CALAMITY POEMS

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From The 'antigone'

Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
.....
William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats
Beyond The Complexion

Africa my dying land
Africa the field of blood
Africa the ignorant and blind
This mythical spiritual mantra
.....
Senty De Poet

Senty De Poet
Courage

There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
.....
Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane
The Iliad Of Homer: Translated Into English Blank Verse: Book I.

Argument Of The First Book.


The book opens with an account of a pestilence that prevailed in the Grecian camp, and the cause of it is assigned. A council is called, in which fierce altercation takes place between Agamemnon and Achilles. The latter solemnly renounces the field. Agamemnon, by his heralds, demands Brisë is, and Achilles resigns her. He makes his complaint to Thetis, who undertakes to plead his cause with Jupiter. She pleads it, and prevails. The book concludes with an account of what passed in Heaven on that occasion.
.....
William Cowper

William Cowper
Peace Xviii

The tempest calmed after bending the branches of the trees and leaning heavily upon the grain in the field. The stars appeared as broken remnants of lightning, but now silence prevailed over all, as if Nature's war had never been fought.

At that hour a young woman entered her chamber and knelt by her bed sobbing bitterly. Her heart flamed with agony but she could finally open her lips and say, "Oh Lord, bring him home safely to me. I have exhausted my tears and can offer no more, oh Lord, full of love and mercy. My patience is drained and calamity is seeking possession of my heart. Save him, oh Lord, from the iron paws of War; deliver him from such unmerciful Death, for he is weak, governed by the strong. Oh Lord, save my beloved, who is Thine own son, from the foe, who is Thy foe. Keep him from the forced pathway to Death's door; let him see me, or come and take me to him."

.....

Khalil Gibran
Hyperion: Book I

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
.....
John Keats

John Keats
The Iliad: Book 17

Brave Menelaus son of Atreus now came to know that Patroclus had
fallen, and made his way through the front ranks clad in full armour
to bestride him. As a cow stands lowing over her first calf, even so
did yellow-haired Menelaus bestride Patroclus. He held his round
.....

Homer
Ireland

In the wild and lurid desert, in the thunder-travelled ways,
'Neath the night that ever hurries to the dawn that still delays,
There she clutches at illusions, and she seeks a phantom goal
With the unattaining passion that consumes the unsleeping soul:
.....

William Watson
Sonnet Xlviii. To Mrs. ****

NO more my wearied soul attempts to stray
From sad reality and vain regret,
Nor courts enchanting fiction to allay
Sorrows that sense refuses to forget:
.....

Charlotte Smith
The Wasp

The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.
.....

Ogden Nash
Ode (ii)

(Written on the FIRST of DECEMBER, 1793.)


Tho' now no more the musing ear
.....
Robert Southey

Robert Southey
Baile And Aillinn

ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the
Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land
among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.
.....
William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats
The Ballad Of Casey's Billy-goat

You've heard of “Casey at The Bat,”
And “Casey's Tabble Dote”;
But now it's time
To write a rhyme
.....
Robert Service

Robert Service
The Ballad Of Pious Pete

“The North has got him.”-Yukonism.

I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
.....
Robert Service

Robert Service
Individuality

Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud:
Oh loiter hither from the sea.
Still-eyed and shadow-brow'd,
Steal off from yon far-drifting crowd,
.....
Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier
How Pàºrà¡ndukht Ascended The Throne And Slew Piràºz

'Tis but crude policy when women rule,
But yet there was a lady-Púrándukht-
Surviving of the lineage of Sásán,
And well read in the royal volume: her
.....

Abul-qasim Ferdowsi Tusi
Hyperion

BOOK I
DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
.....
John Keats

John Keats
Maran-milan (death-wedding)

Why do you speak so softly, Death, Death,
Creep upon me, watch me so stealthily?
This is not how a lover should behave.
When evening flowers droop upon their tired
.....

Rabindranath Tagore
On The Bill Which Was Passed In England For Regulating The Slave-trade

The hollow winds of night no more
In wild, unequal cadence pour,
On musing fancy's wakeful ear,
The groan of agony severe
.....

Helen Maria Williams
Shakuntala Act 1

King Dushyant in a chariot, pursuing an antelope, with a bow and quiver, attended by his Charioteer.
Suta (Charioteer). [Looking at the antelope, and then at the king]
When I cast my eye on that black antelope, and on thee, O king, with thy braced bow, I see before me, as it were, the God Mahésa chasing a hart (male deer), with his bow, named Pináca, braced in his left hand.

.....

Kalidasa
Yet Dish

I
Put a sun in Sunday, Sunday.
Eleven please ten hoop. Hoop.
Cousin coarse in coarse in soap.
.....

Gertrude Stein
The Conversation Of Eiros And Charmion

I will bring fire to thee.

Euripides.-'Androm'.

.....
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe
Ch 08 On Rules For Conduct In Life - Maxim 12

An ill-humoured man is captive in the hands of a foe, from the grasp of whose punishment he cannot be delivered wherever he may go.

If from the hand of calamity an ill-natured man escapes into the sky
The evil disposition of his own nature retains him in calamity.
.....

Saadi Shirazi
Empedocles On Etna - A Dramatic Poem

PERSONS:
EMPEDOCLES.
PAUSANIAS, a Physician.
CALLICLES, a young Harp-player.
.....
Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold
From The 'antigone'

Overcome-O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl-
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
.....
William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats
Robbed By Death'but That Was Easy

971

Robbed by Death-but that was easy-
To the failing Eye
.....
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson
Ch 01 Manner Of Kings Story 06

It is narrated that one of the kings of Persia had stretched forth
his tyrannical hand to the possessions of his subjects and had begun
to oppress them so violently that in consequence of his fraudulent
extortions they dispersed in the world and chose exile on account of
.....

Saadi Shirazi
Calamity In London

'Twas in the year of 1897, and on the night of Christmas day,
That ten persons' lives were taken sway,
By a destructive fire in London, at No. 9 Dixie Street,
Alas! so great was the fire, the victims couldn't retreat.
.....

William Topaz Mcgonagall
The Soul's Distinct Connection

974

The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
.....
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson
Marriage

This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
.....
Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore
Metabole

An Apostrophe To The Moon.


O, silvery moon, fair mistress of the night,
.....

Alfred Castner King
Ch 08 On Rules For Conduct In Life - Maxim 09

Whoever slays a bad fellow saves mankind from a calamity and him from the wrath of God.

Condonation is laudable but nevertheless
Apply no salve to the wound of an oppressor of the people.
.....

Saadi Shirazi
Ch 02 The Morals Of Dervishes Story 13

I saw a holy man on the seashore who had been wounded by a tiger. No medicine could relieve his pain; he suffered much but he nevertheless constantly thanked God the most high, saying: â??Praise be to Allah that I have fallen into a calamity and not into sin.â??

If that beloved Friend decrees me to be slain
I shall not say that moment that I grieve for life
.....

Saadi Shirazi
Dead Are My People

Gone are my people, but I exist yet,
Lamenting them in my solitude...
Dead are my friends, and in their Death my life is naught but great
Disaster.
.....

Khalil Gibran
Somewhere There Is A Simple Life

Somewhere there is a simple life and a world,
Transparent, warm and joyful. . .
There at evening a neighbor talks with a girl
Across the fence, and only the bees can hear
.....

Anna Akhmatova
On An Old Sepuchral Bas-relief

WHERE IS SEEN A YOUNG MAIDEN, DEAD, IN THE ACT OF DEPARTING,
TAKING LEAVE OF HER FAMILY.


.....

Count Giacomo Leopardi
The Pains Of Sleep

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
.....
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ch 08 On Rules For Conduct In Life - Admonition 15

Whoever does no good in the time of ability will see distress in the time of inability.

No one is more unlucky than an oppressor of men
Because in the day of calamity no one is his friend.
.....

Saadi Shirazi
The Soul's Distinct Connection

974

The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
.....
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson
The Republic

Not they the great
Who build authority around a State,
And firm on calumny and party hate
Base their ambition. Nor the great are they
.....
Madison Julius Cawein

Madison Julius Cawein
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 01: Clairvoyant

‘This envelope you say has something in it
Which once belonged to your dead son-or something
He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?-
The soul flies far, and we can only call it
.....
Conrad Aiken

Conrad Aiken
There Were Many Who Went In Huddled Procession

There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
.....
Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane
The Death Of Adam

Cedars, that high upon the untrodden slopes
Of Lebanon stretch out their stubborn arms,
Through all the tempests of seven hundred years
Fast in their ancient place, where they look down
.....

Robert Laurence Binyon
A Dream Of Fair Women

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
'The Legend of Good Women,' long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;
.....
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Excursion - Book Second - The Solitary

In days of yore how fortunately fared
The Minstrel! wandering on from hall to hall,
Baronial court or royal; cheered with gifts
Munificent, and love, and ladies' praise;
.....
William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth
Poems - The New Edition - Preface

In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time.

I have, in the present collection, omitted the Poem from which the volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of the family of Orpheus and Musaeus, having survived his fellows, living on into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists to prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there entered much that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared: the dialogue of the mind with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of Faust.

.....
Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold
Hyperion, A Vision : Attempted Reconstruction Of The Poem

CANTO I.

Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
.....
John Keats

John Keats
The Bermudas - A Shaksperian Research: - Prose

"Who did not think, till within these foure yeares, but that these islands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for men to dwell in? Who did not hate the name, when hee was on land, and shun the place when he was on the seas? But behold the misprision and conceits of the world! For true and large experience hath now told us, it is one of the sweetest paradises that be upon earth."
- "A PLAINE DESCRIPT. OF THE BARMUDAS:" 1613.

In the course of a voyage home from England, our ship had been struggling, for two or three weeks, with perverse headwinds, and a stormy sea. It was in the month of May, yet the weather had at times a wintry sharpness, and it was apprehended that we were in the neighborhood of floating islands of ice, which at that season of the year drift out of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and sometimes occasion the wreck of noble ships.
.....

Washington Irving
This Lime-tree Bower My Prison

[Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London]

In the June of 1797 some long-expected friends paid a visit
to the author's cottage; and on the morning of their arrival,
.....
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge