERRY, Esq. A. M. Member of the Royal Academy at Florence, and Author of the Laurel of Liberty, and the Della Crusca Poems.]


O THOU, to whom superior worth's allied,
Thy Country's honour­and the MUSES' pride;
Whose pen gives polish to the varying line
That blends instruction with the song divine;
Whose fancy, glancing o'er the hostile plain,
Plants a fond trophy o'er the mighty slain; I 
Or to the daisied lawn directs its way,
Blithe as the songstress of returning day;
Who deign'd to rove where twinkling glow-worms lead
The tiny legions o'er the glitt'ring mead;
Whose liquid notes in sweet meand'rings flow,
Mild as the murmurs of the Bird of Woe;
Who gave to Sympathy its softest pow'r,
The charm to wing Affliction's sable hour;
Who in Italia's groves, with thrilling song,
Call'd mute attention from the minstrel throng;
Gave proud distinction to the Poet's name,
And claim'd, by modest worth, the wreath of fame­ 
Accept the Verse thy magic harp inspires, 
Nor scorn the Muse that kindles at its fires. 

O, justly gifted with the Sacred Lyre, 
Whose sounds can more than mortal thoughts inspire, 
Whether its strings HEROIC measures move, 
Or lyric numbers charm the soul to love; 
Whether...
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 I

I doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town 
Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig, 
Or called him by his name, or looked at him 
So curiously, or so concernedly, 
As they had looked at ashes; but a few—
Say five or six of us—had found somehow 
The spark in him, and we had fanned it there, 
Choked under, like a jest in Holy Writ, 
By Tilbury prudence. He had lived his life 
And in his way had shared, with all mankind,
Inveterate leave to fashion of himself, 
By some resplendent metamorphosis, 
Whatever he was not. And after time, 
When it had come sufficiently to pass 
That he was going patch-clad through the streets,
Weak, dizzy, chilled, and half starved, he had laid 
Some nerveless fingers on a prudent sleeve, 
And told the sleeve, in furtive confidence, 
Just how it was: “My name is Captain Craig,” 
He said, “and I must eat.” The sleeve moved on,
And after it moved others—one or two; 
For Captain Craig, before the day was done, 
Got back to the scant refuge of his bed 
And shivered into it without a curse— 
Without a murmur even. He was cold,
And old, and hungry; but the worst of it...
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 Scene, on the Cliffs to the Eastward of the Town of
Brighthelmstone in Sussex. Time, a Morning in November, 1792.


Slow in the Wintry Morn, the struggling light
Throws a faint gleam upon the troubled waves;
Their foaming tops, as they approach the shore
And the broad surf that never ceasing breaks
On the innumerous pebbles, catch the beams
Of the pale Sun, that with reluctance gives
To this cold northern Isle, its shorten'd day.
Alas! how few the morning wakes to joy!
How many murmur at oblivious night
For leaving them so soon; for bearing thus
Their fancied bliss (the only bliss they taste!),
On her black wings away!--Changing the dreams
That sooth'd their sorrows, for calamities
(And every day brings its own sad proportion)
For doubts, diseases, abject dread of Death,
And faithless friends, and fame and fortune lost;
Fancied or real wants; and wounded pride,
That views the day star, but to curse his beams.
Yet He, whose Spirit into being call'd
This wond'rous World of Waters; He who bids
The wild wind lift them till they dash the clouds,
And speaks to them in thunder; or whose breath,
Low murmuring, o'er the gently heaving tides,
When the fair Moon, in summer night serene,
Irradiates with long trembling lines of light
Their undulating surface; that great Power,
Who, governing the Planets, also knows
If but...
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 As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.

This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast:
"In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;
While nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us."

If this perhaps your patience move,
Let reason and experience prove.
We all behold with envious eyes
Our equal raised above our size.
Who would not at a crowded show
Stand high himself, keep others low?
I love my friend as well as you:
But why should he obstruct my view?
Then let me have the higher post:
Suppose it but an inch at most.
If in battle you should find
One whom you love of all mankind,
Had some heroic action done,
A champion killed, or trophy won;
Rather than thus be overtopped,
Would you not wish his laurels cropped?
Dear honest Ned is in the gout,
Lies racked with pain, and you without:
How patiently you hear him groan!
How glad the case is not your own!

What poet would not grieve to see
His breth'ren write as well as he?
But rather than they should excel,
He wished his rivals all in hell.

Her end when Emulation misses,
She turns to Envy, stings, and hisses:
The strongest friendship yields...
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 I
Frindsbury, Kent, 1786
Bang!
Bang!
Tap!
Tap-a-tap! Rap!
All through the lead and silver Winter days,
All through the copper of Autumn hazes.
Tap to the red rising sun,
Tap to the purple setting sun.
Four years pass before the job is done.
Two thousand oak trees grown and felled,
Two thousand oaks from the hedgerows of the Weald,
Sussex had yielded two thousand oaks
With huge boles
Round which the tape rolls
Thirty mortal feet, say the village folks.
Two hundred loads of elm and Scottish fir;
Planking from Dantzig.
My! What timber goes into a ship!
Tap! Tap!
Two years they have seasoned her ribs on the ways,
Tapping, tapping.
You can hear, though there's nothing where you gaze.
Through the fog down the reaches of the river,
The tapping goes on like heart-beats in a fever.
The church-bells chime
Hours and hours,
Dropping days in showers.
Bang! Rap! Tap!
Go the hammers all the time.
They have planked up her timbers
And the nails are driven to the head;
They have decked her over,
And again, and again.
The shoring-up beams shudder at the strain.
Black and blue breeches,
Pigtails bound and shining:
Like ants crawling about,
The hull swarms with carpenters, running in and out.
Joiners, calkers,
And they are all terrible talkers.
Jem Wilson has been to sea and he tells some wonderful tales
Of whales, and spice islands,
And pirates off the Barbary coast.
He boasts magnificently,...
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 When Yankies, skill'd in martial rule,
First put the British troops to school;
Instructed them in warlike trade,
And new manoeuvres of parade,
The true war-dance of Yankee reels,
And manual exercise of heels;
Made them give up, like saints complete,
The arm of flesh, and trust the feet,
And work, like Christians undissembling,
Salvation out, by fear and trembling;
Taught Percy fashionable races,
And modern modes of Chevy-Chases:
From Boston, in his best array,
Great 'Squire M'Fingal took his way,
And graced with ensigns of renown,
Steer'd homeward to his native town.


His high descent our heralds trace
From Ossian's famed Fingalian race:
For though their name some part may lack,
Old Fingal spelt it with a Mac;
Which great M'Pherson, with submission,
We hope will add the next edition.


His fathers flourish'd in the Highlands
Of Scotia's fog-benighted islands;
Whence gain'd our 'Squire two gifts by right,
Rebellion, and the Second-sight.
Of these, the first, in ancient days,
Had gain'd the noblest palm of praise,
'Gainst kings stood forth and many a crown'd head
With terror of its might confounded;
Till rose a king with potent charm
His foes by meekness to disarm,
Whom every Scot and Jacobite
Strait fell in love with at first sight;
Whose gracious speech with aid of pensions,
Hush'd down all murmurs of dissensions,
And with the sound of potent metal
Brought all their buzzing swarms to settle;
Who rain'd...
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 As one who in his journey bates at noon, 
Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused 
Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored, 
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose; 
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes. 
Thus thou hast seen one world begin, and end; 
And Man, as from a second stock, proceed. 
Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive 
Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine 
Must needs impair and weary human sense: 
Henceforth what is to come I will relate; 
Thou therefore give due audience, and attend. 
This second source of Men, while yet but few, 
And while the dread of judgement past remains 
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity, 
With some regard to what is just and right 
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace; 
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop, 
Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock, 
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid, 
With large wine-offerings poured, and sacred feast, 
Shall spend their days in joy unblamed; and dwell 
Long time in peace, by families and tribes, 
Under paternal rule: till one shall rise 
Of proud ambitious heart; who, not content 
With fair equality, fraternal state,...
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