Rudyard Kipling

I seem to see a Shining One,
With eyes that gleam, now fierce, now tender,
Through Goggles that reflect the Sun
"With more than Oriental Splendor";
I see him sitting on a chest
Heavy with padlocks, bolts, and cording,
Where Untold Treasures hidden rest,
Treasures of Untold Yarns he's hoarding.
Oh, Rudyard, please unlock that chest!
With hope deferred we're growing hoary;
Or was it all an empty jest
Your saying, "That's another story"?

Oliver Herford

Oliver Herford was born in England on December 2, 1860. He was a British-born American writer, artist, and illustrator, often referred to as 'The American Oscar Wilde' for his sharp wit and humorous works. Herford authored and illustrated many books for children and adults, contributing to magazines such as "The Criterion", "Life", and "Punch". He died on July 5, 1935, in France.

Oliver Herford

Some Geese.

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

Medusa

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

The Gargoyle

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

Happy Thought

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Cyclopean

A mountainous and mystic brute
No rein can curb, no arrow shoot,
Upon whose domed deformed back
I sweep the planets scorching track.

Old is the elf, and wise, men say,
His hair grows green as ours grows grey;
He mocks the stars with myriad hands.
High as that swinging forest stands.

But though in pigmy wanderings dull
I scour the deserts of his skull,
I never find the face, eyes, teeth.
Lowering or laughing underneath.

I met my foe in an empty dell,
His face in the sun was naked hell.
I thought, 'One silent, bloody blow.
No priest would curse, no crowd would know.'

Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed,
Watched for the fame of that poor field;
And in that flower and suddenly
Earth opened its one eye on me.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

All The Way

Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
    Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
    And noble dreams that had to end at last: -
Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy
    Full many a holy relic hath he torn,
Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me,
    Holding them up to Him in life's young morn.

All these are mine no more - Time hath them all,
    Time and his adamantine gaoler Death:
Despoilure vast - yet seemeth it but small,
    When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath
Filling with light and incense the last shrine,
    Innermost, inaccessible, - yea, thine.

Richard Le Gallienne

Lollingdon Downs VIII

The Kings go by with jewled crowns;
Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many.
The sack of many-peopled towns
Is all their dream:
The way they take
Leaves but a ruin in the brake,
And, in the furrow that the plowmen make,
A stampless penny, a tale, a dream.

The Merchants reckon up their gold,
Their letters come, their ships arrive, their freights are glories;
The profits of their treasures sold
They tell and sum;
Their foremen drive
Their servants, starved to half-alive,
Whose labors do but make the earth a hive
Of stinking stories; a tale, a dream.

The Priests are singing in their stalls,
Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamors;
Yet God is as the sparrow falls,
The ivy drifts;
The vo...

John Masefield

Vanity

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the hours of eve went by.

Who knows what round the corner waits
To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur
Shall leave me with a head to lift,
Worthy of him that spoke with her.

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the days of life went by.

Live ill or well, this thing is mine,
From all I guard it, ill or well.
One tawdry, tattered, faded flower
To show the jealous kings in hell.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Portent

0h, late withdrawn from human-kind
And following dreams we never knew!
Varus, what dream has Fate assigned
To trouble you?

Such virtue as commends of law
Of Virtue to the vulgar horde
Suffices not. You needs must draw
A righteous sword;

And, flagrant in well-doing, smite
The priests of Bacchus at their fane,
Lest any worshipper invite
The God again.

Whence public strife and naked crime
And-deadlier than the cup you shun,
A people schooled to mock, in time,
All law--not one.

Cease, then, to fashion State-made sin,
Nor give thy children cause to doubt
That Virtue springs from Iron within,
Not lead without.

Rudyard

At A Country Fair

At a bygone Western country fair
I saw a giant led by a dwarf
With a red string like a long thin scarf;
How much he was the stronger there
The giant seemed unaware.

And then I saw that the giant was blind,
And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing;
The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string
As if he had no independent mind,
Or will of any kind.

Wherever the dwarf decided to go
At his heels the other trotted meekly,
(Perhaps - I know not - reproaching weakly)
Like one Fate bade that it must be so,
Whether he wished or no.

Various sights in various climes
I have seen, and more I may see yet,
But that sight never shall I forget,
And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes,
If once, a hundred times!

Thomas Hardy