The World's Best Poetry, Volume 09: Of Tragedy: of Humour

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent From Chillon's snow-white battlement, Which...

And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said: "O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved! Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men...

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented his sin. How do they know it? are _they_ his mother? are you of his kin? Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm o...

Now in the building of chaises, I tell you what, There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,-- In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill...

He leaped on a log in the front of the rush, And shot out from the bind While the jam roared behind; As he floated along He balanced his pole And tossed us a song. But, just as...

And O, if perchance there should be a sphere Where all is made right which so puzzles us here, Where the glare and the glitter and tinsel of Time Fade and die in the light of th...

BEATRICE.--My Lords, if by my nature I had been So stern, as to have planned the crime alleged, Which your suspicions dictate to this slave, And the rack makes him utter, do you...

He listened and looked,--it was only the cat; But the bishop he grew more fearful for that, For she sate screaming, mad with fear, At the army of rats that were drawing near.

In coming back, however, let me say, He met his brother rogue about half-way,-- Hobbling, with outstretched arms and bended knees, Cursing the souls and bodies of the peas; His...

And now I mind me, something of the kind Did surely haunt that day the mother's mind, Making it irksome to bide all alone By her own quiet hearth. Though never known For idle go...

"That slew me: yes, in brief, I died then, dead I lay doubtlessly till Droug stopped Here, I suppose. I come to life, I find me propped Thus,--how or when or why--I know not. Te...

[5] Containing the germs of Gilbert's two famous comic operas,--"H. M. S. Pinafore," with its amiable captain, cheerful crew, and the "sisters and the cousins and the aunts," an...

"I have left a good woman who never was here," The stranger he made reply; "But that my draught should be better for that, I pray you answer me why."

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, in his he-and-she tones, "HELP ME OUT! _Help me out!_ I have broken my bones!" "Help you out?" said a Paddy who passed, "what a bother! Why, there's t...

The rebels seen him as quick as me, And the bullets buzzed like bees; But he jumped for me, and shouldered me, Though a shot brought him once to his knees; But he staggered up,...

Charmer, on a given straight line, And which we will call B C, Meeting at a common point A, Draw the lines A C, A B. But, my sweetest, so arrange it That they're equal, all the...

Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: "Me heart it ud gladden To blacken yer eye. Ye're gettin' too bold, ye Compel me to scold ye,-- 'Tis halt! that I say,-- Will ye heed wh...

The tale of the fated lovers, Francesca and Paolo, whose fleeting spirits Dante saw in his visit to the realms of the dead, will always live in poetry and in art. His brief stor...

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noon-shine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the f...

American poems in this volume within the legal protection of copyright are used by the courteous permission of the owners,--either the publishers named in the following list or...

Stinkingest of the stinking kind! Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind! Africa, that brags her foison, Breeds no such prodigious poison! Henbane, nightshade, both together, He...

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones; So let...

CALVERLEY, CHARLES STUART. Arab, The, 413 Auld Wife, The, 407 Cock and the Bull, The, 402 Disaster, 441 Forever, 424 Lovers and Reflection, 409 Motherhood, 440 Ode to Tobacco, 3...