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Lewis Carroll | Fame's Penny-Trumpet | Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back,
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!
Fill all the air with hungry wails,
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"
And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the sty
Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you. | They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!
Who preach of Justice, plead with tears
That Love and Mercy should abound,
While marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound:
Who prate of Wisdom, nay, forbear,
Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,
Trampling, with heel that will not spare,
The vermin that beset her path!
Go, throng each other's drawing-rooms,
Ye idols of a petty clique:
Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,
And make your penny-trumpets squeak.
Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds
Of learning from a nobler time,
And oil each other's little heads
With mutual Flattery's golden slime:
And when the topmost height ye gain,
And stand in Glory's ether clear,
And grasp the prize of all your pain,
So many hundred pounds a year,
Then let Fame's banner be unfurled!
Sing Paeans for a victory won!
Ye tapers, that would light the world,
And cast a shadow on the Sun,
Who still shall pour His rays sublime,
One crystal flood, from East to West,
When YE have burned your little time
And feebly flickered into rest! |
Walt Whitman | On Old Man's Thought Of School | An old man's thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot.
Now only do I know you!
O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!
And these I see--these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning--these young lives, | Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships--immortal ships!
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the Soul's voyage.
Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a Public School?
Ah more--infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and mortar--these dead floors, windows, rails--you call the church?
Why this is not the church at all--the Church is living, ever living Souls.")
And you, America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future--good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look--the Teacher and the School. |
Robert Herrick | No Danger To Men Desperate. | When fear admits no hope of safety, then | Necessity makes dastards valiant men. |
Unknown | Nursery Rhyme. CCCXCVIII. Lullabies. | My dear cockadoodle, my jewel, my joy, | My darling, my honey, my pretty sweet boy;
Before I do rock thee with soft lullaby,
Give me thy dear lips to be kiss'd, kiss'd, kiss'd. |
Unknown | Epitaphs | I thought it mushroom when I found | It in the woods, forsaken;
But since I sleep beneath this mound,
I must have been mistaken. |
Alfred Edward Housman | Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXVII | "Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?"
Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.
"Is football playing
Along the river shore, | With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?"
Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.
"Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?"
Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.
"Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?"
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose. |
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni | The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The World's A Stage. | Nel teatro del mondo.
The world's a theatre: age after age,
Souls masked and muffled in their fleshly gear
Before the supreme audience appear,
As Nature, God's own Art, appoints the stage. | Each plays the part that is his heritage;
From choir to choir they pass, from sphere to sphere,
And deck themselves with joy or sorry cheer,
As Fate the comic playwright fills the page.
None do or suffer, be they cursed or blest,
Aught otherwise than the great Wisdom wrote
To gladden each and all who gave Him mirth,
When we at last to sea or air or earth
Yielding these masks that weal or woe denote,
In God shall see who spoke and acted best. |
Sara Teasdale | Compensation | I should be glad of loneliness
And hours that go on broken wings, | A thirsty body, a tired heart
And the unchanging ache of things,
If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star
On a winter night. |
Eugene Field | To Albius Tibullus I | Not to lament that rival flame
Wherewith the heartless Glycera scorns you,
Nor waste your time in maudlin rhyme,
How many a modern instance warns you!
Fair-browed Lycoris pines away
Because her Cyrus loves another; | The ruthless churl informs the girl
He loves her only as a brother!
For he, in turn, courts Pholoe,--
A maid unscotched of love's fierce virus;
Why, goats will mate with wolves they hate
Ere Pholoe will mate with Cyrus!
Ah, weak and hapless human hearts,
By cruel Mother Venus fated
To spend this life in hopeless strife,
Because incongruously mated!
Such torture, Albius, is my lot;
For, though a better mistress wooed me,
My Myrtale has captured me,
And with her cruelties subdued me! |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Time's Defeat | Time has made conquest of so many things
That once were mine. Swift-footed, eager youth
That ran to meet the years; bold brigand health,
That broke all laws of reason unafraid,
And laughed at talk of punishment.
Close ties of blood and friendship, joy of life,
Which reads its music in the major key
And will not listen to a minor strain - | These things and many more are spoils of time.
Yet as a conqueror who only storms
The outposts of a town, and finds the fort
Too strong to be assailed, so time retreats
And knows his impotence. He cannot take
My three great jewels from the crown of life:
Love, sympathy, and faith; and year on year
He sees them grow in lustre and in worth,
And glowers by me, plucking at his beard,
And dragging, as he goes, a useless scythe.
Once in the dark he plotted with his friend
Grim Death, to steal my treasures. Death replied:
'They are immortal, and beyond thy reach,
I could but set them in another sphere,
To shine with greater lustre.'
Time and Death
Passed on together, knowing their defeat;
And I am singing by the road of life. |
W. M. MacKeracher | In May. | Now is the time when swallows twitter round,
And robin redbreasts carol in the trees,
When the grass grows very green on lower ground,
And opening buds embalm the buxom breeze,
When orchards murmur with the half-blind bees,
Freed till th' uncellared hives again be full,
The time when old men smile and maidens please,
Loose-zoned in summer dresses light and cool,
And laughing urchins shirk the lessons of the school. | Perchance it is the hour when dawn unveils
The visage of the day; when o'er the bar
The radiant morning rides with saffron sails,
Streamers of light on each resplendent spar,
Fraught with rich gifts. Now, sunk, each faded star.
The Sun, the Sun, - the glorious Lord of Day!
Behold, he comes! before his orb'd car,
Caparisoned with gold, in dazzling play,
Impatient dance his steeds to pace the purple way.
Or, is it in the cool and tranquil eve,
When shadows lengthen and the shades increase,
When in the west celestial wonders weave
Gorgeous Nirvanas of absorbent peace, -
Transparency's impenetrable fleece,
Clouds of all colors floating every wise,
On which the Sun looks up before he cease,
As some old man a moment ere he dies
Beholds with bliss serene the beauties of the skies. |
Michael Drayton | Amour 15 | Now, Loue, if thou wilt proue a Conqueror,
Subdue thys Tyrant euer martyring mee;
And but appoint me for her Tormentor,
Then for a Monarch will I honour thee.
My hart shall be the prison for my fayre;
Ile fetter her in chaines of purest loue, | My sighs shall stop the passage of the ayre:
This punishment the pittilesse may moue.
With teares out of the Channels of mine eyes
She'st quench her thirst as duly as they fall:
Kinde words vnkindest meate I can deuise,
My sweet, my faire, my good, my best of all.
Ile binde her then with my torne-tressed haire,
And racke her with a thousand holy wishes;
Then, on a place prepared for her there,
Ile execute her with a thousand kisses.
Thus will I crucifie, my cruell shee;
Thus Ile plague her which hath so plagued mee. |
James McIntyre | Shelly. | We have scarcely time to tell thee | Of the strange and gifted Shelly,
Kind hearted man but ill-fated,
So youthful, drowned and cremated. |
Percy Bysshe Shelley | From Vergil's Tenth Eclogue. | Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse
Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:
Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou
Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam
Of Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow
Unmingled with the bitter Doric dew!
Begin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now
The soft leaves, in our way let us pursue | The melancholy loves of Gallus. List!
We sing not to the dead: the wild woods knew
His sufferings, and their echoes...
Young Naiads,...in what far woodlands wild
Wandered ye when unworthy love possessed
Your Gallus? Not where Pindus is up-piled,
Nor where Parnassus' sacred mount, nor where
Aonian Aganippe expands...
The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim.
The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus,
The cold crags of Lycaeus, weep for him;
And Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals,
Came shaking in his speed the budding wands
And heavy lilies which he bore: we knew
Pan the Arcadian.
...
'What madness is this, Gallus? Thy heart's care
With willing steps pursues another there.' |
Alfred Lord Tennyson | In The Valley Of Cautertz | All along the valley, stream that flashest white,
Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night,
All along the valley, where thy waters flow, | I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago.
All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day,
The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away;
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,
Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me. |
William Ernest Henley | In Memoriam Thomas Edward Brown | (Ob. October 30, 1897)
He looked half-parson and half-skipper: a quaint,
Beautiful blend, with blue eyes good to see,
And old-world whiskers. You found him cynic, saint,
Salt, humourist, Christian, poet; with a free, | Far-glancing, luminous utterance; and a heart
Large as ST. FRANCIS'S: withal a brain
Stored with experience, letters, fancy, art,
And scored with runes of human joy and pain.
Till six-and-sixty years he used his gift,
His gift unparalleled, of laughter and tears,
And left the world a high-piled, golden drift
Of verse: to grow more golden with the years,
Till the Great Silence fallen upon his ways
Break into song, and he that had Love have Praise. |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | His Youth | "Dying? I am not dying? Are you mad?
You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
To see me struggle in death's cold embrace.
"But, man, you lie! for I am strong - in truth
Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
My glorious youth - life's one great priceless boon.
"O youth, youth, youth! O God! that golden time,
When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there's no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
I'd pause at, could it make me young to-day.
"But I'm not old! I grew - just ill, somehow; | Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness. I am better now,
Oh, vastly better, ever since last night.
"And I could weep warm floods of happy tears
To think my strength is coming back at last,
For I have dreamed of such an hour for years,
As I lay thinking of my glorious past.
"You shake your head? Why, man, if you were sane
I'd strike you to my feet, I would, in truth.
How dare you tell me that my hopes are vain?
How dare you say I have outlived my youth?
"'In heaven I may regain it'? Oh, be still!
I want no heaven but what my glad youth gave.
Its long, bright hours, its rapture and its thrill -
O youth, youth, youth! it is my youth I crave.
"There is no heaven! There's nothing but a deep
And yawning grave from which I shrink in fear.
I am not sure of even rest or sleep;
Perhaps we lie and think as I have here.
"Think, think, think, think, as we lie there and rot,
And hear the young above us laugh in glee.
How dare you say I'm dying! I am not.
I would curse God if such a thing could be.
"Why, see me stand! why, hear this strong, full breath -
Dare you repeat that silly, base untruth?"
A cry - a fall - the silence known as death
Hushed his wild words. Well, has he found his youth? |
Charles Sangster | Love And Truth. | Young Love sat in a rosy bower,
Towards the close of a summer day;
At the evening's dusky hour,
Truth bent her blessed steps that way;
Over her face
Beaming a grace
Never bestowed on child of clay.
Truth looked on with an ardent joy,
Wondering Love could grow so tired;
Hovering o'er him she kissed the boy,
When, with a sudden impulse fired,
Exquisite pains
Burning his veins,
Wildly he woke, as one inspired. | Eagerly Truth embraced the god,
Filling his soul with a sense divine;
Rightly he knew the paths she trod,
Springing from heaven's royal line;
Far had he strayed
From his guardian maid,
Perilling all for his rash design.
Still as they went, the tricksy youth
Wandered afar from the maiden fair;
Many a plot he laid, in sooth,
Wherein the maid could have no share
Sowing his seeds,
Bringing forth weeds,
Seldom a rose, and many a tare.
Save when the maiden was by his side,
Love was erratic, and rarely true;
When she smiled on the graceful bride,
Over the old world rose the new,
Into life's skies
Blending her dyes,
Fairer than those of the rainbow's hue.
Sunny-eyed maidens, whom Love decoys,
Mark well the arts of the wayward youth!
Sorrows he bringeth, disguised as joys,
Rose-hued delights with cores of ruth;
Learn to believe
Love will deceive,
Save when he comes with his guardian, Truth. |
Edgar Lee Masters | The Unknown | Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
As a boy reckless and wanton,
Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
I shot a hawk perched on the top
Of a dead tree. He fell with guttural cry | At my feet, his wing broken.
Then I put him in a cage
Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
When I offered him food.
Daily I search the realms of Hades
For the soul of the hawk,
That I may offer him the friendship
Of one whom life wounded and caged.
Alexander Throckmorton
In youth my wings were strong and tireless,
But I did not know the mountains.
In age I knew the mountains
But my weary wings could not follow my vision -
Genius is wisdom and youth. |
William Cullen Bryant | The Waning Moon. | I've watched too late; the morn is near;
One look at God's broad silent sky!
Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear,
How in your very strength ye die!
Even while your glow is on the cheek,
And scarce the high pursuit begun,
The heart grows faint, the hand grows weak,
The task of life is left undone.
See where upon the horizon's brim,
Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars;
The waning moon, all pale and dim,
Goes up amid the eternal stars.
Late, in a flood of tender light, | She floated through the ethereal blue,
A softer sun, that shone all night
Upon the gathering beads of dew.
And still thou wanest, pallid moon!
The encroaching shadow grows apace;
Heaven's everlasting watchers soon
Shall see thee blotted from thy place.
Oh, Night's dethroned and crownless queen!
Well may thy sad, expiring ray
Be shed on those whose eyes have seen
Hope's glorious visions fade away.
Shine thou for forms that once were bright,
For sages in the mind's eclipse,
For those whose words were spells of might,
But falter now on stammering lips!
In thy decaying beam there lies
Full many a grave on hill and plain,
Of those who closed their dying eyes
In grief that they had lived in vain.
Another night, and thou among
The spheres of heaven shalt cease to shine,
All rayless in the glittering throng
Whose lustre late was quenched in thine.
Yet soon a new and tender light
From out thy darkened orb shall beam,
And broaden till it shines all night
On glistening dew and glimmering stream. |
James McIntyre | Fertile Lands And Mammoth Cheese. | In barren district you may meet
Small fertile spot doth grow fine wheat,
There you may find the choicest fruits,
And great, round, smooth and solid roots. | But in conditions such as these
You cannot make a mammoth cheese,
Which will weigh eight thousand pounds,
But where large fertile farms abounds.
Big cheese is synonymous name,
With fertile district of the Thame,
Here dairy system's understood,
And they are made both large and good. |
Eric Mackay | Anteros. | Anteros.
I.
This is the feast-day of my soul and me,
For I am half a god and half a man.
These are the hours in which are heard by sea,
By land and wave, and in the realms of space,
The lute-like sounds which sanctify my span,
And give me power to sway the human race.
II.
I am the king whom men call Lucifer,
I am the genius of the nether spheres.
Give me my Christian name, and I demur.
Call me a Greek, and straightway I rejoice.
Yea, I am Anteros, and with my tears
I salt the earth that gladdens at my voice.
III.
I am old Anteros; a young, old god;
A sage who smiles and limps upon a crutch.
But I can turn my crutch into a rod,
And change my rod into a crown of wood.
Yea, I am he who conquers with a touch,
And plays with poisons till he makes them good.
IV.
The sun, uprising with his golden hair,
Is mine apostle; and he serves me well.
Thoughts and desires of mine, beyond compare,
Thrill at his touch. The moon, so lost in thought,
Has pined for love; and wanderers out of hell,
And saints from heaven, have known what I have taught.
V.
Great are my griefs; my joys are multiplex;
And beasts and birds and men my subjects are;
Yea, all created things that have a sex,
And flies and flowers and monsters of the mere;
All these, and more, proclaim me from afar,
And sing my marriage songs from year to year.
VI. | There are no bridals but the ones I make;
For men are quicken'd when they turn to me.
The soul obeys me for its body's sake,
And each is form'd for each, as day for night.
'Tis but the soul can pay the body's fee
To win the wisdom of a fool's delight.
VII.
Yea, this is so. My clerks have set it down,
And birds have blabbed it to the winds of heaven.
The flowers have guessed it, and, in bower and town,
Lovers have sung the songs that I have made.
Give me your lives, O mortals, and, for leaven,
Ye shall receive the fires that cannot fade.
VIII.
O men! O maidens! O ye listless ones!
Ye who desert my temples in the East,
Ye who reject the rays of summer suns,
And cling to shadows in the wilderness;
Why are ye sad? Why frown ye at the feast,
Ye who have eyes to see and lips to press?
IX.
Why, for a wisdom that ye will not prove,
A joy that crushes and a love that stings,
A freak, a frenzy in a fated groove,
A thing of nothing born of less than nought -
Why in your hearts do ye desire these things,
Ye who abhor the joys that ye have sought?
X.
See, see! I weep, but I can jest at times;
Yea, I can dance and toss my tears away.
The sighs I breathe are fragrant as the rhymes
Of men and maids whose hearts are overthrown.
I am the God for whom all maidens pray,
But none shall have me for herself alone.
XI.
No; I have love enough, here where I stand,
To marry fifty maids in their degree;
Aye, fifty times five thousand in a band,
And every bride the proxy of a score.
Want ye a mate for millions? I am he.
Glory is mine, and glee-time evermore.
XII.
O men! O masters! O ye kings of grief!
Ye who control the world but not the grave,
What have ye done to make delight so brief,
Ye who have spurn'd the minstrel and the lyre?
I will not say: "Be patient." Ye are brave;
And ye shall guess the pangs of my desire.
XIII.
There shall be traitors in the court of love,
And tears and torture and the bliss of pain.
The maids of men shall seek the gods above,
And drink the nectar of the golden lake.
Blessed are they for whom the gods are fain;
They shall be glad for love's and pity's sake.
XIV.
They shall be taught the songs the syrens know,
The wave's lament, the west wind's psalmistry,
The secrets of the south and of the snow,
The wherewithal of day, and death, and night.
O men! O maidens! pray no prayer for me,
But sing to me the songs of my delight.
XV.
Aye, sing to me the songs I love to hear,
And let the sound thereof ascend to heaven.
And let the singers, with a voice of cheer,
Announce my name to all the ends of earth;
And let my servants, seventy times and seven,
Re-shout the raptures of my Samian mirth!
XVI.
Let joy prevail, and Frenzy, like a flame,
Seize all the souls of men for sake of me.
For I will have Contention put to shame,
And all the hearts of all things comforted.
There are no laws but mine on land and sea,
And men shall crown me when their kings are dead. |
William Wordsworth | Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland 1814 - Iv. Yarrow Visited - September 1814 | And is this, Yarrow? 'This' the Stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel's harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!
Yet why? a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake
Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills
Is in the mirror slighted.
A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness
Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness;
Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
All profitless dejection;
Though not unwilling here to admit
A pensive recollection.
Where was it that the famous Flower
Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding?
His bed perchance was yon smooth mound
On which the herd is feeding:
And haply from this crystal pool, | Now peaceful as the morning,
The Water-wraith ascended thrice
And gave his doleful warning.
Delicious is the Lay that sings
The haunts of happy Lovers,
The path that leads them to the grove,
The leafy grove that covers:
And Pity sanctifies the Verse
That paints, by strength of sorrow,
The unconquerable strength of love;
Bear witness, rueful Yarrow!
But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation:
Meek loveliness is round thee spread,
A softness still and holy;
The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy.
That region left, the vale unfolds
Rich groves of lofty stature,
With Yarrow winding through the pomp
Of cultivated nature;
And, rising from those lofty groves,
Behold a Ruin hoary!
The shattered front of Newark's Towers,
Renowned in Border story.
Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom,
For sportive youth to stray in;
For manhood to enjoy his strength;
And age to wear away in!
Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss,
A covert for protection
Of tender thoughts, that nestle there
The brood of chaste affection.
How sweet, on this autumnal day,
The wild-wood fruits to gather,
And on my True-love's forehead plant
A crest of blooming heather!
And what if I enwreathed my own!
'Twere no offence to reason;
The sober Hills thus deck their brows
To meet the wintry season.
I see, but not by sight alone,
Loved Yarrow, have I won thee;
A ray of fancy still survives
Her sunshine plays upon thee!
Thy ever-youthful waters keep
A course of lively pleasure;
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe,
Accordant to the measure.
The vapours linger round the Heights,
They melt, and soon must vanish;
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine
Sad thought, which I would banish,
But that I know, where'er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
Will dwell with me, to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow. |
Alan Seeger | An Ode to Natural Beauty | There is a power whose inspiration fills
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought,
Like airy dew ere any drop distils,
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul.
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing,
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field,
When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing
From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed
Such memories as breathe once more
Of childhood and the happy hues it wore,
Now, with a fervor that has never been
In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, -
Not as a force whose fountains are within
The faculties of the percipient mind,
Subject with them to darkness and decay,
But something absolute, something beyond,
Oft met like tender orbs that seem to peer
From pale horizons, luminous behind
Some fringe of tinted cloud at close of day;
And in this flood of the reviving year,
When to the loiterer by sylvan streams,
Deep in those cares that make Youth loveliest,
Nature in every common aspect seems
To comment on the burden in his breast -
The joys he covets and the dreams he dreams -
One then with all beneath the radiant skies
That laughs with him or sighs,
It courses through the lilac-scented air,
A blessing on the fields, a wonder everywhere.
Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses,
Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea,
Alone can flush the exalted consciousness
With shafts of sensible divinity -
Light of the World, essential loveliness:
Him whom the Muse hath made thy votary
Not from her paths and gentle precepture
Shall vulgar ends engage, nor break the spell
That taught him first to feel thy secret charms
And o'er the earth, obedient to their lure,
Their sweet surprise and endless miracle,
To follow ever with insatiate arms.
On summer afternoons,
When from the blue horizon to the shore,
Casting faint silver pathways like the moon's
Across the Ocean's glassy, mottled floor,
Far clouds uprear their gleaming battlements
Drawn to the crest of some bleak eminence,
When autumn twilight fades on the sere hill
And autumn winds are still;
To watch the East for some emerging sign,
Wintry Capella or the Pleiades
Or that great huntsman with the golden gear;
Ravished in hours like these
Before thy universal shrine
To feel the invoked presence hovering near,
He stands enthusiastic. Star-lit hours | Spent on the roads of wandering solitude
Have set their sober impress on his brow,
And he, with harmonies of wind and wood
And torrent and the tread of mountain showers,
Has mingled many a dedicative vow
That holds him, till thy last delight be known,
Bound in thy service and in thine alone.
I, too, among the visionary throng
Who choose to follow where thy pathway leads,
Have sold my patrimony for a song,
And donned the simple, lowly pilgrim's weeds.
From that first image of beloved walls,
Deep-bowered in umbrage of ancestral trees,
Where earliest thy sweet enchantment falls,
Tingeing a child's fantastic reveries
With radiance so fair it seems to be
Of heavens just lost the lingering evidence
From that first dawn of roseate infancy,
So long beneath thy tender influence
My breast has thrilled. As oft for one brief second
The veil through which those infinite offers beckoned
Has seemed to tremble, letting through
Some swift intolerable view
Of vistas past the sense of mortal seeing,
So oft, as one whose stricken eyes might see
In ferny dells the rustic deity,
I stood, like him, possessed, and all my being,
Flooded an instant with unwonted light,
Quivered with cosmic passion; whether then
On woody pass or glistening mountain-height
I walked in fellowship with winds and clouds,
Whether in cities and the throngs of men,
A curious saunterer through friendly crowds,
Enamored of the glance in passing eyes,
Unuttered salutations, mute replies, -
In every character where light of thine
Has shed on earthly things the hue of things divine
I sought eternal Loveliness, and seeking,
If ever transport crossed my brow bespeaking
Such fire as a prophetic heart might feel
Where simple worship blends in fervent zeal,
It was the faith that only love of thee
Needed in human hearts for Earth to see
Surpassed the vision poets have held dear
Of joy diffused in most communion here;
That whomsoe'er thy visitations warmed,
Lover of thee in all thy rays informed,
Needed no difficulter discipline
To seek his right to happiness within
Than, sensible of Nature's loveliness,
To yield him to the generous impulses
By such a sentiment evoked. The thought,
Bright Spirit, whose illuminings I sought,
That thou unto thy worshipper might be
An all-sufficient law, abode with me,
Importing something more than unsubstantial dreams
To vigils by lone shores and walks by murmuring streams.
Youth's flowers like childhood's fade and are forgot.
Fame twines a tardy crown of yellowing leaves.
How swift were disillusion, were it not
That thou art steadfast where all else deceives!
Solace and Inspiration, Power divine
That by some mystic sympathy of thine,
When least it waits and most hath need of thee,
Can startle the dull spirit suddenly
With grandeur welled from unsuspected springs, -
Long as the light of fulgent evenings,
When from warm showers the pearly shades disband
And sunset opens o'er the humid land,
Shows thy veiled immanence in orient skies, -
Long as pale mist and opalescent dyes
Hung on far isle or vanishing mountain-crest,
Fields of remote enchantment can suggest
So sweet to wander in it matters nought,
They hold no place but in impassioned thought,
Long as one draught from a clear sky may be
A scented luxury;
Be thou my worship, thou my sole desire,
Thy paths my pilgrimage, my sense a lyre
Aeolian for thine every breath to stir;
Oft when her full-blown periods recur,
To see the birth of day's transparent moon
Far from cramped walls may fading afternoon
Find me expectant on some rising lawn;
Often depressed in dewy grass at dawn,
Me, from sweet slumber underneath green boughs,
Ere the stars flee may forest matins rouse,
Afoot when the great sun in amber floods
Pours horizontal through the steaming woods
And windless fumes from early chimneys start
And many a cock-crow cheers the traveller's heart
Eager for aught the coming day afford
In hills untopped and valleys unexplored.
Give me the white road into the world's ends,
Lover of roadside hazard, roadside friends,
Loiterer oft by upland farms to gaze
On ample prospects, lost in glimmering haze
At noon, or where down odorous dales twilit,
Filled with low thundering of the mountain stream,
Over the plain where blue seas border it
The torrid coast-towns gleam.
I have fared too far to turn back now; my breast
Burns with the lust for splendors unrevealed,
Stars of midsummer, clouds out of the west,
Pallid horizons, winds that valley and field
Laden with joy, be ye my refuge still!
What though distress and poverty assail!
Though other voices chide, yours never will.
The grace of a blue sky can never fail.
Powers that my childhood with a spell so sweet,
My youth with visions of such glory nursed,
Ye have beheld, nor ever seen my feet
On any venture set, but 'twas the thirst
For Beauty willed them, yea, whatever be
The faults I wanted wings to rise above;
I am cheered yet to think how steadfastly
I have been loyal to the love of Love! |
Robert von Ranke Graves | Tom Taylor. | On pay-day nights, neck-full with beer,
Old soldiers stumbling homeward here,
Homeward (still dazzled by the spark
Love kindled in some alley dark)
Young soldiers mooning in slow thought,
Start suddenly, turn about, are caught
By a dancing sound, merry as a grig,
Tom Taylor's piccolo playing jig.
Never was blown from human cheeks
Music like this, that calls and speaks
Till sots and lovers from one string | Dangle and dance in the same ring.
Tom, of your piping I've heard said
And seen, that you can rouse the dead,
Dead-drunken men awash who lie
In stinking gutters hear your cry,
I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh,
Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then
You set them dancing, these dead men.
They stamp and prance with sobbing breath,
Victims of wine or love or death,
In ragged time they jump, they shake
Their heads, sweating to overtake
The impetuous tune flying ahead.
They flounder after, with legs of lead.
Now, suddenly as it started, play
Stops, the short echo dies away,
The corpses drop, a senseless heap,
The drunk men gaze about like sheep.
Grinning, the lovers sigh and stare
Up at the broad moon hanging there,
While Tom, five fingers to his nose,
Skips off...And the last bugle blows. |
Elizabeth Barrett Browning | To | Mine is a wayward lay;
And, if its echoing rhymes I try to string,
Proveth a truant thing,
Whenso some names I love, send it away!
For then, eyes swimming o'er,
And clasped hands, and smiles in fondness meant,
Are much more eloquent,
So it had fain begone, and speak no more!
Yet shall it come again,
Ah, friend belov'd! if so thy wishes be, | And, with wild melody,
I will, upon thine ear, cadence my strain.
Cadence my simple line,
Unfashion'd by the cunning hand of Art,
But coming from my heart,
To tell the message of its love to thine!
As ocean shells, when taken
From Ocean's bed, will faithfully repeat
Her ancient music sweet,
Ev'n so these words, true to my heart, shall waken!
Oh! while our bark is seen,
Our little bark of kindly, social love,
Down life's clear stream to move
Toward the summer shores, where all is green.
So long thy name shall bring,
Echoes of joy unto the grateful gales,
And thousand tender tales,
To freshen the fond hearts that round thee cling!
Hast thou not look'd upon
The flowerets of the field in lowly dress?
Blame not my simpleness,
Think only of my love! my song is gone. |
Rudyard Kipling | The Bronckhurst Divorce Case | In the daytime, when she moved about me, | In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,
I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.
Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her,
Would God that she or I had died! |
Alexander Pope | Chorus Of Youths And Virgins | Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent'ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen'rous breast?
Chorus.
Love's purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bent to love: | Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand'ring, self-consuming fire,
But Hymen's kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.
Semichorus.
Oh source of ev'ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev'rence, hope, and love.
Chorus.
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine
Purest love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine. |
Christina Georgina Rossetti | The Poor Ghost | 'Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,
With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?'
'From the other world I come back to you,
My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew.
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But to-morrow you shall know this too.'
'Oh not to-morrow into the dark, I pray;
Oh not to-morrow, too soon to go away:
Here I feel warm and well-content and gay:
Give me another year, another day.' | 'Am I so changed in a day and a night
That mine own only love shrinks from me with fright,
Is fain to turn away to left or right
And cover up his eyes from the sight?'
'Indeed I loved you, my chosen friend,
I loved you for life, but life has an end;
Through sickness I was ready to tend:
But death mars all, which we cannot mend.
'Indeed I loved you; I love you yet,
If you will stay where your bed is set,
Where I have planted a violet,
Which the wind waves, which the dew makes wet.'
'Life is gone, then love too is gone,
It was a reed that I leant upon:
Never doubt I will leave you alone
And not wake you rattling bone with bone.
'I go home alone to my bed,
Dug deep at the foot and deep at the head,
Roofed in with a load of lead,
Warm enough for the forgotten dead.
'But why did your tears soak through the clay,
And why did your sobs wake me where I lay?
I was away, far enough away:
Let me sleep now till the Judgment Day.' |
Thomas Hardy | On Christmas Eve (Serenade) | Late on Christmas Eve, in the street alone,
Outside a house, on the pavement-stone,
I sang to her, as we'd sung together
On former eves ere I felt her tether. -
Above the door of green by me
Was she, her casement seen by me; | But she would not heed
What I melodied
In my soul's sore need -
She would not heed.
Cassiopeia overhead,
And the Seven of the Wain, heard what I said
As I bent me there, and voiced, and fingered
Upon the strings. . . . Long, long I lingered:
Only the curtains hid from her
One whom caprice had bid from her;
But she did not come,
And my heart grew numb
And dull my strum;
She did not come. |
Jean de La Fontaine | The Thieves And The Ass.[1] | Two thieves, pursuing their profession,
Had of a donkey got possession,
Whereon a strife arose,
Which went from words to blows.
The question was, to sell, or not to sell;
But while our sturdy champions fought it well, | Another thief, who chanced to pass,
With ready wit rode off the ass.
This ass is, by interpretation,
Some province poor, or prostrate nation.
The thieves are princes this and that,
On spoils and plunder prone to fat, -
As those of Austria, Turkey, Hungary.
(Instead of two, I've quoted three -
Enough of such commodity.)
These powers engaged in war all,
Some fourth thief stops the quarrel,
According all to one key,
By riding off the donkey. |
Oliver Wendell Holmes | Non-Resistance | Perhaps too far in these considerate days
Has patience carried her submissive ways;
Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek,
To take one blow, and turn the other cheek;
It is not written what a man shall do,
If the rude caitiff smite the other too! | Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need
God help thee, guarded by the passive creed!
As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl,
When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl;
As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow
When the black corsair slants athwart her bow;
As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien,
Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green,
When the dark plumage with the crimson beak
Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak, -
So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm
The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm,
Thy torches ready for the answering peal
From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel! |
William Cullen Bryant | Mutation. - A Sonnet. | They talk of short-lived pleasure, be it so,
Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; | And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace;
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease:
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes, did it keep
A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep. |
Alfred Castner King | Life's Undercurrent. | Within the precincts of a hospital,
I wandered in a sympathetic mood;
Where face to face with wormwood and with gall,
With wrecks of pain and stern vicissitude,
The eye unused to human misery
Might view life's undercurrent vividly.
My gaze soon rested on the stricken form
Of one succumbing to the fever's drouth,
With throbbing brow intolerably warm,
With wasted lips and mute appealing mouth;
And when I watched that prostrate figure there
I thought that fate must be the worst to bear.
I next beheld a thin but patient face,
Aged by the constant twinge of hopeless pain, | Wheeled in an easy chair from place to place,
A form which ne'er might stand erect again;
I viewed that human shipwreck in his chair,
And thought a fate like that was worst to bear.
Within her room a beauteous maiden lay,
Moaning in agony no words express,
A cancer eating rapidly away
Her vital force,--so foul and pitiless;
And when I saw that face, so young and fair,
I thought such anguish was the worst to bear.
A helpless paralytic met my eyes,
Whose hands might never grasp a friendly hand,
But hung distorted and of shrunken size,
Insensible to muscular command;
His face an abject picture of despair;
I thought a fate like that was worst to bear.
With wasted form, emaciate and wan,
A pale consumptive coughed with labored breath,
His sunken eyes and hectic flush upon
His cheek, foretold a sure but lingering death;
I thought, whene'er I met his hollow stare,
A wasting death like that was worst to bear.
That day with fetters obdurate and fast,
With chain of summer, winter, spring and fall,
Is bounden to the dim receding past;
Time o'er my life has spread a somber pall,
With sightless eyes I grope and clutch the air,
My lot is now the hardest lot to bear. |
William Wordsworth | The Danish Boy, A Fragment | I
Between two sister moorland rills
There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.
And in this smooth and open dell
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a lonely hut;
And in this dell you see
A thing no storm can e'er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish Boy.
II
In clouds above, the lark is heard,
But drops not here to earth for rest;
Within this lonesome nook the bird
Did never build her nest.
No beast, no bird hath here his home;
Bees, wafted on the breezy air,
Pass high above those fragrant bells | To other flowers:to other dells
Their burthens do they bear;
The Danish Boy walks here alone:
The lovely dell is all his own.
III
A Spirit of noon-day is he;
Yet seems a form of flesh and blood;
Nor piping shepherd shall he be,
Nor herd-boy of the wood.
A regal vest of fur he wears,
In colour like a raven's wing;
It fears not rain, nor wind, nor dew;
But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue
As budding pines in spring;
His helmet has a vernal grace,
Fresh as the bloom upon his face.
IV
A harp is from his shoulder slung;
Resting the harp upon his knee,
To words of a forgotten tongue
He suits its melody.
Of flocks upon the neighbouring hill
He is the darling and the joy;
And often, when no cause appears,
The mountain-ponies prick their ears,
They hear the Danish Boy,
While in the dell he sings alone
Beside the tree and corner-stone.
V
There sits he; in his face you spy
No trace of a ferocious air,
Nor ever was a cloudless sky
So steady or so fair.
The lovely Danish Boy is blest
And happy in his flowery cove:
From bloody deeds his thoughts are far;
And yet he warbles songs of war,
That seem like songs of love,
For calm and gentle is his mien;
Like a dead Boy he is serene. |
Robert Herrick | The Broken Crystal. | To fetch me wine my Lucia went,
Bearing a crystal continent: | But, making haste, it came to pass
She brake in two the purer glass,
Then smil'd, and sweetly chid her speed;
So with a blush beshrew'd the deed. |
Robert von Ranke Graves | The Bough Of Nonsense | An Idyll
Back from the Somme two Fusiliers
Limped painfully home; the elder said,
S. "Robert, I've lived three thousand years
This Summer, and I'm nine parts dead."
R. "But if that's truly so," I cried, "quick, now,
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough
"Where once a nonsense built her nest
With skulls and flowers and all things queer,
In an old boot, with patient breast
Hatching three eggs; and the next year ..."
S. "Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid | Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did."
Said he, "Before this quaint mood fails,
We'll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,"
R. "Hanging it up with monkey tails
In a deep grove all hushed and dim...."
S. "To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees,"
R. "Planted in dreams by pious Portuguese,"
S. "Which men are wise beyond their time,
And worship nonsense, no one more."
R. "Hard by, among old quince and lime,
They've built a temple with no floor,"
S. "And whosoever worships in that place,
He disappears from sight and leaves no trace."
R. "Once the Galatians built a fane
To Sense: what duller God than that?"
S. "But the first day of autumn rain
The roof fell in and crushed them flat."
R. "Ay, for a roof of subtlest logic falls
When nonsense is foundation for the walls."
I tell him old Galatian tales;
He caps them in quick Portuguese,
While phantom creatures with green scales
Scramble and roll among the trees.
The hymn swells; on a bough above us sings
A row of bright pink birds, flapping their wings. |
Arthur Hugh Clough | ????? ???' ????? ????? (Greek - Poems and Prose Remains, Vol II) | Upon the water, in the boat,
I sit and sketch as down I float:
The stream is wide, the view is fair,
I sketch it looking backward there.
The stream is strong, and as I sit
And view the picture that we quit,
It flows and flows, and bears the boat,
And I sit sketching as we float. | Each pointed height, each wavy line,
To new and other forms combine;
Proportions vary, colours fade,
And all the landscape is remade.
Depicted neither far nor near,
And larger there and smaller here,
And varying down from old to new,
E'en I can hardly think it true.
Yet still I look, and still I sit,
Adjusting, shaping, altering it;
And still the current bears the boat
And me, still sketching as I float.
Still as I sit, with something new
The foreground intercepts my view;
Even the distant mountain range
From the first moment suffers change. |
James Joyce | At That Hour When All Things Have Repose | At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise? | When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is overgone?
Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow
At that hour when soft lights come and go,
Soft sweet music in the air above
And in the earth below. |
John Hartley | The Match Girl. | Merrily rang out the midnight bells,
Glad tidings of joy for all;
As crouched a little shiv'ring child,
Close by the churchyard wall.
The snow and sleet were pitiless,
The wind played with her rags,
She beat her bare, half frozen feet
Upon the heartless flags;
A tattered shawl she tightly held
With one hand, round her breast;
Whilst icicles shone in her hair,
Like gems in gold impressed,
But on her pale, wan cheeks, the tears
That fell too fast to freeze,
Rolled down, as soft she murmured,
"Do buy my matches, please."
Wee, weak, inheritor of want!
She heard the Christmas chimes,
Perchance, her fancy wrought out dreams,
Of by-gone, better times,
The days before her mother died,
When she was warmly clad;
When food was plenty, and her heart
From morn to night was glad.
Her father now is lying sick, | She soon may be alone;
He cannot use his spade and pick,
As once he could have done.
The workhouse door stands open wide,
But should he enter there,
They'd tear his darling from his side
And place her anywhere.
They'd call it charitable help,
Though breaking both their hearts;
But then, when in adversity
Folks have to bear the smarts.
Some carriages go rolling by,
Gay laughter greets her ears;
She envies not their better lot,
She only sheds more tears,
And now and then a passing step,
Will cause the tears to cease;
As fainter, fainter, comes the plaint,
"Do buy my matches, please."
Darker the sky, colder the wind, -
The bells are silent now; -
She creeps still closer to the wall,
And sinks upon the snow.
The sound of revelry no more
Disturbs her weary ear,
Sleep conquers cold and pain and grief; -
Oblivion shuts out fear.
The snow drifts to the churchyard wall,
The graves with white are spread;
But those gray walls do not enclose
All of the near-by dead.
The wind has ta'en the snowflakes,
And gently as it might,
Has spread a shroud o'er one more lost
And hid it from the sight.
I would not wake her if I could,
'Twas well for her she died;
Her spirit floated out upon
The bells of Christmastide,
She breathed no prayer, nor thought of Heaven, -
Her last faint words were these; -
As time merged in eternity,
"Do buy my matches, please."
But surely angels would be there,
To shield her from all harm;
And in Christ's loving bosom,
She could nestle and get warm.
The wifeless, childless, stricken man,
Lies moaning in his pain -
"Come, let me bless thee e'er I die!"
But she never came again. |
Henry Kendall | Lilith | Strange is the song, and the soul that is singing
Falters because of the vision it sees;
Voice that is not of the living is ringing
Down in the depths where the darkness is clinging,
Even when Noon is the lord of the leas,
Fast, like a curse, to the ghosts of the trees!
Here in a mist that is parted in sunder,
Half with the darkness and half with the day;
Face of a woman, but face of a wonder,
Vivid and wild as a flame of the thunder,
Flashes and fades, and the wail of the grey
Water is loud on the straits of the bay!
Father, whose years have been many and weary
Elder, whose life is as lovely as light
Shining in ways that are sterile and dreary
Tell me the name of this beautiful peri,
Flashing on me like the wonderful white
Star, at the meeting of morning and night. | Look to thy Saviour, and down on thy knee, man,
Lean on the Lord, as the Zebedee leaned;
Daughter of hell is the neighbour of thee, man
Lilith, of Adam the luminous leman!
Turn to the Christ to be succoured and screened,
Saved from the eyes of a marvellous fiend!
Serpent she is in the shape of a woman,
Brighter than woman, ineffably fair!
Shelter thyself from the splendour, and sue, man;
Light that was never a loveliness human
Lives in the face of this sinister snare,
Longing to strangle thy soul with her hair!
Lilith, who came to the father and bound him
Fast with her eyes in the first of the springs;
Lilith she is, but remember she drowned him,
Shedding her flood of gold tresses around him
Lulled him to sleep with the lyric she sings:
Melody strange with unspeakable things!
Low is her voice, but beware of it ever,
Swift bitter death is the fruit of delay;
Never was song of its beauty ah! never
Heard on the mountain, or meadow, or river,
Not of the night is it, not of the day
Fly from it, stranger, away and away.
Back on the hills are the blossom and feather,
Glory of noon is on valley and spire;
Here is the grace of magnificent weather,
Where is the woman from gulfs of the nether?
Where is the fiend with the face of desire?
Gone, with a cry, in miraculous fire!
Sound that was not of this world, or the spacious
Splendid blue heaven, has passed from the lea;
Dead is the voice of the devil audacious:
Only a dream is her music fallacious,
Here, in the song and the shadow of tree,
Down by the green and the gold of the sea. |
Matthew Arnold | Horatian Echo | Omit, omit, my simple friend,
Still to inquire how parties tend,
Or what we fix with foreign powers.
If France and we are really friends,
And what the Russian Czar intends,
Is no concern of ours.
Us not the daily quickening race
Of the invading populace
Shall draw to swell that shouldering herd.
Mourn will we not your closing hour,
Ye imbeciles in present power,
Doom'd, pompous, and absurd! | And let us bear, that they debate
Of all the engine-work of state,
Of commerce, laws, and policy,
The secrets of the world's machine,
And what the rights of man may mean,
With readier tongue than we.
Only, that with no finer art
They cloak the troubles of the heart
With pleasant smile, let us take care;
Nor with a lighter hand dispose
Fresh garlands of this dewy rose,
To crown Eugenia's hair.
Of little threads our life is spun,
And he spins ill, who misses one.
But is thy fair Eugenia cold?
Yet Helen had an equal grace,
And Juliet's was as fair a face,
And now their years are told.
The day approaches, when we must
Be crumbling bones and windy dust;
And scorn us as our mistress may,
Her beauty will no better be
Than the poor face she slights in thee,
When dawns that day, that day. |
Paul Cameron Brown | Serenade | A green flotilla,
verdant armada
stone hand encased
in an arm of ocean
off blue-grotto bay.
Something avuncular where land
meets sea
- underdog, whipped cur,
adult "son" posturing to the elder,
pontificating man.
Melaque after dark
or was it Aguascalientes'? | Monterrey at sunset
prior to "the" pop festival
or Morelia, on eve
of feasts to that native patriot'?
Vera Cruz, 1915, at the height of
American occupation
with Pershing tailing the hirsute Pancho
Villa in Sinaloa
outdated rock & gunboat diplomacy
- no longer exotic fare
plate of frivoles,
fried banana
Mahi-Mahi.
On the palette,
dreams are fickle,
subject to "drunk
and disorderly resisting
arrest," outmoded and
fuzzy with age.
Policeman of the Olmec intellect,
you dance late on feather boas
this Mariachis of the soul
with glittering purse and yellow,
travelling nectar Tequila. |
Josephine Preston Peabody | Gladness | Unto my Gladness then I cried:
'I will not be denied!
Answer me now; and tell me why
Thou dost not fall, as a broken star
Out of the Dark where such things are,
And where such bright things die.
How canst thou, with thy fountain dance
Shatter clear sight with radiance?--
How canst thou reach and soar, and fling,
Over my heart's dark shuddering,
Unearthly lights on everything?
What dost thou see? What dost thou know?'
My Gladness said to me, bowed below,
'Gladness I am: created so.'
'And dare'st thou, in my mortal veins
Sing, with the Spring's descending rains?
While in this hour, and momently, | Forth of myself I look, and see
Torn treasure of my heart's Desire;
And human glories in the mire,
That should make glad some paradise!--
The childhood strewn in foulest place,
The girlhood, plundered of its grace;
The eyelids shut upon spent eyes
That never looked upon thy face!
Answer me, thou, if answer be!'
My Gladness said to me:
'Weep if thou wilt; yea, weep, and doubt.
I may not let the Sun go out.'
Then to my Gladness still I cried:
'And how canst thou abide?--'
Here, where my listening heart must hark
These sorrows rising from the Dark
Where still they starve, and strive and die,
Who bear each heaviest penalty
Of humanhood;--nor grasp, nor guess,
The garment's hem of happiness!--
The spear-wound throbbing in my song,
It throbs more bitterly than wrong,--
It burns more wildly than despair,--
The will to share,
The will to share!
Little I knew,--the blind-fold I,--
Joy would become like agony,--
Like arrows of the Sun in me!
* * * * *
I hold thee here. I have thee, now,--
And I am human. But what art thou!'
My Gladness answered me:
'Wayfarer, wilt thou understand?--
Follow me on. And keep my hand.' |
Thomas Osborne Davis | The West's Asleep. | Air--The Brink of the White Rocks.
I.
When all beside a vigil keep,
The West's asleep, the West's asleep--
Alas! and well may Erin weep,
When Connaught lies in slumber deep.
There lake and plain smile fair and free,
'Mid rocks--their guardian chivalry--
Sing oh! let man learn liberty
From crashing wind and lashing sea.
II.
That chainless wave and lovely land | Freedom and Nationhood demand--
Be sure, the great God never planned,
For slumbering slaves, a home so grand.
And, long, a brave and haughty race
Honoured and sentinelled the place--
Sing oh! not even their sons' disgrace
Can quite destroy their glory's trace.
III.
For often, in O'Connor's van,
To triumph dashed each Connaught clan--
And fleet as deer the Normans ran
Through Corlieu's Pass and Ardrahan.
And later times saw deeds as brave;
And glory guards Clanricarde's grave--
Sing oh! they died their land to save,
At Aughrim's slopes and Shannon's wave.
IV.
And if, when all a vigil keep,
The West's asleep, the West's asleep--
Alas! and well may Erin weep,
That Connaught lies in slumber deep.
But, hark! some voice like thunder spake:
"The West's awake! the West's awake!"--
"Sing oh! hurra! let England quake,
We'll watch till death for Erin's sake!" |
Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley | Dream-Song. | Cam'st thou not nigh to me
In that one glimpse of thee
When thy lips, tremblingly,
Said: "My Beloved."
'Twas but a moment's space, | And in that crowded place
I dared not scan thy face
O! my Beloved.
Yet there may come a time
(Though loving be a crime
Only allowed in rhyme
To us, Beloved),
When safe 'neath sheltering arm
I may, without alarm,
Hear thy lips, close and warm,
Murmur: "Beloved!" |
Anna Seward | Odes From Horace. - To Sallust. Book The Second, Ode The Second. | Dark in the Miser's chest, in hoarded heaps,
Can Gold, my SALLUST, one true joy bestow,
Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps,
Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow?
Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought,
Rises, with such resistless influence fraught
As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold,
Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear than Gold.
Rome, of this power aware, thy honor'd name
O Proculeius! ardently adores,
Since thou didst bid thy ruin'd Brothers claim
A filial right in all thy well-earn'd stores. -
To make the good deed deathless as the great, | Yet fearing for her plumes [1]Icarian fate,
This Record, Fame, of precious trust aware,
Shall long, on cautious wing, solicitously bear.
And thou, my SALLUST, more complete thy sway,
Restraining the insatiate lust of gain,
Than should'st thou join, by Conquest's proud essay,
Iberian hills to Libya's sandy plain;
Than if the Carthage sultry Afric boasts,
With that which smiles on Europe's lovelier coasts,
Before the Roman arms, led on by thee,
Should bow the yielding head, the tributary knee.
See bloated Dropsy added strength acquire
As the parch'd lip the frequent draught obtains;
Indulgence feeds the never-quench'd desire,
That loaths the viand, and the goblet drains.
Nor could exhausted floods the thirst subdue
Till that dire Cause, which spreads the livid hue
O'er the pale Form, with watry languor swell'd,
From the polluted veins, by medicine, be expell'd.
Virtue, whate'er the dazzled Vulgar dream,
Denies Phra'tes, seated on thy throne,
Immortal Cyrus, Joy's internal gleam,
And thus she checks the Crowd's mistaken tone;
"He, only he, who, calmly passing by,
Not once shall turn the pure, unwishing eye
On heaps of massy gold, that near him glare,
My amaranthine wreath, my diadem shall wear." |
Rudyard Kipling | The Glory Of The Garden | Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.
And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds, | The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.
Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away! |
Unknown | Nursery Rhyme. CCCXLV. Games. | Here we come a piping,
First in spring, and then in May; | The queen she sits upon the sand,
Fair as a lily, white as a wand:
King John has sent you letters three,
And begs you'll read them unto me. -
We can't read one without them all,
So pray, Miss Bridget, deliver the ball! |
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