John Philips Poems

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John Philips
John Philips (December 30, 1676 – February 15, 1709) was an eighteenth century English poet. Philips was born at Bampton, Oxfordshire, the son of Rev. Stephen Philips, later archdeacon of Salop, and his wife Mary Wood. He was at first taught by his father and then went to Winchester College. He suffered from delicate health but became a proficient classical scholar. He was then at Christ Church College, Oxford under Dean Aldred, where Edmund Smith was his greatest friend. He intended to become a physician, but devoted himself to literature instead. His Splendid Shilling (1701), a burlesque in Miltonic blank verse, was described by Joseph Addison as "the finest burlesque poem in the English language". It depicted the miseries of a debtor without a shilling in his purse with which to buy tobacco, wine, food and clothes. As a result of this work Philips was introduced to Robert Harley and employed to write Blenheim (1705) as a counterblast to Addison's celebration of the Battle of Blenheim in The Campaign. In January 1707-8 Fenton published in his `Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems', a short Bacchanalian Song by Philips. Cyder (1709), his chief work, an imitation of Virgil's Georgics, has some fine descriptive passages with an exact account of the culture of the apple tree and the manufacture of cider. It has many local allusions to Herefordshire, the County of his ancestors. After a visit to Bath, Somerset he died aged 33 of tuberculosis at his mother's house in Hereford.

the death of emmett till
 
 
'Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago walked through a Sout... [read poem]
blowin' in the wind
 
 
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must... [read poem]
a hard rain's a-gonna fall
 
 
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
... [read poem]
with god on our side
 
 
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the M... [read poem]
desolation row
 
 
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty p... [read poem]
cyder
 
 
The Prudent will observe, what Passions reign
In various Plants (for not to Man alone,
But... [read poem]
friendship's mystery, to my dearest lucasia
 
 
Come, my Lucasia, since we see
That Miracles Mens faith do move,
By wonder and ... [read poem]
all along the watch-tower
 
 
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,... [read poem]
orinda upon little hector philips
 
 
Twice forty months of Wedlock did I stay,
Then had my vows crown'd with a Lovely boy,
... [read poem]
to mrs. m. a. at parting
 
 
I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behi... [read poem]
love minus zero / no limit
 
 
My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's... [read poem]
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