Poetry Catalog

We honor great poets. We honor great poetry.

Don Juan: Canto the Sixteenth, By: Lord Byron

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The antique Persians taught three useful things,To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth,This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings—A mode adopted since by modern youth.Bows have they, generally with two strings;Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,But draw the long bow better now than ever. The cause of this effect, or … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Sixteenth, By: Lord Byron

Don Juan: Canto the Fifteenth, By: Lord Byron

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Ah!—What should follow slips from my reflection;Whatever follows ne'ertheless may beAs à-propos of Hope or Retrospection,As though the lurking thought had followed free.All present life is but an Interjection,An "Oh!" or "Ah!" of Joy or Misery,Or a "Ha! ha!" or "Bah!"—a yawn, or "Pooh!"Of which perhaps the latter is most true. But, more or less, the whole's a SyncopéOr a … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Fifteenth, By: Lord Byron

Don Juan: Canto the Fourteenth, By: Lord Byron

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If from great Nature's or our own abyssOf Thought we could but snatch a certainty,Perhaps Mankind might find the path they miss—But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.One system eats another up, and thisMuch as old Saturn ate his progeny;For when his pious consort gave him stonesIn lieu of sons, of these he made no bones. But System doth reverse the Titan's … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Fourteenth, By: Lord Byron

Don Juan: Canto the Thirteenth, By: Lord Byron

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I now mean to be serious;—it is time,Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious;A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime,And critically held as deleterious:Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,Although, when long, a little apt to weary us;And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn,As an old temple dwindled to a column. The Lady Adeline Amundeville('T is an … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Thirteenth, By: Lord Byron