REFINE POEMS

Absalom And Achitophel

In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man, on many, multipli'd his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd:
.....

John Dryden

The Farewell

_P_. Farewell to Europe, and at once farewell
To all the follies which in Europe dwell;
To Eastern India now, a richer clime,
Richer, alas! in everything but rhyme,
.....

Charles Churchill

America The Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
.....

Katharine Lee Bates

Answer To Dr. Delany's Fable Of The Pheasant And Lark.

1730


In ancient times, the wise were able
.....

Jonathan Swift

Fire. (sonnet Ii.)

Not without fire can any workman mould
The iron to his preconceived design,
Nor can the artist without fire refine
And purify from all its dross the gold;
.....

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

To My Most Dearely-loued Friend Henery Reynolds Esquire, Of Poets & Poesie

My dearely loued friend how oft haue we,
In winter evenings (meaning to be free,)
To some well-chosen place vs'd to retire;
And there with moderate meate, and wine, and fire,
.....

Michael Drayton

Vision Of Columbus - Book 2

High o'er the changing scene, as thus he gazed,
The indulgent Power his arm sublimely raised;
When round the realms superior lustre flew,
And call'd new wonders to the hero's view.
.....

Joel Barlow

Charity

Fairest and foremost of the train that wait
On man's most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee Charity or Love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
.....

William Cowper

Times

The Time hath been, a boyish, blushing Time,
When Modesty was scarcely held a crime,
When the most Wicked had some touch of grace,
And trembled to meet Virtue face to face,
.....

Charles Churchill

Veni, Creator Spiritus

Creator Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid,
Come, visit ev'ry pious mind;
Come, pour thy joys on human kind;
.....

John Dryden

An Essay On Criticism

'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense:
.....

Alexander Pope

An Hymn To The Morning

Attend my lays, ye ever honour'd nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
.....

Phillis Wheatley

Answer To Some Elegant Verses Sent By A Friend To The Author, Complaining That One Of His Descriptio

“But if any old Lady, Knight, Priest, or Physician,
Should condemn me for printing a second edition;
If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,
May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?”
.....

George Gordon Lord Byron

The Diary Of An Old Soul: 03 ' March.

1.

The song birds that come to me night and morn,
Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep,
.....

George Macdonald

The Diary Of An Old Soul: 10 ' October.

1.

Remember, Lord, thou hast not made me good.
Or if thou didst, it was so long ago
.....

George Macdonald

Sonnet To Spenser

Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English that might strive thine ear to please.
.....

John Keats

Song

Creep into my heart, creep in, creep in,
Afar from the fret, the toil and the din,
Where the spring of love forever flows,
As clear as light and as sweet as the rose;
.....

Duncan Campbell Scott

Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Knowledge. Book I.

The bewailing of man's miseries hath been elegantly and copiously set forth by many, in the writings as well of philosophers as divines; and it is both a pleasant and a profitable contemplation.
~ Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning.

The Argument
.....

Matthew Prior

Descriptive Sketches

Were there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature's God that spot to man had given
.....

William Wordsworth

The Recluse - Book First

HOME AT GRASMERE

Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the adventurer's age
.....

William Wordsworth

A Royal Poet - Prose

Though your body be confined
And soft love a prisoner bound,
Yet the beauty of your mind
Neither check nor chain hath found.
.....

Washington Irving

Pippa Passes: Part Ii: Noon

Scene. Over Orcana. The house of Jules, who crosses its threshold with Phene: she is silent, on which Jules begins


Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you
.....

Robert Browning

Marmion: Introduction To Canto Iii.

Like April morning clouds, that pass,
With varying shadow, o'er the grass,
And imitate, on field and furrow,
Life's chequered scene of joy and sorrow;
.....

Walter Scott (sir)

The Diary Of An Old Soul. - October.

1.

REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good.
Or if thou didst, it was so long ago
.....

George Macdonald

Twice

I took my heart in my hand
(O my love, O my love),
I said: Let me fall or stand,
Let me live or die,
.....

Christina Rossetti

Sunday Next Before Advent

Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
St. John vi. 12.


.....

John Keble

Twenty-third Sunday After Trinity

Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto
His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even
to subdue all things onto Himself. Philippians iii. 21.

.....

John Keble

The Salt Of The Earth

The salt of the earth-what a meaningful phrase
From the lips of the Saviour, and one that conveys
A sense of the need of a substance saline
This pestilent sphere to refresh and refine,
.....

Hattie Howard

To Mr. Vaughan, Silurist On His Poems

Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
Got an antipathy to wit and sence,
And hug'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
'Twas good -- affection to be ignorant;
.....

Katherine Philips

My Birthday

Let the sun summon all his beams to hold
Bright pageant in his court, the cloud-paved sky
Earth trim her fields and leaf her copses cold;
Till the dull month with summer-splendours vie.
.....

John Henry Newman

An Eclogue

Now early shepheards ore ye meadow pass,
And print long foot-steps in the glittering grass;
The Cows unfeeding near the cottage stand,
By turns obedient to the Milkers hand,
.....

Thomas Parnell

England And Spain

Too long have Tyranny and Power combined,
To sway, with iron sceptre, o'er mankind;
Long has Oppression worn th' imperial robe,
And Rapine's sword has wasted half the globe!
.....

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

To Her Royal Highness, The Princess Of ***

Abeauteous princess often may
Languish in pleasure's season gay;
The empty forms of haughty state
Oft make life tedious to the great.
.....

Voltaire

To The Nightingale

Exert thy Voice, sweet Harbinger of Spring!
This Moment is thy Time to sing,
This Moment I attend to Praise,
And set my Numbers to thy Layes.
.....

Anne Kingsmill Finch

Lines To Him Who Will Understand Them

THOU art no more my bosom's FRIEND;
Here must the sweet delusion end,
That charm'd my senses many a year,
Thro' smiling summers, winters drear.­
.....

Mary Darby Robinson

The Ballad Of Pious Pete

"The North has got him." --Yukonism.


I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
.....

Robert William Service

The Prophecy Of Famine

A SCOTS PASTORAL INSCRIBED TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.

Nos patriam fugimus.--VIRGIL.

.....

Charles Churchill

An Epistle To The Earl Of Burlington

How happy you! who varied joys pursue;
And every hour presents you something new!
Plans, schemes, and models, all Palladio's art,
For six long months have gain'd upon your heart;
.....

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The Happy Man

How bless'd the man, how fully so,
As far as man is bless'd below,
Who taking up his cross essays
To follow Jesus all his days,
.....

Thomas Parnell

To The Reverend William Bull

My dear friend,
If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
.....

William Cowper

Immortality

O Liberty! thou goddess, heavenly bright,
profuse of bliss and pregnant with delight,
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling Plenty leads thy smiling train.
.....

Joseph Addison

Psalm 66 Part 1

Governing power and goodness; or, Our graces tried by afflictions.

Sing, all ye nations, to the Lord,
Sing with a joyful noise;
.....

Isaac Watts

Popularity

I.

Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
.....

Robert Browning

A Hymn In Honour Of Beauty

Ah whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
.....

Edmund Spenser

On The Death Of Mr. Viner

Is Viner Dead? and shall each Muse become
Silent as Death, and as his Musick Dumb?
Shall he depart without a poet's Praise,
Who oft to Harmony has tun'd their Lays?
.....

Thomas Parnell

Transfiguration

Mysterious death! who in a single hour
Life's gold can so refine
And by thy art divine
Change mortal weakness to immortal power!
.....

Louisa May Alcott

Verses, To William Lyttleton, Esq.

How blithely pass'd the summer's day!
How bright was every flower!
While friends arrived in circles gay,
To visit Damon's bower!
.....

William Shenstone

Health, An Eclogue

Now early Shepherds o'er the Meadow pass,
And print long Foot-steps in the glittering Grass;
The Cows neglectful of their Pasture stand,
By turns obsequious to the Milker's Hand.
.....

Thomas Parnell

Preparatory Meditations - Second Series: 12

(Ezekiel 37:24. David my Servant shall be their King)

Dull, dull indeed! What, shall it e'er be thus?
And why? Are not Thy promises, my Lord,
.....

Edward Taylor