Best Warning Poems

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
...

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
...

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
...

They put a leather belt around her
13 feet of tape and bound her
Handcuffs to secure her
And only God knows what else,
...

Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,
And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught
His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.
...

The state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrave roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters,
...

As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of the rivulet singing its way briskly into the valley.
...

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
...

More and more frequently the edges
of me dissolve and I become
a wish to assimilate the world, including
you, if possible through the skin
...

They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone
That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
...

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
...

It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales,
...

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night's rain,
...

As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,
...

Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three,
It's a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big.
"I am fed to the teeth with old ewe," said he,
"And I might be able to shoot a pig."
...

Maveric Prowles
Had Rumbling Bowles
That thundered in the night.
It shook the bedrooms all around
...

Love is sharper than stones or sticks;
Lone as the sea, and deeper blue;
Loud in the night as a clock that ticks;
Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew.
...

Leave me, my blamer,
For the sake of the love
Which unites your soul with
That of your beloved one;
...

Red, orange, yellow

green, blue, indigo- violet
...

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,


Oh what can ail thee ...
...

I was talking to the moon
Just the other night,
Telling him how much
I admired his light;
...

ARE you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning--I am surely far different from what you
suppose;
...

"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
...

from Memories of President Lincoln

1
...

The story's told
Of long ago
About a statue
With a head of gold
...

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;
...

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
...

ABOARD, at a ship's helm,
A young steersman, steering with care.

...

In the silence of the night Death descended from God toward the earth. He hovered above a city and pierced the dwellings with his eyes. He say the spirits floating on wings of dreams, and the people who were surrendered to the Slumber.

When the moon fell below the horizon and the city became black, Death walked silently among the houses - careful to touch nothing - until he reached a palace. He entered through the bolted gates undisturbed, and stood by the rich man's bed; and as Death touched his forehead, the sleeper's eyes opened, showing great fright.
...

There is no warning rattle at the door
nor heavy feet to stomp the foyer boards.
Safe in the dark prison, I know that
light slides over
...

Let those who're fond of idle tricks,
Of throwing stones, and hurling bricks,
And all that sort of fun,
Now hear a tale of idle Jim,
...

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
...

A hush is over all the teeming lists,
And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
...

harriet
if i be you
let me not forget
to be the pistol
...

But listen, I am warning you
I'm living for the very last time.
Not as a swallow, nor a maple,
...

People often say to me
“What can you tell me about yourself”
guess it’s my duty to explain to them
and so I look them in the face and reply
...

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
...

Well, World, you have kept faith with me,
Kept faith with me;
Upon the whole you have proved to be
Much as you said you were.
...

If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
...

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
...

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell.
...

O crows circling over my head and cawing!
I admit to being, at times,
Suddenly, and without the slightest warning,
Exceedingly happy.
...

AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
...

MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
...

On the white throat of useless passion
That scorched my soul with its burning breath
I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion
And gathered them close in a grip of death;
...

AN old man's thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself
cannot.

...

I fell out of love: that’s our story’s dull ending,
as flat as life is, as dull as the grave.
Excuse me-I’ll break off the string of this love song
and smash the guitar. We have nothing to save.
...

Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best,
With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest,
What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms,
And sit i' the dust to sigh these sad alarms?
What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm
The glories of thy ever famous Realm?
...

The balance between left and right
Where guilty extremes grow contrite...
Is the spirit a purple thing?
...

1.
We two sit on our bed, you
between my legs, your back to me, your head
slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid
...

Downward through the evening twilight,
In the days that are forgotten,
In the unremembered ages,
...

'Tis eight o'clock,--a clear March night,
The moon is up,--the sky is blue,
The owlet, in the moonlight air,
Shouts from nobody knows where;
...

Cigar packets display the warning
“Smoking is injurious to health”
Multinational companies increase their earnings
We loose our body and wealth
...

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
...

Without warning
as a whirlwind
...

GEORGIC I

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
...

I

A traveller on the skirt of Sarum's Plain
Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare;
...

We never asked God
May we be born? Did we?
We just knew,
When life was infused into us
...

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,
Without one thing, all will be useless,
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.
...

I
MILES STANDISH

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
...

Fateful day and long twenty years,
Eyes stunned and refused by ears,
Refused to see rising Sun and rays,
Heart feeling pain and parting ways,
...

The innocent were slaughtered
So many years ago
In the town of Bethlehem
Slew by an evil foe
...

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
...

From love's first fever to her plague, from the soft second
And to the hollow minute of the womb,
From the unfolding to the scissored caul,
The time for breast and the green apron age
...

THE SNAKE

At the right
...

"I am a landscape," he said.
"a landscape and a person walking in that landscape.
There are daunting cliffs there,
And plains glad in their way
...

I.

You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
...

Friend in need is friend in deed,
Modern friends only provide feed,
Desert in right time and never bleed,
Fine product of special breed,
...

Heart so sensitive and needs true friends,
Which helps to meet quick ends?
All worries in succession sends,
Fatigue; tension all its trends,
...

September, 1814

And is this -Yarrow? -This the stream
Of which my fancy cherished
...

Love not, love not! ye hapless sons of clay!
Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers—
Things that are made to fade and fall away
Ere they have blossom'd for a few short hours.
...

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee -
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
...

HE was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night
...

X. Hiawatha's Wooing

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,
...

WORLD, take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
...

So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
...

Sing, O Song of Hiawatha,
Of the happy days that followed,
In the land of the Ojibways,
In the pleasant land and peaceful!
...

While you walk the water's edge,
turning over concepts
I can't envision, the honking buoy
serves notice that at any time
...

there will be another storm
a warning from heaven's above
clouds filled with water
mirage fades its shapes...
...

I serve you not, if you I follow,
Shadow-like, o'er hill and hollow,
And bend my fancy to your leading,
All too nimble for my treading.
...

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
...

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale,
Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure,
Had passed into the silent life of prayer,
...

To the Memory of the Household It Describes
This Poem is Dedicated by the Author:

"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits,which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine lightof the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the CelestialFire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth thesame." -- Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy,
...

What about the children?
Will they know know what is a Polar Bear or Elephant?
As the global warning of climate change echoes extinction
Will we have the truth and reconcilliation finally?
...

OLD FITZ, who from your suburb grange,
Where once I tarried for a while,
Glance at the wheeling orb of change,
And greet it with a kindly smile;
...

When I leave you postcode and your commuting station,
When I left undone all the things we planned to do
You may feel you have been left by association
But there is leaving and leaving you.
...

You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!
...

O MATER! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
...

However the battle is ended,
Though proudly the victor comes
With fluttering flags and prancing nags
And echoing roll of drums.
...

Roll up, Eureka's heroes, on that grand Old Rush afar,
For Lalor's gone to join you in the big camp where you are;
Roll up and give him welcome such as only diggers can,
For well he battled for the rights of miner and of Man.
...

.
I was displaced
I never saw it coming
There were no storm clouds on the horizon
...

Ere yet the morn its lovely blushes spread,
See Sewell number'd with the happy dead.
Hail, holy man, arriv'd th' immortal shore,
Though we shall hear thy warning voice no more.
...

I

His simple truths did Andrew glean
Beside the babbling rills;
...

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd


...

A ROBIN in the morning,
In the morning early,
Sang a song of warning,
"There'll be rain, there'll be rain."
...

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,
...

In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
...

I
I have loved England, dearly and deeply,
Since that first morning, shining and pure,
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply
...

He knocked, and I beheld him at the door--
A vision for the gods to verify.
"What battered ancient is this," thought I,
"And when, if ever, did we meet before?"
...

Long Pont's apparitional
this warm spring morning,
the strand a blur of sandy light,
...