Hear the sledges with the bells-- Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In their icy air of night!

Universal

Edgar Allan Poe

525 words

Poetry

Song of the Broad-Axe.

1 WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan! Head from the mother’s bowels drawn! Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one! Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! Resting the grass amid and...

Samson Agonistes

Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy.

Prince Athanase. a Fragment

There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel, Had grown quite weak and gray before his time; Nor any could the restless griefs unravel Which burned within him, withering up his prime And goading him, like fiends, from land to land.

Mycerinus

'Not by the justice that my father spurn'd, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturn'd, Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due; Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie, Stern...

75. Halloween

UPON that night, when fairies light On Cassilis Downans 2 dance, Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, On sprightly coursers prance; Or for Colean the rout is ta’en, Beneath the moon’s pale beams; There, up the Cove, 3 to...

Universal

Robert Burns

2712 words

Fable

The Fox and the Goat

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties

Universaltrustadvice

Aesop

Short14 words

Poetry

Letter to Maria Gisborne

The spider spreads her webs, whether she be In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree; The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves; So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, Sit...

Paradise Lost: Book 04

O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud, Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, Came furious down to be revenged on men, Woe to the inhabitants on earth!

Universal

John Milton

6844 words

Fable

The Lion in Love

Love can tame the wildest

Universallovevulnerability

Aesop

Short9 words

Poetry

Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte

'Tis done--but yesterday a King! And armed with Kings to strive-- And now thou art a nameless thing: So abject--yet alive! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Who strewed our earth with hostile bones, And can he thus survive?

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

927 words

Poetry

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping--rapping at my chamber door.

Winter.

THE FOURTH PASTORAL, OR DAPHNE. TO THE MEMORY OF MRS TEMPEST. Thyrsis, the music of that murmuring spring Is not so mournful as the strains you sing; Nor rivers winding through the vales below, So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.

Address, Spoken at the Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre, Saturday, October 10, 1812

In one dread night our city saw, and sighed, Bowed to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride; In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, Apollo sink, and Shakespeare cease to reign. Ye who beheld, (oh!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

499 words

Fable

The Fox and the Stork

One bad turn deserves another

Universalreciprocityjustice

Aesop

Short10 words

Fable

The Two Crabs

Example is the best precept

Universalexamplehypocrisy

Aesop

Short8 words

Fable

The Peacock and Juno

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything

Universalcontentmentenvy

Aesop

Short15 words

Poetry

On Receipt Of My Mother's Picture

Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

What beckoning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? 'Tis she!--but why that bleeding bosom gored, Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?

Epistle to Augusta

my sweet Sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same-- A...

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

1127 words

Poetry

The Building of the Ship

"Build me straight, O worthy Master! Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!" The merchant's word Delighted the Master heard; For his heart was in his work, and the...

Universal

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2083 words