The World Public Library Poetry Collection shelves over 8,000 of the most popular English poems ever composed, spanning over five hundred years.
Classic Literature
Part I: Words with Cupid, and The Task Love, having read the name and title on this book, said: ?It?s war, you declare against me, I see, it?s war?. ?Cupid, don?t condemn your poet for a crime, who has so often raised the standard, you trusted him with, under your command. I?m not Diomede, by whom your mother was wounded, she, carried back to the clear heavens on Mars?s steeds. Other young men often grow cool: I?ve always loved, and if you ask me now, too, what I do, I l...
Excerpt: Cyrano De Bergerac -- Christian De Neuvillette -- Comte De Guiche -- Ragueneau -- Le Bret -- Carbon De Castel-Jaloux -- The Cadets -- Ligniere -- De Valvert -- A Marquis -- Second Marquis -- Third Marquis -- Montfleury -- Bellerose -- Jodelet -- Cuigy -- Brissaille -- The Doorkeeper -- A Servant -- A Second Servant -- A Bore -- A Musketeer -- Another -- A Spanish Officer -- A Porter -- A Citizen -- His Son -- A Pickpocket -- A Spectator -- A Guardsman -- Bertran...
Excerpt: In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there. I cannot rightly say how I entered it. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the...
Excerpt: Hosteria de Cristofano Buttarelli. Puerta en el fondo que da a la calle: mesas, jarros y demas utensilios propios de semejante lugar. The Inn of Cristofano Buttarelli. A door at the back leads out to the street: tables, jugs and other utensils appropriate for such a place. (Don Juan, con antifaz, sentado a una mesa escribiendo. Buttarelli y Ciutti, a un lado esperando. Al levantarse el telon, se ven pasar por la puerta del fondo mascaras, estudiantes y pueblo co...
Excerpt: Weather Vane(July 1920, Fuente Vaqueros, Granada) Wind of the South, Daek-haired, ardent, you come over my fresh bringing me seed of brilliant gazes, soaked in orange blossom...
Excerpt: Orestes -- Elektra -- Old slave -- Chrysothemis -- Klytaemestra -- Aegisthus -- Chorus of Argive Women -- Servant to Klytaemestra (female, silent) -- Two Attendants to Orestes (male, silent) -- One Attendant to Aegisthus (male, silent).
Excerpt: I speak to you over cities I speak to you over plains My mouth is against your ear The two sides of the walls face my voice which acknowledges you. I speak to you of eternity. O cities memories of cities cities draped with our desires cities early and late cities strong cities intimate stripped of all their makers their thinkers their phantoms Landscape ruled by emerald live living ever-living the wheat of the sky on our earth nourishes my voice I dream and cry ...
Excerpt: Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms, Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision. Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more? Heart?s willing still to suffer that illusion? You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure, And rouse me, from your mist and cloud?s confusion: My spirit feels so young again: it?s shaken By magic breezes that your breathings waken.
Excerpt: Singing Cafe. (From Flamenco Vignettes) Lamps of crystal and green mirrors. On the dark stage Parrala holds a dialogue with death. Calls her, she won?t come, Calls her again. The people swallow their sobbing. And in the green mirrors long trails of silk move.
Excerpt: Marie de France (Late 12th Century) -- The Lay of the Honeysukle -- It pleases me, I?m willing too -- To tell you a story plain and true -- 'The Honeysuckle' is its name...
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Excerpt: Silent air. Clear light. Dark earth. Quiet water. Where rowan is reflected. Dark air. Quiet light. Silent earth. Clear water. The green promontory. The ?Sybil?s Headland? where the heart is healed. The ?Lake of Shadows? where the mind grows calm. Over all the sky the white clouds moving in the still glass.