Leggett’s Monument
Yes, pile the marble o'er him! It is well
That ye who mocked him in his long stern strife,
And planted in the pathway of his life
The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell,
Who clamored down the bold reformer when
He pleaded for his captive fellow-men,
Who spurned him in the market-place, and sought
Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind
In party chains the free and honest thought,
The angel utterance of an upright mind,
Well is it now that o'er his grave ye raise
The stony tribute of your tardy praise,
For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame
Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders' shame!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
A stirring within.
A stirring in my heart,
Gets me going from the start,
I praise your name,
And let go of all my shame,
I jump around,
To the beat of the sound,
I raise my hands,
To the God filled band,
My soul ignites,
And I cry out for your light,
I praise out loud,
And am completely wowed,
I let go of all my fear,
Because i know you are here,
My body tingling,
I dance like crazy,
My vision gone hazy,
I dance for your grace,
That is filled in this place,
I lift up my eyes,
To the beauty filled skies,
I thank the lord for what he has done,
Protected me, healed me, saved me through his son,
And I ask for forgiveness of the sin in my life,
The things that I do that cause people strife,
I give up myself in the moment,
And I long for peace, and atonement,
And BAM! i feel at peace,
The Corus has ceased,
The drums and bass low
I am tingling from head to toe,
I don't feel distasteful
I am forgiven by the one who is graceful,
I fight with my might,
and never loose sight,
Of the good and upright,
The people who say hey,
Let's honor the lord this day
poem by Jordan Moore

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sailors Lament
Woke up early feelin light, (shame, its a shame.)
Somebody got to me last night, (shame, its a shame.)
Sat down for a friendly duel, (shame, its a shame.)
With one-eyed jacks n jokers, too, (shame, its a shame.)
Chorus:
Ooh, sailor man, (shame, its a shame.)
Ooh, sailor man. (shame, its a shame.)
Poormouth henry turned on me, (shame, its a shame.)
Said, boy, Im gonna pick you clean. (shame, its a shame.)
Chorus
Oh!
Henry said, dont you mess that pile, (shame, its a shame.)
Had three aces n he had five. (shame, its a shame.)
Chorus
Shame, its a shame.
(repeat 5x)
song performed by by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Christian Slave
A CHRISTIAN! going, gone!
Who bids for God's own image? for his grace,
Which that poor victim of the market-place
Hath in her suffering won?
My God! can such things be?
Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done
Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one
Is even done to Thee?
In that sad victim, then,
Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand;
Once more the jest-word of a mocking band,
Bound, sold, and scourged again!
A Christian up for sale!
Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame,
Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame, Her patience shall not fail!
A heathen hand might deal
Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years:
But her low, broken prayer and nightly tears,
Ye neither heed nor feel.
Con well thy lesson o'er,
Thou prudent teacher, tell the toiling slave
No dangerous tale of Him who came to save
The outcast and the poor.
But wisely shut the ray
Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart,
And to her darkened mind alone impart
One stern command, Obey!3
So shalt thou deftly raise
The market price of human flesh; and while
On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile,
Thy church shall praise.
Grave, reverend men shall tell
From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest,
While in that vile South Sodom first and best,
Thy poor disciples. sell.
Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall,
Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels,
While turning to the sacred Kebla feels
His fetters break and fall.
Cheers for the turbaned Bey
Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn
The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne
Their inmates into day:
But our poor slave in vain.
Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes;
Its rites will only swell his market price,
And rivet on his chain.
God of all right! how long
Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand,
Lifting in prayer to Thee, the bloody hand
And haughty brow of wrong?
Oh, from the fields of cane,
From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cell;
From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell,
And coffle's weary chain;
Hoarse, horrible, and strong,
Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry,
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,
How long, O God, how long?
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Gonna Raise Hell
Words and music by rick nielsen
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Ambition? ha!
If all Ive heard is true,
Theres nothin much I can do
To change the world, its irreversible.
But in what it lacks,
Its got a taste that smacks of somethin irresistable.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Submission? yes!
Now I wont name names, and a secrets a secret,
But a hints a hint or a clue.
You really wanna know, you really wanna go,
Theres only two things you got to do.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Mother, mother.
Mother, mother.
Mother, mother.
My mission? ah, yes!
Everybody hear? everybody here,
Its a fate I all agree.
Sometimes you win, I never lose,
To me its no mystery.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
Gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell, gonna raise hell.
(repeat to coda)
song performed by by Cheap Trick

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Slither
Slither.
If you're a fellow sufferer,
you'll know exactly what I mean.
Is it worse for those who live by the word,
or those who hope to avoid it?
It's that pile of papers, CDs, books, leaflets,
sitting beside the PC, vital at the time
when time was of the essence;
soon covered like a game of impatient patience
with another vital document...
file everything after use? Who's that anal?
It's that pile of mail on the kitchen table
with a touch of marmalade between some items, that
you opened during many breakfasts (it's a cereal story, this)
and hope will answer itself.
Above all, it's the pile of mail-order catalogues
that come in cellophane wrappers
which you haven't taken off of course,
knowing that you will, one day, be grateful
(as so you thought about the previous editions of same,
further down the pile...)
And the pile of folders, which obey that law of nature -
that spines of folders are thicker than
the other edge - they're the first to
slither. And you should know by now -
there are demons in them thar piles:
if there's a page or two
which you need right now as you fly out the door: abracadabra! -
five minutes ago when your right hand and eye put it right there
(who's taken it, c'mon, quick...?)
in two seconds flat, your left hand and eye
slipped something else on top of it..
left brain, right brain co-ordination? ha!
RH reason put it there; LH emotion said, hate work, hide it....
and then, one day -
slither! And
you hate yourself, look around for someone else to blame,
blood-pressure goes up - again -
your day's ruined and it's still breakfast time...
Slither. Moses didn't have that problem.
It's yet another giant step
sideways - damn - in the evolution of the human mind.
Maybe marmalade is the answer, after all.
You've suffered, too?
poem by Michael Shepherd

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Budget or Bud-jet
When you see it, it is just a pile of numbers or a graph or a grip or a table.
When you feel it, it metamorphoses into a monster or an elephant or a bird or a fish or a tiger or a eel or a dog or a shark or a bug or a snake or a hawk or a vulture or a rat or a whale or an ant or a cat or a.......
When you use it, it is just a machine.
when you lose it, it is a hell.
When you win it, it is just a heaven.
When you die, it is just a pile of numbers.

Grass
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
poem by Carl Sandburg

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ode:Sung on the. Occasion Of decorating the graves of the Confederate dead
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.
In seeds of laurels in the earth,
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And, somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone.
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.
Small tributes, but your shades will smile
As proudly on these wreaths to-day,
As when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this Bay.
Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground,
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!
poem by Henry Timrod

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
At Magnolia Cemetery
SLEEP sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.
In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.
Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.
Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned.
poem by Henry Timrod

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Graves of the Confederate Dead
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.
II
In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!
III
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.
IV
Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.
V
Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!
poem by Henry Timrod

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ode at Magnolia Cemetery
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.
In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years,
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.
Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.
Stoop, angels, thither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned.
poem by Henry Timrod

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Exile's Choice
Since justice slumbers in the abysm,
Since the crime's crowned with despotism,
Since all most upright souls are smitten,
Since proudest souls are bowed for shame,
Since on the walls in lines of flame
My country's dark dishonour's written;
O grand Republic of our sires,
Pantheon filled with sacred fires,
In the free azure golden dome,
Temple with shades immortal thronged!
Since thus thy glory they have wronged,
With 'Empire' staining Freedom's home;
Since in my country each soul born
Is base; since there are laughed to scorn
The true, the pure, the great, the brave,
The indignant eyes of history,
Honour, law, right, and liberty,
And those, alas! within the grave:
Solitude, exile ! I love them !
Sorrow, be thou my diadem !
Poverty love I, -- for 't is pride !
My rugged home winds beat upon;
And even that awful Statue wan
Aye seated silent by my side.
I love the woe that proves me strong;
That shadow of fate which all ye throng,
O ye to whom high hearts aye bow, --
Faith, Virtue veiled, stern Dignity,
And thou, proud Exile, Liberty,
And, nobler yet, Devotion, thou!
I love this islet lonely, bold, --
Jersey, whereover England's old
Free banner doth the storm-blast brave;
Yon darkling ocean's ebb and flow,
Its vessels, each a wandering plough,
Whose mystic furrow is the wave.
I love thy gull, with snowy wing
In pearls to the wind blithe scattering,
O ocean vast, thy sunny spray;
Who darts beneath hugh billows gaping,
Soon from those monstrous throats escaping
As a soul from sorrow flits away!
I love the rock, -- how solemn, stern !
Thence hearkening aye the plaint eterne
On the wild air around me shed,
Ever the sullen night outpours,
Of waves that sob on sombre shores,
Of mothers mourning children dead!
poem by Victor Hugo

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Too Late
HOPE? What! hope !—you say there is hope for the long-lost one!
Hope! when the light is out; hope! when the oil is done;
Hope! No, no, good lady! no hope for me, at least;
No home for me but the clammy grave when life has ceased.
Hope! Well, there might have been hope had my mother lived; but, then,
5
God struck her dead, and I was left alone among men.
God knows how I loved her; and shall I never see her again?
Is there no glimpse of heaven for those who are doomed to pain?
Oh, cannot she come and kiss me? Oh, cannot she pray by my side,
As she did long ago on that terrible evening before she died?
10
If she prayed God would hear her, and perhaps—but no;
I'm too old a sinner for mercy—there is nothing for me but woe.
You say that I yet could be saved if I sorrowed for my sin;
That the Lord is at heaven's gate to take poor sinners in!
God knows that I hate my sin, but I feel that it cannot be;
15
I've so often forsaken Him, that He must have forsaken me.
Nay, don't offer a prayer for me, lady, it's only mocking at God:
Who knows but my tired heart still may rest beneath the sod?
For I always loved the sunny fields and the sweet, sweet flowers,
And longed to be pure once again like them, in my better hours.
20
But after I first had fallen the devil opened my eyes,
And I saw that the world knew my shame, and I hadn't the heart to rise;
So I gave up trying to be good, and sank down lower in sin,
Tho' the thought of poor dead mother made me always hate it within.
Oh, many's the night that I've wandered about thro' rain and snow,
25
Wandered about in the street, and didn't know where had to go;
And I've often crept to the river and looked at it, still and black,
And thought how every one spurned me—but something held me back.
I remember how once, when I stopped, half-dead, one rainy day,
To rest on his steps for a moment, the servants drove me away;
30
Drove me away like a dog from the door of the man for whom,
O God! I had given up all in this world and beyond the tomb.
But don't weep at my story, good lady; I'm not worth it living or dead!
Ha, ha! I'm not frightened of Death, nor the devils that dance round my bed:
There cannot be any hell deeper nor fuller of devils and strife
35
Than the hell that burns in my heart, and the fire that eats out life.
poem by Frederick George Scott

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Fame
As recorded by david bowie
Fame, makes a man take things over.
Fame, let's him lose, hard to swallow.
Fame, puts you there where things are hollow.
Fame.
Fame,
It's not your brain, it's just a flame,
That burns your change to keep you insane.
Fame.
Fame, what you like is in the limo.
Fame, what you get is no tomorrow.
Fame, what you need you have to borrow.
Fame.
Fame,
Now it's mine, it's just his line
To bind your time it drives you to crime.
Fame.
Is it any wonder
I reject you first?
Fame, fame, fame, fame.
Is it any wonder
You are too cool to fool?
Fame.
Fame,
Bully for you,
Chilly for me,
Got to get a raincheck on pain.
Fame.
Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame,
Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame,
Fame, fame, fame, - fame.
What's your name?
(fame, fame)
(fame, fame)
song performed by by Yoko Ono

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Fame
As recorded by david bowie
Fame, makes a man take things over.
Fame, let's him lose, hard to swallow.
Fame, puts you there where things are hollow.
Fame.
Fame,
It's not your brain, it's just a flame,
That burns your change to keep you insane.
Fame.
Fame, what you like is in the limo.
Fame, what you get is no tomorrow.
Fame, what you need you have to borrow.
Fame.
Fame,
Now it's mine, it's just his line
To bind your time it drives you to crime.
Fame.
Is it any wonder
I reject you first?
Fame, fame, fame, fame.
Is it any wonder
You are too cool to fool?
Fame.
Fame,
Bully for you,
Chilly for me,
Got to get a raincheck on pain.
Fame.
Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame,
Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame,
Fame, fame, fame, - fame.
What's your name?
(fame, fame)
(fame, fame)
song performed by by Yoko Ono

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Lord Roberts
1914
He passed in the very battle-smoke
Of the war that he had descried.
Three hundred mile of cannon spoke
When the Master-Gunner died.
He passed to the very sound of the guns;
But, before his eye grew dim,
He had seen the faces of the sons
Whose sires had served with him,
He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted
With the old sure word of praise;
And there was virtue in touch and speech
As it had been in old days.
So he dismissed them and took his rest,
And the steadfast spirit went forth
Between the adoring East and West
And the tireless guns of the North.
Clean, simple, valiant, well-beloved,
Flawless in faith and fame,
Whom neither ease nor honours moved
An hair's-breadth from his aim.
Never again the war-wise face,
The weighed and urgent word
That pleaded in the market-place-
Pleaded and was not heard!
Yet from his life a new life springs
Through all the hosts to come,
And Glory is the least of things
That follow this man home.
poem by Rudyard Kipling

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Follow A Famous Father
I follow a famous father,
His honor is mine to wear;
He gave me a name that was free from shame,
A name he was proud to bear.
He lived in the morning sunlight,
And marched in the ranks of right.
He was always true to the best he knew
And the shield that he wore was bright.
I follow a famous father,
And never a day goes by
But I feel that he looks down to me
To carry his standard high.
He stood to the sternest trials
As only a brave man can;
Though the way be long, I must never wrong
The name of so good a man.
I follow a famous father,
Not known to the printed page,
Nor written down in the world's renown
As a prince of his little age.
But never a stain attached to him
And never he stooped to shame;
He was bold and brave and to me he gave
The pride of an honest name.
I follow a famous father,
And him I must keep in mind;
Though his form is gone, I must carry on
The name that he left behind.
It was mine on the day he gave it,
It shone as a monarch's crown,
And as fair to see as it came to me
It must be when I pass it down.
poem by Edgar Albert Guest

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All I Know Is That I Live Within Me
The lonely moments teach me
Where I live, what I am
I may not know where I am going
Or tell when I am going to stay here
Fully dressed in the vigor of this life
Or even unmasked naked to my sorrows
This is my own life
This is what I make of myself
I am free beyond the limits of my grey skies
I am tearing walls
I am breaking closed doors and shut windows
Trying to see what lies ahead
Searching where I must end
This journey
Slowly I am knowing the jails
That lock me
I am destroying the chains
That bind me
Freeing my hands my mind
Into the surging river of my life
I shall run I shall flow
I live I know what I am within me
I am free! I am free!
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Emancipation Hymn
Praise we the Lord! let songs resound
To earth’s remotest shore!
Songs of thanksgiving, songs of praise —
For we are slaves no more.
Praise we the Lord! His power hath rent
The chains that held us long!
His voice is mighty, as of old,
And still His arm is strong.
Praise we the Lord! His wrath arose,
His arm our fetters broke;
The tyrant dropped the lash, and we
To liberty awoke!
Praise we the Lord! let ho’y songs
Rise from these happy isles! —
O! let us not unworthy prove,
On whom His bounty smiles.
And cease we not the fight of faith
Till all mankind be free;
Till mercy o’er the earth shall flow,
As waters o’er the sea.
Then shall indeed Messiah’s reign
Through nil the world extend;
Then swords to ploughshares shall be turned,
And Heaven with earth shall blend.
poem by Anonymous Americas

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Death
I am the key that parts the gates of Fame;
I am the cloak that covers cowering Shame;
I am the final goal of every race;
I am the storm-tossed spirit's resting-place:
The messenger of sure and swift relief,
Welcomed with wailings and reproachful grief;
The friend of those that have no friend but me,
I break all chains, and set all captives free.
I am the cloud that, when Earth's day is done,
An instant veils an unextinguished sun;
I am the brooding hush that follows strife,
The waking from a dream that Man calls—Life!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!