A Moral Man - Nikolai Nekrasov

A strictly moral man have I been ever,
And never injured anybody—never.
I lent my friend a sum he could not pay;
I jogged his memory in a friendly way,
Then took the law of him th’ affair to end;
The law to prison sent my worthy friend.

Friendship - Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft

This earth, embossed with mountains, laced with streams,
  Starred with fair cities ringed about with towers,

To Lesbia - Joannes Secundus

When beauteous Lesbia fires my melting soul
(She who the torch and bow from Cupid stole)
By many a smile, by many an ardent kiss,
And with her teeth imprints the tell-tale bliss;

God of the World (A Sabbath Hymn) - Israel ben Moses Najara

God of the World, eternity’s sole Lord!
King over kings, be now thy Name adored!
Blessed are we to whom thou dost accord
  This gladsome time thy wondrous ways to scan!

A Poem To Be Said on Hearing the Birds Sing - Douglas Hyde

A fragrant prayer upon the air
My child taught me,

The King’s Welcome to Thingvall - Matthías Jochumsson

With strong foot tread the holy ground,
Our snow-land’s King, the lofty-hearted,
Who from thy royal home hast parted,
To greet these hills that guard us round!
Our Freedom’s scroll thy hand hath lent us,
The first of kings whom God has sent us,
Hail! welcome to our country’s heart!

Captive Knight - Mikhail Lermontov

Silent I sit by the prison’s high window,
Where through the bars the blue heavens are breaking.
Flecks in the azure, the free birds are playing;
Watching them fly there, my shamed heart is aching.

Conventional Lies of Our Civilization - Max Nordau

The modern day labourer is more wretched than the slave of former times,
for he is fed by no master nor any one else,

The Gods in council sit (The Odyssey, Book I) - Homer

The Gods in council sit, to call
Ulysses from Calypso's thrall,
And order their high pleasures thus:

Sonnet - Rachel Morpurgo

My soul surcharged with grief now loud complains,
And fears upon my spirit heavily weigh,
“Thy poem we have heard,” the people say,
“Who like to thee can sing melodious strains?”

Brief life is here our portion - Bernard of Cluny

Breif life is here our portion;
  Brief sorrow, short-liv’d care;
The life that knows no ending,
  The tearless life, is there.

Sodger Laddie - Robert Burns

I once was a maid, tho’ I cannot tell when,
An’ still my delight is in proper young men;
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie,
No wonder I’m fond of a sodger laddie.

Night-fall - Joaõ Xavier de Matos

The sun has set, with duskiest shades imbued
  The lingering daylight slowly dies away,
  And Night’s dark fingers have already strewed
  The air with cheerless clouds, opaque and gray;

Dream After Composing the Appeal of the Cambodian League for Freedom and Democracy - U Sam Oeur

I am swimming across a wide river
when swords start falling from the trees

I shouted from the cliff - Abay Kunanbayev

I shouted from the cliff,
Space answered me

I feel that I have chosen everything - Vasily Grossman

I feel that I have chosen everything -
The time and place, the day I came into the world;

Never to Know - Isa (Craig) Knox

One within in a crimson glow,
        Silently sitting;
One without on the falling snow,
        Wearily flitting;
        Never to know
That one looked out with yearning sighs,
While one looked in with wistful eyes,
        And went unwitting.

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle - Venantius Fortunatus

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle;
Sing the ending of the fray.
Now above the cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ, the world's redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

The Sixty-second Birthday of Swinburne - Charles Edward Russell

    Prophet, whose straining eyes
Watch ever eastward while the slow stars fade,
Hast thou beheld the hope-tinged morning rise
Far off on alien seas, in other skies?
Or hast thou from thy sky-bound station made
On lonely peak-tops far away, aloft,
    The footsteps heard that oft
  Have sounded in thy visions soft
    And distant, but as clear
As woodman’s stroke across the dying year?

To His Wife - Daniel Henry Deniehy

O pure of soul, and fond and deep of heart
  For those who darkened be,
Lift up thy holy voice, at morn and eve,
  And pray for me,—

The Shores of Troy - Quintus Smyrnaeus

As rose in heaven the morning clear and bright,
Ida’s long towery ridge appeared in sight;

The Lusiad (extract from Book X: The Maldives) - Luís Vas de Camões

Beneath the spreading wings of purple morn,
Behold what isles these glistening seas adorn!
Mid hundreds yet unnamed, Ternat behold;
By day her hills in pitchy clouds enrolled,
By night like rolling waves the sheets of fire
Blaze o’er the seas, and high to heaven aspire.

Eastergram - Steve Turner

Calvary is a rubbish tip close by,
not a green hill far away.

Hail! high festival day - Venantius Fortunatus

Hail! high festival day whose rites are revered through the ages;
Now is the conquering Christ risen from gloom to the stars;
Hail, high festival day, whose rites are revered through the ages;