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William Shakespeare
|
The Sonnets CXV - Those lines that I before have writ do lie
|
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas! why fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
|
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
|
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas! why fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
|
sonnet
|
Archibald Lampman
|
Three Flower Petals.
|
What saw I yesterday walking apart
In a leafy place where the cattle wait?
Something to keep for a charm in my heart -
A little sweet girl in a garden gate.
Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might,
And held for a target to shelter her,
In her little soft fingers, round and white,
The gold-rimmed face of a sunflower.
Laughing she lay on the stone that stands
For a rough-hewn step in that sunny place,
And her yellow hair hung down to her hands,
Shadowing over her dimpled face.
Her eyes like the blue of the sky, made dim
With the might of the sun that looked at her,
Shone laughing over the serried rim,
Golden set, of the sunflower.
Laughing, for token she gave to me
Three petals out of the sunflower; -
When the petals are withered and gone, shall be
Three verses of mine for praise of her,
That a tender dream of her face may rise
And lighten me yet in another hour,
Of her sunny hair and her beautiful eyes,
Laughing over the gold sunflower.
|
What saw I yesterday walking apart
In a leafy place where the cattle wait?
Something to keep for a charm in my heart -
A little sweet girl in a garden gate.
Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might,
And held for a target to shelter her,
In her little soft fingers, round and white,
The gold-rimmed face of a sunflower.
|
Laughing she lay on the stone that stands
For a rough-hewn step in that sunny place,
And her yellow hair hung down to her hands,
Shadowing over her dimpled face.
Her eyes like the blue of the sky, made dim
With the might of the sun that looked at her,
Shone laughing over the serried rim,
Golden set, of the sunflower.
Laughing, for token she gave to me
Three petals out of the sunflower; -
When the petals are withered and gone, shall be
Three verses of mine for praise of her,
That a tender dream of her face may rise
And lighten me yet in another hour,
Of her sunny hair and her beautiful eyes,
Laughing over the gold sunflower.
|
free_verse
|
Charles Baudelaire
|
The Enemy
|
My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns.
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once.
I should employ the rake and the plow,
Having reached the autumn of ideas,
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees.
And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?
O Sorrow ' O Sorrow ' Time consumes Life,
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part.
|
My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns.
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once.
|
I should employ the rake and the plow,
Having reached the autumn of ideas,
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees.
And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?
O Sorrow ' O Sorrow ' Time consumes Life,
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Roots. Epig.
|
Roots had no money; yet he went o' the score,
For a wrought purse; can any tell wherefore?
Say, what should Roots do with a purse in print,
That had not gold nor silver to put in't?
|
Roots had no money; yet he went o' the score,
|
For a wrought purse; can any tell wherefore?
Say, what should Roots do with a purse in print,
That had not gold nor silver to put in't?
|
quatrain
|
Henry Kendall
|
The Ballad of Tanna
|
She knelt by the dead, in her passionate grief,
Beneath a weird forest of Tanna;
She kissed the stern brow of her father and chief,
And cursed the dark race of Alkanna.
With faces as wild as the clouds in the rain,
The sons of Kerrara came down to the plain,
And spoke to the mourner and buried the slain.
Oh, the glory that died with Deloya!
'Wahina,' they whispered, 'Alkanna lies low,
And the ghost of thy sire hath been gladdened,
For the men of his people have fought with the foe
Till the rivers of Warra are reddened!'
She lifted her eyes to the glimmering hill,
Then spoke, with a voice like a musical rill,
'The time is too short; can I sojourn here still?'
Oh, the Youth that was sad for Deloya!
'Wahina, why linger,' Annatanam said,
'When the tent of a chieftain is lonely?
There are others who grieve for the light that has fled,
And one who waits here for you only!'
'Go leave me!' she cried. 'I would fain be alone;
I must stay where the trees and the wild waters moan;
For my heart is as cold as a wave-beaten stone.'
Oh, the Beauty that was broke for Deloya!
'Wahina, why weep o'er a handful of dust,
When the souls of the brave are approaching?
Oh, look to the fires that are lit for the just,
And the mighty who sleep in Arrochin!'
But she turned from the glare of the flame-smitten sea,
And a cry, like a whirlwind, came over the lea
'Away to the mountains and leave her with me!'
Oh, the heart that was broke for Deloya!
|
She knelt by the dead, in her passionate grief,
Beneath a weird forest of Tanna;
She kissed the stern brow of her father and chief,
And cursed the dark race of Alkanna.
With faces as wild as the clouds in the rain,
The sons of Kerrara came down to the plain,
And spoke to the mourner and buried the slain.
Oh, the glory that died with Deloya!
'Wahina,' they whispered, 'Alkanna lies low,
And the ghost of thy sire hath been gladdened,
|
For the men of his people have fought with the foe
Till the rivers of Warra are reddened!'
She lifted her eyes to the glimmering hill,
Then spoke, with a voice like a musical rill,
'The time is too short; can I sojourn here still?'
Oh, the Youth that was sad for Deloya!
'Wahina, why linger,' Annatanam said,
'When the tent of a chieftain is lonely?
There are others who grieve for the light that has fled,
And one who waits here for you only!'
'Go leave me!' she cried. 'I would fain be alone;
I must stay where the trees and the wild waters moan;
For my heart is as cold as a wave-beaten stone.'
Oh, the Beauty that was broke for Deloya!
'Wahina, why weep o'er a handful of dust,
When the souls of the brave are approaching?
Oh, look to the fires that are lit for the just,
And the mighty who sleep in Arrochin!'
But she turned from the glare of the flame-smitten sea,
And a cry, like a whirlwind, came over the lea
'Away to the mountains and leave her with me!'
Oh, the heart that was broke for Deloya!
|
free_verse
|
Henry Austin Dobson
|
The Cur''s Progress.
|
Monsieur the Cur' down the street
Comes with his kind old face,--
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.
You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place,"
And the tiny "H'tel-de-Ville";
He smiles, as he goes, to the fleuriste Rose,
And the pompier Th'ophile.
He turns, as a rule, through the "March'" cool,
Where the noisy fish-wives call;
And his compliment pays to the "Belle Th'r'se,"
As she knits in her dusky stall.
There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop,
And Toto, the locksmith's niece,
Has jubilant hopes, for the Cur' gropes
In his tails for a pain d''pice.
There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit,
Who is said to be heterodox,
That will ended be with a "Ma foi, oui!"
And a pinch from the Cur''s box.
There is also a word that no one heard
To the furrier's daughter Lou;
And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,
And a "Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!"
But a grander way for the Sous-Pr'fet,
And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;
And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat,
And a nod to the Sacristan:--
For ever through life the Cur' goes
With a smile on his kind old face--
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.
|
Monsieur the Cur' down the street
Comes with his kind old face,--
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.
You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place,"
And the tiny "H'tel-de-Ville";
He smiles, as he goes, to the fleuriste Rose,
And the pompier Th'ophile.
He turns, as a rule, through the "March'" cool,
Where the noisy fish-wives call;
|
And his compliment pays to the "Belle Th'r'se,"
As she knits in her dusky stall.
There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop,
And Toto, the locksmith's niece,
Has jubilant hopes, for the Cur' gropes
In his tails for a pain d''pice.
There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit,
Who is said to be heterodox,
That will ended be with a "Ma foi, oui!"
And a pinch from the Cur''s box.
There is also a word that no one heard
To the furrier's daughter Lou;
And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,
And a "Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!"
But a grander way for the Sous-Pr'fet,
And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;
And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat,
And a nod to the Sacristan:--
For ever through life the Cur' goes
With a smile on his kind old face--
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.
|
free_verse
|
Walter Savage Landor
|
Who Ever Felt As I
|
Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!
But oh, who ever felt as I?
No longer could I doubt him true;
All other men may use deceit:
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.
|
Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
|
Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!
But oh, who ever felt as I?
No longer could I doubt him true;
All other men may use deceit:
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.
|
octave
|
Ralph Waldo Emerson
|
Heri, Cras, Hodie
|
Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:
Future or Past no richer secret folds,
O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.
|
Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,
|
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:
Future or Past no richer secret folds,
O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.
|
quatrain
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
The Grass.
|
The grass so little has to do, --
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,
And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;
And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, --
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.
And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.
And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away, --
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!
|
The grass so little has to do, --
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,
And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
|
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;
And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, --
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.
And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.
And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away, --
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!
|
free_verse
|
Edna St. Vincent Millay
|
Wild Swans
|
I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!
|
I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
|
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!
|
octave
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
Superiority To Fate.
|
Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
'T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise.
|
Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
|
'T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise.
|
octave
|
Robert von Ranke Graves
|
To Lucasta On Going To The War, For The Fourth Time
|
It doesn't matter what's the cause,
What wrong they say we're righting,
A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
When we're to do the fighting!
And since we lads are proud and true,
What else remains to do?
Lucasta, when to France your man
Returns his fourth time, hating war,
Yet laughs as calmly as he can
And flings an oath, but says no more,
That is not courage, that's not fear,
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.
Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started
This bloody war, and who's to pay,
But he must be stout-hearted,
Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
Playing at cards with Death.
Don't plume yourself he fights for you;
It is no courage, love, or hate,
But let us do the things we do;
It's pride that makes the heart be great;
It is not anger, no, nor fear,
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride keeps him here.
|
It doesn't matter what's the cause,
What wrong they say we're righting,
A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
When we're to do the fighting!
And since we lads are proud and true,
What else remains to do?
Lucasta, when to France your man
Returns his fourth time, hating war,
|
Yet laughs as calmly as he can
And flings an oath, but says no more,
That is not courage, that's not fear,
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.
Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started
This bloody war, and who's to pay,
But he must be stout-hearted,
Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
Playing at cards with Death.
Don't plume yourself he fights for you;
It is no courage, love, or hate,
But let us do the things we do;
It's pride that makes the heart be great;
It is not anger, no, nor fear,
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride keeps him here.
|
free_verse
|
Vachel Lindsay
|
What the Forester Said
|
The moon is but a candle-glow
That flickers thro' the gloom:
The starry space, a castle hall:
And Earth, the children's room,
Where all night long the old trees stand
To watch the streams asleep:
Grandmothers guarding trundle-beds:
Good shepherds guarding sheep.
|
The moon is but a candle-glow
That flickers thro' the gloom:
|
The starry space, a castle hall:
And Earth, the children's room,
Where all night long the old trees stand
To watch the streams asleep:
Grandmothers guarding trundle-beds:
Good shepherds guarding sheep.
|
octave
|
John Hartley
|
Sweet Mistress Moore.
|
Mistress Moore is Johnny's wife,
An Johnny is a druffen sot;
He spends th' best portion of his life
Ith' beershop wi a pipe an pot.
At schooil together John an me
Set side by side like trusty chums,
An nivver did we disagree
Till furst we met sweet Lizzy Lumbs.
At John shoo smiled,
An aw wor riled;
Shoo showed shoo loved him moor nor me;
Her bonny e'en
Aw've seldom seen
Sin that sad day shoo slighted me.
Aw've heeard fowk say shoo has to want,
For Johnny ofttimes gets oth' spree;
He spends his wages in a rant,
An leeaves his wife to pine or dee.
An monny a time awve ligged i' bed,
An cursed my fate for bein poor,
An monny a bitter tear awve shed,
When thinkin ov sweet Mistress Moore.
For shoo's mi life
Is Johnny's wife,
An tho to love her isn't reet,
What con aw do,
When all th' neet throo
Awm dreamin ov her e'en soa breet.
Aw'll goa away an leeave this spot,
For fear at we should ivver meet,
For if we did, as sure as shot
Awst throw me daan anent her feet.
Aw know shoo'd think aw wor a fooil,
To love a woman when shoo's wed,
But sin aw saw her furst at schooil,
It's been a wretched life aw've led.
But th' time has come
To leeave mi hooam,
An th' sea between us sooin shall roar,
Yet still mi heart
Will nivver part
Wi' th' image ov sweet Mistress Moore.
|
Mistress Moore is Johnny's wife,
An Johnny is a druffen sot;
He spends th' best portion of his life
Ith' beershop wi a pipe an pot.
At schooil together John an me
Set side by side like trusty chums,
An nivver did we disagree
Till furst we met sweet Lizzy Lumbs.
At John shoo smiled,
An aw wor riled;
Shoo showed shoo loved him moor nor me;
Her bonny e'en
Aw've seldom seen
Sin that sad day shoo slighted me.
|
Aw've heeard fowk say shoo has to want,
For Johnny ofttimes gets oth' spree;
He spends his wages in a rant,
An leeaves his wife to pine or dee.
An monny a time awve ligged i' bed,
An cursed my fate for bein poor,
An monny a bitter tear awve shed,
When thinkin ov sweet Mistress Moore.
For shoo's mi life
Is Johnny's wife,
An tho to love her isn't reet,
What con aw do,
When all th' neet throo
Awm dreamin ov her e'en soa breet.
Aw'll goa away an leeave this spot,
For fear at we should ivver meet,
For if we did, as sure as shot
Awst throw me daan anent her feet.
Aw know shoo'd think aw wor a fooil,
To love a woman when shoo's wed,
But sin aw saw her furst at schooil,
It's been a wretched life aw've led.
But th' time has come
To leeave mi hooam,
An th' sea between us sooin shall roar,
Yet still mi heart
Will nivver part
Wi' th' image ov sweet Mistress Moore.
|
free_verse
|
Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)
|
The Deficit Demon (A Political Ballad)
|
It was the lunatic poet escaped from the local asylum,
Loudly he twanged on his banjo and sang with his voice like a saw-mill,
While as with fervour he sang there was borne o'er the shuddering wildwood,
Borne on the breath of the poet a flavour of rum and of onions.
He sang of the Deficit Demon that dwelt in the Treasury Mountains,
How it was small in its youth and a champion was sent to destroy it:
Dibbs he was sallied, and he boasted, "Soon I will wipe out the Monster,"
But while he was boasting and bragging the monster grew larger and larger.
One day as Dibbs bragged of his prowess in daylight the Deficit met him,
Settled his hash in one act and made him to all man a byword,
Sent hin, a raving ex-Premier, to dwell in the shades of oblivion,
And the people put forward a champion known as Sir Patrick the Portly.
As in the midnight the tom-cat who seeketh his love on the house top,
Lifteth his voice up and is struck by the fast whizzing brickbat,
Drops to the ground in a swoon and glides to the silent hereafter,
So fell Sir Patrick the Portly at the stroke of the Deficit Demon.
Then were the people amazed and they called for the champion of champions
Known as Sir 'Enry the Fishfag unequaled in vilification.
He is the man, said the people, to wipe out the Deficit Monster,
If nothing else fetches him through he can at the least talk its head off.
So he sharpened his lance of Freetrade and he practiced in loud-mouthing abusing,
"Poodlehead," "Craven," and "Mole-eyes" were things that he purposed to call it,
He went to the fight full of valour and all men are waiting the issue,
Though they know not his armour nor weapons excepting his power of abusing.
Loud sang the lunatic his song of the champions of valour
Until he was sighted and captured by fleet-footed keepers pursuing,
To whom he remarked with a smile as they ran him off back to the madhouse,
"If you want to back Parkes I'm your man, here's a cool three to one on the Deficit."
|
It was the lunatic poet escaped from the local asylum,
Loudly he twanged on his banjo and sang with his voice like a saw-mill,
While as with fervour he sang there was borne o'er the shuddering wildwood,
Borne on the breath of the poet a flavour of rum and of onions.
He sang of the Deficit Demon that dwelt in the Treasury Mountains,
How it was small in its youth and a champion was sent to destroy it:
Dibbs he was sallied, and he boasted, "Soon I will wipe out the Monster,"
But while he was boasting and bragging the monster grew larger and larger.
One day as Dibbs bragged of his prowess in daylight the Deficit met him,
|
Settled his hash in one act and made him to all man a byword,
Sent hin, a raving ex-Premier, to dwell in the shades of oblivion,
And the people put forward a champion known as Sir Patrick the Portly.
As in the midnight the tom-cat who seeketh his love on the house top,
Lifteth his voice up and is struck by the fast whizzing brickbat,
Drops to the ground in a swoon and glides to the silent hereafter,
So fell Sir Patrick the Portly at the stroke of the Deficit Demon.
Then were the people amazed and they called for the champion of champions
Known as Sir 'Enry the Fishfag unequaled in vilification.
He is the man, said the people, to wipe out the Deficit Monster,
If nothing else fetches him through he can at the least talk its head off.
So he sharpened his lance of Freetrade and he practiced in loud-mouthing abusing,
"Poodlehead," "Craven," and "Mole-eyes" were things that he purposed to call it,
He went to the fight full of valour and all men are waiting the issue,
Though they know not his armour nor weapons excepting his power of abusing.
Loud sang the lunatic his song of the champions of valour
Until he was sighted and captured by fleet-footed keepers pursuing,
To whom he remarked with a smile as they ran him off back to the madhouse,
"If you want to back Parkes I'm your man, here's a cool three to one on the Deficit."
|
free_verse
|
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.
|
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.
|
free_verse
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonet 2 To the Reader of his Poems
|
Into these loues who but for passion lookes,
At this first sight, here let him lay them by,
And seeke elsewhere in turning other bookes,
Which better may his labour satisfie.
No far-fetch'd sigh shall euer wound my brest,
Loue from mine eye, a teare shall neuer wring,
Nor in ah-mees my whyning Sonets drest,
(A Libertine) fantasticklie I sing;
My verse is the true image of my mind,
Euer in motion, still desiring change,
To choyce of all varietie inclin'd,
And in all humors sportiuely I range;
My actiue Muse is of the worlds right straine,
That cannot long one fashion entertaine.
|
Into these loues who but for passion lookes,
At this first sight, here let him lay them by,
And seeke elsewhere in turning other bookes,
Which better may his labour satisfie.
|
No far-fetch'd sigh shall euer wound my brest,
Loue from mine eye, a teare shall neuer wring,
Nor in ah-mees my whyning Sonets drest,
(A Libertine) fantasticklie I sing;
My verse is the true image of my mind,
Euer in motion, still desiring change,
To choyce of all varietie inclin'd,
And in all humors sportiuely I range;
My actiue Muse is of the worlds right straine,
That cannot long one fashion entertaine.
|
sonnet
|
James McIntyre
|
Lines Sent To Alexander Mclaughlan, Amaranth Station, With A Copy Of My Poems
|
We send to you these rugged rhymes
In memory of the olden times,
Great chief of our poetic clan,
Admired by all, McLaughlan.
|
We send to you these rugged rhymes
|
In memory of the olden times,
Great chief of our poetic clan,
Admired by all, McLaughlan.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Love
|
Love scorched my finger, but did spare
The burning of my heart,
To signify in love my share
Should be a little part.
Little I love, but if that he
Would but that heat recall,
That joint to ashes should be burnt
Ere I would love at all.
|
Love scorched my finger, but did spare
The burning of my heart,
|
To signify in love my share
Should be a little part.
Little I love, but if that he
Would but that heat recall,
That joint to ashes should be burnt
Ere I would love at all.
|
octave
|
Walter Savage Landor
|
On Seeing A Hair Of Lucretia Borgia
|
Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
And high for adoration; now thou'rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,
Calm hair, meandering in pellucid gold.
|
Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
|
And high for adoration; now thou'rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,
Calm hair, meandering in pellucid gold.
|
quatrain
|
James Joyce
|
Love Came To Us In Time Gone By
|
Love came to us in time gone by
When one at twilight shyly played
And one in fear was standing nigh,
For Love at first is all afraid.
We were grave lovers. Love is past
That had his sweet hours many a one;
Welcome to us now at the last
The ways that we shall go upon.
|
Love came to us in time gone by
When one at twilight shyly played
|
And one in fear was standing nigh,
For Love at first is all afraid.
We were grave lovers. Love is past
That had his sweet hours many a one;
Welcome to us now at the last
The ways that we shall go upon.
|
octave
|
Robert Herrick
|
Steam In Sacrifice.
|
If meat the gods give, I the steam
High-towering will devote to them,
Whose easy natures like it well,
If we the roast have, they the smell.
|
If meat the gods give, I the steam
|
High-towering will devote to them,
Whose easy natures like it well,
If we the roast have, they the smell.
|
quatrain
|
John Keats
|
To Fanny
|
I cry your mercy, pity, love! aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen, without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole, all, all, be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss, those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourself, your soul, in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom's atom or I die,
Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life's purposes, the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!
|
I cry your mercy, pity, love! aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen, without a blot!
|
O! let me have thee whole, all, all, be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss, those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourself, your soul, in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom's atom or I die,
Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life's purposes, the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!
|
sonnet
|
William Wordsworth
|
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - X - Struggle Of The Britons Against The Barbarians
|
Rise! they 'have' risen: of brave Aneurin ask
How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends:
The Spirit of Caractacus descends
Upon the Patriots, animates their task;
Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The virgin sculptured on his Christian shield:
Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask
The Host that followed Urien as he strode
O'er heaps of slain; from Cambrian wood and moss
Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross;
Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode,
Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!
|
Rise! they 'have' risen: of brave Aneurin ask
How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends:
The Spirit of Caractacus descends
Upon the Patriots, animates their task;
|
Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The virgin sculptured on his Christian shield:
Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask
The Host that followed Urien as he strode
O'er heaps of slain; from Cambrian wood and moss
Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross;
Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode,
Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!
|
sonnet
|
William Wordsworth
|
Isle Of Man
|
Did pangs of grief for lenient time too keen,
Grief that devouring waves had caused, or guilt
Which they had witnessed, sway the man who built
This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,
Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,
That o'er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised, a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring sea
To shun the memory of a listless life
That hung between two callings. May no strife
More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free,
Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye
Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!
|
Did pangs of grief for lenient time too keen,
Grief that devouring waves had caused, or guilt
Which they had witnessed, sway the man who built
This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,
|
Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,
That o'er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised, a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring sea
To shun the memory of a listless life
That hung between two callings. May no strife
More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free,
Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye
Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!
|
sonnet
|
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
The Fox And Huntsman.
|
Hard 'tis on a fox's traces
To arrive, midst forest-glades;
Hopeless utterly the chase is,
If his flight the huntsman aids.
And so 'tis with many a wonder,
(Why A B make Ab in fact,)
Over which we gape and blunder,
And our head and brains distract.
|
Hard 'tis on a fox's traces
To arrive, midst forest-glades;
|
Hopeless utterly the chase is,
If his flight the huntsman aids.
And so 'tis with many a wonder,
(Why A B make Ab in fact,)
Over which we gape and blunder,
And our head and brains distract.
|
octave
|
Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)
|
Winter Comes
|
Winter scourges his horses
Through the North,
His hair is bitter snow
On the great wind.
The trees are weeping leaves
Because the nests are dead,
Because the flowers were nests of scent
And the nests had singing petals
And the flowers and nests are dead.
Your voice brings back the songs
Of every nest,
Your eyes bring back the sun
Out of the South,
Violets and roses peep
Where you have laughed the snow away
And kissed the snow away,
And in my heart there is a garden still
For the lost birds.
Song of Daghestan.
|
Winter scourges his horses
Through the North,
His hair is bitter snow
On the great wind.
The trees are weeping leaves
Because the nests are dead,
|
Because the flowers were nests of scent
And the nests had singing petals
And the flowers and nests are dead.
Your voice brings back the songs
Of every nest,
Your eyes bring back the sun
Out of the South,
Violets and roses peep
Where you have laughed the snow away
And kissed the snow away,
And in my heart there is a garden still
For the lost birds.
Song of Daghestan.
|
free_verse
|
Sara Teasdale
|
Debt
|
What do I owe to you
Who loved me deep and long?
You never gave my spirit wings
Or gave my heart a song.
But oh, to him I loved,
Who loved me not at all,
I owe the open gate
That led through heaven's wall.
|
What do I owe to you
Who loved me deep and long?
|
You never gave my spirit wings
Or gave my heart a song.
But oh, to him I loved,
Who loved me not at all,
I owe the open gate
That led through heaven's wall.
|
octave
|
John McCrae
|
Unsolved
|
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
Knew in a moment that the eternal skies
Were measured but in inches, to the quest
That lay before me in that mystic gaze.
"Surely I have been errant: it is best
That I should tread, with men their human ways."
God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,
And to my lonely books again I turned.
|
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
|
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
Knew in a moment that the eternal skies
Were measured but in inches, to the quest
That lay before me in that mystic gaze.
"Surely I have been errant: it is best
That I should tread, with men their human ways."
God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,
And to my lonely books again I turned.
|
sonnet
|
George MacDonald
|
A Book Of Dreams.
|
PART I.
1.
I lay and dreamed. The master came
In his old woven dress;
I stood in joy, and yet in shame,
Oppressed with earthliness.
He stretched his arms, and gently sought
To clasp me to his soul;
I shrunk away, because I thought
He did not know the whole.
I did not love him as I would,
Embraces were not meet;
I sank before him where he stood,
And held and kissed his feet.
Ten years have passed away since then,
Oft hast thou come to me;
The question scarce will rise again,
Whether I care for thee.
To every doubt, in thee my heart
An answer hopes to find;
In every gladness, Lord, thou art,
The deeper joy behind.
And yet in other realms of life,
Unknown temptations rise,
Unknown perplexities and strife,
New questions and replies.
And every lesson learnt, anew,
The vain assurance lends
That now I know, and now can do,
And now should see thy ends.
So I forget I am a child,
And act as if a man;
Who through the dark and tempest wild
Will go, because he can.
And so, O Lord, not yet I dare
To clasp thee to my breast;
Though well I know that only there
Is hid the secret rest.
And yet I shrink not, as at first:
Be thou the judge of guilt;
Thou knowest all my best and worst,
Do with me as thou wilt.
Spread thou once more thine arms abroad,
Lay bare thy bosom's beat;
Thou shalt embrace me, O my God,
And I will kiss thy feet.
2.
I stood before my childhood's home,
Outside the belt of trees;
All round, my dreaming glances roam
On well-known hills and leas.
When sudden, from the westward, rushed
A wide array of waves;
Over the subject fields they gushed
From far-off, unknown caves.
And up the hill they clomb and came,
On flowing like a sea:
I saw, and watched them like a game;
No terror woke in me.
For just the belting trees within,
I saw my father wait;
And should the waves the summit win,
I would go through the gate.
For by his side all doubt was dumb,
And terror ceased to foam;
No great sea-billows dared to come,
And tread the holy home.
Two days passed by. With restless toss,
The red flood brake its doors;
Prostrate I lay, and looked across
To the eternal shores.
The world was fair, and hope was nigh,
Some men and women true;
And I was strong, and Death and I
Would have a hard ado.
And so I shrank. But sweet and good
The dream came to my aid;
Within the trees my father stood,
I must not be dismayed.
My grief was his, not mine alone;
The waves that burst in fears,
He heard not only with his own,
But heard them with my ears.
My life and death belong to thee,
For I am thine, O God;
Thy hands have made and fashioned me,
'Tis thine to bear the load.
And thou shalt bear it. I will try
To be a peaceful child,
Whom in thy arms right tenderly
Thou carriest through the wild.
3.
The rich man mourns his little loss,
And knits the brow of care;
The poor man tries to bear the cross,
And seeks relief in prayer.
Some gold had vanished from my purse,
Which I had watched but ill;
I feared a lack, but feared yet worse
Regret returning still.
And so I knelt and prayed my prayer
To Him who maketh strong,
That no returning thoughts of care
Should do my spirit wrong.
I rose in peace, in comfort went,
And laid me down to rest;
But straight my soul grew confident
With gladness of the blest.
For ere the sleep that care redeems,
My soul such visions had,
That never child in childhood's dreams
Was more exulting glad.
No white-robed angels floated by
On slow, reposing wings;
I only saw, with inward eye,
Some very common things.
First rose the scarlet pimpernel,
With burning purple heart;
I saw it, and I knew right well
The lesson of its art.
Then came the primrose, childlike flower;
It looked me in the face;
It bore a message full of power,
And confidence, and grace.
And winds arose on uplands wild,
And bathed me like a stream;
And sheep-bells babbled round the child
Who loved them in a dream.
Henceforth my mind was never crossed
By thought of vanished gold,
But with it came the guardian host
Of flowers both meek and bold.
The loss is riches while I live,
A joy I would not lose:
Choose ever, God, what Thou wilt give,
Not leaving me to choose.
"What said the flowers in whisper low,
To soothe me into rest?"
I scarce have words--they seemed to grow
Right out of God's own breast.
They said, God meant the flowers He made,
As children see the same;
They said the words the lilies said
When Jesus looked at them.
And if you want to hear the flowers
Speak ancient words, all new,
They may, if you, in darksome hours,
Ask God to comfort you.
4.
Our souls, in daylight hours, awake,
With visions sometimes teem,
Which to the slumbering brain would take
The form of wondrous dream.
Thus, once, I saw a level space,
With circling mountains nigh;
And round it grouped all forms of grace,
A goodly company.
And at one end, with gentle rise,
Stood something like a throne;
And thither all the radiant eyes,
As to a centre, shone.
And on the seat the noblest form
Of glory, dim-descried;
His glance would quell all passion-storm,
All doubt, and fear, and pride.
But lo! his eyes far-fixed burn
Adown the widening vale;
The looks of all obedient turn,
And soon those looks are pale.
For, through the shining multitude,
With feeble step and slow,
A weary man, in garments rude,
All falteringly did go.
His face was white, and still-composed,
Like one that had been dead;
The eyes, from eyelids half unclosed,
A faint, wan splendour shed.
And to his brow a strange wreath clung,
And drops of crimson hue;
And his rough hands, oh, sadly wrung!
Were pierced through and through.
And not a look he turned aside;
His eyes were forward bent;
And slow the eyelids opened wide,
As towards the throne he went.
At length he reached the mighty throne,
And sank upon his knees;
And clasped his hands with stifled groan,
And spake in words like these:--
"Father, I am come back--Thy will
Is sometimes hard to do."
From all the multitude so still,
A sound of weeping grew.
And mournful-glad came down the One,
And kneeled, and clasped His child;
Sank on His breast the outworn man,
And wept until he smiled.
And when their tears had stilled their sighs,
And joy their tears had dried,
The people saw, with lifted eyes,
Them seated side by side.
5.
I lay and dreamed. Three crosses stood
Amid the gloomy air.
Two bore two men--one was the Good;
The third rose waiting, bare.
A Roman soldier, coming by,
Mistook me for the third;
I lifted up my asking eye
For Jesus' sign or word.
I thought He signed that I should yield,
And give the error way.
I held my peace; no word revealed,
No gesture uttered nay.
Against the cross a scaffold stood,
Whence easy hands could nail
The doomed upon that altar-wood,
Whose fire burns slow and pale.
Upon this ledge he lifted me.
I stood all thoughtful there,
Waiting until the deadly tree
My form for fruit should bear.
Rose up the waves of fear and doubt,
Rose up from heart to brain;
They shut the world of vision out,
And thus they cried amain:
"Ah me! my hands--the hammer's knock--
The nails--the tearing strength!"
My soul replied: "'Tis but a shock,
That grows to pain at length."
"Ah me! the awful fight with death;
The hours to hang and die;
The thirsting gasp for common breath,
That passes heedless by!"
My soul replied: "A faintness soon
Will shroud thee in its fold;
The hours will go,--the fearful noon
Rise, pass--and thou art cold.
"And for thy suffering, what to thee
Is that? or care of thine?
Thou living branch upon the tree
Whose root is the Divine!
"'Tis His to care that thou endure;
That pain shall grow or fade;
With bleeding hands hang on thy cure,
He knows what He hath made."
And still, for all the inward wail,
My foot was firmly pressed;
For still the fear lest I should fail
Was stronger than the rest.
And thus I stood, until the strife
The bonds of slumber brake;
I felt as I had ruined life,
Had fled, and come awake.
Yet I was glad, my heart confessed,
The trial went not on;
Glad likewise I had stood the test,
As far as it had gone.
And yet I fear some recreant thought,
Which now I all forget,
That painful feeling in me wrought
Of failure, lingering yet.
And if the dream had had its scope,
I might have fled the field;
But yet I thank Thee for the hope,
And think I dared not yield.
6.
Methinks I hear, as I lie slowly dying,
Indulgent friends say, weeping, "He was good."
I fail to speak, a faint denial trying,--
They answer, "His humility withstood."
I, knowing better, part with love unspoken;
And find the unknown world not all unknown.
The bonds that held me from my centre broken,
I seek my home, the Saviour's homely throne.
How He will greet me, I walk on and wonder;
And think I know what I will say to Him.
I fear no sapphire floor of cloudy thunder,
I fear no passing vision great and dim.
But He knows all my unknown weary story:
How will He judge me, pure, and good, and fair?
I come to Him in all His conquered glory,
Won from such life as I went dreaming there!
I come; I fall before Him, faintly saying:
"Ah, Lord, shall I thy loving favour win?
Earth's beauties tempted me; my walk was straying--
I have no honour--but may I come in?"
"I know thee well. Strong prayer did keep me stable;
To me the earth is very lovely too.
Thou shouldst have come to me to make thee able
To love it greatly--but thou hast got through."
A BOOK OF DREAMS.
PART II.
1.
Lord of the world's undying youth,
What joys are in thy might!
What beauties of the inner truth,
And of the outer sight!
And when the heart is dim and sad,
Too weak for wisdom's beam,
Thou sometimes makest it right glad
With but a childish dream.
* * * * *
Lo! I will dream this windy day;
No sunny spot is bare;
Dull vapours, in uncomely play,
Are weltering through the air.
If I throw wide my windowed breast
To all the blasts that blow,
My soul will rival in unrest
Those tree-tops--how they go!
But I will dream like any child;
For, lo! a mighty swan,
With radiant plumage undented,
And folded airy van,
With serpent neck all proudly bent,
And stroke of swarthy oar,
Dreams on to me, by sea-maids sent
Over the billows hoar.
For in a wave-worn rock I lie;
Outside, the waters foam;
And echoes of old storms go by
Within my sea-built dome.
The waters, half the gloomy way,
Beneath its arches come;
Throbbing to unseen billows' play,
The green gulfs waver dumb.
A dawning twilight through the cave
In moony gleams doth go,
Half from the swan above the wave,
Half from the swan below.
Close to my feet she gently drifts,
Among the glistening things;
She stoops her crowny head, and lifts
White shoulders of her wings.
Oh! earth is rich with many a nest,
Deep, soft, and ever new,
Pure, delicate, and full of rest;
But dearest there are two.
I would not tell them but to minds
That are as white as they;
If others hear, of other kinds,
I wish them far away.
Upon the neck, between the wings,
Of a white, sailing swan,
A flaky bed of shelterings--
There you will find the one.
The other--well, it will not out,
Nor need I tell it you;
I've told you one, and need you doubt,
When there are only two?
Fulfil old dreams, O splendid bird,
Me o'er the waters bear;
Sure never ocean's face was stirred
By any ship so fair!
Sure never whiteness found a dress,
Upon the earth to go,
So true, profound, and rich, unless
It was the falling snow.
With quick short flutter of each wing
Half-spread, and stooping crown,
She calls me; and with one glad spring
I nestle in the down.
Plunges the bark, then bounds aloft,
With lessening dip and rise.
Round curves her neck with motion soft--
Sure those are woman's eyes.
One stroke unseen, with oary feet,
One stroke--away she sweeps;
Over the waters pale we fleet,
Suspended in the deeps.
And round the sheltering rock, and lo!
The tumbling, weltering sea!
On to the west, away we go,
Over the waters free!
Her motions moulded to the wave,
Her billowy neck thrown back,
With slow strong pulse, stately and grave,
She cleaves a rippling track.
And up the mounting wave we glide,
With climbing sweeping blow;
And down the steep, far-sloping side,
To flowing vales below.
I hear the murmur of the deep
In countless ripples pass,
Like talking children in their sleep,
Like winds in reedy grass.
And through some ruffled feathers, I
The glassy rolling mark,
With which the waves eternally
Roll on from dawn to dark.
The night is blue, the stars aglow;
In solemn peace o'erhead
The archless depth of heaven; below,
The murmuring, heaving bed.
A thickened night, it heaveth on,
A fallen earthly sky;
The shadows of its stars alone
Are left to know it by.
What faints across the lifted loop
Of cloud-veil upward cast?
With sea-veiled limbs, a sleeping group
Of Nereids dreaming past.
Swim on, my boat; who knows but I,
Ere night sinks to her grave,
May see in splendour pale float by
The Venus of the wave?
2.
In the night, round a lady dreaming--
A queen among the dreams--
Came the silent sunset streaming,
Mixed with the voice of streams.
A silver fountain springing
Blossoms in molten gold;
And the airs of the birds float ringing
Through harmonies manifold.
She lies in a watered valley;
Her garden melts away
Through foot-path and curving alley
Into the wild wood grey.
And the green of the vale goes creeping
To the feet of the rugged hills,
Where the moveless rocks are keeping
The homes of the wandering rills.
And the hues of the flowers grow deeper,
Till they dye her very brain;
And their scents, like the soul of a sleeper,
Wander and waver and rain.
For dreams have a wealth of glory
That daylight cannot give:
Ah God! make the hope a story--
Bid the dreams arise and live.
She lay and gazed at the flowers,
Till her soul's own garden smiled
With blossom-o'ershaded bowers,
Great colours and splendours wild.
And her heart filled up with gladness,
Till it could only ache;
And it turned aside to sadness,
As if for pity's sake.
And a fog came o'er the meadows,
And the rich hues fainting lay;
Came from the woods the shadows,
Came from the rocks the grey.
And the sunset thither had vanished,
Where the sunsets always go;
And the sounds of the stream were banished,
As if slain by frost and snow.
And the flowers paled fast and faster,
And they crumbled fold on fold,
Till they looked like the stained plaster
Of a cornice in ruin old.
And they blackened and shrunk together,
As if scorched by the breath of flame,
With a sad perplexity whether
They were or were not the same.
And she saw herself still lying,
And smiling on, the while;
And the smile, instead of dying,
Was fixed in an idiot smile.
And the lady arose in sorrow
Out of her sleep's dark stream;
But her dream made dark the morrow,
And she told me the haunting dream.
Alas! dear lady, I know it,
The dream that all is a dream;
The joy with the doubt below it
That the bright things only seem.
One moment of sad commotion,
And one of doubt's withering rule--
And the great wave-pulsing ocean
Is only a gathered pool.
And the flowers are spots of painting,
Of lifeless staring hue;
Though your heart is sick to fainting,
They say not a word to you.
And the birds know nought of gladness,
They are only song-machines;
And a man is a skilful madness,
And the women pictured queens.
And fiercely we dig the fountain,
To know the water true;
And we climb the crest of the mountain,
To part it from the blue.
But we look too far before us
For that which is more than nigh;
Though the sky is lofty o'er us,
We are always in the sky.
And the fog, o'er the roses that creepeth,
Steams from the unknown sea,
In the dark of the soul that sleepeth,
And sigheth constantly,
Because o'er the face of its waters
The breathing hath not gone;
And instead of glad sons and daughters,
Wild things are moaning on.
When the heart knows well the Father,
The eyes will be always day;
But now they grow dim the rather
That the light is more than they.
Believe, amidst thy sorrows,
That the blight that swathes the earth
Is only a shade that borrows
Life from thy spirit's dearth.
God's heart is the fount of beauty;
Thy heart is its visible well;
If it vanish, do thou thy duty,
That necromantic spell;
And thy heart to the Father crying
Will fill with waters deep;
Thine eyes may say, Beauty is dying;
But thy spirit, She goes to sleep.
And I fear not, thy fair soul ever
Will smile as thy image smiled;
It had fled with a sudden shiver,
And thy body lay beguiled.
Let the flowers and thy beauty perish;
Let them go to the ancient dust.
But the hopes that the children cherish,
They are the Father's trust.
3.
A great church in an empty square,
A place of echoing tones;
Feet pass not oft enough to wear
The grass between the stones.
The jarring sounds that haunt its gates,
Like distant thunders boom;
The boding heart half-listening waits,
As for a coming doom.
The door stands wide, the church is bare,
Oh, horror, ghastly, sore!
A gulf of death, with hideous stare,
Yawns in the earthen floor;
As if the ground had sunk away
Into a void below:
Its shapeless sides of dark-hued clay
Hang ready aye to go.
I am myself a horrid grave,
My very heart turns grey;
This charnel-hole,--will no one save
And force my feet away?
The changing dead are there, I know,
In terror ever new;
Yet down the frightful slope I go,
That downward goeth too.
Beneath the caverned floor I hie,
And seem, with anguish dull,
To enter by the empty eye
Into a monstrous skull.
Stumbling on what I dare not guess,
And wading through the gloom,
Less deep the shades my eyes oppress,
I see the awful tomb.
My steps have led me to a door,
With iron clenched and barred;
Grim Death hides there a ghastlier store,
Great spider in his ward.
The portals shake, the bars are bowed,
As if an earthy wind
That never bore a leaf or cloud
Were pressing hard behind.
They shake, they groan, they outward strain.
What sight, of dire dismay
Will freeze its form upon my brain,
And turn it into clay?
They shake, they groan, they bend, they crack;
The bars, the doors divide:
A flood of glory at their back
Hath burst the portals wide.
Flows in the light of vanished days,
The joy of long-set moons;
The flood of radiance billowy plays,
In sweet-conflicting tunes.
The gulf is filled with flashing tides,
An awful gulf no more;
A maze of ferns clothes all its sides,
Of mosses all its floor.
And, floating through the streams, appear
Such forms of beauty rare,
As every aim at beauty here
Had found its would be there.
I said: 'Tis well no hand came nigh,
To turn my steps astray;
'Tis good we cannot choose but die,
That life may have its way.
4.
Before I sleep, some dreams draw nigh,
Which are not fancy mere;
For sudden lights an inward eye,
And wondrous things appear.
Thus, unawares, with vision wide,
A steep hill once I saw,
In faint dream lights, which ever hide
Their fountain and their law.
And up and down the hill reclined
A host of statues old;
Such wondrous forms as you might find
Deep under ancient mould.
They lay, wild scattered, all along,
And maimed as if in fight;
But every one of all the throng
Was precious to the sight.
Betwixt the night and hill they ranged,
In dead composure cast.
As suddenly the dream was changed,
And all the wonder past.
The hill remained; but what it bore
Was broken reedy stalks,
Bent hither, thither, drooping o'er,
Like flowers o'er weedy walks.
For each dim form of marble rare,
Bent a wind-broken reed;
So hangs on autumn-field, long-bare,
Some tall and straggling weed.
The autumn night hung like a pall,
Hung mournfully and dead;
And if a wind had waked at all,
It had but moaned and fled.
5.
I lay and dreamed. Of thought and sleep
Was born a heavenly joy:
I dreamed of two who always keep
Me happy as a boy.
I was with them. My heart-bells rung
With joy my heart above;
Their present heaven my earth o'erhung,
And earth was glad with love.
The dream grew troubled. Crowds went on,
And sought their varied ends;
Till stream on stream, the crowds had gone,
And swept away my friends.
I was alone. A miry road
I followed, all in vain;
No well-known hill the landscape showed,
It was a wretched plain;
Where mounds of rubbish, ugly pits,
And brick-fields scarred the globe;
Those wastes where desolation sits
Without her ancient robe.
A drizzling rain proclaimed the skies
As wretched as the earth;
I wandered on, and weary sighs
Were all my lot was worth.
When sudden, as I turned my way,
Burst in the ocean-waves:
And lo! a blue wild-dancing bay
Fantastic rocks and caves!
I wept with joy. Ah! sometimes so,
In common daylight grief,
A beauty to the heart will go,
And bring the heart relief.
And, wandering, reft of hope or friend,
If such a thing should be,
One day we take the downward bend,
And lo, Eternity!
I wept with joy, delicious tears,
Which dreams alone bestow;
Until, mayhap, from out the years
We sleep, and further go.
6.
Now I will mould a dream, awake,
Which I, asleep, would dream;
From all the forms of fancy take
One that shall also seem;
Seem in my verse (if not my brain),
Which sometimes may rejoice
In airy forms of Fancy's train,
Though nobler are my choice.
Some truth o'er all the land may lie
In children's dreams at night;
They do not build the charmed sky
That domes them with delight.
And o'er the years that follow soon,
So all unlike the dreams,
Wander their odours, gleams their moon,
And flow their winds and streams.
Now I would dream that I awake
In scent of cool night air,
Above me star-clouds close and break;
Beneath--where am I, where?
A strange delight pervades my breast,
Of ancient pictures dim,
Where fair forms on the waters rest,
Or in the breezes swim.
I rest on arms as soft as strong,
Great arms of woman-mould;
My head is pillowed whence a song,
In many a rippling fold,
O'erfloods me from its bubbling spring:
A Titan goddess bears
Me, floating on her unseen wing,
Through gracious midnight airs.
And I am borne o'er sleeping seas,
O'er murmuring ears of corn,
Over the billowy tops of trees,
O'er roses pale till morn.
Over the lake--ah! nearer float,
Down on the water's breast;
Let me look deep, and gazing doat
On that white lily's nest.
The harebell's bed, as o'er we pass,
Swings all its bells about;
From waving blades of polished grass,
Flash moony splendours out.
Old homes we brush in wooded glades;
No eyes at windows shine;
For all true men and noble maids
Are out in dreams like mine.
And foam-bell-kisses drift and break
From wind-waves of the South
Against my brow and eyes awake,
And yet I see no mouth.
Light laughter ripples down the air,
Light sighs float up below;
And o'er me ever, radiant pair,
The Queen's great star-eyes go.
And motion like a dreaming wave
Wafts me in gladness dim
Through air just cool enough to lave
With sense each conscious limb.
But ah! the dream eludes the rhyme,
As dreams break free from sleep;
The dream will keep its own free time,
In mazy float or sweep.
And thought too keen for joy awakes,
As on the horizon far,
A dead pale light the circle breaks,
But not a dawning star.
No, there I cannot, dare not go;
Pale women wander there;
With cold fire murderous eyeballs glow;
And children see despair.
The joy has lost its dreamy zest;
I feel a pang of loss;
My wandering hand o'er mounds of rest
Finds only mounds of moss.
Beneath the bare night-stars I lie;
Cold winds are moaning past:
Alas! the earth with grief will die,
The great earth is aghast.
I look above--there dawns no face;
Around--no footsteps come;
No voice inhabits this great space;
God knows, but keepeth dumb.
I wake, and know that God is by,
And more than dreams will give;
And that the hearts that moan and die,
Shall yet awake and live.
|
PART I.
1.
I lay and dreamed. The master came
In his old woven dress;
I stood in joy, and yet in shame,
Oppressed with earthliness.
He stretched his arms, and gently sought
To clasp me to his soul;
I shrunk away, because I thought
He did not know the whole.
I did not love him as I would,
Embraces were not meet;
I sank before him where he stood,
And held and kissed his feet.
Ten years have passed away since then,
Oft hast thou come to me;
The question scarce will rise again,
Whether I care for thee.
To every doubt, in thee my heart
An answer hopes to find;
In every gladness, Lord, thou art,
The deeper joy behind.
And yet in other realms of life,
Unknown temptations rise,
Unknown perplexities and strife,
New questions and replies.
And every lesson learnt, anew,
The vain assurance lends
That now I know, and now can do,
And now should see thy ends.
So I forget I am a child,
And act as if a man;
Who through the dark and tempest wild
Will go, because he can.
And so, O Lord, not yet I dare
To clasp thee to my breast;
Though well I know that only there
Is hid the secret rest.
And yet I shrink not, as at first:
Be thou the judge of guilt;
Thou knowest all my best and worst,
Do with me as thou wilt.
Spread thou once more thine arms abroad,
Lay bare thy bosom's beat;
Thou shalt embrace me, O my God,
And I will kiss thy feet.
2.
I stood before my childhood's home,
Outside the belt of trees;
All round, my dreaming glances roam
On well-known hills and leas.
When sudden, from the westward, rushed
A wide array of waves;
Over the subject fields they gushed
From far-off, unknown caves.
And up the hill they clomb and came,
On flowing like a sea:
I saw, and watched them like a game;
No terror woke in me.
For just the belting trees within,
I saw my father wait;
And should the waves the summit win,
I would go through the gate.
For by his side all doubt was dumb,
And terror ceased to foam;
No great sea-billows dared to come,
And tread the holy home.
Two days passed by. With restless toss,
The red flood brake its doors;
Prostrate I lay, and looked across
To the eternal shores.
The world was fair, and hope was nigh,
Some men and women true;
And I was strong, and Death and I
Would have a hard ado.
And so I shrank. But sweet and good
The dream came to my aid;
Within the trees my father stood,
I must not be dismayed.
My grief was his, not mine alone;
The waves that burst in fears,
He heard not only with his own,
But heard them with my ears.
My life and death belong to thee,
For I am thine, O God;
Thy hands have made and fashioned me,
'Tis thine to bear the load.
And thou shalt bear it. I will try
To be a peaceful child,
Whom in thy arms right tenderly
Thou carriest through the wild.
3.
The rich man mourns his little loss,
And knits the brow of care;
The poor man tries to bear the cross,
And seeks relief in prayer.
Some gold had vanished from my purse,
Which I had watched but ill;
I feared a lack, but feared yet worse
Regret returning still.
And so I knelt and prayed my prayer
To Him who maketh strong,
That no returning thoughts of care
Should do my spirit wrong.
I rose in peace, in comfort went,
And laid me down to rest;
But straight my soul grew confident
With gladness of the blest.
For ere the sleep that care redeems,
My soul such visions had,
That never child in childhood's dreams
Was more exulting glad.
No white-robed angels floated by
On slow, reposing wings;
I only saw, with inward eye,
Some very common things.
First rose the scarlet pimpernel,
With burning purple heart;
I saw it, and I knew right well
The lesson of its art.
Then came the primrose, childlike flower;
It looked me in the face;
It bore a message full of power,
And confidence, and grace.
And winds arose on uplands wild,
And bathed me like a stream;
And sheep-bells babbled round the child
Who loved them in a dream.
Henceforth my mind was never crossed
By thought of vanished gold,
But with it came the guardian host
Of flowers both meek and bold.
The loss is riches while I live,
A joy I would not lose:
Choose ever, God, what Thou wilt give,
Not leaving me to choose.
"What said the flowers in whisper low,
To soothe me into rest?"
I scarce have words--they seemed to grow
Right out of God's own breast.
They said, God meant the flowers He made,
As children see the same;
They said the words the lilies said
When Jesus looked at them.
And if you want to hear the flowers
Speak ancient words, all new,
They may, if you, in darksome hours,
Ask God to comfort you.
4.
Our souls, in daylight hours, awake,
With visions sometimes teem,
Which to the slumbering brain would take
The form of wondrous dream.
Thus, once, I saw a level space,
With circling mountains nigh;
And round it grouped all forms of grace,
A goodly company.
And at one end, with gentle rise,
Stood something like a throne;
And thither all the radiant eyes,
As to a centre, shone.
And on the seat the noblest form
Of glory, dim-descried;
His glance would quell all passion-storm,
All doubt, and fear, and pride.
But lo! his eyes far-fixed burn
Adown the widening vale;
The looks of all obedient turn,
And soon those looks are pale.
For, through the shining multitude,
With feeble step and slow,
A weary man, in garments rude,
All falteringly did go.
His face was white, and still-composed,
Like one that had been dead;
The eyes, from eyelids half unclosed,
A faint, wan splendour shed.
And to his brow a strange wreath clung,
And drops of crimson hue;
And his rough hands, oh, sadly wrung!
Were pierced through and through.
And not a look he turned aside;
His eyes were forward bent;
And slow the eyelids opened wide,
As towards the throne he went.
At length he reached the mighty throne,
And sank upon his knees;
And clasped his hands with stifled groan,
And spake in words like these:--
"Father, I am come back--Thy will
Is sometimes hard to do."
From all the multitude so still,
A sound of weeping grew.
And mournful-glad came down the One,
And kneeled, and clasped His child;
Sank on His breast the outworn man,
And wept until he smiled.
And when their tears had stilled their sighs,
And joy their tears had dried,
The people saw, with lifted eyes,
Them seated side by side.
5.
I lay and dreamed. Three crosses stood
Amid the gloomy air.
Two bore two men--one was the Good;
The third rose waiting, bare.
A Roman soldier, coming by,
Mistook me for the third;
I lifted up my asking eye
For Jesus' sign or word.
I thought He signed that I should yield,
And give the error way.
I held my peace; no word revealed,
No gesture uttered nay.
Against the cross a scaffold stood,
Whence easy hands could nail
The doomed upon that altar-wood,
Whose fire burns slow and pale.
Upon this ledge he lifted me.
I stood all thoughtful there,
Waiting until the deadly tree
My form for fruit should bear.
Rose up the waves of fear and doubt,
Rose up from heart to brain;
They shut the world of vision out,
And thus they cried amain:
"Ah me! my hands--the hammer's knock--
The nails--the tearing strength!"
My soul replied: "'Tis but a shock,
That grows to pain at length."
"Ah me! the awful fight with death;
The hours to hang and die;
The thirsting gasp for common breath,
That passes heedless by!"
My soul replied: "A faintness soon
Will shroud thee in its fold;
The hours will go,--the fearful noon
Rise, pass--and thou art cold.
"And for thy suffering, what to thee
Is that? or care of thine?
Thou living branch upon the tree
Whose root is the Divine!
"'Tis His to care that thou endure;
That pain shall grow or fade;
With bleeding hands hang on thy cure,
He knows what He hath made."
And still, for all the inward wail,
My foot was firmly pressed;
For still the fear lest I should fail
|
Was stronger than the rest.
And thus I stood, until the strife
The bonds of slumber brake;
I felt as I had ruined life,
Had fled, and come awake.
Yet I was glad, my heart confessed,
The trial went not on;
Glad likewise I had stood the test,
As far as it had gone.
And yet I fear some recreant thought,
Which now I all forget,
That painful feeling in me wrought
Of failure, lingering yet.
And if the dream had had its scope,
I might have fled the field;
But yet I thank Thee for the hope,
And think I dared not yield.
6.
Methinks I hear, as I lie slowly dying,
Indulgent friends say, weeping, "He was good."
I fail to speak, a faint denial trying,--
They answer, "His humility withstood."
I, knowing better, part with love unspoken;
And find the unknown world not all unknown.
The bonds that held me from my centre broken,
I seek my home, the Saviour's homely throne.
How He will greet me, I walk on and wonder;
And think I know what I will say to Him.
I fear no sapphire floor of cloudy thunder,
I fear no passing vision great and dim.
But He knows all my unknown weary story:
How will He judge me, pure, and good, and fair?
I come to Him in all His conquered glory,
Won from such life as I went dreaming there!
I come; I fall before Him, faintly saying:
"Ah, Lord, shall I thy loving favour win?
Earth's beauties tempted me; my walk was straying--
I have no honour--but may I come in?"
"I know thee well. Strong prayer did keep me stable;
To me the earth is very lovely too.
Thou shouldst have come to me to make thee able
To love it greatly--but thou hast got through."
A BOOK OF DREAMS.
PART II.
1.
Lord of the world's undying youth,
What joys are in thy might!
What beauties of the inner truth,
And of the outer sight!
And when the heart is dim and sad,
Too weak for wisdom's beam,
Thou sometimes makest it right glad
With but a childish dream.
* * * * *
Lo! I will dream this windy day;
No sunny spot is bare;
Dull vapours, in uncomely play,
Are weltering through the air.
If I throw wide my windowed breast
To all the blasts that blow,
My soul will rival in unrest
Those tree-tops--how they go!
But I will dream like any child;
For, lo! a mighty swan,
With radiant plumage undented,
And folded airy van,
With serpent neck all proudly bent,
And stroke of swarthy oar,
Dreams on to me, by sea-maids sent
Over the billows hoar.
For in a wave-worn rock I lie;
Outside, the waters foam;
And echoes of old storms go by
Within my sea-built dome.
The waters, half the gloomy way,
Beneath its arches come;
Throbbing to unseen billows' play,
The green gulfs waver dumb.
A dawning twilight through the cave
In moony gleams doth go,
Half from the swan above the wave,
Half from the swan below.
Close to my feet she gently drifts,
Among the glistening things;
She stoops her crowny head, and lifts
White shoulders of her wings.
Oh! earth is rich with many a nest,
Deep, soft, and ever new,
Pure, delicate, and full of rest;
But dearest there are two.
I would not tell them but to minds
That are as white as they;
If others hear, of other kinds,
I wish them far away.
Upon the neck, between the wings,
Of a white, sailing swan,
A flaky bed of shelterings--
There you will find the one.
The other--well, it will not out,
Nor need I tell it you;
I've told you one, and need you doubt,
When there are only two?
Fulfil old dreams, O splendid bird,
Me o'er the waters bear;
Sure never ocean's face was stirred
By any ship so fair!
Sure never whiteness found a dress,
Upon the earth to go,
So true, profound, and rich, unless
It was the falling snow.
With quick short flutter of each wing
Half-spread, and stooping crown,
She calls me; and with one glad spring
I nestle in the down.
Plunges the bark, then bounds aloft,
With lessening dip and rise.
Round curves her neck with motion soft--
Sure those are woman's eyes.
One stroke unseen, with oary feet,
One stroke--away she sweeps;
Over the waters pale we fleet,
Suspended in the deeps.
And round the sheltering rock, and lo!
The tumbling, weltering sea!
On to the west, away we go,
Over the waters free!
Her motions moulded to the wave,
Her billowy neck thrown back,
With slow strong pulse, stately and grave,
She cleaves a rippling track.
And up the mounting wave we glide,
With climbing sweeping blow;
And down the steep, far-sloping side,
To flowing vales below.
I hear the murmur of the deep
In countless ripples pass,
Like talking children in their sleep,
Like winds in reedy grass.
And through some ruffled feathers, I
The glassy rolling mark,
With which the waves eternally
Roll on from dawn to dark.
The night is blue, the stars aglow;
In solemn peace o'erhead
The archless depth of heaven; below,
The murmuring, heaving bed.
A thickened night, it heaveth on,
A fallen earthly sky;
The shadows of its stars alone
Are left to know it by.
What faints across the lifted loop
Of cloud-veil upward cast?
With sea-veiled limbs, a sleeping group
Of Nereids dreaming past.
Swim on, my boat; who knows but I,
Ere night sinks to her grave,
May see in splendour pale float by
The Venus of the wave?
2.
In the night, round a lady dreaming--
A queen among the dreams--
Came the silent sunset streaming,
Mixed with the voice of streams.
A silver fountain springing
Blossoms in molten gold;
And the airs of the birds float ringing
Through harmonies manifold.
She lies in a watered valley;
Her garden melts away
Through foot-path and curving alley
Into the wild wood grey.
And the green of the vale goes creeping
To the feet of the rugged hills,
Where the moveless rocks are keeping
The homes of the wandering rills.
And the hues of the flowers grow deeper,
Till they dye her very brain;
And their scents, like the soul of a sleeper,
Wander and waver and rain.
For dreams have a wealth of glory
That daylight cannot give:
Ah God! make the hope a story--
Bid the dreams arise and live.
She lay and gazed at the flowers,
Till her soul's own garden smiled
With blossom-o'ershaded bowers,
Great colours and splendours wild.
And her heart filled up with gladness,
Till it could only ache;
And it turned aside to sadness,
As if for pity's sake.
And a fog came o'er the meadows,
And the rich hues fainting lay;
Came from the woods the shadows,
Came from the rocks the grey.
And the sunset thither had vanished,
Where the sunsets always go;
And the sounds of the stream were banished,
As if slain by frost and snow.
And the flowers paled fast and faster,
And they crumbled fold on fold,
Till they looked like the stained plaster
Of a cornice in ruin old.
And they blackened and shrunk together,
As if scorched by the breath of flame,
With a sad perplexity whether
They were or were not the same.
And she saw herself still lying,
And smiling on, the while;
And the smile, instead of dying,
Was fixed in an idiot smile.
And the lady arose in sorrow
Out of her sleep's dark stream;
But her dream made dark the morrow,
And she told me the haunting dream.
Alas! dear lady, I know it,
The dream that all is a dream;
The joy with the doubt below it
That the bright things only seem.
One moment of sad commotion,
And one of doubt's withering rule--
And the great wave-pulsing ocean
Is only a gathered pool.
And the flowers are spots of painting,
Of lifeless staring hue;
Though your heart is sick to fainting,
They say not a word to you.
And the birds know nought of gladness,
They are only song-machines;
And a man is a skilful madness,
And the women pictured queens.
And fiercely we dig the fountain,
To know the water true;
And we climb the crest of the mountain,
To part it from the blue.
But we look too far before us
For that which is more than nigh;
Though the sky is lofty o'er us,
We are always in the sky.
And the fog, o'er the roses that creepeth,
Steams from the unknown sea,
In the dark of the soul that sleepeth,
And sigheth constantly,
Because o'er the face of its waters
The breathing hath not gone;
And instead of glad sons and daughters,
Wild things are moaning on.
When the heart knows well the Father,
The eyes will be always day;
But now they grow dim the rather
That the light is more than they.
Believe, amidst thy sorrows,
That the blight that swathes the earth
Is only a shade that borrows
Life from thy spirit's dearth.
God's heart is the fount of beauty;
Thy heart is its visible well;
If it vanish, do thou thy duty,
That necromantic spell;
And thy heart to the Father crying
Will fill with waters deep;
Thine eyes may say, Beauty is dying;
But thy spirit, She goes to sleep.
And I fear not, thy fair soul ever
Will smile as thy image smiled;
It had fled with a sudden shiver,
And thy body lay beguiled.
Let the flowers and thy beauty perish;
Let them go to the ancient dust.
But the hopes that the children cherish,
They are the Father's trust.
3.
A great church in an empty square,
A place of echoing tones;
Feet pass not oft enough to wear
The grass between the stones.
The jarring sounds that haunt its gates,
Like distant thunders boom;
The boding heart half-listening waits,
As for a coming doom.
The door stands wide, the church is bare,
Oh, horror, ghastly, sore!
A gulf of death, with hideous stare,
Yawns in the earthen floor;
As if the ground had sunk away
Into a void below:
Its shapeless sides of dark-hued clay
Hang ready aye to go.
I am myself a horrid grave,
My very heart turns grey;
This charnel-hole,--will no one save
And force my feet away?
The changing dead are there, I know,
In terror ever new;
Yet down the frightful slope I go,
That downward goeth too.
Beneath the caverned floor I hie,
And seem, with anguish dull,
To enter by the empty eye
Into a monstrous skull.
Stumbling on what I dare not guess,
And wading through the gloom,
Less deep the shades my eyes oppress,
I see the awful tomb.
My steps have led me to a door,
With iron clenched and barred;
Grim Death hides there a ghastlier store,
Great spider in his ward.
The portals shake, the bars are bowed,
As if an earthy wind
That never bore a leaf or cloud
Were pressing hard behind.
They shake, they groan, they outward strain.
What sight, of dire dismay
Will freeze its form upon my brain,
And turn it into clay?
They shake, they groan, they bend, they crack;
The bars, the doors divide:
A flood of glory at their back
Hath burst the portals wide.
Flows in the light of vanished days,
The joy of long-set moons;
The flood of radiance billowy plays,
In sweet-conflicting tunes.
The gulf is filled with flashing tides,
An awful gulf no more;
A maze of ferns clothes all its sides,
Of mosses all its floor.
And, floating through the streams, appear
Such forms of beauty rare,
As every aim at beauty here
Had found its would be there.
I said: 'Tis well no hand came nigh,
To turn my steps astray;
'Tis good we cannot choose but die,
That life may have its way.
4.
Before I sleep, some dreams draw nigh,
Which are not fancy mere;
For sudden lights an inward eye,
And wondrous things appear.
Thus, unawares, with vision wide,
A steep hill once I saw,
In faint dream lights, which ever hide
Their fountain and their law.
And up and down the hill reclined
A host of statues old;
Such wondrous forms as you might find
Deep under ancient mould.
They lay, wild scattered, all along,
And maimed as if in fight;
But every one of all the throng
Was precious to the sight.
Betwixt the night and hill they ranged,
In dead composure cast.
As suddenly the dream was changed,
And all the wonder past.
The hill remained; but what it bore
Was broken reedy stalks,
Bent hither, thither, drooping o'er,
Like flowers o'er weedy walks.
For each dim form of marble rare,
Bent a wind-broken reed;
So hangs on autumn-field, long-bare,
Some tall and straggling weed.
The autumn night hung like a pall,
Hung mournfully and dead;
And if a wind had waked at all,
It had but moaned and fled.
5.
I lay and dreamed. Of thought and sleep
Was born a heavenly joy:
I dreamed of two who always keep
Me happy as a boy.
I was with them. My heart-bells rung
With joy my heart above;
Their present heaven my earth o'erhung,
And earth was glad with love.
The dream grew troubled. Crowds went on,
And sought their varied ends;
Till stream on stream, the crowds had gone,
And swept away my friends.
I was alone. A miry road
I followed, all in vain;
No well-known hill the landscape showed,
It was a wretched plain;
Where mounds of rubbish, ugly pits,
And brick-fields scarred the globe;
Those wastes where desolation sits
Without her ancient robe.
A drizzling rain proclaimed the skies
As wretched as the earth;
I wandered on, and weary sighs
Were all my lot was worth.
When sudden, as I turned my way,
Burst in the ocean-waves:
And lo! a blue wild-dancing bay
Fantastic rocks and caves!
I wept with joy. Ah! sometimes so,
In common daylight grief,
A beauty to the heart will go,
And bring the heart relief.
And, wandering, reft of hope or friend,
If such a thing should be,
One day we take the downward bend,
And lo, Eternity!
I wept with joy, delicious tears,
Which dreams alone bestow;
Until, mayhap, from out the years
We sleep, and further go.
6.
Now I will mould a dream, awake,
Which I, asleep, would dream;
From all the forms of fancy take
One that shall also seem;
Seem in my verse (if not my brain),
Which sometimes may rejoice
In airy forms of Fancy's train,
Though nobler are my choice.
Some truth o'er all the land may lie
In children's dreams at night;
They do not build the charmed sky
That domes them with delight.
And o'er the years that follow soon,
So all unlike the dreams,
Wander their odours, gleams their moon,
And flow their winds and streams.
Now I would dream that I awake
In scent of cool night air,
Above me star-clouds close and break;
Beneath--where am I, where?
A strange delight pervades my breast,
Of ancient pictures dim,
Where fair forms on the waters rest,
Or in the breezes swim.
I rest on arms as soft as strong,
Great arms of woman-mould;
My head is pillowed whence a song,
In many a rippling fold,
O'erfloods me from its bubbling spring:
A Titan goddess bears
Me, floating on her unseen wing,
Through gracious midnight airs.
And I am borne o'er sleeping seas,
O'er murmuring ears of corn,
Over the billowy tops of trees,
O'er roses pale till morn.
Over the lake--ah! nearer float,
Down on the water's breast;
Let me look deep, and gazing doat
On that white lily's nest.
The harebell's bed, as o'er we pass,
Swings all its bells about;
From waving blades of polished grass,
Flash moony splendours out.
Old homes we brush in wooded glades;
No eyes at windows shine;
For all true men and noble maids
Are out in dreams like mine.
And foam-bell-kisses drift and break
From wind-waves of the South
Against my brow and eyes awake,
And yet I see no mouth.
Light laughter ripples down the air,
Light sighs float up below;
And o'er me ever, radiant pair,
The Queen's great star-eyes go.
And motion like a dreaming wave
Wafts me in gladness dim
Through air just cool enough to lave
With sense each conscious limb.
But ah! the dream eludes the rhyme,
As dreams break free from sleep;
The dream will keep its own free time,
In mazy float or sweep.
And thought too keen for joy awakes,
As on the horizon far,
A dead pale light the circle breaks,
But not a dawning star.
No, there I cannot, dare not go;
Pale women wander there;
With cold fire murderous eyeballs glow;
And children see despair.
The joy has lost its dreamy zest;
I feel a pang of loss;
My wandering hand o'er mounds of rest
Finds only mounds of moss.
Beneath the bare night-stars I lie;
Cold winds are moaning past:
Alas! the earth with grief will die,
The great earth is aghast.
I look above--there dawns no face;
Around--no footsteps come;
No voice inhabits this great space;
God knows, but keepeth dumb.
I wake, and know that God is by,
And more than dreams will give;
And that the hearts that moan and die,
Shall yet awake and live.
|
free_verse
|
Walter De La Mare
|
The Shade
|
Darker than night; and oh, much darker, she,
Whose eyes in deep night darkness gaze on me.
No stars surround her; yet the moon seems hid
Afar somewhere, beneath that narrow lid.
She darkens against the darkness; and her face
Only by adding thought to thought I trace,
Limned shadowily: O dream, return once more
To gloomy Hades and the whispering shore!
|
Darker than night; and oh, much darker, she,
Whose eyes in deep night darkness gaze on me.
|
No stars surround her; yet the moon seems hid
Afar somewhere, beneath that narrow lid.
She darkens against the darkness; and her face
Only by adding thought to thought I trace,
Limned shadowily: O dream, return once more
To gloomy Hades and the whispering shore!
|
octave
|
Margaret Steele Anderson
|
Song. The Fallen Leaves.
|
The bride, she wears a white, white rose, the plucking, it was mine;
The poet wears a laurel wreath, and I the laurel twine;
And oh, the child, your little child, that's clinging close to you,
It laughs to wear my violets, they are so sweet and blue!
And I, I have a wreath to wear, ah, never rue nor thorn!
I sometimes think that bitter wreath could be more sweetly worn!
For mine is made of ghostly bloom, of what I can't forget
The fallen leaves of other crowns, rose, laurel, violet!
|
The bride, she wears a white, white rose, the plucking, it was mine;
The poet wears a laurel wreath, and I the laurel twine;
|
And oh, the child, your little child, that's clinging close to you,
It laughs to wear my violets, they are so sweet and blue!
And I, I have a wreath to wear, ah, never rue nor thorn!
I sometimes think that bitter wreath could be more sweetly worn!
For mine is made of ghostly bloom, of what I can't forget
The fallen leaves of other crowns, rose, laurel, violet!
|
octave
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXXIV. Jingles.
|
Hey, dorolot, dorolot!
Hey, dorolay, dorolay!
Hey, my bonny boat, bonny boat,
Hey, drag away, drag away!
|
Hey, dorolot, dorolot!
|
Hey, dorolay, dorolay!
Hey, my bonny boat, bonny boat,
Hey, drag away, drag away!
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
His Answer To A Friend.
|
You ask me what I do, and how I live?
And, noble friend, this answer I must give:
Drooping, I draw on to the vaults of death,
O'er which you'll walk, when I am laid beneath.
|
You ask me what I do, and how I live?
|
And, noble friend, this answer I must give:
Drooping, I draw on to the vaults of death,
O'er which you'll walk, when I am laid beneath.
|
quatrain
|
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
By The River.
|
Flow on, ye lays so loved, so fair,
On to Oblivion's ocean flow!
May no rapt boy recall you e'er,
No maiden in her beauty's glow!
My love alone was then your theme,
But now she scorns my passion true.
Ye were but written in the stream;
As it flows on, then, flow ye too!
|
Flow on, ye lays so loved, so fair,
On to Oblivion's ocean flow!
|
May no rapt boy recall you e'er,
No maiden in her beauty's glow!
My love alone was then your theme,
But now she scorns my passion true.
Ye were but written in the stream;
As it flows on, then, flow ye too!
|
octave
|
Oliver Wendell Holmes
|
Hymn For The Same Occasion (The Two Hundredth Anniversary King's Chapel)
|
Sung By The Congregation To The Tune Of Tallis's Evening Hymn
O'ershadowed by the walls that climb,
Piled up in air by living hands,
A rock amid the waves of time,
Our gray old house of worship stands.
High o'er the pillared aisles we love
The symbols of the past look down;
Unharmed, unharming, throned above,
Behold the mitre and the crown!
Let not our younger faith forget
The loyal souls that held them dear;
The prayers we read their tears have wet,
The hymns we sing they loved to hear.
The memory of their earthly throne
Still to our holy temple clings,
But here the kneeling suppliants own
One only Lord, the King of kings.
Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise
The solemn echoing vaults prolong,
The far-off voice of earlier days
Blends with our own in hallowed song:
To Him who ever lives and reigns,
Whom all the hosts of heaven adore,
Who lent the life His breath sustains,
Be glory now and evermore!
|
Sung By The Congregation To The Tune Of Tallis's Evening Hymn
O'ershadowed by the walls that climb,
Piled up in air by living hands,
A rock amid the waves of time,
Our gray old house of worship stands.
High o'er the pillared aisles we love
The symbols of the past look down;
Unharmed, unharming, throned above,
|
Behold the mitre and the crown!
Let not our younger faith forget
The loyal souls that held them dear;
The prayers we read their tears have wet,
The hymns we sing they loved to hear.
The memory of their earthly throne
Still to our holy temple clings,
But here the kneeling suppliants own
One only Lord, the King of kings.
Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise
The solemn echoing vaults prolong,
The far-off voice of earlier days
Blends with our own in hallowed song:
To Him who ever lives and reigns,
Whom all the hosts of heaven adore,
Who lent the life His breath sustains,
Be glory now and evermore!
|
free_verse
|
Alfred Edward Housman
|
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXIX - The Lent Lily
|
'Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there's the windflower chilly
With all the winds at play,
And there's the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.
And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still,
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil,
Bring baskets now, and sally
Upon the spring's array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.
|
'Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there's the windflower chilly
|
With all the winds at play,
And there's the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.
And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still,
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil,
Bring baskets now, and sally
Upon the spring's array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.
|
free_verse
|
William Henry Davies
|
Christmas
|
Christmas has come, let's eat and drink,
This is no time to sit and think;
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
Let all men now get rid of care,
And what one has let others share;
Then 'tis the same, no matter which
Of us is poor, or which is rich.
Let each man have enough this day,
Since those that can are glad to pay;
There's nothing now too rich or good
For poor men, not the King's own food.
Now like a singing bird my feet
Touch earth, and I must drink and eat.
Welcome to all men: I'll not care
What any of my fellows wear;
We'll not let cloth divide our souls,
They'll swim stark naked in the bowls.
Welcome, poor beggar: I'll not see
That hand of yours dislodge a flea,,
While you sit at my side and beg,
Or right foot scratching your left leg.
Farewell restraint: we will not now
Measure the ale our brains allow,
But drink as much as we can hold.
We'll count no change when we spend gold;
This is no time to save, but spend,
To give for nothing, not to lend.
Let foes make friends: let them forget
The mischief-making dead that fret
The living with complaint like this,
"He wronged us once, hate him and his."
Christmas has come; let every man
Eat, drink, be merry all he can.
Ale's my best mark, but if port wine
Or whisky's yours, let it be mine;
No matter what lies in the bowls,
We'll make it rich with our own souls.
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
|
Christmas has come, let's eat and drink,
This is no time to sit and think;
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
Let all men now get rid of care,
And what one has let others share;
Then 'tis the same, no matter which
Of us is poor, or which is rich.
Let each man have enough this day,
Since those that can are glad to pay;
There's nothing now too rich or good
For poor men, not the King's own food.
Now like a singing bird my feet
|
Touch earth, and I must drink and eat.
Welcome to all men: I'll not care
What any of my fellows wear;
We'll not let cloth divide our souls,
They'll swim stark naked in the bowls.
Welcome, poor beggar: I'll not see
That hand of yours dislodge a flea,,
While you sit at my side and beg,
Or right foot scratching your left leg.
Farewell restraint: we will not now
Measure the ale our brains allow,
But drink as much as we can hold.
We'll count no change when we spend gold;
This is no time to save, but spend,
To give for nothing, not to lend.
Let foes make friends: let them forget
The mischief-making dead that fret
The living with complaint like this,
"He wronged us once, hate him and his."
Christmas has come; let every man
Eat, drink, be merry all he can.
Ale's my best mark, but if port wine
Or whisky's yours, let it be mine;
No matter what lies in the bowls,
We'll make it rich with our own souls.
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
|
free_verse
|
Oliver Herford
|
Gilbert K. Chesterton
|
Unless I'm very much misled,
Chesterton's easier done than said.
I have not seen him, but his looks
I can imagine from his books.
|
Unless I'm very much misled,
|
Chesterton's easier done than said.
I have not seen him, but his looks
I can imagine from his books.
|
quatrain
|
Jonathan Swift
|
On The Church's Danger
|
Good Halifax and pious Wharton cry,
The Church has vapours; there's no danger nigh.
In those we love not, we no danger see,
And were they hang'd, there would no danger be.
But we must silent be, amidst our fears,
And not believe our senses, but the Peers.
So ravishers, that know no sense of shame,
First stop her mouth, and then debauch the dame.
|
Good Halifax and pious Wharton cry,
The Church has vapours; there's no danger nigh.
|
In those we love not, we no danger see,
And were they hang'd, there would no danger be.
But we must silent be, amidst our fears,
And not believe our senses, but the Peers.
So ravishers, that know no sense of shame,
First stop her mouth, and then debauch the dame.
|
octave
|
Arthur Hugh Clough
|
Amours De Voyage.
|
Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,
And taste with a distempered appetite!
SHAKSPEARE.
I1 doutait de tout, m'me de l'arnour.
FRENCH NOVEL.
Solvitur ambulando.
SOLUTIO SOPHISMATUM.
Flevit amores
Non elaboratum ad pedem.
HORACE.
CANTO I.
Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summit,
Unto, the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,
Come, let us go, to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,
Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.
Come, let us go; though withal a voice whisper, 'The world that we live in,
Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;
'Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;
Let who would 'scape and be free go to his chamber and think;
'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;
'Tis but to go and have been.' Come, little bark! let us go.
I. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer,
Or at the least to put us again en rapport with each other.
Rome disappoints me much, St. Peter's, perhaps, in especial;
Only the Arch of Titus and view from the Lateran please me:
This, however, perhaps is the weather, which truly is horrid.
Greece must be better, surely; and yet I am feeling so spiteful,
That I could travel to Athens, to Delphi, and Troy, and Mount Sinai,
Though but to see with my eyes that these are vanity also.
Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but
Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it.
All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings,
All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages,
Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future.
Would to Heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it!
Would to Heaven some new ones would come and destroy these churches!
However, one can live in Rome as also in London.
It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of
All one's friends and relations, yourself (forgive me!) included,
All the assujettissement of having been what one has been,
What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one;
Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English.
Vernon has been my fate; who is here the same that you knew him,
Making the tour, it seems, with friends of the name of Trevellyn.
II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it.
Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression
Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me
Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork.
Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo,
Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots.
Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed,
Things that nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in?
What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars.
Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture!
No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum.
Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement,
This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea?
Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant:
'Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!' their Emperor vaunted;
'Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!' the Tourist may answer.
III. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA .
At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you.
Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes,
Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan:
Here we all are at Rome, and delighted of course with St. Peter's,
And very pleasantly lodged in the famous Piazza di Spagna.
Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it;
Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples;
There are the A.'s, we hear, and most of the W. party.
George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios?
Dear, I must really stop, for the carriage, they tell me, is waiting;
Mary will finish; and Susan is writing, they say, to Sophia.
Adieu, dearest Louise, evermore your faithful Georgina.
Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with?
Very stupid, I think, but George says so very clever.
IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it,
With its humiliations and exaltations combining,
Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements,
Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and
In our poor selves to something most perfect above in the heavens,
No, the Christian faith, as I, at least, understood it,
Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches;
Is not here, but in Freiburg, or Rheims, or Westminster Abbey.
What in thy Dome I find, in all thy recenter efforts,
Is a something, I think, more rational far, more earthly,
Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal,
But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance.
This I begin to detect in St. Peter's and some of the churches,
Mostly in all that I see of the sixteenth-century masters;
Overlaid of course with infinite gauds and gewgaws,
Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of childhood,
Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing needful,
By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard.
Curious work, meantime, re-entering society: how we
Walk a livelong day, great Heaven, and watch our shadows!
What our shadows seem, forsooth, we will ourselves be.
Do I look like that? you think me that: then I am that.
V. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Luther, they say, was unwise; like a half-taught German, he could not
See that old follies were passing most tranquilly out of remembrance;
Leo the Tenth was employing all efforts to clear out abuses;
Jupiter, Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets,
Scholars, and Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the
Martyrs, and Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas
He must forsooth make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and
Bring back Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe
Lo you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the
Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty;
Are they abating at last? the doves that are sent to explore are
Wearily fain to return, at the best with a leaflet of promise,
Fain to return, as they went, to the wandering wave-tost vessel,
Fain to re-enter the roof which covers the clean and the unclean,
Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn't see how things were going;
Luther was foolish, but, O great God! what call you Ignatius?
O my tolerant soul, be still I but you talk of barbarians,
Alaric, Attila, Genseric; why, they came, they killed, they
Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards,
These are here still, how long, O ye heavens, in the country of Dante?
These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can forget them, release not
This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you see them,
Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu,
Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,
Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,
Here, overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing,
Michael Angelo's dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,
Raphael's Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!
VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry
Is not a thing to be known; for our friend is one of those natures
Which have their perfect delight in the general tender-domestic;
So that he trifles with Mary's shawl, ties Susan's bonnet,
Dances with all, but at home is most, they say, with Georgina,
Who is, however, too silly in my apprehension for Vernon.
I, as before when I wrote, continue to see them a little;
Not that I like them much or care a bajocco for Vernon,
But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance,
And I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses.
Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly
Pure of the taint of the shop; will at table d'h'te and restaurant
Have their shilling's worth, their penny's pennyworth even:
Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God' knoweth!
Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know, well connected;
Doubtless somewhere in some neighbourhood have, and are careful to keep, some
Threadbare-genteel relations, who in their turn are enchanted
Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies
To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes.
Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God knoweth!
VII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people!
Ah, what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions!
Is it not laudable really, this reverent worship of station?
Is it not fitting that wealth should tender this homage to culture?
Is it not touching to witness these efforts, if little availing,
Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners?
Shall not devotion atone for the absence of knowledge? and fervour
Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance?
Dear, dear, what do I say? but, alas! just now, like Iago,
I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;
So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exultation,
Here in the garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker
That the works of His hand are all very good: His creatures,
Beast of the field and fowl, He brings them before me; I name them;
That which I name them, they are, the bird, the beast, and the cattle.
But for Adam, alas, poor critical coxcomb Adam!
But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.
VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,
Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so!
Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns,
Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them;
Or, on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast
Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches,
Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins, and children,
But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship;
And I recite to myself, how
Eager for battle here
Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno,
And with the bow to his shoulder faithful
He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly
His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia
The oak forest and the wood that bore him,
Delos' and Patara's own Apollo.1
IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company; pleasant,
Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence.
Pleasant, but wrong, will you say? But this happy, serene coexistence
Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple.
Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness,
Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming,
All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric.
Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those
Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you,
This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation
Could from the dream of Romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence,
Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions.
Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover,
Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers
Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings;
And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine,
No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic,
Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.
X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo
Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement,
Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces,
Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,
O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas.
Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you,
Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex
Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?
And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,
Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,
Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus,
Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims,
Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian Pontiff,
Are ye also baptized; are ye of the kingdom of Heaven?
Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern?
Am I to turn me from this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus?
XI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
These are the facts. The uncle, the elder brother, the squire (a
Little embarrassed, I fancy), resides in the family place in
Cornwall, of course; 'Papa is in business,' Mary informs me;
He's a good sensible man, whatever his trade is. The mother
Is shall I call it fine? herself she would tell you refined, and
Greatly, I fear me, looks down on my bookish and maladroit manners;
Somewhat affecteth the blue; would talk to me often of poets;
Quotes, which I hate, Childe Harold; but also appreciates Wordsworth;
Sometimes adventures on Schiller; and then to religion diverges;
Questions me much about Oxford; and yet, in her loftiest flights still
Grates the fastidious ear with the slightly mercantile accent.
Is it contemptible, Eustace I'm perfectly ready to think so,
Is it, the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people?
I am ashamed my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful,
That for the first time in life I am living and moving with freedom.
I, who never could talk to the people I meet with my uncle,
I, who have always failed, I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns;
I, believe me, great conquest, am liked by the country bankers.
And I am glad to be liked, and like in return very kindly.
So it proceeds; Laissez faire, laissez aller, such is the watch-word.
Well, I know there are thousands as pretty and hundreds as pleasant,
Girls by the dozen as good, and girls in abundance with polish
Higher and manners more perfect than Susan or Mary Trevellyn.
Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition,
Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition?
XII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
But I am in for it now, laissez faire, of a truth, laissez aller.
Yes, I am going, I feel it, I feel and cannot recall it,
Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts of relations,
Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are, I know one thing,
Will, and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken,
Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul, and relentings,
Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish renewals.
But I have made the step, have quitted the ship of Ulysses;
Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical island;
Yet on my lips is the moly, medicinal, offered of Hermes.
I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes around me,
Path into path rounding slyly; I pace slowly on, and the fancy,
Struggling awhile to sustain the long sequences weary, bewildered,
Fain must collapse in despair; I yield, I am lost, and know nothing;
Yet in my bosom unbroken remaineth the clue; I shall use it.
Lo, with the rope on my loins I descend through the fissure; I sink, yet
Inly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above me;
Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or
Floor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know I
Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,
Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though the
Rope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re-
Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths, ere the end I
Yet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I quit, shall
Feel underneath me again the great massy strengths of abstraction,
Look yet abroad from the height o'er the sea whose salt wave I have tasted.
XIII. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA .
Dearest Louisa, Inquire, if you please, about Mr. Claude .
He has been once at R., and remembers meeting the H.'s.
Harriet L., perhaps, may be able to tell you about him.
It is an awkward youth, but still with very good manners;
Not without prospects, we hear; and, George says, highly connected.
Georgy declares it absurd, but Mamma is alarmed, and insists he has
Taken up strange opinions, and may be turning a Papist.
Certainly once he spoke of a daily service he went to.
'Where?' we asked, and he laughed and answered, 'At the Pantheon.'
This was a temple, you know, and now is a Catholic church; and
Though it is said that Mazzini has sold it for Protestant service,
Yet I suppose this change can hardly as yet be effected.
Adieu again, evermore, my dearest, your loving Georgina.
P. S. BY MARY TREVELLYN.
I am to tell you, you say, what I think of our last new acquaintance.
Well, then, I think that George has a very fair right to be jealous.
I do not like him much, though I do not dislike being with him.
He is what people call, I suppose, a superior man, and
Certainly seems so to me; but I think he is terribly selfish.
Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,
Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus's Arch,
Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,
Towering o'er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,
Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,
Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.
Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o'ermaster,
Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.
Is it religion? I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?
Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?
Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?
Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?
So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,
Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere.
|
Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,
And taste with a distempered appetite!
SHAKSPEARE.
I1 doutait de tout, m'me de l'arnour.
FRENCH NOVEL.
Solvitur ambulando.
SOLUTIO SOPHISMATUM.
Flevit amores
Non elaboratum ad pedem.
HORACE.
CANTO I.
Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summit,
Unto, the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,
Come, let us go, to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,
Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.
Come, let us go; though withal a voice whisper, 'The world that we live in,
Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;
'Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;
Let who would 'scape and be free go to his chamber and think;
'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;
'Tis but to go and have been.' Come, little bark! let us go.
I. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer,
Or at the least to put us again en rapport with each other.
Rome disappoints me much, St. Peter's, perhaps, in especial;
Only the Arch of Titus and view from the Lateran please me:
This, however, perhaps is the weather, which truly is horrid.
Greece must be better, surely; and yet I am feeling so spiteful,
That I could travel to Athens, to Delphi, and Troy, and Mount Sinai,
Though but to see with my eyes that these are vanity also.
Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but
Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it.
All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings,
All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages,
Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future.
Would to Heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it!
Would to Heaven some new ones would come and destroy these churches!
However, one can live in Rome as also in London.
It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of
All one's friends and relations, yourself (forgive me!) included,
All the assujettissement of having been what one has been,
What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one;
Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English.
Vernon has been my fate; who is here the same that you knew him,
Making the tour, it seems, with friends of the name of Trevellyn.
II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it.
Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression
Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me
Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork.
Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo,
Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots.
Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed,
Things that nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in?
What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars.
Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture!
No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum.
Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement,
This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea?
Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant:
'Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!' their Emperor vaunted;
'Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!' the Tourist may answer.
III. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA .
At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you.
Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes,
Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan:
Here we all are at Rome, and delighted of course with St. Peter's,
And very pleasantly lodged in the famous Piazza di Spagna.
Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it;
Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples;
There are the A.'s, we hear, and most of the W. party.
George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios?
Dear, I must really stop, for the carriage, they tell me, is waiting;
Mary will finish; and Susan is writing, they say, to Sophia.
Adieu, dearest Louise, evermore your faithful Georgina.
Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with?
Very stupid, I think, but George says so very clever.
IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it,
With its humiliations and exaltations combining,
Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements,
Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and
In our poor selves to something most perfect above in the heavens,
No, the Christian faith, as I, at least, understood it,
Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches;
Is not here, but in Freiburg, or Rheims, or Westminster Abbey.
What in thy Dome I find, in all thy recenter efforts,
Is a something, I think, more rational far, more earthly,
Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal,
But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance.
This I begin to detect in St. Peter's and some of the churches,
Mostly in all that I see of the sixteenth-century masters;
Overlaid of course with infinite gauds and gewgaws,
Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of childhood,
Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing needful,
By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard.
Curious work, meantime, re-entering society: how we
Walk a livelong day, great Heaven, and watch our shadows!
What our shadows seem, forsooth, we will ourselves be.
Do I look like that? you think me that: then I am that.
V. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Luther, they say, was unwise; like a half-taught German, he could not
|
See that old follies were passing most tranquilly out of remembrance;
Leo the Tenth was employing all efforts to clear out abuses;
Jupiter, Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets,
Scholars, and Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the
Martyrs, and Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas
He must forsooth make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and
Bring back Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe
Lo you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the
Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty;
Are they abating at last? the doves that are sent to explore are
Wearily fain to return, at the best with a leaflet of promise,
Fain to return, as they went, to the wandering wave-tost vessel,
Fain to re-enter the roof which covers the clean and the unclean,
Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn't see how things were going;
Luther was foolish, but, O great God! what call you Ignatius?
O my tolerant soul, be still I but you talk of barbarians,
Alaric, Attila, Genseric; why, they came, they killed, they
Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards,
These are here still, how long, O ye heavens, in the country of Dante?
These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can forget them, release not
This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you see them,
Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu,
Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,
Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,
Here, overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing,
Michael Angelo's dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,
Raphael's Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!
VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry
Is not a thing to be known; for our friend is one of those natures
Which have their perfect delight in the general tender-domestic;
So that he trifles with Mary's shawl, ties Susan's bonnet,
Dances with all, but at home is most, they say, with Georgina,
Who is, however, too silly in my apprehension for Vernon.
I, as before when I wrote, continue to see them a little;
Not that I like them much or care a bajocco for Vernon,
But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance,
And I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses.
Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly
Pure of the taint of the shop; will at table d'h'te and restaurant
Have their shilling's worth, their penny's pennyworth even:
Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God' knoweth!
Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know, well connected;
Doubtless somewhere in some neighbourhood have, and are careful to keep, some
Threadbare-genteel relations, who in their turn are enchanted
Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies
To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes.
Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God knoweth!
VII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people!
Ah, what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions!
Is it not laudable really, this reverent worship of station?
Is it not fitting that wealth should tender this homage to culture?
Is it not touching to witness these efforts, if little availing,
Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners?
Shall not devotion atone for the absence of knowledge? and fervour
Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance?
Dear, dear, what do I say? but, alas! just now, like Iago,
I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;
So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exultation,
Here in the garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker
That the works of His hand are all very good: His creatures,
Beast of the field and fowl, He brings them before me; I name them;
That which I name them, they are, the bird, the beast, and the cattle.
But for Adam, alas, poor critical coxcomb Adam!
But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.
VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,
Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so!
Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns,
Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them;
Or, on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast
Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches,
Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins, and children,
But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship;
And I recite to myself, how
Eager for battle here
Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno,
And with the bow to his shoulder faithful
He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly
His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia
The oak forest and the wood that bore him,
Delos' and Patara's own Apollo.1
IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company; pleasant,
Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence.
Pleasant, but wrong, will you say? But this happy, serene coexistence
Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple.
Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness,
Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming,
All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric.
Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those
Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you,
This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation
Could from the dream of Romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence,
Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions.
Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover,
Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers
Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings;
And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine,
No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic,
Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.
X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo
Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement,
Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces,
Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,
O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas.
Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you,
Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex
Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?
And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,
Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,
Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus,
Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims,
Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian Pontiff,
Are ye also baptized; are ye of the kingdom of Heaven?
Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern?
Am I to turn me from this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus?
XI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
These are the facts. The uncle, the elder brother, the squire (a
Little embarrassed, I fancy), resides in the family place in
Cornwall, of course; 'Papa is in business,' Mary informs me;
He's a good sensible man, whatever his trade is. The mother
Is shall I call it fine? herself she would tell you refined, and
Greatly, I fear me, looks down on my bookish and maladroit manners;
Somewhat affecteth the blue; would talk to me often of poets;
Quotes, which I hate, Childe Harold; but also appreciates Wordsworth;
Sometimes adventures on Schiller; and then to religion diverges;
Questions me much about Oxford; and yet, in her loftiest flights still
Grates the fastidious ear with the slightly mercantile accent.
Is it contemptible, Eustace I'm perfectly ready to think so,
Is it, the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people?
I am ashamed my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful,
That for the first time in life I am living and moving with freedom.
I, who never could talk to the people I meet with my uncle,
I, who have always failed, I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns;
I, believe me, great conquest, am liked by the country bankers.
And I am glad to be liked, and like in return very kindly.
So it proceeds; Laissez faire, laissez aller, such is the watch-word.
Well, I know there are thousands as pretty and hundreds as pleasant,
Girls by the dozen as good, and girls in abundance with polish
Higher and manners more perfect than Susan or Mary Trevellyn.
Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition,
Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition?
XII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
But I am in for it now, laissez faire, of a truth, laissez aller.
Yes, I am going, I feel it, I feel and cannot recall it,
Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts of relations,
Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are, I know one thing,
Will, and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken,
Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul, and relentings,
Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish renewals.
But I have made the step, have quitted the ship of Ulysses;
Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical island;
Yet on my lips is the moly, medicinal, offered of Hermes.
I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes around me,
Path into path rounding slyly; I pace slowly on, and the fancy,
Struggling awhile to sustain the long sequences weary, bewildered,
Fain must collapse in despair; I yield, I am lost, and know nothing;
Yet in my bosom unbroken remaineth the clue; I shall use it.
Lo, with the rope on my loins I descend through the fissure; I sink, yet
Inly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above me;
Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or
Floor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know I
Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,
Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though the
Rope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re-
Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths, ere the end I
Yet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I quit, shall
Feel underneath me again the great massy strengths of abstraction,
Look yet abroad from the height o'er the sea whose salt wave I have tasted.
XIII. GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA .
Dearest Louisa, Inquire, if you please, about Mr. Claude .
He has been once at R., and remembers meeting the H.'s.
Harriet L., perhaps, may be able to tell you about him.
It is an awkward youth, but still with very good manners;
Not without prospects, we hear; and, George says, highly connected.
Georgy declares it absurd, but Mamma is alarmed, and insists he has
Taken up strange opinions, and may be turning a Papist.
Certainly once he spoke of a daily service he went to.
'Where?' we asked, and he laughed and answered, 'At the Pantheon.'
This was a temple, you know, and now is a Catholic church; and
Though it is said that Mazzini has sold it for Protestant service,
Yet I suppose this change can hardly as yet be effected.
Adieu again, evermore, my dearest, your loving Georgina.
P. S. BY MARY TREVELLYN.
I am to tell you, you say, what I think of our last new acquaintance.
Well, then, I think that George has a very fair right to be jealous.
I do not like him much, though I do not dislike being with him.
He is what people call, I suppose, a superior man, and
Certainly seems so to me; but I think he is terribly selfish.
Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,
Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus's Arch,
Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,
Towering o'er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,
Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,
Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.
Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o'ermaster,
Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.
Is it religion? I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?
Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?
Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?
Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?
So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,
Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere.
|
free_verse
|
Marietta Holley
|
Lemoine.
|
In the unquiet night,
With all her beauty bright,
She walketh my silent chamber to and fro;
Not twice of the same mind,
Sometimes unkind - unkind,
And again no cooing dove hath a voice so sweet and low.
Such madness of mirth lies
In the haunting hazel eyes,
When the melody of her laugh charms the listening night;
Its glamour as of old
My charmed senses hold,
Forget I earth and heaven in the pleasures of sense and sight.
With sudden gay caprice
Quaint sonnets doth she seize,
Wedding them unto sweetness, falling from crimson lips;
Holding the broidered flowers
Of those enchanted hours,
When she wound my will with her silk round her white finger-tips.
Then doth she silent stand,
Lifting her slender hand,
On which gleams the ring I tore from his hand at Baywood;
The tiny opal hearts
Are broken in two parts,
And where the ruby burned there hangeth a drop of blood.
Then with my burning cheek,
Raising my head, I speak,
"Lemoine, Lemoine, my lost! Oh, speak to me once, I pray!"
But no word will she deign,
Adown the shining lane,
The long and lustrous lane of the moonlight she glides away.
I fancy oft a stir,
Of wings seem following her,
Trailing a terrible gloom along the oaken floor,
As she walks to and fro;
Louder the strange sounds grow
To a nameless, dreadful horror, that floods the chamber o'er.
And then I raise my head
From terror-haunted bed,
And hush my breath, and my very pulses hush and hark;
But as I glance around,
The stir, the murmuring sound,
Dies away in the moonlight, lying there stiff and stark.
* * * * *
And thus you ever flee,
Elude and baffle me,
My lady you will not always so lightly glide away;
Though on the swiftest breeze,
You sail o'er farthest seas,
Remember, side by side we two will stand one day.
Though my dust feed the wind,
Yours be with prayer consigned
To the keeping of churchyard seraphs and marble saints;
Lemoine, we two shall meet,
And not then at my feet
Will you fetter a late repentance with wiles and tearful plaints.
Repentance and strong,
That would have found a tongue,
And shrieked the truth to heaven with madd'ning din;
The truth of that dread hour,
That black accursed hour,
When to free you from hated fetters, I plunged my soul in sin.
Whatever wise man thinks,
Sin forges strongest links,
You can break them never, although for a time you may hide
Buried in flowers and wine;
This chain of thine and mine,
At the last dread day of doom will draw us side by side.
If one, then both are cursed,
And come the best, the worst,
Forever and ever your fate and mine are entwined;
And though it be mad - mad,
Heaven knows the thought is glad,
I do not breed my thoughts, how can I help my mind.
* * * * *
So silent doth she come,
Standing here pale and dumb,
With her finger laid on her lips in a warning way;
Her dark eyes looking back,
As if upon her track
And mine, some phantom shape of impending evil lay.
But when I strive to see,
Of what she's warning me,
Cruelly calm, no sign will she deign to love or fears;
Unheeding vow or prayer,
As noiseless as the air,
She glideth into the pallid moonlight and disappears.
|
In the unquiet night,
With all her beauty bright,
She walketh my silent chamber to and fro;
Not twice of the same mind,
Sometimes unkind - unkind,
And again no cooing dove hath a voice so sweet and low.
Such madness of mirth lies
In the haunting hazel eyes,
When the melody of her laugh charms the listening night;
Its glamour as of old
My charmed senses hold,
Forget I earth and heaven in the pleasures of sense and sight.
With sudden gay caprice
Quaint sonnets doth she seize,
Wedding them unto sweetness, falling from crimson lips;
Holding the broidered flowers
Of those enchanted hours,
When she wound my will with her silk round her white finger-tips.
Then doth she silent stand,
Lifting her slender hand,
On which gleams the ring I tore from his hand at Baywood;
The tiny opal hearts
Are broken in two parts,
And where the ruby burned there hangeth a drop of blood.
Then with my burning cheek,
Raising my head, I speak,
"Lemoine, Lemoine, my lost! Oh, speak to me once, I pray!"
But no word will she deign,
|
Adown the shining lane,
The long and lustrous lane of the moonlight she glides away.
I fancy oft a stir,
Of wings seem following her,
Trailing a terrible gloom along the oaken floor,
As she walks to and fro;
Louder the strange sounds grow
To a nameless, dreadful horror, that floods the chamber o'er.
And then I raise my head
From terror-haunted bed,
And hush my breath, and my very pulses hush and hark;
But as I glance around,
The stir, the murmuring sound,
Dies away in the moonlight, lying there stiff and stark.
* * * * *
And thus you ever flee,
Elude and baffle me,
My lady you will not always so lightly glide away;
Though on the swiftest breeze,
You sail o'er farthest seas,
Remember, side by side we two will stand one day.
Though my dust feed the wind,
Yours be with prayer consigned
To the keeping of churchyard seraphs and marble saints;
Lemoine, we two shall meet,
And not then at my feet
Will you fetter a late repentance with wiles and tearful plaints.
Repentance and strong,
That would have found a tongue,
And shrieked the truth to heaven with madd'ning din;
The truth of that dread hour,
That black accursed hour,
When to free you from hated fetters, I plunged my soul in sin.
Whatever wise man thinks,
Sin forges strongest links,
You can break them never, although for a time you may hide
Buried in flowers and wine;
This chain of thine and mine,
At the last dread day of doom will draw us side by side.
If one, then both are cursed,
And come the best, the worst,
Forever and ever your fate and mine are entwined;
And though it be mad - mad,
Heaven knows the thought is glad,
I do not breed my thoughts, how can I help my mind.
* * * * *
So silent doth she come,
Standing here pale and dumb,
With her finger laid on her lips in a warning way;
Her dark eyes looking back,
As if upon her track
And mine, some phantom shape of impending evil lay.
But when I strive to see,
Of what she's warning me,
Cruelly calm, no sign will she deign to love or fears;
Unheeding vow or prayer,
As noiseless as the air,
She glideth into the pallid moonlight and disappears.
|
free_verse
|
Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)
|
Zira: In Captivity
|
Love me a little, Lord, or let me go,
I am so weary walking to and fro
Through all your lonely halls that were so sweet
Did they but echo to your coming feet.
When by the flowered scrolls of lace-like stone
Our women's windows - I am left alone,
Across the yellow Desert, looking forth,
I see the purple hills towards the north.
Behind those jagged Mountains' lilac crest
Once lay the captive bird's small rifled nest.
There was my brother slain, my sister bound;
His blood, her tears, drunk by the thirsty ground.
Then, while the burning village smoked on high,
And desecrated all the peaceful sky,
They took us captive, us, born frank and free,
On fleet, strong camels through the sandy sea.
Yet, when we rested, night-times, on the sand
By the rare waters of this dreary land,
Our captors, ere the camp was wrapped in sleep,
Talked, and I listened, and forgot to weep.
"Is he not brave and fair?" they asked, "our King,
Slender as one tall palm-tree by a spring;
Erect, serene, with gravely brilliant eyes,
As deeply dark as are these desert skies.
"Truly no bitter fate," they said, and smiled,
"Awaits the beauty of this captured child!"
Then something in my heart began to sing,
And secretly I longed to see the King.
Sometimes the other maidens sat in tears,
Sometimes, consoled, they jested at their fears,
Musing what lovers Time to them would bring;
But I was silent, thinking of the King.
Till, when the weary endless sands were passed,
When, far to south, the city rose at last,
All speech forsook me and my eyelids fell,
Since I already loved my Lord so well.
Then the division: some were sent away
To merchants in the city; some, they say,
To summer palaces, beyond the walls.
But me they took straight to the Sultan's halls.
Every morning I would wake and say
"Ah, sisters, shall I see our Lord to-day?"
The women robed me, perfumed me, and smiled;
"When were his feet unfleet to pleasure, child?"
And tales they told me of his deeds in war,
Of how his name was reverenced afar;
And, crouching closer in the lamp's faint glow,
They told me of his beauty, speaking low.
What need, what need? the women wasted art;
I love you with every fibre of my heart
Already. My God! when did I not love you,
In life, in death, when shall I not love you?
You never seek me. All day long I lie
Watching the changes of the far-off sky
Behind the lattice-work of carven stone.
And all night long, alas! I lie alone.
But you come never. Ah, my Lord the King,
How can you find it well to do this thing?
Come once, come only: sometimes, as I lie,
I doubt if I shall see you first, or die.
Ah, could I hear your footsteps at the door
Hallow the lintel and caress the floor,
Then I might drink your beauty, satisfied,
Die of delight, ere you could reach my side.
Alas, you come not, Lord: life's flame burns low,
Faint for a loveliness it may not know,
Faint for your face, Oh, come - come soon to me -
Lest, though you should not, Death should, set me free!
|
Love me a little, Lord, or let me go,
I am so weary walking to and fro
Through all your lonely halls that were so sweet
Did they but echo to your coming feet.
When by the flowered scrolls of lace-like stone
Our women's windows - I am left alone,
Across the yellow Desert, looking forth,
I see the purple hills towards the north.
Behind those jagged Mountains' lilac crest
Once lay the captive bird's small rifled nest.
There was my brother slain, my sister bound;
His blood, her tears, drunk by the thirsty ground.
Then, while the burning village smoked on high,
And desecrated all the peaceful sky,
They took us captive, us, born frank and free,
On fleet, strong camels through the sandy sea.
Yet, when we rested, night-times, on the sand
By the rare waters of this dreary land,
Our captors, ere the camp was wrapped in sleep,
Talked, and I listened, and forgot to weep.
"Is he not brave and fair?" they asked, "our King,
Slender as one tall palm-tree by a spring;
|
Erect, serene, with gravely brilliant eyes,
As deeply dark as are these desert skies.
"Truly no bitter fate," they said, and smiled,
"Awaits the beauty of this captured child!"
Then something in my heart began to sing,
And secretly I longed to see the King.
Sometimes the other maidens sat in tears,
Sometimes, consoled, they jested at their fears,
Musing what lovers Time to them would bring;
But I was silent, thinking of the King.
Till, when the weary endless sands were passed,
When, far to south, the city rose at last,
All speech forsook me and my eyelids fell,
Since I already loved my Lord so well.
Then the division: some were sent away
To merchants in the city; some, they say,
To summer palaces, beyond the walls.
But me they took straight to the Sultan's halls.
Every morning I would wake and say
"Ah, sisters, shall I see our Lord to-day?"
The women robed me, perfumed me, and smiled;
"When were his feet unfleet to pleasure, child?"
And tales they told me of his deeds in war,
Of how his name was reverenced afar;
And, crouching closer in the lamp's faint glow,
They told me of his beauty, speaking low.
What need, what need? the women wasted art;
I love you with every fibre of my heart
Already. My God! when did I not love you,
In life, in death, when shall I not love you?
You never seek me. All day long I lie
Watching the changes of the far-off sky
Behind the lattice-work of carven stone.
And all night long, alas! I lie alone.
But you come never. Ah, my Lord the King,
How can you find it well to do this thing?
Come once, come only: sometimes, as I lie,
I doubt if I shall see you first, or die.
Ah, could I hear your footsteps at the door
Hallow the lintel and caress the floor,
Then I might drink your beauty, satisfied,
Die of delight, ere you could reach my side.
Alas, you come not, Lord: life's flame burns low,
Faint for a loveliness it may not know,
Faint for your face, Oh, come - come soon to me -
Lest, though you should not, Death should, set me free!
|
free_verse
|
Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa
|
Sonnet XX.
|
When in the widening circle of rebirth
To a new flesh my travelled soul shall come,
And try again the unremembered earth
With the old sadness for the immortal home,
Shall I revisit these same differing fields
And cull the old new flowers with the same sense,
That some small breath of foiled remembrance yields,
Of more age than my days in this pretence?
Shall I again regret strange faces lost
Of which the present memory is forgot
And but in unseen bulks of vagueness tossed
Out of the closed sea and black night of Thought?
Were thy face one, what sweetness will't not be,
Though by blind feeling, to remember thee!
|
When in the widening circle of rebirth
To a new flesh my travelled soul shall come,
And try again the unremembered earth
With the old sadness for the immortal home,
|
Shall I revisit these same differing fields
And cull the old new flowers with the same sense,
That some small breath of foiled remembrance yields,
Of more age than my days in this pretence?
Shall I again regret strange faces lost
Of which the present memory is forgot
And but in unseen bulks of vagueness tossed
Out of the closed sea and black night of Thought?
Were thy face one, what sweetness will't not be,
Though by blind feeling, to remember thee!
|
sonnet
|
Percy Bysshe Shelley
|
Fragment: Omens.
|
Hark! the owlet flaps his wings
In the pathless dell beneath;
Hark! 'tis the night-raven sings
Tidings of approaching death.
|
Hark! the owlet flaps his wings
|
In the pathless dell beneath;
Hark! 'tis the night-raven sings
Tidings of approaching death.
|
quatrain
|
Charles Baudelaire
|
Spleen I
|
Pluvi'se, irrit' contre la ville enti're,
De son urne ' grands flots verse un froid t'n'breux
Aux p'les habitants du voisin cimeti're
Et la mortalit' sur les faubourgs brumeux.
Mon chat sur le carreau cherchant une liti're
Agite sans repos son corps maigre et galeux;
L''me d'un vieux po'te erre dans la goutti're
Avec la triste voix d'un fant'me frileux.
Le bourdon se lamente, et la b'che enfum'e
Accompagne en fausset la pendule enrhum'e,
Cependant qu'en un jeu plein de sales parfums,
H'ritage fatal d'une vieille hydropique,
Le beau valet de c'ur et la dame de pique
Causent sinistrement de leurs amours d'funts.
|
Pluvi'se, irrit' contre la ville enti're,
De son urne ' grands flots verse un froid t'n'breux
Aux p'les habitants du voisin cimeti're
Et la mortalit' sur les faubourgs brumeux.
|
Mon chat sur le carreau cherchant une liti're
Agite sans repos son corps maigre et galeux;
L''me d'un vieux po'te erre dans la goutti're
Avec la triste voix d'un fant'me frileux.
Le bourdon se lamente, et la b'che enfum'e
Accompagne en fausset la pendule enrhum'e,
Cependant qu'en un jeu plein de sales parfums,
H'ritage fatal d'une vieille hydropique,
Le beau valet de c'ur et la dame de pique
Causent sinistrement de leurs amours d'funts.
|
sonnet
|
Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)
|
To ----
|
Oh, turn those eyes away from me!
Though sweet, yet fearful are their rays;
And though they beam so tenderly,
I feel, I tremble 'neath their gaze.
Oh, turn those eyes away! for though
To meet their glance I may not dare,
I know their light is on my brow,
By the warm blood that mantles there.
|
Oh, turn those eyes away from me!
Though sweet, yet fearful are their rays;
|
And though they beam so tenderly,
I feel, I tremble 'neath their gaze.
Oh, turn those eyes away! for though
To meet their glance I may not dare,
I know their light is on my brow,
By the warm blood that mantles there.
|
octave
|
James Lister Cuthbertson
|
Corona Inutilis
|
I twined a wreath of heather white
To bind my lady's hair,
And deemed her locks in even light
Would well the burden bear;
But when I saw the tresses brown,
And found the face so fair,
I tore the wreath, and left the crown
Of beauty only there.
|
I twined a wreath of heather white
To bind my lady's hair,
|
And deemed her locks in even light
Would well the burden bear;
But when I saw the tresses brown,
And found the face so fair,
I tore the wreath, and left the crown
Of beauty only there.
|
octave
|
Adam Lindsay Gordon
|
In Utrumque Paratus - A Logical Discussion
|
'Then hey for boot and horse, lad!
And round the world away!
Young blood will have its course, lad!
And every dog his day!'
- C. Kingsley.
There's a formula which the west country clowns
Once used, ere their blows fell thick,
At the fairs on the Devon and Cornwall downs,
In their bouts with the single-stick.
You may read a moral, not far amiss,
If you care to moralise,
In the crossing-guard, where the ash-plants kiss,
To the words 'God spare our eyes'.
No game was ever yet worth a rap
For a rational man to play,
Into which no accident, no mishap,
Could possibly find its way.
If you hold the willow, a shooter from Wills
May transform you into a hopper,
And the football meadow is rife with spills,
If you feel disposed for a cropper;
In a rattling gallop with hound and horse
You may chance to reverse the medal
On the sward, with the saddle your loins across,
And your hunter's loins on the saddle;
In the stubbles you'll find it hard to frame
A remonstrance firm, yet civil,
When oft as 'our mutual friend' takes aim,
Long odds may be laid on the rising game,
And against your gaiters level;
There's danger even where fish are caught,
To those who a wetting fear;
For what's worth having must aye be bought,
And sport's like life and life's like sport,
'It ain't all skittles and beer.'
The honey bag lies close to the sting,
The rose is fenced by the thorn,
Shall we leave to others their gathering,
And turn from clustering fruits that cling
To the garden wall in scorn?
Albeit those purple grapes hang high,
Like the fox in the ancient tale,
Let us pause and try, ere we pass them by,
Though we, like the fox, may fail.
All hurry is worse than useless; think
On the adage, ''Tis pace that kills';
Shun bad tobacco, avoid strong drink,
Abstain from Holloway's pills,
Wear woollen socks, they're the best you'll find,
Beware how you leave off flannel;
And whatever you do, don't change your mind
When once you have picked your panel;
With a bank of cloud in the south south-east,
Stand ready to shorten sail;
Fight shy of a corporation feast;
Don't trust to a martingale;
Keep your powder dry, and shut one eye,
Not both, when you touch your trigger;
Don't stop with your head too frequently
(This advice ain't meant for a nigger);
Look before you leap, if you like, but if
You mean leaping, don't look long,
Or the weakest place will soon grow stiff,
And the strongest doubly strong;
As far as you can, to every man,
Let your aid be freely given,
And hit out straight, 'tis your shortest plan,
When against the ropes you're driven.
Mere pluck, though not in the least sublime,
Is wiser than blank dismay,
Since 'No sparrow can fall before its time',
And we're valued higher than they;
So hope for the best and leave the rest
In charge of a stronger hand,
Like the honest boors in the far-off west,
With the formula terse and grand.
They were men for the most part rough and rude,
Dull and illiterate,
But they nursed no quarrel, they cherished no feud,
They were strangers to spite and hate;
In a kindly spirit they took their stand,
That brothers and sons might learn
How a man should uphold the sports of his land,
And strike his best with a strong right hand,
And take his strokes in return.
''Twas a barbarous practice,' the Quaker cries,
''Tis a thing of the past, thank heaven',
Keep your thanks till the combative instinct dies
With the taint of the olden leaven;
Yes, the times are changed, for better or worse,
The prayer that no harm befall
Has given its place to a drunken curse,
And the manly game to a brawl.
Our burdens are heavy, our natures weak,
Some pastime devoid of harm
May we look for? 'Puritan elder, speak!'
'Yea, friend, peradventure thou mayest seek
Recreation singing a psalm.'
If I did, your visage so grim and stern
Would relax in a ghastly smile,
For of music I never one note could learn,
And my feeble minstrelsy would turn
Your chant to discord vile.
Tho' the Philistine's mail could not avail,
Nor the spear like a weaver's beam,
There are episodes yet in the Psalmist's tale,
To obliterate which his poems fail,
Which his exploits fail to redeem.
Can the Hittite's wrongs forgotten be?
Does he warble 'Non nobis Domine',
With his monarch in blissful concert, free
From all malice to flesh inherent;
Zeruiah's offspring, who served so well,
Yet between the horns of the altar fell,
Does his voice the 'Quid gloriaris' swell,
Or the 'Quare fremuerunt'?
It may well be thus where David sings,
And Uriah joins in the chorus,
But while earth to earthy matter clings,
Neither you nor the bravest of Judah's kings
As a pattern can stand before us.
|
'Then hey for boot and horse, lad!
And round the world away!
Young blood will have its course, lad!
And every dog his day!'
- C. Kingsley.
There's a formula which the west country clowns
Once used, ere their blows fell thick,
At the fairs on the Devon and Cornwall downs,
In their bouts with the single-stick.
You may read a moral, not far amiss,
If you care to moralise,
In the crossing-guard, where the ash-plants kiss,
To the words 'God spare our eyes'.
No game was ever yet worth a rap
For a rational man to play,
Into which no accident, no mishap,
Could possibly find its way.
If you hold the willow, a shooter from Wills
May transform you into a hopper,
And the football meadow is rife with spills,
If you feel disposed for a cropper;
In a rattling gallop with hound and horse
You may chance to reverse the medal
On the sward, with the saddle your loins across,
And your hunter's loins on the saddle;
In the stubbles you'll find it hard to frame
A remonstrance firm, yet civil,
When oft as 'our mutual friend' takes aim,
Long odds may be laid on the rising game,
And against your gaiters level;
There's danger even where fish are caught,
To those who a wetting fear;
For what's worth having must aye be bought,
And sport's like life and life's like sport,
'It ain't all skittles and beer.'
The honey bag lies close to the sting,
The rose is fenced by the thorn,
Shall we leave to others their gathering,
And turn from clustering fruits that cling
To the garden wall in scorn?
|
Albeit those purple grapes hang high,
Like the fox in the ancient tale,
Let us pause and try, ere we pass them by,
Though we, like the fox, may fail.
All hurry is worse than useless; think
On the adage, ''Tis pace that kills';
Shun bad tobacco, avoid strong drink,
Abstain from Holloway's pills,
Wear woollen socks, they're the best you'll find,
Beware how you leave off flannel;
And whatever you do, don't change your mind
When once you have picked your panel;
With a bank of cloud in the south south-east,
Stand ready to shorten sail;
Fight shy of a corporation feast;
Don't trust to a martingale;
Keep your powder dry, and shut one eye,
Not both, when you touch your trigger;
Don't stop with your head too frequently
(This advice ain't meant for a nigger);
Look before you leap, if you like, but if
You mean leaping, don't look long,
Or the weakest place will soon grow stiff,
And the strongest doubly strong;
As far as you can, to every man,
Let your aid be freely given,
And hit out straight, 'tis your shortest plan,
When against the ropes you're driven.
Mere pluck, though not in the least sublime,
Is wiser than blank dismay,
Since 'No sparrow can fall before its time',
And we're valued higher than they;
So hope for the best and leave the rest
In charge of a stronger hand,
Like the honest boors in the far-off west,
With the formula terse and grand.
They were men for the most part rough and rude,
Dull and illiterate,
But they nursed no quarrel, they cherished no feud,
They were strangers to spite and hate;
In a kindly spirit they took their stand,
That brothers and sons might learn
How a man should uphold the sports of his land,
And strike his best with a strong right hand,
And take his strokes in return.
''Twas a barbarous practice,' the Quaker cries,
''Tis a thing of the past, thank heaven',
Keep your thanks till the combative instinct dies
With the taint of the olden leaven;
Yes, the times are changed, for better or worse,
The prayer that no harm befall
Has given its place to a drunken curse,
And the manly game to a brawl.
Our burdens are heavy, our natures weak,
Some pastime devoid of harm
May we look for? 'Puritan elder, speak!'
'Yea, friend, peradventure thou mayest seek
Recreation singing a psalm.'
If I did, your visage so grim and stern
Would relax in a ghastly smile,
For of music I never one note could learn,
And my feeble minstrelsy would turn
Your chant to discord vile.
Tho' the Philistine's mail could not avail,
Nor the spear like a weaver's beam,
There are episodes yet in the Psalmist's tale,
To obliterate which his poems fail,
Which his exploits fail to redeem.
Can the Hittite's wrongs forgotten be?
Does he warble 'Non nobis Domine',
With his monarch in blissful concert, free
From all malice to flesh inherent;
Zeruiah's offspring, who served so well,
Yet between the horns of the altar fell,
Does his voice the 'Quid gloriaris' swell,
Or the 'Quare fremuerunt'?
It may well be thus where David sings,
And Uriah joins in the chorus,
But while earth to earthy matter clings,
Neither you nor the bravest of Judah's kings
As a pattern can stand before us.
|
free_verse
|
Robert Herrick
|
Mean In Our Mean
|
Though frankincense the deities require,
We must not give all to the hallow'd fire.
Such be our gifts, and such be our expense,
As for ourselves to leave some frankince
|
Though frankincense the deities require,
|
We must not give all to the hallow'd fire.
Such be our gifts, and such be our expense,
As for ourselves to leave some frankince
|
quatrain
|
Henry Austin Dobson
|
To A Pastoral Poet.
|
(H. E. B.)
Among my best I put your Book,
O Poet of the breeze and brook!
(That breeze and brook which blows and falls
More soft to those in city walls)
Among my best: and keep it still
Till down the fair grass-girdled hill,
Where slopes my garden-slip, there goes
The wandering wind that wakes the rose,
And scares the cohort that explore
The broad-faced sun-flower o'er and o'er,
Or starts the restless bees that fret
The bindweed and the mignonette.
Then I shall take your Book, and dream
I lie beside some haunted stream;
And watch the crisping waves that pass,
And watch the flicker in the grass;
And wait--and wait--and wait to see
The Nymph ... that never comes to me!
|
(H. E. B.)
Among my best I put your Book,
O Poet of the breeze and brook!
(That breeze and brook which blows and falls
More soft to those in city walls)
Among my best: and keep it still
|
Till down the fair grass-girdled hill,
Where slopes my garden-slip, there goes
The wandering wind that wakes the rose,
And scares the cohort that explore
The broad-faced sun-flower o'er and o'er,
Or starts the restless bees that fret
The bindweed and the mignonette.
Then I shall take your Book, and dream
I lie beside some haunted stream;
And watch the crisping waves that pass,
And watch the flicker in the grass;
And wait--and wait--and wait to see
The Nymph ... that never comes to me!
|
free_verse
|
Alfred Edward Housman
|
Could man be drunk for ever
|
Could man be drunk for ever
With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning
And lief lie down of nights.
But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.
|
Could man be drunk for ever
With liquor, love, or fights,
|
Lief should I rouse at morning
And lief lie down of nights.
But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.
|
octave
|
Morris Rosenfeld
|
The Candle Seller
|
In Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post,
There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost.
Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead,
And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red.
But love, ease and friendship and glory, I ween,
May hardly the cause of their fading have been.
Poor soul, she has wept so, she scarcely can see.
A skeleton infant she holds on her knee.
It tugs at her breast, and it whimpers and sleeps,
But soon at her cry it awakens and weeps--
"Two cents, my good woman, three candles will buy,
As bright as their flame be my star in the sky!"
Tho' few are her wares, and her basket is small,
She earns her own living by these, when at all.
She's there with her baby in wind and in rain,
In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain.
She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack--
No home and no food, and no cloak to her back.
She's kithless and kinless--one friend at the most,
And that one is silent: the telegraph post!
She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still,
Altho' she is wretched, forsaken and ill,
She cries Sabbath candles to those that come nigh,
And all that she pleads is, that people will buy.
To honor the sweet, holy Sabbath, each one
With joy in his heart to the market has gone.
To shops and to pushcarts they hurriedly fare;
But who for the poor, wretched woman will care?
A few of her candles you think they will take?--
They seek the meat patties, the fish and the cake.
She holds forth a hand with the pitiful cry:
"Two cents, my good women, three candles will buy!"
But no one has listened, and no one has heard:
Her voice is so weak, that it fails at each word.
Perchance the poor mite in her lap understood,
She hears mother's crying--but where is the good
I pray you, how long will she sit there and cry
Her candles so feebly to all that pass by?
How long will it be, do you think, ere her breath
Gives out in the horrible struggle with Death?
How long will this frail one in mother-love strong,
Give suck to the babe at her breast? Oh, how long?
The child mother's tears used to swallow before,
But mother's eyes, nowadays, shed them no more.
Oh, dry are the eyes now, and empty the brain,
The heart well-nigh broken, the breath drawn with pain.
Yet ever, tho' faintly, she calls out anew:
"Oh buy but two candles, good women, but two!"
In Hester Street stands on the pavement of stone
A small, orphaned basket, forsaken, alone.
Beside it is sitting a corpse, cold and stark:
The seller of candles--will nobody mark?
No, none of the passers have noticed her yet.
The rich ones, on feasting are busily set,
And such as are pious, you well may believe,
Have no time to spare on the gay Sabbath eve.
So no one has noticed and no one has seen.
And now comes the nightfall, and with it, serene,
The Princess, the Sabbath, from Heaven descends,
And all the gay throng to the synagogue wends.
Within, where they pray, all is cleanly and bright,
The cantor sings sweetly, they list with delight.
But why in a dream stands the tall chandelier,
As dim as the candles that gleam round a bier?
The candles belonged to the woman, you know,
Who died in the street but a short time ago.
The rich and the pious have brought them tonight,
For mother and child they have set them alight.
The rich and the pious their duty have done:
Her tapers are lighted who died all alone.
The rich and the pious are nobly behaved:
A body--what matters? But souls must be saved!
O synagogue lights, be ye witnesses bold
That mother and child died of hunger and cold
Where millions are squandered in idle display;
That men, all unheeded, must starve by the way.
Then hold back your flame, blessed lights, hold it fast!
The great day of judgment will come at the last.
Before the white throne, where imposture is vain,
Ye lights for the soul, ye'll be lighted again!
And upward your flame there shall mount as on wings,
And damn the existing false order of things!
|
In Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post,
There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost.
Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead,
And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red.
But love, ease and friendship and glory, I ween,
May hardly the cause of their fading have been.
Poor soul, she has wept so, she scarcely can see.
A skeleton infant she holds on her knee.
It tugs at her breast, and it whimpers and sleeps,
But soon at her cry it awakens and weeps--
"Two cents, my good woman, three candles will buy,
As bright as their flame be my star in the sky!"
Tho' few are her wares, and her basket is small,
She earns her own living by these, when at all.
She's there with her baby in wind and in rain,
In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain.
She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack--
No home and no food, and no cloak to her back.
She's kithless and kinless--one friend at the most,
And that one is silent: the telegraph post!
She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still,
Altho' she is wretched, forsaken and ill,
She cries Sabbath candles to those that come nigh,
And all that she pleads is, that people will buy.
To honor the sweet, holy Sabbath, each one
With joy in his heart to the market has gone.
To shops and to pushcarts they hurriedly fare;
|
But who for the poor, wretched woman will care?
A few of her candles you think they will take?--
They seek the meat patties, the fish and the cake.
She holds forth a hand with the pitiful cry:
"Two cents, my good women, three candles will buy!"
But no one has listened, and no one has heard:
Her voice is so weak, that it fails at each word.
Perchance the poor mite in her lap understood,
She hears mother's crying--but where is the good
I pray you, how long will she sit there and cry
Her candles so feebly to all that pass by?
How long will it be, do you think, ere her breath
Gives out in the horrible struggle with Death?
How long will this frail one in mother-love strong,
Give suck to the babe at her breast? Oh, how long?
The child mother's tears used to swallow before,
But mother's eyes, nowadays, shed them no more.
Oh, dry are the eyes now, and empty the brain,
The heart well-nigh broken, the breath drawn with pain.
Yet ever, tho' faintly, she calls out anew:
"Oh buy but two candles, good women, but two!"
In Hester Street stands on the pavement of stone
A small, orphaned basket, forsaken, alone.
Beside it is sitting a corpse, cold and stark:
The seller of candles--will nobody mark?
No, none of the passers have noticed her yet.
The rich ones, on feasting are busily set,
And such as are pious, you well may believe,
Have no time to spare on the gay Sabbath eve.
So no one has noticed and no one has seen.
And now comes the nightfall, and with it, serene,
The Princess, the Sabbath, from Heaven descends,
And all the gay throng to the synagogue wends.
Within, where they pray, all is cleanly and bright,
The cantor sings sweetly, they list with delight.
But why in a dream stands the tall chandelier,
As dim as the candles that gleam round a bier?
The candles belonged to the woman, you know,
Who died in the street but a short time ago.
The rich and the pious have brought them tonight,
For mother and child they have set them alight.
The rich and the pious their duty have done:
Her tapers are lighted who died all alone.
The rich and the pious are nobly behaved:
A body--what matters? But souls must be saved!
O synagogue lights, be ye witnesses bold
That mother and child died of hunger and cold
Where millions are squandered in idle display;
That men, all unheeded, must starve by the way.
Then hold back your flame, blessed lights, hold it fast!
The great day of judgment will come at the last.
Before the white throne, where imposture is vain,
Ye lights for the soul, ye'll be lighted again!
And upward your flame there shall mount as on wings,
And damn the existing false order of things!
|
free_verse
|
Rudyard Kipling
|
Yet At The Last
|
Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the river,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!
|
Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
|
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the river,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!
|
octave
|
Alfred Edward Housman
|
The sigh that heaves the grasses
|
The sigh that heaves the grasses
Whence thou wilt never rise
Is of the air that passes
And knows not if it sighs.
The diamond tears adorning
Thy low mound on the lea,
Those are the tears of morning,
That weeps, but not for thee.
|
The sigh that heaves the grasses
Whence thou wilt never rise
|
Is of the air that passes
And knows not if it sighs.
The diamond tears adorning
Thy low mound on the lea,
Those are the tears of morning,
That weeps, but not for thee.
|
octave
|
Henry John Newbolt, Sir
|
Laudabunt Alii
|
(After Horace)
Let others praise, as fancy wills,
Berlin beneath her trees,
Or Rome upon her seven hills,
Or Venice by her seas;
Stamboul by double tides embraced,
Or green Damascus in the waste.
For me there's nought I would not leave
For the good Devon land,
Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve
Bedewed with spray-drift stand,
And hardly bear the red fruit up
That shall be next year's cider-cup.
You too, my friend, may wisely mark
How clear skies follow rain,
And, lingering in your own green park
Or drilled on Laffan's Plain,
Forget not with the festal bowl
To soothe at times your weary soul.
When Drake must bid to Plymouth Hoe
Good-bye for many a day,
And some were sad and feared to go,
And some that dared not stay,
Be sure he bade them broach the best,
And raised his tankard with the rest.
"Drake's luck to all that sail with Drake
For promised lands of gold!
Brave lads, whatever storms may break,
We've weathered worse of old!
To-night the loving-cup we'll drain,
To-morrow for the Spanish Main!"
|
(After Horace)
Let others praise, as fancy wills,
Berlin beneath her trees,
Or Rome upon her seven hills,
Or Venice by her seas;
Stamboul by double tides embraced,
Or green Damascus in the waste.
For me there's nought I would not leave
For the good Devon land,
Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve
|
Bedewed with spray-drift stand,
And hardly bear the red fruit up
That shall be next year's cider-cup.
You too, my friend, may wisely mark
How clear skies follow rain,
And, lingering in your own green park
Or drilled on Laffan's Plain,
Forget not with the festal bowl
To soothe at times your weary soul.
When Drake must bid to Plymouth Hoe
Good-bye for many a day,
And some were sad and feared to go,
And some that dared not stay,
Be sure he bade them broach the best,
And raised his tankard with the rest.
"Drake's luck to all that sail with Drake
For promised lands of gold!
Brave lads, whatever storms may break,
We've weathered worse of old!
To-night the loving-cup we'll drain,
To-morrow for the Spanish Main!"
|
free_verse
|
Thomas Oldham
|
Epigram On The New Experiment Of Lighting The House Of Commons By Means Of Gas-Pipes Placed Between The Two Ceilings
|
Too long within the House has darkness dwelt,
Egyptian darkness, by the nation felt;
Therefore, though demagogues, whose deeds are ill,
For blind debate might love that darkness still,
'Tis well the new experiment to try:
A stronger, purer light none can deny
Will then illume the House light coming from on high.
* * * * *
'Not one of all my actors, rot 'em!'
Cried Hal, 'can play the part of Bottom.'
"Play it yourself;" retorted Ned,
"You'll look quite natural with an ass's head."
|
Too long within the House has darkness dwelt,
Egyptian darkness, by the nation felt;
Therefore, though demagogues, whose deeds are ill,
For blind debate might love that darkness still,
|
'Tis well the new experiment to try:
A stronger, purer light none can deny
Will then illume the House light coming from on high.
* * * * *
'Not one of all my actors, rot 'em!'
Cried Hal, 'can play the part of Bottom.'
"Play it yourself;" retorted Ned,
"You'll look quite natural with an ass's head."
|
free_verse
|
Eugene Field
|
The Convalescent Gripster
|
The gods let slip that fiendish grip
Upon me last week Sunday--
No fiercer storm than racked my form
E'er swept the Bay of Fundy;
But now, good-by
To drugs, say I--
Good-by to gnawing sorrow;
I am up to-day,
And, whoop, hooray!
I'm going out to-morrow!
What aches and pain in bones and brain
I had I need not mention;
It seemed to me such pangs must be
Old Satan's own invention;
Albeit I
Was sure I'd die,
The doctor reassured me--
And, true enough,
With his vile stuff,
He ultimately cured me.
As there I lay in bed all day,
How fair outside looked to me!
A smile so mild old Nature smiled
It seemed to warm clean through me.
In chastened mood
The scene I viewed,
Inventing, sadly solus,
Fantastic rhymes
Between the times
I had to take a bolus.
Of quinine slugs and other drugs
I guess I took a million--
Such drugs as serve to set each nerve
To dancing a cotillon;
The doctors say
The only way
To rout the grip instanter
Is to pour in
All kinds of sin--
Similibus curantur!
'Twas hard; and yet I'll soon forget
Those ills and cures distressing;
One's future lies 'neath gorgeous skies
When one is convalescing!
So now, good-by
To drugs say I--
Good-by, thou phantom Sorrow!
I am up to-day,
And, whoop, hooray!
I'm going out to-morrow.
|
The gods let slip that fiendish grip
Upon me last week Sunday--
No fiercer storm than racked my form
E'er swept the Bay of Fundy;
But now, good-by
To drugs, say I--
Good-by to gnawing sorrow;
I am up to-day,
And, whoop, hooray!
I'm going out to-morrow!
What aches and pain in bones and brain
I had I need not mention;
It seemed to me such pangs must be
Old Satan's own invention;
Albeit I
Was sure I'd die,
|
The doctor reassured me--
And, true enough,
With his vile stuff,
He ultimately cured me.
As there I lay in bed all day,
How fair outside looked to me!
A smile so mild old Nature smiled
It seemed to warm clean through me.
In chastened mood
The scene I viewed,
Inventing, sadly solus,
Fantastic rhymes
Between the times
I had to take a bolus.
Of quinine slugs and other drugs
I guess I took a million--
Such drugs as serve to set each nerve
To dancing a cotillon;
The doctors say
The only way
To rout the grip instanter
Is to pour in
All kinds of sin--
Similibus curantur!
'Twas hard; and yet I'll soon forget
Those ills and cures distressing;
One's future lies 'neath gorgeous skies
When one is convalescing!
So now, good-by
To drugs say I--
Good-by, thou phantom Sorrow!
I am up to-day,
And, whoop, hooray!
I'm going out to-morrow.
|
free_verse
|
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory
|
His Praise Of The Little Hill And The Plains Of Mayo
|
After the Christmas, with the help of Christ, I will never stop if I am alive; I will go to the sharp-edged little hill; for it is a fine place without fog falling; a blessed place that the sun shines on, and the wind doesn't rise there or anything of the sort.
And if you were a year there you would get no rest, only sitting up at night and forever drinking. The lamb and the sheep are there; the cow and the calf are there, fine lands are there without heath and without bog. Ploughing & seed-sowing in the right month, plough and harrow prepared and ready; the rent that is called for there, they have means to pay it. There is oats and flax & large eared barley. There are beautiful valleys with good growth in them and hay. Rods grow there, and bushes and tufts, white fields are there and respect for trees; shade and shelter from wind and rain; priests and friars reading their book; spending and getting is there, and nothing scarce.
I leave it in my will that my heart rises as the wind rises, and as the fog scatters, when I think upon Carra and the two towns below it, on the two-mile bush and on the plains of Mayo. And if I were standing in the middle of my people, age would go from me and I would be young again.
|
After the Christmas, with the help of Christ, I will never stop if I am alive; I will go to the sharp-edged little hill; for it is a fine place without fog falling; a blessed place that the sun shines on, and the wind doesn't rise there or anything of the sort.
|
And if you were a year there you would get no rest, only sitting up at night and forever drinking. The lamb and the sheep are there; the cow and the calf are there, fine lands are there without heath and without bog. Ploughing & seed-sowing in the right month, plough and harrow prepared and ready; the rent that is called for there, they have means to pay it. There is oats and flax & large eared barley. There are beautiful valleys with good growth in them and hay. Rods grow there, and bushes and tufts, white fields are there and respect for trees; shade and shelter from wind and rain; priests and friars reading their book; spending and getting is there, and nothing scarce.
I leave it in my will that my heart rises as the wind rises, and as the fog scatters, when I think upon Carra and the two towns below it, on the two-mile bush and on the plains of Mayo. And if I were standing in the middle of my people, age would go from me and I would be young again.
|
free_verse
|
Algernon Charles Swinburne
|
St. Dorothy
|
It hath been seen and yet it shall be seen
That out of tender mouths God's praise hath been
Made perfect, and with wood and simple string
He hath played music sweet as shawm-playing
To please himself with softness of all sound;
And no small thing but hath been sometime found
Full sweet of use, and no such humbleness
But God hath bruised withal the sentences
And evidence of wise men witnessing;
No leaf that is so soft a hidden thing
It never shall get sight of the great sun;
The strength of ten has been the strength of one,
And lowliness has waxed imperious.
There was in Rome a man Theophilus
Of right great blood and gracious ways, that had
All noble fashions to make people glad
And a soft life of pleasurable days;
He was a goodly man for one to praise,
Flawless and whole upward from foot to head;
His arms were a red hawk that alway fed
On a small bird with feathers gnawed upon,
Beaten and plucked about the bosom-bone
Whereby a small round fleck like fire there was:
They called it in their tongue lampadias;
This was the banner of the lordly man.
In many straits of sea and reaches wan
Full of quick wind, and many a shaken firth,
It had seen fighting days of either earth,
Westward or east of waters Gaditane
(This was the place of sea-rocks under Spain
Called after the great praise of Hercules)
And north beyond the washing Pontic seas,
Far windy Russian places fabulous,
And salt fierce tides of storm-swoln Bosphorus.
Now as this lord came straying in Rome town
He saw a little lattice open down
And after it a press of maidens' heads
That sat upon their cold small quiet beds
Talking, and played upon short-string'd lutes;
And other some ground perfume out of roots
Gathered by marvellous moons in Asia;
Saffron and aloes and wild cassia,
Coloured all through and smelling of the sun;
And over all these was a certain one
Clothed softly, with sweet herbs about her hair
And bosom flowerful; her face more fair
Than sudden-singing April in soft lands:
Eyed like a gracious bird, and in both hands
She held a psalter painted green and red.
This Theophile laughed at the heart, and said;
Now God so help me hither and St. Paul,
As by the new time of their festival
I have good will to take this maid to wife.
And herewith fell to fancies of her life
And soft half-thoughts that ended suddenly.
This is man's guise to please himself, when he
Shall not see one thing of his pleasant things,
Nor with outwatch of many travailings
Come to be eased of the least pain he hath
For all his love and all his foolish wrath
And all the heavy manner of his mind.
Thus is he like a fisher fallen blind
That casts his nets across the boat awry
To strike the sea, but lo, he striketh dry
And plucks them back all broken for his pain
And bites his beard and casts across again
And reaching wrong slips over in the sea.
So hath this man a strangled neck for fee,
For all his cost he chuckles in his throat.
This Theophile that little hereof wote
Laid wait to hear of her what she might be:
Men told him she had name of Dorothy,
And was a lady of a worthy house.
Thereat this knight grew inly glorious
That he should have a love so fair of place.
She was a maiden of most quiet face,
Tender of speech, and had no hardihood
But was nigh feeble of her fearful blood;
Her mercy in her was so marvellous
From her least years, that seeing her school-fellows
That read beside her stricken with a rod,
She would cry sore and say some word to God
That he would ease her fellow of his pain.
There is no touch of sun or fallen rain
That ever fell on a more gracious thing.
In middle Rome there was in stone-working
The church of Venus painted royally.
The chapels of it were some two or three,
In each of them her tabernacle was
And a wide window of six feet in glass
Coloured with all her works in red and gold.
The altars had bright cloths and cups to hold
The wine of Venus for the services,
Made out of honey and crushed wood-berries
That shed sweet yellow through the thick wet red,
That on high days was borne upon the head
Of Venus' priest for any man to drink;
So that in drinking he should fall to think
On some fair face, and in the thought thereof
Worship, and such should triumph in his love.
For this soft wine that did such grace and good
Was new trans-shaped and mixed with Love's own blood,
That in the fighting Trojan time was bled;
For which came such a woe to Diomed
That he was stifled after in hard sea.
And some said that this wine-shedding should be
Made of the falling of Adonis' blood,
That curled upon the thorns and broken wood
And round the gold silk shoes on Venus' feet;
The taste thereof was as hot honey sweet
And in the mouth ran soft and riotous.
This was the holiness of Venus' house.
It was their worship, that in August days
Twelve maidens should go through those Roman ways
Naked, and having gold across their brows
And their hair twisted in short golden rows,
To minister to Venus in this wise:
And twelve men chosen in their companies
To match these maidens by the altar-stair,
All in one habit, crowned upon the hair.
Among these men was chosen Theophile.
This knight went out and prayed a little while,
Holding queen Venus by her hands and knees;
I will give thee twelve royal images
Cut in glad gold, with marvels of wrought stone
For thy sweet priests to lean and pray upon,
Jasper and hyacinth and chrysopras,
And the strange Asian thalamite that was
Hidden twelve ages under heavy sea
Among the little sleepy pearls, to be
A shrine lit over with soft candle-flame
Burning all night red as hot brows of shame,
So thou wilt be my lady without sin.
Goddess that art all gold outside and in,
Help me to serve thee in thy holy way.
Thou knowest, Love, that in my bearing day
There shone a laughter in the singing stars
Round the gold-ceil'd bride-bed wherein Mars
Touched thee and had thee in your kissing wise.
Now therefore, sweet, kiss thou my maiden's eyes
That they may open graciously towards me;
And this new fashion of thy shrine shall be
As soft with gold as thine own happy head.
The goddess, that was painted with face red
Between two long green tumbled sides of sea,
Stooped her neck sideways, and spake pleasantly:
Thou shalt have grace as thou art thrall of mine.
And with this came a savour of shed wine
And plucked-out petals from a rose's head:
And softly with slow laughs of lip she said,
Thou shalt have favour all thy days of me.
Then came Theophilus to Dorothy,
Saying: O sweet, if one should strive or speak
Against God's ways, he gets a beaten cheek
For all his wage and shame above all men.
Therefore I have no will to turn again
When God saith 'go,' lest a worse thing fall out.
Then she, misdoubting lest he went about
To catch her wits, made answer somewhat thus:
I have no will, my lord Theophilus,
To speak against this worthy word of yours;
Knowing how God's will in all speech endures,
That save by grace there may no thing be said.
Then Theophile waxed light from foot to head,
And softly fell upon this answering.
It is well seen you are a chosen thing
To do God service in his gracious way.
I will that you make haste and holiday
To go next year upon the Venus stair,
Covered none else, but crowned upon your hair,
And do the service that a maiden doth.
She said: but I that am Christ's maid were loth
To do this thing that hath such bitter name.
Thereat his brows were beaten with sore shame
And he came off and said no other word.
Then his eyes chanced upon his banner-bird,
And he fell fingering at the staff of it
And laughed for wrath and stared between his feet,
And out of a chafed heart he spake as thus:
Lo how she japes at me Theophilus,
Feigning herself a fool and hard to love;
Yet in good time for all she boasteth of
She shall be like a little beaten bird.
And while his mouth was open in that word
He came upon the house Janiculum,
Where some went busily, and other some
Talked in the gate called the gate glorious.
The emperor, which was one Gabalus,
Sat over all and drank chill wine alone.
To whom is come Theophilus anon,
And said as thus: Beau sire, Dieu vous aide.
And afterward sat under him, and said
All this thing through as ye have wholly heard.
This Gabalus laughed thickly in his beard.
Yea, this is righteousness and maiden rule.
Truly, he said, a maid is but a fool.
And japed at them as one full villainous,
In a lewd wise, this heathen Gabalus,
And sent his men to bind her as he bade.
Thus have they taken Dorothy the maid,
And haled her forth as men hale pick-purses:
A little need God knows they had of this,
To hale her by her maiden gentle hair.
Thus went she lowly, making a soft prayer,
As one who stays the sweet wine in his mouth,
Murmuring with eased lips, and is most loth
To have done wholly with the sweet of it.
Christ king, fair Christ, that knowest all men's wit
And all the feeble fashion of my ways,
O perfect God, that from all yesterdays
Abidest whole with morrows perfected,
I pray thee by thy mother's holy head
Thou help me to do right, that I not slip:
I have no speech nor strength upon my lip,
Except thou help me who art wise and sweet.
Do this too for those nails that clove thy feet,
Let me die maiden after many pains.
Though I be least among thy handmaidens,
Doubtless I shall take death more sweetly thus.
Now have they brought her to King Gabalus,
Who laughed in all his throat some breathing-whiles:
By God, he said, if one should leap two miles,
He were not pained about the sides so much.
This were a soft thing for a man to touch.
Shall one so chafe that hath such little bones?
And shook his throat with thick and chuckled moans
For laughter that she had such holiness.
What aileth thee, wilt thou do services?
It were good fare to fare as Venus doth.
Then said this lady with her maiden mouth,
Shamefaced, and something paler in the cheek:
Now, sir, albeit my wit and will to speak
Give me no grace in sight of worthy men,
For all my shame yet know I this again,
I may not speak, nor after downlying
Rise up to take delight in lute-playing,
Nor sing nor sleep, nor sit and fold my hands,
But my soul in some measure understands
God's grace laid like a garment over me.
For this fair God that out of strong sharp sea
Lifted the shapely and green-coloured land,
And hath the weight of heaven in his hand
As one might hold a bird, and under him
The heavy golden planets beam by beam
Building the feasting-chambers of his house,
And the large world he holdeth with his brows
And with the light of them astonisheth
All place and time and face of life and death
And motion of the north wind and the south,
And is the sound within his angel's mouth
Of singing words and words of thanksgiving,
And is the colour of the latter spring
And heat upon the summer and the sun,
And is beginning of all things begun
And gathers in him all things to their end,
And with the fingers of his hand doth bend
The stretched-out sides of heaven like a sail,
And with his breath he maketh the red pale
And fills with blood faint faces of men dead,
And with the sound between his lips are fed
Iron and fire and the white body of snow,
And blossom of all trees in places low,
And small bright herbs about the little hills,
And fruit pricked softly with birds' tender bills,
And flight of foam about green fields of sea,
And fourfold strength of the great winds that be
Moved always outward from beneath his feet,
And growth of grass and growth of sheav'd wheat
And all green flower of goodly-growing lands;
And all these things he gathers with his hands
And covers all their beauty with his wings;
The same, even God that governs all these things,
Hath set my feet to be upon his ways.
Now therefore for no painfulness of days
I shall put off this service bound on me.
Also, fair sir, ye know this certainly,
How God was in his flesh full chaste and meek
And gave his face to shame, and either cheek
Gave up to smiting of men tyrannous.
And here with a great voice this Gabalus
Cried out and said: By God's blood and his bones,
This were good game betwixen night and nones
For one to sit and hearken to such saws:
I were as lief fall in some big beast's jaws
As hear these women's jaw-teeth chattering;
By God a woman is the harder thing,
One may not put a hook into her mouth.
Now by St. Luke I am so sore adrouth
For all these saws I must needs drink again.
But I pray God deliver all us men
From all such noise of women and their heat.
That is a noble scripture, well I weet,
That likens women to an empty can;
When God said that he was a full wise man.
I trow no man may blame him as for that.
And herewithal he drank a draught, and spat,
And said: Now shall I make an end hereof.
Come near all men and hearken for God's love,
And ye shall hear a jest or twain, God wot.
And spake as thus with mouth full thick and hot;
But thou do this thou shalt be shortly slain.
Lo, sir, she said, this death and all his pain
I take in penance of my bitter sins.
Yea now, quoth Gabalus, this game begins.
Lo, without sin one shall not live a span.
Lo, this is she that would not look on man
Between her fingers folded in thwart wise.
See how her shame hath smitten in her eyes
That was so clean she had not heard of shame.
Certes, he said, by Gabalus my name,
This two years back I was not so well pleased.
This were good mirth for sick men to be eased
And rise up whole and laugh at hearing of.
I pray thee show us something of thy love,
Since thou wast maid thy gown is waxen wide.
Yea, maid I am, she said, and somewhat sighed,
As one who thought upon the low fair house
Where she sat working, with soft bended brows
Watching her threads, among the school-maidens.
And she thought well now God had brought her thence
She should not come to sew her gold again.
Then cried King Gabalus upon his men
To have her forth and draw her with steel gins.
And as a man hag-ridden beats and grins
And bends his body sidelong in his bed,
So wagged he with his body and knave's head,
Gaping at her, and blowing with his breath.
And in good time he gat an evil death
Out of his lewdness with his curs'd wives:
His bones were hewn asunder as with knives
For his misliving, certes it is said.
But all the evil wrought upon this maid,
It were full hard for one to handle it.
For her soft blood was shed upon her feet,
And all her body's colour bruised and faint.
But she, as one abiding God's great saint,
Spake not nor wept for all this travail hard.
Wherefore the king commanded afterward
To slay her presently in all men's sight.
And it was now an hour upon the night
And winter-time, and a few stars began.
The weather was yet feeble and all wan
For beating of a weighty wind and snow.
And she came walking in soft wise and slow,
And many men with faces piteous.
Then came this heavy cursing Gabalus,
That swore full hard into his drunken beard;
And faintly after without any word
Came Theophile some paces off the king.
And in the middle of this wayfaring
Full tenderly beholding her he said:
There is no word of comfort with men dead
Nor any face and colour of things sweet;
But always with lean cheeks and lifted feet
These dead men lie all aching to the blood
With bitter cold, their brows withouten hood
Beating for chill, their bodies swathed full thin:
Alas, what hire shall any have herein
To give his life and get such bitterness?
Also the soul going forth bodiless
Is hurt with naked cold, and no man saith
If there be house or covering for death
To hide the soul that is discomforted.
Then she beholding him a little said:
Alas, fair lord, ye have no wit of this;
For on one side death is full poor of bliss
And as ye say full sharp of bone and lean:
But on the other side is good and green
And hath soft flower of tender-coloured hair
Grown on his head, and a red mouth as fair
As may be kissed with lips; thereto his face
Is as God's face, and in a perfect place
Full of all sun and colour of straight boughs
And waterheads about a painted house
That hath a mile of flowers either way
Outward from it, and blossom-grass of May
Thickening on many a side for length of heat,
Hath God set death upon a noble seat
Covered with green and flowered in the fold,
In likeness of a great king grown full old
And gentle with new temperance of blood;
And on his brows a purfled purple hood,
They may not carry any golden thing;
And plays some tune with subtle fingering
On a small cithern, full of tears and sleep
And heavy pleasure that is quick to weep
And sorrow with the honey in her mouth;
And for this might of music that he doth
Are all souls drawn toward him with great love
And weep for sweetness of the noise thereof
And bow to him with worship of their knees;
And all the field is thick with companies
Of fair-clothed men that play on shawms and lutes
And gather honey of the yellow fruits
Between the branches waxen soft and wide:
And all this peace endures in either side
Of the green land, and God beholdeth all.
And this is girdled with a round fair wall
Made of red stone and cool with heavy leaves
Grown out against it, and green blossom cleaves
To the green chinks, and lesser wall-weed sweet,
Kissing the crannies that are split with heat,
And branches where the summer draws to head.
And Theophile burnt in the cheek, and said:
Yea, could one see it, this were marvellous.
I pray you, at your coming to this house,
Give me some leaf of all those tree-branches;
Seeing how so sharp and white our weather is,
There is no green nor gracious red to see.
Yea, sir, she said, that shall I certainly.
And from her long sweet throat without a fleck
Undid the gold, and through her stretched-out neck
The cold axe clove, and smote away her head:
Out of her throat the tender blood full red
Fell suddenly through all her long soft hair.
And with good speed for hardness of the air
Each man departed to his house again.
Lo, as fair colour in the face of men
At seed-time of their blood, or in such wise
As a thing seen increaseth in men's eyes,
Caught first far off by sickly fits of sight'
So a word said, if one shall hear aright,
Abides against the season of its growth.
This Theophile went slowly as one doth
That is not sure for sickness of his feet;
And counting the white stonework of the street,
Tears fell out of his eyes for wrath and love,
Making him weep more for the shame thereof
Than for true pain: so went he half a mile.
And women mocked him, saying: Theophile,
Lo, she is dead; what shall a woman have
That loveth such an one? so Christ me save,
I were as lief to love a man new-hung.
Surely this man has bitten on his tongue,
This makes him sad and writhled in his face.
And when they came upon the paven place
That was called sometime the place amorous
There came a child before Theophilus
Bearing a basket, and said suddenly:
Fair sir, this is my mistress Dorothy
That sends you gifts; and with this he was gone.
In all this earth there is not such an one
For colour and straight stature made so fair.
The tender growing gold of his pure hair
Was as wheat growing, and his mouth as flame.
God called him Holy after his own name;
With gold cloth like fire burning he was clad.
But for the fair green basket that he had,
It was filled up with heavy white and red;
Great roses stained still where the first rose bled,
Burning at heart for shame their heart withholds:
And the sad colour of strong marigolds
That have the sun to kiss their lips for love;
The flower that Venus' hair is woven of,
The colour of fair apples in the sun,
Late peaches gathered when the heat was done
And the slain air got breath; and after these
The fair faint-headed poppies drunk with ease,
And heaviness of hollow lilies red.
Then cried they all that saw these things, and said
It was God's doing, and was marvellous.
And in brief while this knight Theophilus
Is waxen full of faith, and witnesseth
Before the king of God and love and death,
For which the king bade hang him presently.
A gallows of a goodly piece of tree
This Gabalus hath made to hang him on.
Forth of this world lo Theophile is gone
With a wried neck, God give us better fare
Than his that hath a twisted throat to wear;
But truly for his love God hath him brought
There where his heavy body grieves him nought
Nor all the people plucking at his feet;
But in his face his lady's face is sweet,
And through his lips her kissing lips are gone:
God send him peace, and joy of such an one.
This is the story of St. Dorothy.
I will you of your mercy pray for me
Because I wrote these sayings for your grace,
That I may one day see her in the face.
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It hath been seen and yet it shall be seen
That out of tender mouths God's praise hath been
Made perfect, and with wood and simple string
He hath played music sweet as shawm-playing
To please himself with softness of all sound;
And no small thing but hath been sometime found
Full sweet of use, and no such humbleness
But God hath bruised withal the sentences
And evidence of wise men witnessing;
No leaf that is so soft a hidden thing
It never shall get sight of the great sun;
The strength of ten has been the strength of one,
And lowliness has waxed imperious.
There was in Rome a man Theophilus
Of right great blood and gracious ways, that had
All noble fashions to make people glad
And a soft life of pleasurable days;
He was a goodly man for one to praise,
Flawless and whole upward from foot to head;
His arms were a red hawk that alway fed
On a small bird with feathers gnawed upon,
Beaten and plucked about the bosom-bone
Whereby a small round fleck like fire there was:
They called it in their tongue lampadias;
This was the banner of the lordly man.
In many straits of sea and reaches wan
Full of quick wind, and many a shaken firth,
It had seen fighting days of either earth,
Westward or east of waters Gaditane
(This was the place of sea-rocks under Spain
Called after the great praise of Hercules)
And north beyond the washing Pontic seas,
Far windy Russian places fabulous,
And salt fierce tides of storm-swoln Bosphorus.
Now as this lord came straying in Rome town
He saw a little lattice open down
And after it a press of maidens' heads
That sat upon their cold small quiet beds
Talking, and played upon short-string'd lutes;
And other some ground perfume out of roots
Gathered by marvellous moons in Asia;
Saffron and aloes and wild cassia,
Coloured all through and smelling of the sun;
And over all these was a certain one
Clothed softly, with sweet herbs about her hair
And bosom flowerful; her face more fair
Than sudden-singing April in soft lands:
Eyed like a gracious bird, and in both hands
She held a psalter painted green and red.
This Theophile laughed at the heart, and said;
Now God so help me hither and St. Paul,
As by the new time of their festival
I have good will to take this maid to wife.
And herewith fell to fancies of her life
And soft half-thoughts that ended suddenly.
This is man's guise to please himself, when he
Shall not see one thing of his pleasant things,
Nor with outwatch of many travailings
Come to be eased of the least pain he hath
For all his love and all his foolish wrath
And all the heavy manner of his mind.
Thus is he like a fisher fallen blind
That casts his nets across the boat awry
To strike the sea, but lo, he striketh dry
And plucks them back all broken for his pain
And bites his beard and casts across again
And reaching wrong slips over in the sea.
So hath this man a strangled neck for fee,
For all his cost he chuckles in his throat.
This Theophile that little hereof wote
Laid wait to hear of her what she might be:
Men told him she had name of Dorothy,
And was a lady of a worthy house.
Thereat this knight grew inly glorious
That he should have a love so fair of place.
She was a maiden of most quiet face,
Tender of speech, and had no hardihood
But was nigh feeble of her fearful blood;
Her mercy in her was so marvellous
From her least years, that seeing her school-fellows
That read beside her stricken with a rod,
She would cry sore and say some word to God
That he would ease her fellow of his pain.
There is no touch of sun or fallen rain
That ever fell on a more gracious thing.
In middle Rome there was in stone-working
The church of Venus painted royally.
The chapels of it were some two or three,
In each of them her tabernacle was
And a wide window of six feet in glass
Coloured with all her works in red and gold.
The altars had bright cloths and cups to hold
The wine of Venus for the services,
Made out of honey and crushed wood-berries
That shed sweet yellow through the thick wet red,
That on high days was borne upon the head
Of Venus' priest for any man to drink;
So that in drinking he should fall to think
On some fair face, and in the thought thereof
Worship, and such should triumph in his love.
For this soft wine that did such grace and good
Was new trans-shaped and mixed with Love's own blood,
That in the fighting Trojan time was bled;
For which came such a woe to Diomed
That he was stifled after in hard sea.
And some said that this wine-shedding should be
Made of the falling of Adonis' blood,
That curled upon the thorns and broken wood
And round the gold silk shoes on Venus' feet;
The taste thereof was as hot honey sweet
And in the mouth ran soft and riotous.
This was the holiness of Venus' house.
It was their worship, that in August days
Twelve maidens should go through those Roman ways
Naked, and having gold across their brows
And their hair twisted in short golden rows,
To minister to Venus in this wise:
And twelve men chosen in their companies
To match these maidens by the altar-stair,
All in one habit, crowned upon the hair.
Among these men was chosen Theophile.
This knight went out and prayed a little while,
Holding queen Venus by her hands and knees;
I will give thee twelve royal images
Cut in glad gold, with marvels of wrought stone
For thy sweet priests to lean and pray upon,
Jasper and hyacinth and chrysopras,
And the strange Asian thalamite that was
Hidden twelve ages under heavy sea
Among the little sleepy pearls, to be
A shrine lit over with soft candle-flame
Burning all night red as hot brows of shame,
So thou wilt be my lady without sin.
Goddess that art all gold outside and in,
Help me to serve thee in thy holy way.
Thou knowest, Love, that in my bearing day
There shone a laughter in the singing stars
Round the gold-ceil'd bride-bed wherein Mars
Touched thee and had thee in your kissing wise.
Now therefore, sweet, kiss thou my maiden's eyes
That they may open graciously towards me;
And this new fashion of thy shrine shall be
As soft with gold as thine own happy head.
The goddess, that was painted with face red
Between two long green tumbled sides of sea,
Stooped her neck sideways, and spake pleasantly:
Thou shalt have grace as thou art thrall of mine.
And with this came a savour of shed wine
And plucked-out petals from a rose's head:
And softly with slow laughs of lip she said,
Thou shalt have favour all thy days of me.
Then came Theophilus to Dorothy,
Saying: O sweet, if one should strive or speak
Against God's ways, he gets a beaten cheek
For all his wage and shame above all men.
Therefore I have no will to turn again
When God saith 'go,' lest a worse thing fall out.
Then she, misdoubting lest he went about
To catch her wits, made answer somewhat thus:
I have no will, my lord Theophilus,
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To speak against this worthy word of yours;
Knowing how God's will in all speech endures,
That save by grace there may no thing be said.
Then Theophile waxed light from foot to head,
And softly fell upon this answering.
It is well seen you are a chosen thing
To do God service in his gracious way.
I will that you make haste and holiday
To go next year upon the Venus stair,
Covered none else, but crowned upon your hair,
And do the service that a maiden doth.
She said: but I that am Christ's maid were loth
To do this thing that hath such bitter name.
Thereat his brows were beaten with sore shame
And he came off and said no other word.
Then his eyes chanced upon his banner-bird,
And he fell fingering at the staff of it
And laughed for wrath and stared between his feet,
And out of a chafed heart he spake as thus:
Lo how she japes at me Theophilus,
Feigning herself a fool and hard to love;
Yet in good time for all she boasteth of
She shall be like a little beaten bird.
And while his mouth was open in that word
He came upon the house Janiculum,
Where some went busily, and other some
Talked in the gate called the gate glorious.
The emperor, which was one Gabalus,
Sat over all and drank chill wine alone.
To whom is come Theophilus anon,
And said as thus: Beau sire, Dieu vous aide.
And afterward sat under him, and said
All this thing through as ye have wholly heard.
This Gabalus laughed thickly in his beard.
Yea, this is righteousness and maiden rule.
Truly, he said, a maid is but a fool.
And japed at them as one full villainous,
In a lewd wise, this heathen Gabalus,
And sent his men to bind her as he bade.
Thus have they taken Dorothy the maid,
And haled her forth as men hale pick-purses:
A little need God knows they had of this,
To hale her by her maiden gentle hair.
Thus went she lowly, making a soft prayer,
As one who stays the sweet wine in his mouth,
Murmuring with eased lips, and is most loth
To have done wholly with the sweet of it.
Christ king, fair Christ, that knowest all men's wit
And all the feeble fashion of my ways,
O perfect God, that from all yesterdays
Abidest whole with morrows perfected,
I pray thee by thy mother's holy head
Thou help me to do right, that I not slip:
I have no speech nor strength upon my lip,
Except thou help me who art wise and sweet.
Do this too for those nails that clove thy feet,
Let me die maiden after many pains.
Though I be least among thy handmaidens,
Doubtless I shall take death more sweetly thus.
Now have they brought her to King Gabalus,
Who laughed in all his throat some breathing-whiles:
By God, he said, if one should leap two miles,
He were not pained about the sides so much.
This were a soft thing for a man to touch.
Shall one so chafe that hath such little bones?
And shook his throat with thick and chuckled moans
For laughter that she had such holiness.
What aileth thee, wilt thou do services?
It were good fare to fare as Venus doth.
Then said this lady with her maiden mouth,
Shamefaced, and something paler in the cheek:
Now, sir, albeit my wit and will to speak
Give me no grace in sight of worthy men,
For all my shame yet know I this again,
I may not speak, nor after downlying
Rise up to take delight in lute-playing,
Nor sing nor sleep, nor sit and fold my hands,
But my soul in some measure understands
God's grace laid like a garment over me.
For this fair God that out of strong sharp sea
Lifted the shapely and green-coloured land,
And hath the weight of heaven in his hand
As one might hold a bird, and under him
The heavy golden planets beam by beam
Building the feasting-chambers of his house,
And the large world he holdeth with his brows
And with the light of them astonisheth
All place and time and face of life and death
And motion of the north wind and the south,
And is the sound within his angel's mouth
Of singing words and words of thanksgiving,
And is the colour of the latter spring
And heat upon the summer and the sun,
And is beginning of all things begun
And gathers in him all things to their end,
And with the fingers of his hand doth bend
The stretched-out sides of heaven like a sail,
And with his breath he maketh the red pale
And fills with blood faint faces of men dead,
And with the sound between his lips are fed
Iron and fire and the white body of snow,
And blossom of all trees in places low,
And small bright herbs about the little hills,
And fruit pricked softly with birds' tender bills,
And flight of foam about green fields of sea,
And fourfold strength of the great winds that be
Moved always outward from beneath his feet,
And growth of grass and growth of sheav'd wheat
And all green flower of goodly-growing lands;
And all these things he gathers with his hands
And covers all their beauty with his wings;
The same, even God that governs all these things,
Hath set my feet to be upon his ways.
Now therefore for no painfulness of days
I shall put off this service bound on me.
Also, fair sir, ye know this certainly,
How God was in his flesh full chaste and meek
And gave his face to shame, and either cheek
Gave up to smiting of men tyrannous.
And here with a great voice this Gabalus
Cried out and said: By God's blood and his bones,
This were good game betwixen night and nones
For one to sit and hearken to such saws:
I were as lief fall in some big beast's jaws
As hear these women's jaw-teeth chattering;
By God a woman is the harder thing,
One may not put a hook into her mouth.
Now by St. Luke I am so sore adrouth
For all these saws I must needs drink again.
But I pray God deliver all us men
From all such noise of women and their heat.
That is a noble scripture, well I weet,
That likens women to an empty can;
When God said that he was a full wise man.
I trow no man may blame him as for that.
And herewithal he drank a draught, and spat,
And said: Now shall I make an end hereof.
Come near all men and hearken for God's love,
And ye shall hear a jest or twain, God wot.
And spake as thus with mouth full thick and hot;
But thou do this thou shalt be shortly slain.
Lo, sir, she said, this death and all his pain
I take in penance of my bitter sins.
Yea now, quoth Gabalus, this game begins.
Lo, without sin one shall not live a span.
Lo, this is she that would not look on man
Between her fingers folded in thwart wise.
See how her shame hath smitten in her eyes
That was so clean she had not heard of shame.
Certes, he said, by Gabalus my name,
This two years back I was not so well pleased.
This were good mirth for sick men to be eased
And rise up whole and laugh at hearing of.
I pray thee show us something of thy love,
Since thou wast maid thy gown is waxen wide.
Yea, maid I am, she said, and somewhat sighed,
As one who thought upon the low fair house
Where she sat working, with soft bended brows
Watching her threads, among the school-maidens.
And she thought well now God had brought her thence
She should not come to sew her gold again.
Then cried King Gabalus upon his men
To have her forth and draw her with steel gins.
And as a man hag-ridden beats and grins
And bends his body sidelong in his bed,
So wagged he with his body and knave's head,
Gaping at her, and blowing with his breath.
And in good time he gat an evil death
Out of his lewdness with his curs'd wives:
His bones were hewn asunder as with knives
For his misliving, certes it is said.
But all the evil wrought upon this maid,
It were full hard for one to handle it.
For her soft blood was shed upon her feet,
And all her body's colour bruised and faint.
But she, as one abiding God's great saint,
Spake not nor wept for all this travail hard.
Wherefore the king commanded afterward
To slay her presently in all men's sight.
And it was now an hour upon the night
And winter-time, and a few stars began.
The weather was yet feeble and all wan
For beating of a weighty wind and snow.
And she came walking in soft wise and slow,
And many men with faces piteous.
Then came this heavy cursing Gabalus,
That swore full hard into his drunken beard;
And faintly after without any word
Came Theophile some paces off the king.
And in the middle of this wayfaring
Full tenderly beholding her he said:
There is no word of comfort with men dead
Nor any face and colour of things sweet;
But always with lean cheeks and lifted feet
These dead men lie all aching to the blood
With bitter cold, their brows withouten hood
Beating for chill, their bodies swathed full thin:
Alas, what hire shall any have herein
To give his life and get such bitterness?
Also the soul going forth bodiless
Is hurt with naked cold, and no man saith
If there be house or covering for death
To hide the soul that is discomforted.
Then she beholding him a little said:
Alas, fair lord, ye have no wit of this;
For on one side death is full poor of bliss
And as ye say full sharp of bone and lean:
But on the other side is good and green
And hath soft flower of tender-coloured hair
Grown on his head, and a red mouth as fair
As may be kissed with lips; thereto his face
Is as God's face, and in a perfect place
Full of all sun and colour of straight boughs
And waterheads about a painted house
That hath a mile of flowers either way
Outward from it, and blossom-grass of May
Thickening on many a side for length of heat,
Hath God set death upon a noble seat
Covered with green and flowered in the fold,
In likeness of a great king grown full old
And gentle with new temperance of blood;
And on his brows a purfled purple hood,
They may not carry any golden thing;
And plays some tune with subtle fingering
On a small cithern, full of tears and sleep
And heavy pleasure that is quick to weep
And sorrow with the honey in her mouth;
And for this might of music that he doth
Are all souls drawn toward him with great love
And weep for sweetness of the noise thereof
And bow to him with worship of their knees;
And all the field is thick with companies
Of fair-clothed men that play on shawms and lutes
And gather honey of the yellow fruits
Between the branches waxen soft and wide:
And all this peace endures in either side
Of the green land, and God beholdeth all.
And this is girdled with a round fair wall
Made of red stone and cool with heavy leaves
Grown out against it, and green blossom cleaves
To the green chinks, and lesser wall-weed sweet,
Kissing the crannies that are split with heat,
And branches where the summer draws to head.
And Theophile burnt in the cheek, and said:
Yea, could one see it, this were marvellous.
I pray you, at your coming to this house,
Give me some leaf of all those tree-branches;
Seeing how so sharp and white our weather is,
There is no green nor gracious red to see.
Yea, sir, she said, that shall I certainly.
And from her long sweet throat without a fleck
Undid the gold, and through her stretched-out neck
The cold axe clove, and smote away her head:
Out of her throat the tender blood full red
Fell suddenly through all her long soft hair.
And with good speed for hardness of the air
Each man departed to his house again.
Lo, as fair colour in the face of men
At seed-time of their blood, or in such wise
As a thing seen increaseth in men's eyes,
Caught first far off by sickly fits of sight'
So a word said, if one shall hear aright,
Abides against the season of its growth.
This Theophile went slowly as one doth
That is not sure for sickness of his feet;
And counting the white stonework of the street,
Tears fell out of his eyes for wrath and love,
Making him weep more for the shame thereof
Than for true pain: so went he half a mile.
And women mocked him, saying: Theophile,
Lo, she is dead; what shall a woman have
That loveth such an one? so Christ me save,
I were as lief to love a man new-hung.
Surely this man has bitten on his tongue,
This makes him sad and writhled in his face.
And when they came upon the paven place
That was called sometime the place amorous
There came a child before Theophilus
Bearing a basket, and said suddenly:
Fair sir, this is my mistress Dorothy
That sends you gifts; and with this he was gone.
In all this earth there is not such an one
For colour and straight stature made so fair.
The tender growing gold of his pure hair
Was as wheat growing, and his mouth as flame.
God called him Holy after his own name;
With gold cloth like fire burning he was clad.
But for the fair green basket that he had,
It was filled up with heavy white and red;
Great roses stained still where the first rose bled,
Burning at heart for shame their heart withholds:
And the sad colour of strong marigolds
That have the sun to kiss their lips for love;
The flower that Venus' hair is woven of,
The colour of fair apples in the sun,
Late peaches gathered when the heat was done
And the slain air got breath; and after these
The fair faint-headed poppies drunk with ease,
And heaviness of hollow lilies red.
Then cried they all that saw these things, and said
It was God's doing, and was marvellous.
And in brief while this knight Theophilus
Is waxen full of faith, and witnesseth
Before the king of God and love and death,
For which the king bade hang him presently.
A gallows of a goodly piece of tree
This Gabalus hath made to hang him on.
Forth of this world lo Theophile is gone
With a wried neck, God give us better fare
Than his that hath a twisted throat to wear;
But truly for his love God hath him brought
There where his heavy body grieves him nought
Nor all the people plucking at his feet;
But in his face his lady's face is sweet,
And through his lips her kissing lips are gone:
God send him peace, and joy of such an one.
This is the story of St. Dorothy.
I will you of your mercy pray for me
Because I wrote these sayings for your grace,
That I may one day see her in the face.
|
free_verse
|
George MacDonald
|
Translations. - Part Ii. Sonnet Lxxv. (From Petrarch.)
|
The elect angels and the souls in bliss,
The citizens of heaven, when, that first day,
My lady passed from me and went their way,
Of marvel and pity full, did round her press.
"What light is this, and what new loveliness?"
They said among them; "for such sweet display
Did never mount, that from the earth did stray
To this high dwelling, all this age, we guess!"[1]
She, well content her lodging chang'd to find,
Shows perfect, by her peers most perfect placed;
And now and then half turning looks behind
To see if I walk in the way she traced:
Hence I lift heavenward all my heart and mind
Because I hear her pray me to make haste.
|
The elect angels and the souls in bliss,
The citizens of heaven, when, that first day,
My lady passed from me and went their way,
Of marvel and pity full, did round her press.
|
"What light is this, and what new loveliness?"
They said among them; "for such sweet display
Did never mount, that from the earth did stray
To this high dwelling, all this age, we guess!"[1]
She, well content her lodging chang'd to find,
Shows perfect, by her peers most perfect placed;
And now and then half turning looks behind
To see if I walk in the way she traced:
Hence I lift heavenward all my heart and mind
Because I hear her pray me to make haste.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Browning
|
Pippa's Song
|
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven
All's right with the world!
|
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
|
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven
All's right with the world!
|
octave
|
John Hartley
|
Waivin Mewsic.
|
Ther's mewsic ith' shuttle, ith' loom, an ith frame,
Ther's melody mingled ith' noise;
For th' active ther's praises, for th' idle ther's blame,
If they'd harken to th' saand of its voice.
An when flaggin a bit, how refreshin to feel
As you pause an look raand on the throng,
At the clank o' the tappet, the hum o' the wheel,
Sing this plain unmistakable song: -
Nick a ting, nock a ting;
Wages keep pocketing;
Workin for little is better nor laikin;
Twist an twine, reel an wind;
Keep a contented mind;
Troubles are oft ov a body's own makin.
To see workin fowk wi a smile o' ther face
As they labour thear day after day;
An hear th' women's voices float sweetly throo th' place,
As they join i' some favorite lay;
It saands amang th' din, as the violet seems
At peeps aght th' green dockens among,
Diffusing a charm ovver th' rest by its means,
Thus it blends i' that steady old song;
Nick a ting, nock a ting,
Wages keep pocketing;
Workin for little is better nor laikin;
Twist an twine, reel an wind,
Keep a contented mind,
Troubles are oft ov a body's own makin.
An then see what lessons are laid out anent us,
As pick after pick follows time after time,
An warns us tho' silent, to let nowt prevent us
From strivin by little endeavours to climb;
Th' world's made o' trifles, its dust forms a mountain,
Then nivver despair as yor trudgin along,
If troubles will come an yor spirits dishearten,
Yo'll find ther's relief i' that steady owd song;
Nick a ting, nock a ting;
Wages keep pocketin;
Workin for little is better nor laikin;
Twist an twine, reel an wind;
Keep a contented mind;
Troubles are oft ov a body's own makin.
Life's warp comes throo Heaven, th' weft's faand bi us sen,
To finish a piece we're compell'd to ha booath;
Th' warp's reight, but if th' weft should be faulty, how then?
Noa waiver ith' world can produce a gooid clooath.
Then let us endeavour by workin an strivin,
To finish awr piece so's noa fault can be fun,
An then i' return for awr pains an contrivin,
Th' takker in 'll reward us and whisper "well done."
Clink a clank, clink a clank,
Workin withaat a thank,
May be awr fortun, if soa nivver mind it,
Strivin to do awr best,
We shall be reight at last,
If we lack comfort now, then shall we find it.
|
Ther's mewsic ith' shuttle, ith' loom, an ith frame,
Ther's melody mingled ith' noise;
For th' active ther's praises, for th' idle ther's blame,
If they'd harken to th' saand of its voice.
An when flaggin a bit, how refreshin to feel
As you pause an look raand on the throng,
At the clank o' the tappet, the hum o' the wheel,
Sing this plain unmistakable song: -
Nick a ting, nock a ting;
Wages keep pocketing;
Workin for little is better nor laikin;
Twist an twine, reel an wind;
Keep a contented mind;
Troubles are oft ov a body's own makin.
To see workin fowk wi a smile o' ther face
As they labour thear day after day;
An hear th' women's voices float sweetly throo th' place,
As they join i' some favorite lay;
|
It saands amang th' din, as the violet seems
At peeps aght th' green dockens among,
Diffusing a charm ovver th' rest by its means,
Thus it blends i' that steady old song;
Nick a ting, nock a ting,
Wages keep pocketing;
Workin for little is better nor laikin;
Twist an twine, reel an wind,
Keep a contented mind,
Troubles are oft ov a body's own makin.
An then see what lessons are laid out anent us,
As pick after pick follows time after time,
An warns us tho' silent, to let nowt prevent us
From strivin by little endeavours to climb;
Th' world's made o' trifles, its dust forms a mountain,
Then nivver despair as yor trudgin along,
If troubles will come an yor spirits dishearten,
Yo'll find ther's relief i' that steady owd song;
Nick a ting, nock a ting;
Wages keep pocketin;
Workin for little is better nor laikin;
Twist an twine, reel an wind;
Keep a contented mind;
Troubles are oft ov a body's own makin.
Life's warp comes throo Heaven, th' weft's faand bi us sen,
To finish a piece we're compell'd to ha booath;
Th' warp's reight, but if th' weft should be faulty, how then?
Noa waiver ith' world can produce a gooid clooath.
Then let us endeavour by workin an strivin,
To finish awr piece so's noa fault can be fun,
An then i' return for awr pains an contrivin,
Th' takker in 'll reward us and whisper "well done."
Clink a clank, clink a clank,
Workin withaat a thank,
May be awr fortun, if soa nivver mind it,
Strivin to do awr best,
We shall be reight at last,
If we lack comfort now, then shall we find it.
|
free_verse
|
Robert Lee Frost
|
The Oven Bird
|
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
|
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
|
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
|
sonnet
|
George MacDonald
|
Provision
|
Above my head the great pine-branches tower;
Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,
Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends
Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power:
Hark to the patter of the coming shower!
Let me be silent while the Almighty sends
His thunder-word along--but when it ends
I will arise and fashion from the hour
Words of stupendous import, fit to guard
High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,
When the temptation cometh close and hard,
Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave
Of meaner things--to which I am a slave,
If evermore I keep not watch and ward.
|
Above my head the great pine-branches tower;
Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,
Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends
Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power:
|
Hark to the patter of the coming shower!
Let me be silent while the Almighty sends
His thunder-word along--but when it ends
I will arise and fashion from the hour
Words of stupendous import, fit to guard
High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,
When the temptation cometh close and hard,
Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave
Of meaner things--to which I am a slave,
If evermore I keep not watch and ward.
|
sonnet
|
Oliver Herford
|
To The Waiter
|
We drink your health, O Waiter!
And may you be preserved
From old age, gout, or sudden death!--
At least till supper's served.
|
We drink your health, O Waiter!
|
And may you be preserved
From old age, gout, or sudden death!--
At least till supper's served.
|
quatrain
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonnet 17
|
If hee from heauen that filch'd that liuing fire,
Condemn'd by Ioue to endlesse torment be,
I greatly meruaile how you still goe free,
That farre beyond Promethius did aspire?
The fire he stole, although of heauenly kinde,
Which from aboue he craftily did take,
Of liueles clods vs liuing men to make,
Againe bestow'd in temper of the mind.
But you broke in to heauens immortall store,
Where vertue, honour, wit, and beautie lay,
Which taking thence, you haue escap'd away,
Yet stand as free as ere you did before.
But old Promethius punish'd for his rape,
Thus poore theeues suffer, when the greater scape.
|
If hee from heauen that filch'd that liuing fire,
Condemn'd by Ioue to endlesse torment be,
I greatly meruaile how you still goe free,
That farre beyond Promethius did aspire?
|
The fire he stole, although of heauenly kinde,
Which from aboue he craftily did take,
Of liueles clods vs liuing men to make,
Againe bestow'd in temper of the mind.
But you broke in to heauens immortall store,
Where vertue, honour, wit, and beautie lay,
Which taking thence, you haue escap'd away,
Yet stand as free as ere you did before.
But old Promethius punish'd for his rape,
Thus poore theeues suffer, when the greater scape.
|
sonnet
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
Storm At Annisquam
|
The sun sinks scarlet as a barberry.
Far off at sea one vessel lifts a sail,
Hurrying to harbor from the coming gale,
That banks the west above a choppy sea.
The sun is gone; the fide is flowing free;
The bay is opaled with wild light; and pale
The lighthouse spears its flame now; through a veil
That falls about the sea mysteriously.
Out there she sits and mutters of her dead,
Old Ocean; of the stalwart and the strong,
Skipper and fisher whom her arms dragged down:
Before her now she sees their ghosts; o'erhead
As gray as rain, their wild wrecks sweep along,
And all night long lay siege to this old town.
|
The sun sinks scarlet as a barberry.
Far off at sea one vessel lifts a sail,
Hurrying to harbor from the coming gale,
That banks the west above a choppy sea.
|
The sun is gone; the fide is flowing free;
The bay is opaled with wild light; and pale
The lighthouse spears its flame now; through a veil
That falls about the sea mysteriously.
Out there she sits and mutters of her dead,
Old Ocean; of the stalwart and the strong,
Skipper and fisher whom her arms dragged down:
Before her now she sees their ghosts; o'erhead
As gray as rain, their wild wrecks sweep along,
And all night long lay siege to this old town.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
To A Gentlewoman On Just Dealing.
|
True to yourself and sheets, you'll have me swear;
You shall, if righteous dealing I find there.
Do not you fall through frailty; I'll be sure
To keep my bond still free from forfeiture.
|
True to yourself and sheets, you'll have me swear;
|
You shall, if righteous dealing I find there.
Do not you fall through frailty; I'll be sure
To keep my bond still free from forfeiture.
|
quatrain
|
Richard Le Gallienne
|
Song
|
She's somewhere in the sunlight strong,
Her tears are in the falling rain,
She calls me in the wind's soft song,
And with the flowers she comes again.
Yon bird is but her messenger,
The moon is but her silver car;
Yea! sun and moon are sent by her,
And every wistful waiting star.
|
She's somewhere in the sunlight strong,
Her tears are in the falling rain,
|
She calls me in the wind's soft song,
And with the flowers she comes again.
Yon bird is but her messenger,
The moon is but her silver car;
Yea! sun and moon are sent by her,
And every wistful waiting star.
|
octave
|
Rudyard Kipling
|
Poor Honest Men
|
Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.
From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a score of us poor honest men!
Or if by quick sailing
(Thick weather prevailing)
We leave them behind (as we do now and then)
We are sure of a gun from
Each frigate we run from,
Which is often destruction to poor honest men!
Broadsides the Atlantic
We tumble short-handed,
With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend;
And off the Azores,
Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs
Are waiting to terrify poor honest men.
Napoleon's embargo
Is laid on all cargo
Which comfort or aid to King George may intend;
And since roll, twist and leaf,
Of all comforts is chief,
They try for to steal it from poor honest men!
With no heart for fight,
We take refuge in flight,
But fire as we run, our retreat to defend;
Until our stern-chasers
Cut up her fore-braces,
And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men!
'Twix' the Forties and Fifties,
South-eastward the drift is,
And so, when we think we are making Land's End
Alas, it is Ushant
With half the King's Navy
Blockading French ports against poor honest men!
But they may not quit station
(Which is our salvation)
So swiftly we stand to the Nor'ard again;
And finding the tail of
A homeward-bound convoy,
We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men.
'Twix' the Lizard and Dover,
We hand our stuff over,
Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when.
But a light on each quarter,
Low down on the water,
Is well understanded by poor honest men.
Even then we have dangers,
From meddlesome strangers,
Who spy on our business and are not content
To take a smooth answer,
Except with a handspike...
And they say they are murdered by poor honest men!
To be drowned or be shot
Is our natural lot,
Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end,
After all our great pains
For to dangle in chains
As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men?
|
Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.
From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a score of us poor honest men!
Or if by quick sailing
(Thick weather prevailing)
We leave them behind (as we do now and then)
We are sure of a gun from
Each frigate we run from,
Which is often destruction to poor honest men!
Broadsides the Atlantic
We tumble short-handed,
With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend;
And off the Azores,
|
Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs
Are waiting to terrify poor honest men.
Napoleon's embargo
Is laid on all cargo
Which comfort or aid to King George may intend;
And since roll, twist and leaf,
Of all comforts is chief,
They try for to steal it from poor honest men!
With no heart for fight,
We take refuge in flight,
But fire as we run, our retreat to defend;
Until our stern-chasers
Cut up her fore-braces,
And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men!
'Twix' the Forties and Fifties,
South-eastward the drift is,
And so, when we think we are making Land's End
Alas, it is Ushant
With half the King's Navy
Blockading French ports against poor honest men!
But they may not quit station
(Which is our salvation)
So swiftly we stand to the Nor'ard again;
And finding the tail of
A homeward-bound convoy,
We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men.
'Twix' the Lizard and Dover,
We hand our stuff over,
Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when.
But a light on each quarter,
Low down on the water,
Is well understanded by poor honest men.
Even then we have dangers,
From meddlesome strangers,
Who spy on our business and are not content
To take a smooth answer,
Except with a handspike...
And they say they are murdered by poor honest men!
To be drowned or be shot
Is our natural lot,
Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end,
After all our great pains
For to dangle in chains
As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men?
|
free_verse
|
Edmund Spenser
|
Fowre Hymnes
|
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE AND MOST VERTUOUS LADIES, THE LADIE MARGARET, COUNTESSE OF CUMBERLAND; AND THE LADIE MARIE*, COUNTESSE OF WARWICK.
Having, in the greener times of my youth, composed these former two Hymnes in the praise of love and beautie, and finding that the same too much pleased those of like age and disposition, which, being too vehemently carried with that kind of affection, do rather sucke out poyson to their strong passion, then honey to their honest delight, I was moved, by the one of you two most excellent Ladies, to call in the same; but being unable so to do, by reason that many copies thereof were formerly scattered abroad, I resolved at least to amend, and, by way of retraction, to reforme them, making (instead of those two Hymnes of earthly or naturall love and beautie) two others of heavenly and celestiall; the which I doe dedicate ioyntly unto you two honorable sisters, as to the most excellent and rare ornaments of all true love and beautie, both in the one and the other kind; humbly beseeching you to vouchsafe the patronage of them, and to accept this my humble service, in lieu of the great graces and honourable favours which ye dayly shew unto me, until such time as I may, by better meanes, yeeld you some more notable testimonie of my thankfull mind and dutifull devotion. And even so I pray for your happinesse. Greenwich, this first of September, 1596. Your Honors most bounden ever,
In all humble service,
ED. SP.
[* The Countess of Warwick's name was Anne, not Mary. TODD.]
* * * * *
AN HYMNE
IN HONOUR OF LOVE.
Love, that long since hast to thy mighty powre
Perforce subdude my poor captived hart,
And raging now therein with restlesse stowre*,
Doest tyrannize in everie weaker part,
Faine would I seeke to ease my bitter smart
By any service I might do to thee,
Or ought that else might to thee pleasing bee.
[* Stowre, commotion.]
And now t'asswage the force of this new flame,
And make thee more propitious in my need,
I meane to sing the praises of thy name,
And thy victorious conquests to areed*,
By which thou madest many harts to bleed
Of mighty victors, with wide wounds embrewed,
And by thy cruell darts to thee subdewed.
[* Areed, set forth.]
Onely I fear my wits, enfeebled late
Through the sharp sorrowes which thou hast me bred,
Should faint, and words should faile me to relate
The wondrous triumphs of thy great god-hed:
But, if thou wouldst vouchsafe to overspred
Me with the shadow of thy gentle wing,
I should enabled be thy actes to sing.
Come, then, O come, thou mightie God of Love!
Out of thy silver bowres and secret blisse,
Where thou dost sit in Venus lap above,
Bathing thy wings in her ambrosial kisse,
That sweeter farre than any nectar is,
Come softly, and my feeble breast inspire
With gentle furie, kindled of thy fire.
And ye, sweet Muses! which have often proved
The piercing points of his avengefull darts,
And ye, fair Nimphs! which oftentimes have loved
The cruel worker of your kindly smarts,
Prepare yourselves, and open wide your harts
For to receive the triumph of your glorie,
That made you merie oft when ye were sorrie.
And ye, faire blossoms of youths wanton breed!
Which in the conquests of your beautie bost,
Wherewith your lovers feeble eyes you feed,
But sterve their harts, that needeth nourture most,
Prepare your selves to march amongst his host,
And all the way this sacred hymne do sing,
Made in the honor of your soveraigne king.
Great God of Might, that reignest in the mynd,
And all the bodie to thy hest doest frame,
Victor of gods, subduer of mankynd,
That doest the lions and fell tigers tame,
Making their cruell rage thy scornfull game,
And in their roring taking great delight,
Who can expresse the glorie of thy might?
Or who alive can perfectly declare
The wondrous cradle of thine infancie,
When thy great mother Venus first thee bare,
Begot of Plenty and of Penurie,
Though elder then thine own nativitie,
And yet a chyld, renewing still thy yeares,
And yet the eldest of the heavenly peares?
For ere this worlds still moving mightie masse
Out of great Chaos ugly prison crept,
In which his goodly face long hidden was
From heavens view, and in deep darknesse kept,
Love, that had now long time securely slept
In Venus lap, unarmed then and naked,
Gan reare his head, by Clotho being waked:
And taking to him wings of his own heat,
Kindled at first from heavens life-giving fyre,
He gan to move out of his idle seat;
Weakly at first, but after with desyre
Lifted aloft, he gan to mount up hyre*,
And, like fresh eagle, made his hardy flight
Thro all that great wide wast, yet wanting light.
[* Hyre, higher.]
Yet wanting light to guide his wandring way,
His own faire mother, for all creatures sake,
Did lend him light from her owne goodly ray;
Then through the world his way he gan to take,
The world, that was not till he did it make,
Whose sundrie parts he from themselves did sever.
The which before had lyen confused ever.
The earth, the ayre, the water, and the fyre,
Then gan to raunge themselves in huge array,
And with contr'ry forces to conspyre
Each against other by all meanes they may,
Threatning their owne confusion and decay:
Ayre hated earth, and water hated fyre,
Till Love relented their rebellious yre.
He then them tooke, and, tempering goodly well
Their contrary dislikes with loved meanes,
Did place them all in order, and compell
To keepe themselves within their sundrie raines*,
Together linkt with adamantine chaines;
Yet so as that in every living wight
They mix themselves, and shew their kindly might.
[* Raines, kingdoms.]
So ever since they firmely have remained,
And duly well observed his beheast;
Through which now all these things that are contained
Within this goodly cope, both most and least,
Their being have, and daily are increast
Through secret sparks of his infused fyre,
Which in the barraine cold he doth inspyre.
Thereby they all do live, and moved are
To multiply the likenesse of their kynd,
Whilest they seeke onely, without further care,
To quench the flame which they in burning fynd;
But man, that breathes a more immortall mynd,
Not for lusts sake, but for eternitie,
Seekes to enlarge his lasting progenie.
For having yet in his deducted spright
Some sparks remaining of that heavenly fyre,
He is enlumind with that goodly light,
Unto like goodly semblant to aspyre;
Therefore in choice of love he doth desyre
That seemes on earth most heavenly to embrace,
That same is Beautie, borne of heavenly race.
For sure, of all that in this mortall frame
Contained is, nought more divine doth seeme,
Or that resembleth more th'immortall flame
Of heavenly light, than Beauties glorious beam.
What wonder then, if with such rage extreme
Frail men, whose eyes seek heavenly things to see,
At sight thereof so much enravisht bee?
Which well perceiving, that imperious boy
Doth therewith tip his sharp empoisned darts,
Which glancing thro the eyes with* countenance coy
Kest not till they have pierst the trembling harts,
And kindled flame in all their inner parts,
Which suckes the blood, and drinketh up the lyfe,
Of carefull wretches with consuming griefe.
[* Qu. from? WARTON.]
Thenceforth they playne, and make full piteous mone
Unto the author of their balefull bane:
The daies they waste, the nights they grieve and grone,
Their lives they loath, and heavens light disdaine;
No light but that whose lampe doth yet remaine
Fresh burning in the image of their eye,
They deigne to see, and seeing it still dye.
The whylst thou, tyrant Love, doest laugh and scorne
At their complaints, making their paine thy play;
Whylest they lye languishing like thrals forlorne,
The whyles thou doest triumph in their decay;
And otherwhyles, their dying to delay,
Thou doest emmarble the proud hart of her
Whose love before their life they doe prefer.
So hast thou often done (ay me the more!)
To me thy vassall, whose yet bleeding hart
With thousand wounds thou mangled hast so sore,
That whole remaines scarse any little part;
Yet to augment the anguish of my smart,
Thou hast enfrosen her disdainefull brest,
That no one drop of pitie there doth rest.
Why then do I this honor unto thee,
Thus to ennoble thy victorious name,
Sith thou doest shew no favour unto mee,
Ne once move ruth in that rebellious dame,
Somewhat to slacke the rigour of my flame?
Certes small glory doest thou winne hereby,
To let her live thus free, and me to dy.
But if thou be indeede, as men thee call,
The worlds great parent, the most kind preserver
Of living wights, the soveraine lord of all,
How falles it then that with thy furious fervour
Thou doest afflict as well the not-deserver,
As him that doeth thy lovely heasts despize,
And on thy subiects most doth tyrannize?
Yet herein eke thy glory seemeth more,
By so hard handling those which best thee serve,
That, ere thou doest them unto grace restore,
Thou mayest well trie if they will ever swerve,
And mayest them make it better to deserve,
And, having got it, may it more esteeme;
For things hard gotten men more dearely deeme.
So hard those heavenly beauties be enfyred,
As things divine least passions doe impresse;
The more of stedfast mynds to be admyred,
The more they stayed be on stedfastnesse;
But baseborne minds such lamps regard the lesse,
Which at first blowing take not hastie fyre;
Such fancies feele no love, but loose desyre.
For Love is lord of truth and loialtie,
Lifting himself out of the lowly dust
On golden plumes up to the purest skie,
Above the reach of loathly sinfull lust,
Whose base affect*, through cowardly distrust
Of his weake wings, dare not to heaven fly,
But like a moldwarpe** in the earth doth ly.
[* Affect, affection, passion.]
[** Moldwarpe, mole.]
His dunghill thoughts, which do themselves enure
To dirtie drosse, no higher dare aspyre;
Ne can his feeble earthly eyes endure
The flaming light of that celestiall fyre
Which kindleth love in generous desyre,
And makes him mount above the native might
Of heavie earth, up to the heavens hight.
Such is the powre of that sweet passion,
That it all sordid basenesse doth expell,
And the refyned mynd doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer forme, which now doth dwell
In his high thought, that would it selfe excell;
Which he beholding still with constant sight,
Admires the mirrour of so heavenly light.
Whose image printing in his deepest wit,
He thereon feeds his hungrie fantasy,
Still full, yet never satisfyde with it;
Like Tantale, that in store doth sterved ly,
So doth he pine in most satiety;
For nought may quench his infinite desyre,
Once kindled through that first conceived fyre.
Thereon his mynd affixed wholly is,
Ne thinks on ought but how it to attaine;
His care, his ioy, his hope, is all on this,
That seemes in it all blisses to containe,
In sight whereof all other blisse seemes vaine:
Thrice happie man, might he the same possesse,
He faines himselfe, and doth his fortune blesse.
And though he do not win his wish to end,
Yet thus farre happie he himselfe doth weene,
That heavens such happie grace did to him lend
As thing on earth so heavenly to have seene,
His harts enshrined saint, his heavens queene,
Fairer then fairest in his fayning eye,
Whose sole aspect he counts felicitye.
Then forth he casts in his unquiet thought,
What he may do her favour to obtaine;
What brave exploit, what perill hardly wrought,
What puissant conquest, what adventurous paine,
May please her best, and grace unto him gaine;
He dreads no danger, nor misfortune feares,
His faith, his fortune, in his breast he beares.
Thou art his god, thou art his mightie guyde,
Thou, being blind, letst him not see his feares,
But carriest him to that which he had eyde,
Through seas, through flames, through thousand swords and speares; *
Ne ought so strong that may his force withstand,
With which thou armest his resistlesse hand.
[* The fifth verse of this stanza appears to have dropped out. C.]
Witnesse Leander in the Euxine waves,
And stout Aeneas in the Troiane fyre,
Achilles preassing through the Phrygian glaives*,
And Orpheus, daring to provoke the yre
Of damned fiends, to get his love retyre;
For both through heaven and hell thou makest way,
To win them worship which to thee obay.
[* Glaives, swords.]
And if by all these perils and these paynes
He may but purchase lyking in her eye,
What heavens of ioy then to himselfe he faynes!
Eftsoones he wypes quite out of memory
Whatever ill before he did aby*:
Had it beene death, yet would he die againe,
To live thus happie as her grace to gaine.
[* Aby, abide.]
Yet when he hath found favour to his will,
He nath'more can so contented rest,
But forceth further on, and striveth still
T'approch more neare, till in her inmost brest
He may embosomd bee and loved best;
And yet not best, but to be lov'd alone;
For love cannot endure a paragone*.
[* Paragone, competitor.]
The fear whereof, O how doth it torment
His troubled mynd with more then hellish paine!
And to his fayning fansie represent
Sights never seene, and thousand shadowes vaine,
To breake his sleepe and waste his ydle braine:
Thou that hast never lov'd canst not beleeve
Least part of th'evils which poore lovers greeve.
The gnawing envie, the hart-fretting feare,
The vaine surmizes, the distrustfull showes,
The false reports that flying tales doe beare,
The doubts, the daungers, the delayes, the woes,
The fayned friends, the unassured foes,
With thousands more then any tongue can tell,
Doe make a lovers life a wretches hell.
Yet is there one more cursed then they all,
That cancker-worme, that monster, Gelosie,
Which eates the heart and feedes upon the gall,
Turning all Loves delight to miserie,
Through feare of losing his felicitie.
Ah, gods! that ever ye that monster placed
In gentle Love, that all his ioyes defaced!
By these, O Love! thou doest thy entrance make
Unto thy heaven, and doest the more endeere
Thy pleasures unto those which them partake,
As after stormes, when clouds begin to cleare,
The sunne more bright and glorious doth appeare;
So thou thy folke, through paines of Purgatorie,
Dost beare unto thy blisse, and heavens glorie.
There thou them placest in a paradize
Of all delight and ioyous happy rest,
Where they doe feede on nectar heavenly-wize,
With Hercules and Hebe, and the rest
Of Venus dearlings, through her bountie blest;
And lie like gods in yvory beds arayd,
With rose and lillies over them displayd.
There with thy daughter Pleasure they doe play
Their hurtlesse sports, without rebuke or blame,
And in her snowy bosome boldly lay
Their quiet heads, devoyd of guilty shame,
After full ioyance of their gentle game;
Then her they crowne their goddesse and their queene,
And decke with floures thy altars well beseene.
Ay me! deare Lord, that ever I might hope,
For all the paines and woes that I endure,
To come at length unto the wished scope
Of my desire, or might myselfe assure
That happie port for ever to recure*!
Then would I thinke these paines no paines at all,
And all my woes to be but penance small.
[* Recure, recover, gain.]
Then would I sing of thine immortal praise
An heavenly hymne such as the angels sing,
And thy triumphant name then would I raise
Bove all the gods, thee only honoring;
My guide, my god, my victor, and my king:
Till then, drad Lord! vouchsafe to take of me
This simple song, thus fram'd in praise of thee.
AN HYMNE
IN HONOUR OF BEAUTIE.
Ah! whither, Love! wilt thou now carry mee?
What wontlesse fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whylest seeking to aslake thy raging fyre,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desyre,
And up aloft above my strength doth rayse
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.
That as I earst in praise of thine owne name,
So now in honour of thy mother deare
An honourable hymne I eke should frame,
And, with the brightnesse of her beautie cleare,
The ravisht hearts of gazefull men might reare
To admiration of that heavenly light,
From whence proceeds such soule-enchanting might.
Therto do thou, great Goddesse! Queene of Beauty,
Mother of Love and of all worlds delight,
Without whose soverayne grace and kindly dewty
Nothing on earth seems fayre to fleshly sight,
Doe thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light
T'illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,
And beautifie this sacred hymne of thyne:
That both to thee, to whom I meane it most,
And eke to her whose faire immortall beame
Hath darted fyre into my feeble ghost,
That now it wasted is with woes extreame,
It may so please, that she at length will streame
Some deaw of grace into my withered hart,
After long sorrow and consuming smart.
WHAT TIME THIS WORLDS GREAT WORKMAISTER did cast
To make al things such as we now behold,
It seems that he before his eyes had plast
A goodly paterne, to whose perfect mould
He fashiond them as comely as he could,
That now so faire and seemely they appeare
As nought may be amended any wheare.
That wondrous paterne, wheresoere it bee,
Whether in earth layd up in secret store,
Or else in heaven, that no man may it see
With sinfull eyes, for feare it do deflore,
Is perfect Beautie, which all men adore;
Whose face and feature doth so much excell
All mortal sence, that none the same may tell.
Thereof as every earthly thing partakes
Or more or lesse, by influence divine,
So it more faire accordingly it makes,
And the grosse matter of this earthly myne
Which closeth it thereafter doth refyne,
Doing away the drosse which dims the light
Of that faire beame which therein is empight*.
[* Empight, placed.]
For, through infusion of celestiall powre,
The duller earth it quickneth with delight,
And life-full spirits privily doth powre
Through all the parts, that to the lookers sight
They seeme to please; that is thy soveraine might,
O Cyprian queene! which, flowing from the beame
Of thy bright starre, thou into them doest streame.
That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace
To all things faire, that kindleth lively fyre;
Light of thy lampe; which, shyning in the face,
Thence to the soule darts amorous desyre,
And robs the harts of those which it admyre;
Therewith thou pointest thy sons poysned arrow,
That wounds the life and wastes the inmost marrow.
How vainely then do ydle wits invent
That Beautie is nought else but mixture made
Of colours faire, and goodly temp'rament
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And passe away, like to a sommers shade;
Or that it is but comely composition
Of parts well measurd, with meet disposition!
Hath white and red in it such wondrous powre,
That it can pierce through th'eyes unto the hart,
And therein stirre such rage and restlesse stowre*,
As nought but death can stint his dolours smart?
Or can proportion of the outward part
Move such affection in the inward mynd,
That it can rob both sense, and reason blynd?
[* Stowre, commotion.]
Why doe not then the blossomes of the field,
Which are arayd with much more orient hew,
And to the sense most daintie odours yield,
Worke like impression in the lookers vew?
Or why doe not faire pictures like powre shew,
In which oft-times we Nature see of Art
Exceld, in perfect limming every part?
But ah! beleeve me there is more then so,
That workes such wonders in the minds of men;
I, that have often prov'd, too well it know,
And who so list the like assayes to ken
Shall find by trial, and confesse it then,
That Beautie is not, as fond men misdeeme,
An outward shew of things that onely seeme.
For that same goodly hew of white and red
With which the cheekes are sprinckled, shall decay,
And those sweete rosy leaves, so fairly spred
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay:
That golden wyre, those sparckling stars so bright,
Shall turne to dust, and lose their goodly light.
But that faire lampe, from whose celestiall ray
That light proceedes which kindleth lovers fire,
Shall never be extinguisht nor decay;
But, when the vitall spirits doe espyre,
Unto her native planet shall retyre;
For it is heavenly borne, and cannot die,
Being a parcell of the purest skie.
For when the soule, the which derived was,
At first, out of that great immortall Spright,
By whom all live to love, whilome did pas
Down from the top of purest heavens hight
To be embodied here, it then tooke light
And lively spirits from that fayrest starre
Which lights the world forth from his firie carre.
Which powre retayning still, or more or lesse,
When she in fleshly seede is eft* enraced**,
Through every part she doth the same impresse,
According as the heavens have her graced,
And frames her house, in which she will be placed,
Fit for her selfe, adorning it with spoyle
Of th'heavenly riches which she robd erewhyle.
[* Eft, afterwards.]
[** Enraced, implanted.]
Thereof it comes that these faire soules which have
The most resemblance of that heavenly light
Frame to themselves most beautifull and brave
Their fleshly bowre, most fit for their delight,
And the grosse matter by a soveraine might
Temper so trim, that it may well be seene
A pallace fit for such a virgin queene.
So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairely dight*
With chearfull grace and amiable sight:
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
[* Dight, adorn.]
Therefore, where-ever that thou doest behold
A comely corpse*, with beautie faire endewed,
Know this for certaine, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soule with fair conditions thewed**,
Fit to receive the seede of vertue strewed;
For all that faire is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.
[* Corpse, body.]
[** i.e. endowed with fair qualities.]
Yet oft it falles that many a gentle mynd
Dwels in deformed tabernacle drownd,
Either by chaunce, against the course of kynd*,
Or through unaptnesse in the substance fownd,
Which it assumed of some stubborne grownd,
That will not yield unto her formes direction,
But is deform'd with some foule imperfection.
[* Kynd, nature.]
And oft it falles, (ay me, the more to rew!)
That goodly Beautie, albe heavenly borne,
Is foule abusd, and that celestiall hew,
Which doth the world with her delight adorne,
Made but the bait of sinne, and sinners scorne,
Whilest every one doth seeke and sew to have it,
But every one doth seeke but to deprave it.
Yet nath'more is that faire Beauties blame,
But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:
Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame
May be corrupt*, and wrested unto will.
Nathelesse the soule is faire and beauteous still,
However fleshes fault it filthy make;
For things immortall no corruption take.
[* Corrupt, corrupted.]
But ye, faire Dames! the worlds deare ornaments,
And lively images of heavens light,
Let not your beames with such disparagements
Be dimd, and your bright glorie darkned quight;
But mindfull still of your first countries sight,
Doe still preserve your first informed grace,
Whose shadow yet shynes in your beauteous face.
Loath that foule blot, that hellish fi'rbrand,
Disloiall lust, fair Beauties foulest blame,
That base affections, which your eares would bland*,
Commend to you by loves abused name,
But is indeede the bondslave of defame;
Which will the garland of your glorie marre,
And quench the light of your brightshyning starre.
[* Bland, blandish.]
But gentle Love, that loiall is and trew,
Wil more illumine your resplendent ray,
And add more brightnesse to your goodly hew
From light of his pure fire; which, by like way
Kindled of yours, your likenesse doth display;
Like as two mirrours, by opposd reflection,
Doe both expresse the faces first impression.
Therefore, to make your beautie more appeare,
It you behoves to love, and forth to lay
That heavenly riches which in you ye beare,
That men the more admyre their fountaine may;
For else what booteth that celestiall ray,
If it in darknesse be enshrined ever,
That it of loving eyes be vewed never?
But, in your choice of loves, this well advize,
That likest to your selves ye them select,
The which your forms first sourse may sympathize,
And with like beauties parts be inly deckt;
For if you loosely love without respect,
It is not love, but a discordant warre,
Whose unlike parts amongst themselves do iarre.
For love is a celestiall harmonie
Of likely* harts composd of** starres concent,
Which ioyne together in sweete sympathie,
To work each others ioy and true content,
Which they have harbourd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowres, where they did see
And know ech other here belov'd to bee.
[* Likely, similar.]
[** Composd of, combined by.]
Then wrong it were that any other twaine
Should in Loves gentle band combyned bee,
But those whom Heaven did at first ordaine,
And made out of one mould the more t'agree;
For all that like the beautie which they see
Straight do not love; for Love is not so light
As straight to burne at first beholders sight.
But they which love indeede looke otherwise,
With pure regard and spotlesse true intent,
Drawing out of the obiect of their eyes
A more refyned form, which they present
Unto their mind, voide of all blemishment;
Which it reducing to her first perfection,
Beholdeth free from fleshes frayle infection.
And then conforming it unto the light
Which in it selfe it hath remaining still,
Of that first sunne, yet sparckling in his sight,
Thereof he fashions in his higher skill
An heavenly beautie to his fancies will;
And it embracing in his mind entyre,
The mirrour of his owne thought doth admyre.
Which seeing now so inly faire to be,
As outward it appeareth to the eye,
And with his spirits proportion to agree,
He thereon fixeth all his fantasie,
And fully setteth his felicitie;
Counting it fairer then it is indeede,
And yet indeede her fairnesse doth exeede.
For lovers eyes more sharply sighted bee
Then other mens, and in deare loves delight
See more then any other eyes can see,
Through mutuall receipt of beam's bright,
Which carrie privie message to the spright,
And to their eyes that inmost faire display,
As plaine as light discovers dawning day.
Therein they see, through amorous eye-glaunces,
Annies of Loves still flying too and fro,
Which dart at them their litle fierie launces;
Whom having wounded, back againe they go,
Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;
Who, seeing her faire eyes so sharp effect,
Cures all their sorrowes with one sweete aspect.
In which how many wonders doe they reede
To their conceipt, that others never see!
Now of her smiles, with which their soules they feede,
Like gods with nectar in their bankets free;
Now of her lookes, which like to cordials bee;
But when her words emb'ssade* forth she sends,
Lord, how sweete musicke that unto them lends!
[* Emb'ssade, embassy.]
Sometimes upon her forhead they behold
A thousand graces masking in delight;
Sometimes within her eye-lids they unfold
Ten thousand sweet belgards*, which to their sight
Doe seeme like twinckling starres in frostie night;
But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,
So many millions of chaste pleasures play.
[* Belgards, fair looks.]
All those, O Cytherea! and thousands more,
Thy handmaides be, which do on thee attend,
To decke thy beautie with their dainties store,
That may it more to mortall eyes commend,
And make it more admyr'd of foe and frend;
That in mans harts thou mayst thy throne enstall, 265
And spred thy lovely kingdome over all.
Then I', tryumph! O great Beauties Queene,
Advance the banner of thy conquest hie,
That all this world, the which thy vassels beene,
May draw to thee, and with dew f'altie
Adore the powre of thy great maiestie,
Singing this hymne in honour of thy name,
Compyld by me, which thy poor liegeman am!
In lieu whereof graunt, O great soveraine!
That she whose conquering beauty doth capt've 275
My trembling hart in her eternall chaine,
One drop of grace at length will to me give,
That I her bounden thrall by her may live,
And this same life, which first fro me she reaved,
May owe to her, of whom I it receaved.
And you, faire Venus dearling, my dear dread!
Fresh flowre of grace, great goddesse of my life,
When your faire eyes these fearfull lines shall read,
Deigne to let fall one drop of dew reliefe,
That may recure my harts long pyning griefe,
And shew what wondrous powre your beauty hath,
That can restore a damned wight from death.
AN HYMNE
OF HEAVENLY LOVE*.
[* See the sixth canto of the third book of the Faerie Queene,
especially the second and the thirty-second stanzas; which, with his
Hymnes of Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty, are evident proofs of
Spenser's attachment to the Platonic school. WARTON.]
Love, lift me up upon thy golden wings
From this base world unto thy heavens hight,
Where I may see those admirable things
Which there thou workest by thy soveraine might,
Farre above feeble reach of earthly sight,
That I thereof an heavenly hymne may sing
Unto the God of Love, high heavens king.
Many lewd layes (ah! woe is me the more!)
In praise of that mad fit which fooles call Love,
I have in th'heat of youth made heretofore,
That in light wits did loose affection move;
But all those follies now I do reprove,
And turned have the tenor of my string,
The heavenly prayses of true Love to sing.
And ye that wont with greedy vaine desire
To reade my fault, and, wondring at my flame,
To warme your selves at my wide sparckling fire,
Sith now that heat is quenched, quench my blame,
And in her ashes shrowd my dying shame;
For who my passed follies now pursewes,
Beginnes his owne, and my old fault renewes.
BEFORE THIS WORLDS GREAT FRAME, in which al things
Are now containd, found any being-place,
Ere flitting Time could wag* his eyas** wings
About that mightie bound which doth embrace
The rolling spheres, and parts their houres by space,
That high eternall Powre, which now doth move
In all these things, mov'd in it selfe by love.
[* Wag, move.]
[** Eyas, unfledged.]
It lovd it selfe, because it selfe was faire;
(For fair is lov'd;) and of it self begot
Like to it selfe his eldest Sonne and Heire,
Eternall, pure, and voide of sinfull blot,
The firstling of his ioy, in whom no iot
Of loves dislike or pride was to be found,
Whom he therefore with equall honour crownd.
With him he raignd, before all time prescribed,
In endlesse glorie and immortall might,
Together with that Third from them derived,
Most wise, most holy, most almightie Spright!
Whose kingdomes throne no thoughts of earthly wight
Can comprehend, much lesse my trembling verse
With equall words can hope it to reherse.
Yet, O most blessed Spirit! pure lampe of light,
Eternall spring of grace and wisedom trew,
Vouchsafe to shed into my barren spright
Some little drop of thy celestiall dew,
That may my rymes with sweet infuse* embrew,
And give me words equall unto my thought,
To tell the marveiles by thy mercie wrought.
[* Infuse, infusion]
Yet being pregnant still with powrefull grace,
And full of fruitfull Love, that loves to get
Things like himselfe and to enlarge his race,
His second brood, though not of powre so great,
Yet full of beautie, next he did beget,
An infinite increase of angels bright,
All glistring glorious in their Makers light.
To them the heavens illimitable hight
(Not this round heaven which we from hence behold,
Adornd with thousand lamps of burning light,
And with ten thousand gemmes of shyning gold)
He gave as their inheritance to hold,
That they might serve him in eternall blis,
And be partakers of those ioyes of his.
There they in their trinall triplicities
About him wait, and on his will depend,
Either with nimble wings to cut the skies,
When he them on his messages doth send,
Or on his owne dread presence to attend,
Where they behold the glorie of his light,
And caroll hymnes of love both day and night.
[Ver. 64.--Trinall triplicities. See the Faerie Queene, Book I.
Canto XII. 39. H.]
Both day and night is unto them all one;
For he his beames doth unto them extend,
That darknesse there appeareth never none;
Ne hath their day, ne hath their blisse, an end,
But there their termelesse time in pleasure spend;
Ne ever should their happinesse decay,
Had not they dar'd their Lord to disobay.
But pride, impatient of long resting peace,
Did puffe them up with greedy bold ambition,
That they gan cast their state how to increase
Above the fortune of their first condition,
And sit in Gods own seat without commission:
The brightest angel, even the Child of Light*,
Drew millions more against their God to fight.
[* I.e. Lucifer.]
Th'Almighty, seeing their so bold assay,
Kindled the flame of his consuming yre,
And with his onely breath them blew away
From heavens hight, to which they did aspyre,
To deepest hell, and lake of damned fyre,
Where they in darknesse and dread horror dwell,
Hating the happie light from which they fell.
So that next off-spring of the Makers love,
Next to himselfe in glorious degree,
Degendering* to hate, fell from above
Through pride; (for pride and love may ill agree;)
And now of sinne to all ensample bee:
How then can sinfull flesh it selfe assure,
Sith purest angels fell to be impure?
[* Degendering, degenerating.]
But that Eternall Fount of love and grace,
Still flowing forth his goodnesse unto all,
Now seeing left a waste and emptie place
In his wyde pallace through those angels fall,
Cast to supply the same, and to enstall
A new unknowen colony therein,
Whose root from earths base groundworke should begin.
Therefore of clay, base, vile, and nest to nought,
Yet form'd by wondrous skill, and by his might
According to an heavenly patterne wrought,
Which he had fashiond in his wise foresight,
He man did make, and breathd a living spright
Into his face, most beautifull and fayre,
Endewd with wisedomes riches, heavenly, rare.
Such he him made, that he resemble might
Himselfe, as mortall thing immortall could;
Him to be lord of every living wight
He made by love out of his owne like mould,
In whom he might his mightie selfe behould;
For Love doth love the thing belov'd to see,
That like it selfe in lovely shape may bee.
But man, forgetfull of his Makers grace
No lesse than angels, whom he did ensew,
Fell from the hope of promist heavenly place,
Into the mouth of Death, to sinners dew,
And all his off-spring into thraldome threw,
Where they for ever should in bonds remaine
Of never-dead, yet ever-dying paine;
Till that great Lord of Love, which him at first
Made of meere love, and after liked well,
Seeing him lie like creature long accurst
In that deep horor of despeyred hell,
Him, wretch, in doole* would let no lenger dwell,
But cast** out of that bondage to redeeme,
And pay the price, all@ were his debt extreeme.
[* Doole, pain.]
[** Cast, devised.]
[@ All, although.]
Out of the bosome of eternall blisse,
In which he reigned with his glorious Syre,
He downe descended, like a most demisse*
And abiect thrall, in fleshes fraile attyre,
That he for him might pay sinnes deadly hyre,
And him restore unto that happie state
In which he stood before his haplesse fate.
[* Demisse, humble.]
In flesh at first the guilt committed was,
Therefore in flesh it must be satisfyde;
Nor spirit, nor angel, though they man surpas,
Could make amends to God for mans misguyde,
But onely man himselfe, who selfe did slyde:
So, taking flesh of sacred virgins wombe,
For mans deare sake he did a man become.
And that most blessed bodie, which was borne
Without all blemish or reprochfull blame,
He freely gave to be both rent and torne
Of cruell hands, who with despightfull shame
Revyling him, (that them most vile became,)
At length him nayled on a gallow-tree,
And slew the iust by most uniust decree.
O huge and most unspeakeable impression
Of Loves deep wound, that pierst the piteous hart
Of that deare Lord with so entyre affection,
And, sharply launcing every inner part,
Dolours of death into his soule did dart,
Doing him die that never it deserved,
To free his foes, that from his heast* had swerved!
[* Heast, command.]
What hart can feel least touch of so sore launch,
Or thought can think the depth of so deare wound?
Whose bleeding sourse their streames yet never staunch,
But stil do flow, and freshly still redownd*,
To heale the sores of sinfull soules unsound,
And clense the guilt of that infected cryme,
Which was enrooted in all fleshly slyme.
[* Redownd, overflow.]
O blessed Well of Love! O Floure of Grace!
O glorious Morning-Starre! O Lampe of Light!
Most lively image of thy Fathers face,
Eternal King of Glorie, Lord of Might,
Meeke Lambe of God, before all worlds behight*,
How can we thee requite for all this good?
Or what can prize** that thy most precious blood?
[* Behight, named.]
[** Prize, price.]
Yet nought thou ask'st in lieu of all this love
But love of us, for guerdon of thy paine:
Ay me! what can us lesse than that behove?
Had he required life for us againe,
Had it beene wrong to ask his owne with game?
He gave us life, he it restored lost;
Then life were least, that us so little cost.
But he our life hath left unto us free,
Free that was thrall, and blessed that was band*;
Ne ought demaunds but that we loving bee,
As he himselfe hath lov'd us afore-hand,
And bound therto with an eternall band;
Him first to love that was so dearely bought,
And next our brethren, to his image wrought.
[* Band, cursed.]
Him first to love great right and reason is,
Who first to us our life and being gave,
And after, when we fared* had amisse,
Us wretches from the second death did save;
And last, the food of life, which now we have,
Even he himselfe, in his dear sacrament,
To feede our hungry soules, unto us lent.
[* Fared, gone.]
Then next, to love our brethren, that were made
Of that selfe* mould and that self Maker's hand
That we, and to the same againe shall fade,
Where they shall have like heritage of land,
However here on higher steps we stand,
Which also were with selfe-same price redeemed
That we, however of us light esteemed.
[* Selfe, same.]
And were they not, yet since that loving Lord
Commaunded us to love them for his sake,
Even for his sake, and for his sacred word
Which in his last bequest he to us spake,
We should them love, and with their needs partake;
Knowing that whatsoere to them we give
We give to him by whom we all doe live.
Such mercy he by his most holy reede*
Unto us taught, and, to approve it trew,
Ensampled it by his most righteous deede,
Shewing us mercie, miserable crew!
That we the like should to the wretches shew,
And love our brethren; thereby to approve
How much himselfe that loved us we love.
[* Reede, precept.]
Then rouze thy selfe, O Earth! out of thy soyle*,
In which thou wallowest like to filthy swyne,
And doest thy mynd in durty pleasures moyle**,
Unmindfull of that dearest Lord of thyne;
Lift up to him thy heavie clouded eyne,
That thou this soveraine bountie mayst behold,
And read, through love, his mercies manifold.
[* Soyle, mire.]
[** Moyle, defile.]
Beginne from first, where he encradled was
In simple cratch*, wrapt in a wad of hay,
Betweene the toylfull oxe and humble asse,
And in what rags, and in how base aray,
The glory of our heavenly riches lay,
When him the silly shepheards came to see,
Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee.
[* Cratch, manger.]
From thence reade on the storie of his life,
His humble carriage, his unfaulty wayes,
His cancred foes, his fights, his toyle, his strife,
His paines, his povertie, his sharpe assayes,
Through which he past his miserable dayes,
Offending none, and doing good to all,
Yet being malist* both by great and small.
[* Malist, regarded with ill-will.]
And look at last, how of most wretched wights
He taken was, betrayd, and false accused;
How with most scornfull taunts and fell despights,
He was revyld, disgrast, and foule abused;
How scourgd, how crownd, how buffeted, how brused;
And, lastly, how twixt robbers crucifyde,
With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and syde!
Then let thy flinty hart, that feeles no paine,
Empierced he with pittifull remorse,
And let thy bowels bleede in every vaine,
At sight of his most sacred heavenly corse,
So torne and mangled with malicious forse;
And let thy soule, whose sins his sorrows wrought,
Melt into teares, and grone in grieved thought.
With sence whereof whilest so thy softened spirit
Is inly toucht, and humbled with meeke zeale
Through meditation of his endlesse merit,
Lift up thy mind to th'author of thy weale,
And to his soveraine mercie doe appeale;
Learne him to love that loved thee so deare,
And in thy brest his blessed image beare.
With all thy hart, with all thy soule and mind,
Thou must him love, and his beheasts embrace;
All other loves, with which the world doth blind
Weake fancies, and stirre up affections base,
Thou must renounce and utterly displace,
And give thy self unto him full and free,
That full and freely gave himselfe to thee.
Then shalt thou feele thy spirit so possest,
And ravisht with devouring great desire
Of his dear selfe, that shall thy feeble brest
Inflame with love, and set thee all on fire
With burning zeale, through every part entire*,
That in no earthly thing thou shalt delight,
But in his sweet and amiable sight.
[* Entire, inward.]
Thenceforth all worlds desire will in thee dye,
And all earthes glorie, on which men do gaze,
Seeme durt and drosse in thy pure-sighted eye,
Compar'd to that celestiall beauties blaze,
Whose glorious beames all fleshly sense doth daze
With admiration of their passing light,
Blinding the eyes, and lumining the spright.
Then shall thy ravisht soul inspired bee
With heavenly thoughts, farre above humane skil,
And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainely see
Th'idee of his pure glorie present still
Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill
With sweete enragement of celestiall love,
Kindled through sight of those faire things above.
AN HYMNE
OF HEAVENLY BEAUTIE.
Rapt with the rage of mine own ravisht thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights,
Do kindle love in high conceipted sprights,
I faine* to tell the things that I behold,
But feele my wits to faile and tongue to fold.
[* Faine, long.]
Vouchsafe then, O Thou most Almightie Spright!
From whom all guifts of wit and knowledge flow,
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of thine eternall truth, that I may show
Some little beames to mortall eyes below
Of that immortall Beautie there with Thee,
Which in my weake distraughted mynd I see;
That with the glorie of so goodly sight
The hearts of men, which fondly here admyre
Faire seeming shewes, and feed on vaine delight,
Transported with celestiall desyre
Of those faire formes, may lift themselves up hyer,
And learne to love, with zealous humble dewty,
Th'Eternall Fountaine of that heavenly Beauty.
Beginning then below, with th'easie vew
Of this base world, subiect to fleshly eye,
From thence to mount aloft, by order dew,
To contemplation of th'immortall sky;
Of the soare faulcon* so I learne to flye.
That flags a while her fluttering wings beneath,
Till she her selfe for stronger flight can breath.
[* Soare faulcon, a young falcon; a hawk that has not shed its first
feathers, which are sorrel.]
Then looke, who list thy gazefull eyes to feed
With sight of that is faire, looke on the frame
Of this wyde universe, and therein reed
The endlesse kinds of creatures which by name
Thou canst not count, much less their natures aime;
All which are made with wondrous wise respect,
And all with admirable beautie deckt.
First, th'Earth, on adamantine pillers founded
Amid the Sea, engirt with brasen bands;
Then th'Aire, still flitting, but yet firmely bounded
On everie side with pyles of flaming brands,
Never consum'd, nor quencht with mortall hands;
And last, that mightie shining cristall wall,
Wherewith he hath encompassed this all.
By view whereof it plainly may appeare,
That still as every thing doth upward tend
And further is from earth, so still more cleare
And faire it growes, till to his perfect end
Of purest Beautie it at last ascend;
Ayre more then water, fire much more then ayre,
And heaven then fire, appeares more pure and fayre.
Looke thou no further, but affixe thine eye
On that bright shynie round still moving masse,
The house of blessed God, which men call Skye,
All sowd with glistring stars more thicke then grasse,
Whereof each other doth in brightnesse passe,
But those two most, which, ruling night and day,
As king and queene the heavens empire sway;
And tell me then, what hast thou ever seene
That to their beautie may compared bee?
Or can the sight that is most sharpe and keene
Endure their captains flaming head to see?
How much lesse those, much higher in degree,
And so much fairer, and much more then these,
As these are fairer then the land and seas?
For farre above these heavens which here we see,
Be others farre exceeding these in light,
Not bounded, not corrupt, as these same bee,
But infinite in largenesse and in hight,
Unmoving, uncorrupt, and spotlesse bright,
That need no sunne t'illuminate their spheres,
But their owne native light farre passing theirs.
And as these heavens still by degrees arize,
Until they come to their first movers* bound,
That in his mightie compasse doth comprize
And came all the rest with him around,
So those likewise doe by degrees redound**,
And rise more faire, till they at last arive
To the most faire, whereto they all do strive.
[* I.e. the primum mobile.]
[** I.e. exceed the one the other.]
Faire is the heaven where happy soules have place,
In full enioyment of felicitie,
Whence they doe still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine Eternall Maiestie;
More faire is that where those Idees on hie
Enraunged be, which Plato so admyred,
And pure Intelligences from God inspyred.
Yet fairer is that heaven in which do raine
The soveraigne Powres and mightie Potentates,
Which in their high protections doe containe
All mortall princes and imperiall states;
And fayrer yet whereas the royall Seates
And heavenly Dominations are set,
From whom all earthly governance is fet*.
[* Fet, fetched, derived.]
Yet farre more faire be those bright Cherubins,
Which all with golden wings are overdight,
And those eternall burning Seraphins,
Which from their faces dart out fierie light;
Yet fairer then they both, and much more bright,
Be th'Angels and Archangels, which attend
On Gods owne person, without rest or end.
These thus in faire each other farre excelling,
As to the Highest they approach more near,
Yet is that Highest farre beyond all telling,
Fairer then all the rest which there appeare,
Though all their beauties ioyn'd together were;
How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?
Cease then, my tongue! and lend unto my mynd
Leave to bethinke how great that Beautie is,
Whose utmost* parts so beautifull I fynd;
How much more those essentiall parts of His,
His truth, his love, his wisedome, and his blis,
His grace, his doome**, his mercy, and his might,
By which he lends us of himselfe a sight!
[* Utmost, outmost.]
[** Doome, judgment.]
Those unto all he daily doth display,
And shew himselfe in th'image of his grace,
As in a looking-glasse, through which he may
Be seene of all his creatures vile and base,
That are unable else to see his face;
His glorious face! which glistereth else so bright,
That th'angels selves can not endure his sight.
But we, fraile wights! whose sight cannot sustaine
The suns bright beames when he on us doth shyne,
But* that their points rebutted** backe againe
Are duld, how can we see with feeble eyne
The glorie of that Maiestie Divine,
In sight of whom both sun and moone are darke,
Compared to his least resplendent sparke?
[* But, unless.]
[** Rebutted, reflected.]
The meanes, therefore, which unto us is lent
Him to behold, is on his workes to looke.
Which he hath made in beauty excellent,
And in the same, as in a brasen booke,
To read enregistred in every nooke
His goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare;
For all thats good is beautifull and faire.
Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation
To impe* the wings of thy high flying mynd,
Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation
From this darke world, whose damps the soule do blynd,
And, like the native brood of eagles kynd,
On that bright Sunne of Glorie fixe thine eyes,
Clear'd from grosse mists of fraile infirmities.
[* Impe, mend, strengthen.]
Humbled with feare and awfull reverence,
Before the footestoole of his Maiestie
Throw thy selfe downe, with trembling innocence,
Ne dare looke up with c'rruptible eye
On the dred face of that great Deity,
For feare lest, if he chaunce to look on thee,
Thou turne to nought, and quite confounded be.
But lowly fall before his mercie seate,
Close covered with the Lambes integrity
From the iust wrath of His avengefull threate
That sits upon the righteous throne on hy;
His throne is built upon Eternity,
More firme and durable then steele or brasse,
Or the hard diamond, which them both doth passe.
His scepter is the rod of Righteousnesse,
With which he bruseth all his foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth represse
Under the rigour of his iudgment iust;
His seate is Truth, to which the faithfull trust,
From whence proceed her beames so pure and bright,
That all about him sheddeth glorious light:
Light farre exceeding that bright blazing sparke
Which darted is from Titans flaming head,
That with his beames enlumineth the darke
And dampish air, wherby al things are red*;
Whose nature yet so much is marvelled
Of mortall wits, that it doth much amaze
The greatest wisards** which thereon do gaze.
[* Red, perceived.]
[** Wisards, wise men, savants.]
But that immortall light which there doth shine
Is many thousand times more bright, more cleare,
More excellent, more glorious, more divine;
Through which to God all mortall actions here,
And even the thoughts of men, do plaine appeare;
For from th'Eternall Truth it doth proceed,
Through heavenly vertue which her beames doe breed.
With the great glorie of that wondrous light
His throne is all encompassed around,
And hid in his owne brightnesse from the sight
Of all that looke thereon with eyes unsound;
And underneath his feet are to be found
Thunder, and lightning, and tempestuous fyre,
The instruments of his avenging yre.
There in his bosome Sapience doth sit,
The soveraine dearling of the Deity,
Clad like a queene in royall robes, most fit
For so great powre and peerelesse maiesty,
And all with gemmes and iewels gorgeously
Adornd, that brighter then the starres appeare,
And make her native brightnes seem more cleare.
And on her head a crown of purest gold
Is set, in signe of highest soverainty;
And in her hand a scepter she doth hold,
With which she rules the house of God on hy,
And menageth the ever-moving sky,
And in the same these lower creatures all
Subiected to her powre imperiall.
Both heaven and earth obey unto her will,
And all the creatures which they both containe;
For of her fulnesse, which the world doth fill,
They all partake, and do in state remaine
As their great Maker did at first ordaine,
Through observation of her high beheast,
By which they first were made, and still increast.
The fairnesse of her face no tongue can tell;
For she the daughters of all wemens race,
And angels eke, in beautie doth excell,
Sparkled on her from Gods owne glorious face,
And more increast by her owne goodly grace,
That it doth farre exceed all humane thought,
Ne can on earth compared be to ought.
Ne could that painter (had he lived yet)
Which pictured Venus with so curious quill
That all posteritie admyred it,
Have purtray'd this, for all his maistring* skill;
Ne she her selfe, had she remained still,
And were as faire as fabling wits do fayne,
Could once come neare this Beauty soverayne.
[* Maistring, superior.]
But had those wits, the wonders of their dayes,
Or that sweete Teian poet*, which did spend
His plenteous vaine in setting forth her praise,
Seen but a glims of this which I pretend**,
How wondrously would he her face commend,
Above that idole of his fayning thought,
That all the world should with his rimes be fraught!
[* I.e. Anacreon.]
[** Pretend, set forth, (or, simply) intend.]
How then dare I, the novice of his art,
Presume to picture so divine a wight,
Or hope t'expresse her least perfections part,
Whose beautie filles the heavens with her light,
And darkes the earth with shadow of her sight?
Ah, gentle Muse! thou art too weake and faint
The pourtraict of so heavenly hew to paint.
Let angels, which her goodly face behold,
And see at will, her soveraigne praises sing,
And those most sacred mysteries unfold
Of that faire love of mightie Heavens King;
Enough is me t'admyre so heavenly thing,
And being thus with her huge love possest,
In th'only wonder of her selfe to rest.
But whoso may, thrise happie man him hold
Of all on earth, whom God so much doth grace,
And lets his owne Beloved to behold;
For in the view of her celestiall face
All ioy, all blisse, all happinesse, have place;
Ne ought on earth can want unto the wight
Who of her selfe can win the wishfull sight.
For she out of her secret threasury
Plentie of riches forth on him will powre,
Even heavenly riches, which there hidden ly
Within the closet of her chastest bowre,
Th'eternall portion of her precious dowre,
Which Mighty God hath given to her free,
And to all those which thereof worthy bee.
None thereof worthy be, but those whom shee
Vouchsafeth to her presence to receave,
And letteth them her lovely face to see,
Wherof such wondrous pleasures they conceave,
And sweete contentment, that it doth bereave
Their soul of sense, through infinite delight,
And them transport from flesh into the spright.
In which they see such admirable things,
As carries them into an extasy;
And heare such heavenly notes and carolings
Of Gods high praise, that filles the brasen sky;
And feele such ioy and pleasure inwardly,
That maketh them all worldly cares forget,
And onely thinke on that before them set.
Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense,
Or idle thought of earthly things, remaine;
But all that earst seemd sweet seemes now offence,
And all that pleased earst now seemes to paine:
Their ioy, their comfort, their desire, their game,
Is fixed all on that which now they see;
All other sights but fayned shadowes bee.
And that faire lampe which useth to enflame
The hearts of men with selfe-consuming fyre,
Thenceforth seemes fowle, and full of sinfull blame
And all that pompe to which proud minds aspyre
By name of Honor, and so much desyre,
Seemes to them basenesse, and all riches drosse,
And all mirth sadnesse, and all lucre losse.
So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,
And senses fraught with such satietie.
That in nought else on earth they can delight,
But in th'aspect of that felicitie
Which they have written in theyr inward ey;
On which they feed, and in theyr fastened mynd
All happie ioy and full contentment fynd.
Ah, then, my hungry soule! which long hast fed
On idle fancies of thy foolish thought,
And, with false Beauties flattring bait misled,
Hast after vaine deceiptfull shadowes sought,
Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought
But late repentance, through thy follies prief,
Ah! ceasse to gaze on matter of thy grief:
And looke at last up to that Soveraine Light,
From whose pure beams al perfect Beauty springs,
That kindleth love in every godly spright,
Even the love of God; which loathing brings
Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things;
With whose sweet pleasures being so possest,
Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest.
|
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE AND MOST VERTUOUS LADIES, THE LADIE MARGARET, COUNTESSE OF CUMBERLAND; AND THE LADIE MARIE*, COUNTESSE OF WARWICK.
Having, in the greener times of my youth, composed these former two Hymnes in the praise of love and beautie, and finding that the same too much pleased those of like age and disposition, which, being too vehemently carried with that kind of affection, do rather sucke out poyson to their strong passion, then honey to their honest delight, I was moved, by the one of you two most excellent Ladies, to call in the same; but being unable so to do, by reason that many copies thereof were formerly scattered abroad, I resolved at least to amend, and, by way of retraction, to reforme them, making (instead of those two Hymnes of earthly or naturall love and beautie) two others of heavenly and celestiall; the which I doe dedicate ioyntly unto you two honorable sisters, as to the most excellent and rare ornaments of all true love and beautie, both in the one and the other kind; humbly beseeching you to vouchsafe the patronage of them, and to accept this my humble service, in lieu of the great graces and honourable favours which ye dayly shew unto me, until such time as I may, by better meanes, yeeld you some more notable testimonie of my thankfull mind and dutifull devotion. And even so I pray for your happinesse. Greenwich, this first of September, 1596. Your Honors most bounden ever,
In all humble service,
ED. SP.
[* The Countess of Warwick's name was Anne, not Mary. TODD.]
* * * * *
AN HYMNE
IN HONOUR OF LOVE.
Love, that long since hast to thy mighty powre
Perforce subdude my poor captived hart,
And raging now therein with restlesse stowre*,
Doest tyrannize in everie weaker part,
Faine would I seeke to ease my bitter smart
By any service I might do to thee,
Or ought that else might to thee pleasing bee.
[* Stowre, commotion.]
And now t'asswage the force of this new flame,
And make thee more propitious in my need,
I meane to sing the praises of thy name,
And thy victorious conquests to areed*,
By which thou madest many harts to bleed
Of mighty victors, with wide wounds embrewed,
And by thy cruell darts to thee subdewed.
[* Areed, set forth.]
Onely I fear my wits, enfeebled late
Through the sharp sorrowes which thou hast me bred,
Should faint, and words should faile me to relate
The wondrous triumphs of thy great god-hed:
But, if thou wouldst vouchsafe to overspred
Me with the shadow of thy gentle wing,
I should enabled be thy actes to sing.
Come, then, O come, thou mightie God of Love!
Out of thy silver bowres and secret blisse,
Where thou dost sit in Venus lap above,
Bathing thy wings in her ambrosial kisse,
That sweeter farre than any nectar is,
Come softly, and my feeble breast inspire
With gentle furie, kindled of thy fire.
And ye, sweet Muses! which have often proved
The piercing points of his avengefull darts,
And ye, fair Nimphs! which oftentimes have loved
The cruel worker of your kindly smarts,
Prepare yourselves, and open wide your harts
For to receive the triumph of your glorie,
That made you merie oft when ye were sorrie.
And ye, faire blossoms of youths wanton breed!
Which in the conquests of your beautie bost,
Wherewith your lovers feeble eyes you feed,
But sterve their harts, that needeth nourture most,
Prepare your selves to march amongst his host,
And all the way this sacred hymne do sing,
Made in the honor of your soveraigne king.
Great God of Might, that reignest in the mynd,
And all the bodie to thy hest doest frame,
Victor of gods, subduer of mankynd,
That doest the lions and fell tigers tame,
Making their cruell rage thy scornfull game,
And in their roring taking great delight,
Who can expresse the glorie of thy might?
Or who alive can perfectly declare
The wondrous cradle of thine infancie,
When thy great mother Venus first thee bare,
Begot of Plenty and of Penurie,
Though elder then thine own nativitie,
And yet a chyld, renewing still thy yeares,
And yet the eldest of the heavenly peares?
For ere this worlds still moving mightie masse
Out of great Chaos ugly prison crept,
In which his goodly face long hidden was
From heavens view, and in deep darknesse kept,
Love, that had now long time securely slept
In Venus lap, unarmed then and naked,
Gan reare his head, by Clotho being waked:
And taking to him wings of his own heat,
Kindled at first from heavens life-giving fyre,
He gan to move out of his idle seat;
Weakly at first, but after with desyre
Lifted aloft, he gan to mount up hyre*,
And, like fresh eagle, made his hardy flight
Thro all that great wide wast, yet wanting light.
[* Hyre, higher.]
Yet wanting light to guide his wandring way,
His own faire mother, for all creatures sake,
Did lend him light from her owne goodly ray;
Then through the world his way he gan to take,
The world, that was not till he did it make,
Whose sundrie parts he from themselves did sever.
The which before had lyen confused ever.
The earth, the ayre, the water, and the fyre,
Then gan to raunge themselves in huge array,
And with contr'ry forces to conspyre
Each against other by all meanes they may,
Threatning their owne confusion and decay:
Ayre hated earth, and water hated fyre,
Till Love relented their rebellious yre.
He then them tooke, and, tempering goodly well
Their contrary dislikes with loved meanes,
Did place them all in order, and compell
To keepe themselves within their sundrie raines*,
Together linkt with adamantine chaines;
Yet so as that in every living wight
They mix themselves, and shew their kindly might.
[* Raines, kingdoms.]
So ever since they firmely have remained,
And duly well observed his beheast;
Through which now all these things that are contained
Within this goodly cope, both most and least,
Their being have, and daily are increast
Through secret sparks of his infused fyre,
Which in the barraine cold he doth inspyre.
Thereby they all do live, and moved are
To multiply the likenesse of their kynd,
Whilest they seeke onely, without further care,
To quench the flame which they in burning fynd;
But man, that breathes a more immortall mynd,
Not for lusts sake, but for eternitie,
Seekes to enlarge his lasting progenie.
For having yet in his deducted spright
Some sparks remaining of that heavenly fyre,
He is enlumind with that goodly light,
Unto like goodly semblant to aspyre;
Therefore in choice of love he doth desyre
That seemes on earth most heavenly to embrace,
That same is Beautie, borne of heavenly race.
For sure, of all that in this mortall frame
Contained is, nought more divine doth seeme,
Or that resembleth more th'immortall flame
Of heavenly light, than Beauties glorious beam.
What wonder then, if with such rage extreme
Frail men, whose eyes seek heavenly things to see,
At sight thereof so much enravisht bee?
Which well perceiving, that imperious boy
Doth therewith tip his sharp empoisned darts,
Which glancing thro the eyes with* countenance coy
Kest not till they have pierst the trembling harts,
And kindled flame in all their inner parts,
Which suckes the blood, and drinketh up the lyfe,
Of carefull wretches with consuming griefe.
[* Qu. from? WARTON.]
Thenceforth they playne, and make full piteous mone
Unto the author of their balefull bane:
The daies they waste, the nights they grieve and grone,
Their lives they loath, and heavens light disdaine;
No light but that whose lampe doth yet remaine
Fresh burning in the image of their eye,
They deigne to see, and seeing it still dye.
The whylst thou, tyrant Love, doest laugh and scorne
At their complaints, making their paine thy play;
Whylest they lye languishing like thrals forlorne,
The whyles thou doest triumph in their decay;
And otherwhyles, their dying to delay,
Thou doest emmarble the proud hart of her
Whose love before their life they doe prefer.
So hast thou often done (ay me the more!)
To me thy vassall, whose yet bleeding hart
With thousand wounds thou mangled hast so sore,
That whole remaines scarse any little part;
Yet to augment the anguish of my smart,
Thou hast enfrosen her disdainefull brest,
That no one drop of pitie there doth rest.
Why then do I this honor unto thee,
Thus to ennoble thy victorious name,
Sith thou doest shew no favour unto mee,
Ne once move ruth in that rebellious dame,
Somewhat to slacke the rigour of my flame?
Certes small glory doest thou winne hereby,
To let her live thus free, and me to dy.
But if thou be indeede, as men thee call,
The worlds great parent, the most kind preserver
Of living wights, the soveraine lord of all,
How falles it then that with thy furious fervour
Thou doest afflict as well the not-deserver,
As him that doeth thy lovely heasts despize,
And on thy subiects most doth tyrannize?
Yet herein eke thy glory seemeth more,
By so hard handling those which best thee serve,
That, ere thou doest them unto grace restore,
Thou mayest well trie if they will ever swerve,
And mayest them make it better to deserve,
And, having got it, may it more esteeme;
For things hard gotten men more dearely deeme.
So hard those heavenly beauties be enfyred,
As things divine least passions doe impresse;
The more of stedfast mynds to be admyred,
The more they stayed be on stedfastnesse;
But baseborne minds such lamps regard the lesse,
Which at first blowing take not hastie fyre;
Such fancies feele no love, but loose desyre.
For Love is lord of truth and loialtie,
Lifting himself out of the lowly dust
On golden plumes up to the purest skie,
Above the reach of loathly sinfull lust,
Whose base affect*, through cowardly distrust
Of his weake wings, dare not to heaven fly,
But like a moldwarpe** in the earth doth ly.
[* Affect, affection, passion.]
[** Moldwarpe, mole.]
His dunghill thoughts, which do themselves enure
To dirtie drosse, no higher dare aspyre;
Ne can his feeble earthly eyes endure
The flaming light of that celestiall fyre
Which kindleth love in generous desyre,
And makes him mount above the native might
Of heavie earth, up to the heavens hight.
Such is the powre of that sweet passion,
That it all sordid basenesse doth expell,
And the refyned mynd doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer forme, which now doth dwell
In his high thought, that would it selfe excell;
Which he beholding still with constant sight,
Admires the mirrour of so heavenly light.
Whose image printing in his deepest wit,
He thereon feeds his hungrie fantasy,
Still full, yet never satisfyde with it;
Like Tantale, that in store doth sterved ly,
So doth he pine in most satiety;
For nought may quench his infinite desyre,
Once kindled through that first conceived fyre.
Thereon his mynd affixed wholly is,
Ne thinks on ought but how it to attaine;
His care, his ioy, his hope, is all on this,
That seemes in it all blisses to containe,
In sight whereof all other blisse seemes vaine:
Thrice happie man, might he the same possesse,
He faines himselfe, and doth his fortune blesse.
And though he do not win his wish to end,
Yet thus farre happie he himselfe doth weene,
That heavens such happie grace did to him lend
As thing on earth so heavenly to have seene,
His harts enshrined saint, his heavens queene,
Fairer then fairest in his fayning eye,
Whose sole aspect he counts felicitye.
Then forth he casts in his unquiet thought,
What he may do her favour to obtaine;
What brave exploit, what perill hardly wrought,
What puissant conquest, what adventurous paine,
May please her best, and grace unto him gaine;
He dreads no danger, nor misfortune feares,
His faith, his fortune, in his breast he beares.
Thou art his god, thou art his mightie guyde,
Thou, being blind, letst him not see his feares,
But carriest him to that which he had eyde,
Through seas, through flames, through thousand swords and speares; *
Ne ought so strong that may his force withstand,
With which thou armest his resistlesse hand.
[* The fifth verse of this stanza appears to have dropped out. C.]
Witnesse Leander in the Euxine waves,
And stout Aeneas in the Troiane fyre,
Achilles preassing through the Phrygian glaives*,
And Orpheus, daring to provoke the yre
Of damned fiends, to get his love retyre;
For both through heaven and hell thou makest way,
To win them worship which to thee obay.
[* Glaives, swords.]
And if by all these perils and these paynes
He may but purchase lyking in her eye,
What heavens of ioy then to himselfe he faynes!
Eftsoones he wypes quite out of memory
Whatever ill before he did aby*:
Had it beene death, yet would he die againe,
To live thus happie as her grace to gaine.
[* Aby, abide.]
Yet when he hath found favour to his will,
He nath'more can so contented rest,
But forceth further on, and striveth still
T'approch more neare, till in her inmost brest
He may embosomd bee and loved best;
And yet not best, but to be lov'd alone;
For love cannot endure a paragone*.
[* Paragone, competitor.]
The fear whereof, O how doth it torment
His troubled mynd with more then hellish paine!
And to his fayning fansie represent
Sights never seene, and thousand shadowes vaine,
To breake his sleepe and waste his ydle braine:
Thou that hast never lov'd canst not beleeve
Least part of th'evils which poore lovers greeve.
The gnawing envie, the hart-fretting feare,
The vaine surmizes, the distrustfull showes,
The false reports that flying tales doe beare,
The doubts, the daungers, the delayes, the woes,
The fayned friends, the unassured foes,
With thousands more then any tongue can tell,
Doe make a lovers life a wretches hell.
Yet is there one more cursed then they all,
That cancker-worme, that monster, Gelosie,
Which eates the heart and feedes upon the gall,
Turning all Loves delight to miserie,
Through feare of losing his felicitie.
Ah, gods! that ever ye that monster placed
In gentle Love, that all his ioyes defaced!
By these, O Love! thou doest thy entrance make
Unto thy heaven, and doest the more endeere
Thy pleasures unto those which them partake,
As after stormes, when clouds begin to cleare,
The sunne more bright and glorious doth appeare;
So thou thy folke, through paines of Purgatorie,
Dost beare unto thy blisse, and heavens glorie.
There thou them placest in a paradize
Of all delight and ioyous happy rest,
Where they doe feede on nectar heavenly-wize,
With Hercules and Hebe, and the rest
Of Venus dearlings, through her bountie blest;
And lie like gods in yvory beds arayd,
With rose and lillies over them displayd.
There with thy daughter Pleasure they doe play
Their hurtlesse sports, without rebuke or blame,
And in her snowy bosome boldly lay
Their quiet heads, devoyd of guilty shame,
After full ioyance of their gentle game;
Then her they crowne their goddesse and their queene,
And decke with floures thy altars well beseene.
Ay me! deare Lord, that ever I might hope,
For all the paines and woes that I endure,
To come at length unto the wished scope
Of my desire, or might myselfe assure
That happie port for ever to recure*!
Then would I thinke these paines no paines at all,
And all my woes to be but penance small.
[* Recure, recover, gain.]
Then would I sing of thine immortal praise
An heavenly hymne such as the angels sing,
And thy triumphant name then would I raise
Bove all the gods, thee only honoring;
My guide, my god, my victor, and my king:
Till then, drad Lord! vouchsafe to take of me
This simple song, thus fram'd in praise of thee.
AN HYMNE
IN HONOUR OF BEAUTIE.
Ah! whither, Love! wilt thou now carry mee?
What wontlesse fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whylest seeking to aslake thy raging fyre,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desyre,
And up aloft above my strength doth rayse
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.
That as I earst in praise of thine owne name,
So now in honour of thy mother deare
An honourable hymne I eke should frame,
And, with the brightnesse of her beautie cleare,
The ravisht hearts of gazefull men might reare
To admiration of that heavenly light,
From whence proceeds such soule-enchanting might.
Therto do thou, great Goddesse! Queene of Beauty,
Mother of Love and of all worlds delight,
Without whose soverayne grace and kindly dewty
Nothing on earth seems fayre to fleshly sight,
Doe thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light
T'illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,
And beautifie this sacred hymne of thyne:
That both to thee, to whom I meane it most,
And eke to her whose faire immortall beame
Hath darted fyre into my feeble ghost,
That now it wasted is with woes extreame,
It may so please, that she at length will streame
Some deaw of grace into my withered hart,
After long sorrow and consuming smart.
WHAT TIME THIS WORLDS GREAT WORKMAISTER did cast
To make al things such as we now behold,
It seems that he before his eyes had plast
A goodly paterne, to whose perfect mould
He fashiond them as comely as he could,
That now so faire and seemely they appeare
As nought may be amended any wheare.
That wondrous paterne, wheresoere it bee,
Whether in earth layd up in secret store,
Or else in heaven, that no man may it see
With sinfull eyes, for feare it do deflore,
Is perfect Beautie, which all men adore;
Whose face and feature doth so much excell
All mortal sence, that none the same may tell.
Thereof as every earthly thing partakes
Or more or lesse, by influence divine,
So it more faire accordingly it makes,
And the grosse matter of this earthly myne
Which closeth it thereafter doth refyne,
Doing away the drosse which dims the light
Of that faire beame which therein is empight*.
[* Empight, placed.]
For, through infusion of celestiall powre,
The duller earth it quickneth with delight,
And life-full spirits privily doth powre
Through all the parts, that to the lookers sight
They seeme to please; that is thy soveraine might,
O Cyprian queene! which, flowing from the beame
Of thy bright starre, thou into them doest streame.
That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace
To all things faire, that kindleth lively fyre;
Light of thy lampe; which, shyning in the face,
Thence to the soule darts amorous desyre,
And robs the harts of those which it admyre;
Therewith thou pointest thy sons poysned arrow,
That wounds the life and wastes the inmost marrow.
How vainely then do ydle wits invent
That Beautie is nought else but mixture made
Of colours faire, and goodly temp'rament
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And passe away, like to a sommers shade;
Or that it is but comely composition
Of parts well measurd, with meet disposition!
Hath white and red in it such wondrous powre,
That it can pierce through th'eyes unto the hart,
And therein stirre such rage and restlesse stowre*,
As nought but death can stint his dolours smart?
Or can proportion of the outward part
Move such affection in the inward mynd,
That it can rob both sense, and reason blynd?
[* Stowre, commotion.]
Why doe not then the blossomes of the field,
Which are arayd with much more orient hew,
And to the sense most daintie odours yield,
Worke like impression in the lookers vew?
Or why doe not faire pictures like powre shew,
In which oft-times we Nature see of Art
Exceld, in perfect limming every part?
But ah! beleeve me there is more then so,
That workes such wonders in the minds of men;
I, that have often prov'd, too well it know,
And who so list the like assayes to ken
Shall find by trial, and confesse it then,
That Beautie is not, as fond men misdeeme,
An outward shew of things that onely seeme.
|
For that same goodly hew of white and red
With which the cheekes are sprinckled, shall decay,
And those sweete rosy leaves, so fairly spred
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay:
That golden wyre, those sparckling stars so bright,
Shall turne to dust, and lose their goodly light.
But that faire lampe, from whose celestiall ray
That light proceedes which kindleth lovers fire,
Shall never be extinguisht nor decay;
But, when the vitall spirits doe espyre,
Unto her native planet shall retyre;
For it is heavenly borne, and cannot die,
Being a parcell of the purest skie.
For when the soule, the which derived was,
At first, out of that great immortall Spright,
By whom all live to love, whilome did pas
Down from the top of purest heavens hight
To be embodied here, it then tooke light
And lively spirits from that fayrest starre
Which lights the world forth from his firie carre.
Which powre retayning still, or more or lesse,
When she in fleshly seede is eft* enraced**,
Through every part she doth the same impresse,
According as the heavens have her graced,
And frames her house, in which she will be placed,
Fit for her selfe, adorning it with spoyle
Of th'heavenly riches which she robd erewhyle.
[* Eft, afterwards.]
[** Enraced, implanted.]
Thereof it comes that these faire soules which have
The most resemblance of that heavenly light
Frame to themselves most beautifull and brave
Their fleshly bowre, most fit for their delight,
And the grosse matter by a soveraine might
Temper so trim, that it may well be seene
A pallace fit for such a virgin queene.
So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairely dight*
With chearfull grace and amiable sight:
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
[* Dight, adorn.]
Therefore, where-ever that thou doest behold
A comely corpse*, with beautie faire endewed,
Know this for certaine, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soule with fair conditions thewed**,
Fit to receive the seede of vertue strewed;
For all that faire is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.
[* Corpse, body.]
[** i.e. endowed with fair qualities.]
Yet oft it falles that many a gentle mynd
Dwels in deformed tabernacle drownd,
Either by chaunce, against the course of kynd*,
Or through unaptnesse in the substance fownd,
Which it assumed of some stubborne grownd,
That will not yield unto her formes direction,
But is deform'd with some foule imperfection.
[* Kynd, nature.]
And oft it falles, (ay me, the more to rew!)
That goodly Beautie, albe heavenly borne,
Is foule abusd, and that celestiall hew,
Which doth the world with her delight adorne,
Made but the bait of sinne, and sinners scorne,
Whilest every one doth seeke and sew to have it,
But every one doth seeke but to deprave it.
Yet nath'more is that faire Beauties blame,
But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:
Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame
May be corrupt*, and wrested unto will.
Nathelesse the soule is faire and beauteous still,
However fleshes fault it filthy make;
For things immortall no corruption take.
[* Corrupt, corrupted.]
But ye, faire Dames! the worlds deare ornaments,
And lively images of heavens light,
Let not your beames with such disparagements
Be dimd, and your bright glorie darkned quight;
But mindfull still of your first countries sight,
Doe still preserve your first informed grace,
Whose shadow yet shynes in your beauteous face.
Loath that foule blot, that hellish fi'rbrand,
Disloiall lust, fair Beauties foulest blame,
That base affections, which your eares would bland*,
Commend to you by loves abused name,
But is indeede the bondslave of defame;
Which will the garland of your glorie marre,
And quench the light of your brightshyning starre.
[* Bland, blandish.]
But gentle Love, that loiall is and trew,
Wil more illumine your resplendent ray,
And add more brightnesse to your goodly hew
From light of his pure fire; which, by like way
Kindled of yours, your likenesse doth display;
Like as two mirrours, by opposd reflection,
Doe both expresse the faces first impression.
Therefore, to make your beautie more appeare,
It you behoves to love, and forth to lay
That heavenly riches which in you ye beare,
That men the more admyre their fountaine may;
For else what booteth that celestiall ray,
If it in darknesse be enshrined ever,
That it of loving eyes be vewed never?
But, in your choice of loves, this well advize,
That likest to your selves ye them select,
The which your forms first sourse may sympathize,
And with like beauties parts be inly deckt;
For if you loosely love without respect,
It is not love, but a discordant warre,
Whose unlike parts amongst themselves do iarre.
For love is a celestiall harmonie
Of likely* harts composd of** starres concent,
Which ioyne together in sweete sympathie,
To work each others ioy and true content,
Which they have harbourd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowres, where they did see
And know ech other here belov'd to bee.
[* Likely, similar.]
[** Composd of, combined by.]
Then wrong it were that any other twaine
Should in Loves gentle band combyned bee,
But those whom Heaven did at first ordaine,
And made out of one mould the more t'agree;
For all that like the beautie which they see
Straight do not love; for Love is not so light
As straight to burne at first beholders sight.
But they which love indeede looke otherwise,
With pure regard and spotlesse true intent,
Drawing out of the obiect of their eyes
A more refyned form, which they present
Unto their mind, voide of all blemishment;
Which it reducing to her first perfection,
Beholdeth free from fleshes frayle infection.
And then conforming it unto the light
Which in it selfe it hath remaining still,
Of that first sunne, yet sparckling in his sight,
Thereof he fashions in his higher skill
An heavenly beautie to his fancies will;
And it embracing in his mind entyre,
The mirrour of his owne thought doth admyre.
Which seeing now so inly faire to be,
As outward it appeareth to the eye,
And with his spirits proportion to agree,
He thereon fixeth all his fantasie,
And fully setteth his felicitie;
Counting it fairer then it is indeede,
And yet indeede her fairnesse doth exeede.
For lovers eyes more sharply sighted bee
Then other mens, and in deare loves delight
See more then any other eyes can see,
Through mutuall receipt of beam's bright,
Which carrie privie message to the spright,
And to their eyes that inmost faire display,
As plaine as light discovers dawning day.
Therein they see, through amorous eye-glaunces,
Annies of Loves still flying too and fro,
Which dart at them their litle fierie launces;
Whom having wounded, back againe they go,
Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;
Who, seeing her faire eyes so sharp effect,
Cures all their sorrowes with one sweete aspect.
In which how many wonders doe they reede
To their conceipt, that others never see!
Now of her smiles, with which their soules they feede,
Like gods with nectar in their bankets free;
Now of her lookes, which like to cordials bee;
But when her words emb'ssade* forth she sends,
Lord, how sweete musicke that unto them lends!
[* Emb'ssade, embassy.]
Sometimes upon her forhead they behold
A thousand graces masking in delight;
Sometimes within her eye-lids they unfold
Ten thousand sweet belgards*, which to their sight
Doe seeme like twinckling starres in frostie night;
But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,
So many millions of chaste pleasures play.
[* Belgards, fair looks.]
All those, O Cytherea! and thousands more,
Thy handmaides be, which do on thee attend,
To decke thy beautie with their dainties store,
That may it more to mortall eyes commend,
And make it more admyr'd of foe and frend;
That in mans harts thou mayst thy throne enstall, 265
And spred thy lovely kingdome over all.
Then I', tryumph! O great Beauties Queene,
Advance the banner of thy conquest hie,
That all this world, the which thy vassels beene,
May draw to thee, and with dew f'altie
Adore the powre of thy great maiestie,
Singing this hymne in honour of thy name,
Compyld by me, which thy poor liegeman am!
In lieu whereof graunt, O great soveraine!
That she whose conquering beauty doth capt've 275
My trembling hart in her eternall chaine,
One drop of grace at length will to me give,
That I her bounden thrall by her may live,
And this same life, which first fro me she reaved,
May owe to her, of whom I it receaved.
And you, faire Venus dearling, my dear dread!
Fresh flowre of grace, great goddesse of my life,
When your faire eyes these fearfull lines shall read,
Deigne to let fall one drop of dew reliefe,
That may recure my harts long pyning griefe,
And shew what wondrous powre your beauty hath,
That can restore a damned wight from death.
AN HYMNE
OF HEAVENLY LOVE*.
[* See the sixth canto of the third book of the Faerie Queene,
especially the second and the thirty-second stanzas; which, with his
Hymnes of Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty, are evident proofs of
Spenser's attachment to the Platonic school. WARTON.]
Love, lift me up upon thy golden wings
From this base world unto thy heavens hight,
Where I may see those admirable things
Which there thou workest by thy soveraine might,
Farre above feeble reach of earthly sight,
That I thereof an heavenly hymne may sing
Unto the God of Love, high heavens king.
Many lewd layes (ah! woe is me the more!)
In praise of that mad fit which fooles call Love,
I have in th'heat of youth made heretofore,
That in light wits did loose affection move;
But all those follies now I do reprove,
And turned have the tenor of my string,
The heavenly prayses of true Love to sing.
And ye that wont with greedy vaine desire
To reade my fault, and, wondring at my flame,
To warme your selves at my wide sparckling fire,
Sith now that heat is quenched, quench my blame,
And in her ashes shrowd my dying shame;
For who my passed follies now pursewes,
Beginnes his owne, and my old fault renewes.
BEFORE THIS WORLDS GREAT FRAME, in which al things
Are now containd, found any being-place,
Ere flitting Time could wag* his eyas** wings
About that mightie bound which doth embrace
The rolling spheres, and parts their houres by space,
That high eternall Powre, which now doth move
In all these things, mov'd in it selfe by love.
[* Wag, move.]
[** Eyas, unfledged.]
It lovd it selfe, because it selfe was faire;
(For fair is lov'd;) and of it self begot
Like to it selfe his eldest Sonne and Heire,
Eternall, pure, and voide of sinfull blot,
The firstling of his ioy, in whom no iot
Of loves dislike or pride was to be found,
Whom he therefore with equall honour crownd.
With him he raignd, before all time prescribed,
In endlesse glorie and immortall might,
Together with that Third from them derived,
Most wise, most holy, most almightie Spright!
Whose kingdomes throne no thoughts of earthly wight
Can comprehend, much lesse my trembling verse
With equall words can hope it to reherse.
Yet, O most blessed Spirit! pure lampe of light,
Eternall spring of grace and wisedom trew,
Vouchsafe to shed into my barren spright
Some little drop of thy celestiall dew,
That may my rymes with sweet infuse* embrew,
And give me words equall unto my thought,
To tell the marveiles by thy mercie wrought.
[* Infuse, infusion]
Yet being pregnant still with powrefull grace,
And full of fruitfull Love, that loves to get
Things like himselfe and to enlarge his race,
His second brood, though not of powre so great,
Yet full of beautie, next he did beget,
An infinite increase of angels bright,
All glistring glorious in their Makers light.
To them the heavens illimitable hight
(Not this round heaven which we from hence behold,
Adornd with thousand lamps of burning light,
And with ten thousand gemmes of shyning gold)
He gave as their inheritance to hold,
That they might serve him in eternall blis,
And be partakers of those ioyes of his.
There they in their trinall triplicities
About him wait, and on his will depend,
Either with nimble wings to cut the skies,
When he them on his messages doth send,
Or on his owne dread presence to attend,
Where they behold the glorie of his light,
And caroll hymnes of love both day and night.
[Ver. 64.--Trinall triplicities. See the Faerie Queene, Book I.
Canto XII. 39. H.]
Both day and night is unto them all one;
For he his beames doth unto them extend,
That darknesse there appeareth never none;
Ne hath their day, ne hath their blisse, an end,
But there their termelesse time in pleasure spend;
Ne ever should their happinesse decay,
Had not they dar'd their Lord to disobay.
But pride, impatient of long resting peace,
Did puffe them up with greedy bold ambition,
That they gan cast their state how to increase
Above the fortune of their first condition,
And sit in Gods own seat without commission:
The brightest angel, even the Child of Light*,
Drew millions more against their God to fight.
[* I.e. Lucifer.]
Th'Almighty, seeing their so bold assay,
Kindled the flame of his consuming yre,
And with his onely breath them blew away
From heavens hight, to which they did aspyre,
To deepest hell, and lake of damned fyre,
Where they in darknesse and dread horror dwell,
Hating the happie light from which they fell.
So that next off-spring of the Makers love,
Next to himselfe in glorious degree,
Degendering* to hate, fell from above
Through pride; (for pride and love may ill agree;)
And now of sinne to all ensample bee:
How then can sinfull flesh it selfe assure,
Sith purest angels fell to be impure?
[* Degendering, degenerating.]
But that Eternall Fount of love and grace,
Still flowing forth his goodnesse unto all,
Now seeing left a waste and emptie place
In his wyde pallace through those angels fall,
Cast to supply the same, and to enstall
A new unknowen colony therein,
Whose root from earths base groundworke should begin.
Therefore of clay, base, vile, and nest to nought,
Yet form'd by wondrous skill, and by his might
According to an heavenly patterne wrought,
Which he had fashiond in his wise foresight,
He man did make, and breathd a living spright
Into his face, most beautifull and fayre,
Endewd with wisedomes riches, heavenly, rare.
Such he him made, that he resemble might
Himselfe, as mortall thing immortall could;
Him to be lord of every living wight
He made by love out of his owne like mould,
In whom he might his mightie selfe behould;
For Love doth love the thing belov'd to see,
That like it selfe in lovely shape may bee.
But man, forgetfull of his Makers grace
No lesse than angels, whom he did ensew,
Fell from the hope of promist heavenly place,
Into the mouth of Death, to sinners dew,
And all his off-spring into thraldome threw,
Where they for ever should in bonds remaine
Of never-dead, yet ever-dying paine;
Till that great Lord of Love, which him at first
Made of meere love, and after liked well,
Seeing him lie like creature long accurst
In that deep horor of despeyred hell,
Him, wretch, in doole* would let no lenger dwell,
But cast** out of that bondage to redeeme,
And pay the price, all@ were his debt extreeme.
[* Doole, pain.]
[** Cast, devised.]
[@ All, although.]
Out of the bosome of eternall blisse,
In which he reigned with his glorious Syre,
He downe descended, like a most demisse*
And abiect thrall, in fleshes fraile attyre,
That he for him might pay sinnes deadly hyre,
And him restore unto that happie state
In which he stood before his haplesse fate.
[* Demisse, humble.]
In flesh at first the guilt committed was,
Therefore in flesh it must be satisfyde;
Nor spirit, nor angel, though they man surpas,
Could make amends to God for mans misguyde,
But onely man himselfe, who selfe did slyde:
So, taking flesh of sacred virgins wombe,
For mans deare sake he did a man become.
And that most blessed bodie, which was borne
Without all blemish or reprochfull blame,
He freely gave to be both rent and torne
Of cruell hands, who with despightfull shame
Revyling him, (that them most vile became,)
At length him nayled on a gallow-tree,
And slew the iust by most uniust decree.
O huge and most unspeakeable impression
Of Loves deep wound, that pierst the piteous hart
Of that deare Lord with so entyre affection,
And, sharply launcing every inner part,
Dolours of death into his soule did dart,
Doing him die that never it deserved,
To free his foes, that from his heast* had swerved!
[* Heast, command.]
What hart can feel least touch of so sore launch,
Or thought can think the depth of so deare wound?
Whose bleeding sourse their streames yet never staunch,
But stil do flow, and freshly still redownd*,
To heale the sores of sinfull soules unsound,
And clense the guilt of that infected cryme,
Which was enrooted in all fleshly slyme.
[* Redownd, overflow.]
O blessed Well of Love! O Floure of Grace!
O glorious Morning-Starre! O Lampe of Light!
Most lively image of thy Fathers face,
Eternal King of Glorie, Lord of Might,
Meeke Lambe of God, before all worlds behight*,
How can we thee requite for all this good?
Or what can prize** that thy most precious blood?
[* Behight, named.]
[** Prize, price.]
Yet nought thou ask'st in lieu of all this love
But love of us, for guerdon of thy paine:
Ay me! what can us lesse than that behove?
Had he required life for us againe,
Had it beene wrong to ask his owne with game?
He gave us life, he it restored lost;
Then life were least, that us so little cost.
But he our life hath left unto us free,
Free that was thrall, and blessed that was band*;
Ne ought demaunds but that we loving bee,
As he himselfe hath lov'd us afore-hand,
And bound therto with an eternall band;
Him first to love that was so dearely bought,
And next our brethren, to his image wrought.
[* Band, cursed.]
Him first to love great right and reason is,
Who first to us our life and being gave,
And after, when we fared* had amisse,
Us wretches from the second death did save;
And last, the food of life, which now we have,
Even he himselfe, in his dear sacrament,
To feede our hungry soules, unto us lent.
[* Fared, gone.]
Then next, to love our brethren, that were made
Of that selfe* mould and that self Maker's hand
That we, and to the same againe shall fade,
Where they shall have like heritage of land,
However here on higher steps we stand,
Which also were with selfe-same price redeemed
That we, however of us light esteemed.
[* Selfe, same.]
And were they not, yet since that loving Lord
Commaunded us to love them for his sake,
Even for his sake, and for his sacred word
Which in his last bequest he to us spake,
We should them love, and with their needs partake;
Knowing that whatsoere to them we give
We give to him by whom we all doe live.
Such mercy he by his most holy reede*
Unto us taught, and, to approve it trew,
Ensampled it by his most righteous deede,
Shewing us mercie, miserable crew!
That we the like should to the wretches shew,
And love our brethren; thereby to approve
How much himselfe that loved us we love.
[* Reede, precept.]
Then rouze thy selfe, O Earth! out of thy soyle*,
In which thou wallowest like to filthy swyne,
And doest thy mynd in durty pleasures moyle**,
Unmindfull of that dearest Lord of thyne;
Lift up to him thy heavie clouded eyne,
That thou this soveraine bountie mayst behold,
And read, through love, his mercies manifold.
[* Soyle, mire.]
[** Moyle, defile.]
Beginne from first, where he encradled was
In simple cratch*, wrapt in a wad of hay,
Betweene the toylfull oxe and humble asse,
And in what rags, and in how base aray,
The glory of our heavenly riches lay,
When him the silly shepheards came to see,
Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee.
[* Cratch, manger.]
From thence reade on the storie of his life,
His humble carriage, his unfaulty wayes,
His cancred foes, his fights, his toyle, his strife,
His paines, his povertie, his sharpe assayes,
Through which he past his miserable dayes,
Offending none, and doing good to all,
Yet being malist* both by great and small.
[* Malist, regarded with ill-will.]
And look at last, how of most wretched wights
He taken was, betrayd, and false accused;
How with most scornfull taunts and fell despights,
He was revyld, disgrast, and foule abused;
How scourgd, how crownd, how buffeted, how brused;
And, lastly, how twixt robbers crucifyde,
With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and syde!
Then let thy flinty hart, that feeles no paine,
Empierced he with pittifull remorse,
And let thy bowels bleede in every vaine,
At sight of his most sacred heavenly corse,
So torne and mangled with malicious forse;
And let thy soule, whose sins his sorrows wrought,
Melt into teares, and grone in grieved thought.
With sence whereof whilest so thy softened spirit
Is inly toucht, and humbled with meeke zeale
Through meditation of his endlesse merit,
Lift up thy mind to th'author of thy weale,
And to his soveraine mercie doe appeale;
Learne him to love that loved thee so deare,
And in thy brest his blessed image beare.
With all thy hart, with all thy soule and mind,
Thou must him love, and his beheasts embrace;
All other loves, with which the world doth blind
Weake fancies, and stirre up affections base,
Thou must renounce and utterly displace,
And give thy self unto him full and free,
That full and freely gave himselfe to thee.
Then shalt thou feele thy spirit so possest,
And ravisht with devouring great desire
Of his dear selfe, that shall thy feeble brest
Inflame with love, and set thee all on fire
With burning zeale, through every part entire*,
That in no earthly thing thou shalt delight,
But in his sweet and amiable sight.
[* Entire, inward.]
Thenceforth all worlds desire will in thee dye,
And all earthes glorie, on which men do gaze,
Seeme durt and drosse in thy pure-sighted eye,
Compar'd to that celestiall beauties blaze,
Whose glorious beames all fleshly sense doth daze
With admiration of their passing light,
Blinding the eyes, and lumining the spright.
Then shall thy ravisht soul inspired bee
With heavenly thoughts, farre above humane skil,
And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainely see
Th'idee of his pure glorie present still
Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill
With sweete enragement of celestiall love,
Kindled through sight of those faire things above.
AN HYMNE
OF HEAVENLY BEAUTIE.
Rapt with the rage of mine own ravisht thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights,
Do kindle love in high conceipted sprights,
I faine* to tell the things that I behold,
But feele my wits to faile and tongue to fold.
[* Faine, long.]
Vouchsafe then, O Thou most Almightie Spright!
From whom all guifts of wit and knowledge flow,
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of thine eternall truth, that I may show
Some little beames to mortall eyes below
Of that immortall Beautie there with Thee,
Which in my weake distraughted mynd I see;
That with the glorie of so goodly sight
The hearts of men, which fondly here admyre
Faire seeming shewes, and feed on vaine delight,
Transported with celestiall desyre
Of those faire formes, may lift themselves up hyer,
And learne to love, with zealous humble dewty,
Th'Eternall Fountaine of that heavenly Beauty.
Beginning then below, with th'easie vew
Of this base world, subiect to fleshly eye,
From thence to mount aloft, by order dew,
To contemplation of th'immortall sky;
Of the soare faulcon* so I learne to flye.
That flags a while her fluttering wings beneath,
Till she her selfe for stronger flight can breath.
[* Soare faulcon, a young falcon; a hawk that has not shed its first
feathers, which are sorrel.]
Then looke, who list thy gazefull eyes to feed
With sight of that is faire, looke on the frame
Of this wyde universe, and therein reed
The endlesse kinds of creatures which by name
Thou canst not count, much less their natures aime;
All which are made with wondrous wise respect,
And all with admirable beautie deckt.
First, th'Earth, on adamantine pillers founded
Amid the Sea, engirt with brasen bands;
Then th'Aire, still flitting, but yet firmely bounded
On everie side with pyles of flaming brands,
Never consum'd, nor quencht with mortall hands;
And last, that mightie shining cristall wall,
Wherewith he hath encompassed this all.
By view whereof it plainly may appeare,
That still as every thing doth upward tend
And further is from earth, so still more cleare
And faire it growes, till to his perfect end
Of purest Beautie it at last ascend;
Ayre more then water, fire much more then ayre,
And heaven then fire, appeares more pure and fayre.
Looke thou no further, but affixe thine eye
On that bright shynie round still moving masse,
The house of blessed God, which men call Skye,
All sowd with glistring stars more thicke then grasse,
Whereof each other doth in brightnesse passe,
But those two most, which, ruling night and day,
As king and queene the heavens empire sway;
And tell me then, what hast thou ever seene
That to their beautie may compared bee?
Or can the sight that is most sharpe and keene
Endure their captains flaming head to see?
How much lesse those, much higher in degree,
And so much fairer, and much more then these,
As these are fairer then the land and seas?
For farre above these heavens which here we see,
Be others farre exceeding these in light,
Not bounded, not corrupt, as these same bee,
But infinite in largenesse and in hight,
Unmoving, uncorrupt, and spotlesse bright,
That need no sunne t'illuminate their spheres,
But their owne native light farre passing theirs.
And as these heavens still by degrees arize,
Until they come to their first movers* bound,
That in his mightie compasse doth comprize
And came all the rest with him around,
So those likewise doe by degrees redound**,
And rise more faire, till they at last arive
To the most faire, whereto they all do strive.
[* I.e. the primum mobile.]
[** I.e. exceed the one the other.]
Faire is the heaven where happy soules have place,
In full enioyment of felicitie,
Whence they doe still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine Eternall Maiestie;
More faire is that where those Idees on hie
Enraunged be, which Plato so admyred,
And pure Intelligences from God inspyred.
Yet fairer is that heaven in which do raine
The soveraigne Powres and mightie Potentates,
Which in their high protections doe containe
All mortall princes and imperiall states;
And fayrer yet whereas the royall Seates
And heavenly Dominations are set,
From whom all earthly governance is fet*.
[* Fet, fetched, derived.]
Yet farre more faire be those bright Cherubins,
Which all with golden wings are overdight,
And those eternall burning Seraphins,
Which from their faces dart out fierie light;
Yet fairer then they both, and much more bright,
Be th'Angels and Archangels, which attend
On Gods owne person, without rest or end.
These thus in faire each other farre excelling,
As to the Highest they approach more near,
Yet is that Highest farre beyond all telling,
Fairer then all the rest which there appeare,
Though all their beauties ioyn'd together were;
How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?
Cease then, my tongue! and lend unto my mynd
Leave to bethinke how great that Beautie is,
Whose utmost* parts so beautifull I fynd;
How much more those essentiall parts of His,
His truth, his love, his wisedome, and his blis,
His grace, his doome**, his mercy, and his might,
By which he lends us of himselfe a sight!
[* Utmost, outmost.]
[** Doome, judgment.]
Those unto all he daily doth display,
And shew himselfe in th'image of his grace,
As in a looking-glasse, through which he may
Be seene of all his creatures vile and base,
That are unable else to see his face;
His glorious face! which glistereth else so bright,
That th'angels selves can not endure his sight.
But we, fraile wights! whose sight cannot sustaine
The suns bright beames when he on us doth shyne,
But* that their points rebutted** backe againe
Are duld, how can we see with feeble eyne
The glorie of that Maiestie Divine,
In sight of whom both sun and moone are darke,
Compared to his least resplendent sparke?
[* But, unless.]
[** Rebutted, reflected.]
The meanes, therefore, which unto us is lent
Him to behold, is on his workes to looke.
Which he hath made in beauty excellent,
And in the same, as in a brasen booke,
To read enregistred in every nooke
His goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare;
For all thats good is beautifull and faire.
Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation
To impe* the wings of thy high flying mynd,
Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation
From this darke world, whose damps the soule do blynd,
And, like the native brood of eagles kynd,
On that bright Sunne of Glorie fixe thine eyes,
Clear'd from grosse mists of fraile infirmities.
[* Impe, mend, strengthen.]
Humbled with feare and awfull reverence,
Before the footestoole of his Maiestie
Throw thy selfe downe, with trembling innocence,
Ne dare looke up with c'rruptible eye
On the dred face of that great Deity,
For feare lest, if he chaunce to look on thee,
Thou turne to nought, and quite confounded be.
But lowly fall before his mercie seate,
Close covered with the Lambes integrity
From the iust wrath of His avengefull threate
That sits upon the righteous throne on hy;
His throne is built upon Eternity,
More firme and durable then steele or brasse,
Or the hard diamond, which them both doth passe.
His scepter is the rod of Righteousnesse,
With which he bruseth all his foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth represse
Under the rigour of his iudgment iust;
His seate is Truth, to which the faithfull trust,
From whence proceed her beames so pure and bright,
That all about him sheddeth glorious light:
Light farre exceeding that bright blazing sparke
Which darted is from Titans flaming head,
That with his beames enlumineth the darke
And dampish air, wherby al things are red*;
Whose nature yet so much is marvelled
Of mortall wits, that it doth much amaze
The greatest wisards** which thereon do gaze.
[* Red, perceived.]
[** Wisards, wise men, savants.]
But that immortall light which there doth shine
Is many thousand times more bright, more cleare,
More excellent, more glorious, more divine;
Through which to God all mortall actions here,
And even the thoughts of men, do plaine appeare;
For from th'Eternall Truth it doth proceed,
Through heavenly vertue which her beames doe breed.
With the great glorie of that wondrous light
His throne is all encompassed around,
And hid in his owne brightnesse from the sight
Of all that looke thereon with eyes unsound;
And underneath his feet are to be found
Thunder, and lightning, and tempestuous fyre,
The instruments of his avenging yre.
There in his bosome Sapience doth sit,
The soveraine dearling of the Deity,
Clad like a queene in royall robes, most fit
For so great powre and peerelesse maiesty,
And all with gemmes and iewels gorgeously
Adornd, that brighter then the starres appeare,
And make her native brightnes seem more cleare.
And on her head a crown of purest gold
Is set, in signe of highest soverainty;
And in her hand a scepter she doth hold,
With which she rules the house of God on hy,
And menageth the ever-moving sky,
And in the same these lower creatures all
Subiected to her powre imperiall.
Both heaven and earth obey unto her will,
And all the creatures which they both containe;
For of her fulnesse, which the world doth fill,
They all partake, and do in state remaine
As their great Maker did at first ordaine,
Through observation of her high beheast,
By which they first were made, and still increast.
The fairnesse of her face no tongue can tell;
For she the daughters of all wemens race,
And angels eke, in beautie doth excell,
Sparkled on her from Gods owne glorious face,
And more increast by her owne goodly grace,
That it doth farre exceed all humane thought,
Ne can on earth compared be to ought.
Ne could that painter (had he lived yet)
Which pictured Venus with so curious quill
That all posteritie admyred it,
Have purtray'd this, for all his maistring* skill;
Ne she her selfe, had she remained still,
And were as faire as fabling wits do fayne,
Could once come neare this Beauty soverayne.
[* Maistring, superior.]
But had those wits, the wonders of their dayes,
Or that sweete Teian poet*, which did spend
His plenteous vaine in setting forth her praise,
Seen but a glims of this which I pretend**,
How wondrously would he her face commend,
Above that idole of his fayning thought,
That all the world should with his rimes be fraught!
[* I.e. Anacreon.]
[** Pretend, set forth, (or, simply) intend.]
How then dare I, the novice of his art,
Presume to picture so divine a wight,
Or hope t'expresse her least perfections part,
Whose beautie filles the heavens with her light,
And darkes the earth with shadow of her sight?
Ah, gentle Muse! thou art too weake and faint
The pourtraict of so heavenly hew to paint.
Let angels, which her goodly face behold,
And see at will, her soveraigne praises sing,
And those most sacred mysteries unfold
Of that faire love of mightie Heavens King;
Enough is me t'admyre so heavenly thing,
And being thus with her huge love possest,
In th'only wonder of her selfe to rest.
But whoso may, thrise happie man him hold
Of all on earth, whom God so much doth grace,
And lets his owne Beloved to behold;
For in the view of her celestiall face
All ioy, all blisse, all happinesse, have place;
Ne ought on earth can want unto the wight
Who of her selfe can win the wishfull sight.
For she out of her secret threasury
Plentie of riches forth on him will powre,
Even heavenly riches, which there hidden ly
Within the closet of her chastest bowre,
Th'eternall portion of her precious dowre,
Which Mighty God hath given to her free,
And to all those which thereof worthy bee.
None thereof worthy be, but those whom shee
Vouchsafeth to her presence to receave,
And letteth them her lovely face to see,
Wherof such wondrous pleasures they conceave,
And sweete contentment, that it doth bereave
Their soul of sense, through infinite delight,
And them transport from flesh into the spright.
In which they see such admirable things,
As carries them into an extasy;
And heare such heavenly notes and carolings
Of Gods high praise, that filles the brasen sky;
And feele such ioy and pleasure inwardly,
That maketh them all worldly cares forget,
And onely thinke on that before them set.
Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense,
Or idle thought of earthly things, remaine;
But all that earst seemd sweet seemes now offence,
And all that pleased earst now seemes to paine:
Their ioy, their comfort, their desire, their game,
Is fixed all on that which now they see;
All other sights but fayned shadowes bee.
And that faire lampe which useth to enflame
The hearts of men with selfe-consuming fyre,
Thenceforth seemes fowle, and full of sinfull blame
And all that pompe to which proud minds aspyre
By name of Honor, and so much desyre,
Seemes to them basenesse, and all riches drosse,
And all mirth sadnesse, and all lucre losse.
So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,
And senses fraught with such satietie.
That in nought else on earth they can delight,
But in th'aspect of that felicitie
Which they have written in theyr inward ey;
On which they feed, and in theyr fastened mynd
All happie ioy and full contentment fynd.
Ah, then, my hungry soule! which long hast fed
On idle fancies of thy foolish thought,
And, with false Beauties flattring bait misled,
Hast after vaine deceiptfull shadowes sought,
Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought
But late repentance, through thy follies prief,
Ah! ceasse to gaze on matter of thy grief:
And looke at last up to that Soveraine Light,
From whose pure beams al perfect Beauty springs,
That kindleth love in every godly spright,
Even the love of God; which loathing brings
Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things;
With whose sweet pleasures being so possest,
Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest.
|
free_verse
|
Ramakrishna, T.
|
To The Memory Of My Dear Daughter Kamala.
|
The star that rose to cheer our humble life,
And make a little heaven of our home,
Shall rise again - yes, surely rise again
To give us everlasting joy divine.
|
The star that rose to cheer our humble life,
|
And make a little heaven of our home,
Shall rise again - yes, surely rise again
To give us everlasting joy divine.
|
quatrain
|
Adam Lindsay Gordon
|
Thick-headed Thoughts
|
No. I
I've something of the bull-dog in my breed,
The spaniel is developed somewhat less;
While life is in me I can fight and bleed,
But never the chastising hand caress.
You say the stroke was well intended. 'True.'
You mention 'It was meant to do me good.'
'That may be.' 'You deserve it.' 'Granted, too.'
'Then take it kindly.' 'No, I never could.'
- - - - - -
How many a resolution to amend
Is made, and broken, as the years run round!
And how can others on your word depend,
When faithless to ourselves we're often found?
I've often swore, 'Henceforward I'll reform,
And bid my vices, follies, all take wing.'
To keep my promise, 'mid temptation's storm,
I've always found was quite another thing.
- - - - - -
I saw a donkey going down the road
The other day; a boy was on his back,
Who on the long-eared quadruped bestowed,
With a stout cudgel, many a hearty thwack;
But lazier and lazier grew the beast,
Until he dwindled to a step so slow
That I felt sure 'twould take him, at the least,
Full half-an-hour one blessed mile to go.
Soliloquising on this state of things,
'That moke's like me,' I muttered, with a sigh;
'He might go faster if he'd got some wings,
But Nature's made him better off than I;
For though I've all his obstinacy, aye! all,
His sullen spirit, and his dogged ways,
I've not one particle, however small,
Of that praiseworthy patience he displays.'
No. II
A man is independent of the world,
And little recks of strife or angry brawl,
If 'gainst a host his banner be unfurled,
Be his heart stout, it matters not at all.
With woman 'tis not so; for she seems hurled
From hand to hand, as is a tennis ball.
How queer that such a difference should be
Between a human he and human she.
No. III
'Tis a wicked world we live in;
Wrong in reason, wrong in rhyme;
But no matter: we'll not give in
While we still can come to time.
Strength's a shadow; Hope is madness,
Love, delusion; Friendship, sham;
Pleasure fades away to sadness,
None of these are worth a d--n.
There is naught on earth to please us;
All things at the crisis fail.
Friends desert us, bailiffs tease us,
(To such foes we give leg-bail).
But a stout heart still maintaining,
Quells the ills we all must meet,
And a spirit fear disdaining
Lays our troubles at our feet.
So we'll ne'er surrender tamely
To the ills that throng us fast.
If we must die, let's die gamely;
Luck may take a turn at last.
|
No. I
I've something of the bull-dog in my breed,
The spaniel is developed somewhat less;
While life is in me I can fight and bleed,
But never the chastising hand caress.
You say the stroke was well intended. 'True.'
You mention 'It was meant to do me good.'
'That may be.' 'You deserve it.' 'Granted, too.'
'Then take it kindly.' 'No, I never could.'
- - - - - -
How many a resolution to amend
Is made, and broken, as the years run round!
And how can others on your word depend,
When faithless to ourselves we're often found?
I've often swore, 'Henceforward I'll reform,
And bid my vices, follies, all take wing.'
To keep my promise, 'mid temptation's storm,
I've always found was quite another thing.
- - - - - -
I saw a donkey going down the road
The other day; a boy was on his back,
|
Who on the long-eared quadruped bestowed,
With a stout cudgel, many a hearty thwack;
But lazier and lazier grew the beast,
Until he dwindled to a step so slow
That I felt sure 'twould take him, at the least,
Full half-an-hour one blessed mile to go.
Soliloquising on this state of things,
'That moke's like me,' I muttered, with a sigh;
'He might go faster if he'd got some wings,
But Nature's made him better off than I;
For though I've all his obstinacy, aye! all,
His sullen spirit, and his dogged ways,
I've not one particle, however small,
Of that praiseworthy patience he displays.'
No. II
A man is independent of the world,
And little recks of strife or angry brawl,
If 'gainst a host his banner be unfurled,
Be his heart stout, it matters not at all.
With woman 'tis not so; for she seems hurled
From hand to hand, as is a tennis ball.
How queer that such a difference should be
Between a human he and human she.
No. III
'Tis a wicked world we live in;
Wrong in reason, wrong in rhyme;
But no matter: we'll not give in
While we still can come to time.
Strength's a shadow; Hope is madness,
Love, delusion; Friendship, sham;
Pleasure fades away to sadness,
None of these are worth a d--n.
There is naught on earth to please us;
All things at the crisis fail.
Friends desert us, bailiffs tease us,
(To such foes we give leg-bail).
But a stout heart still maintaining,
Quells the ills we all must meet,
And a spirit fear disdaining
Lays our troubles at our feet.
So we'll ne'er surrender tamely
To the ills that throng us fast.
If we must die, let's die gamely;
Luck may take a turn at last.
|
free_verse
|
Matthew Prior
|
On Bishop Atterbury's Burying The Duke Of Buckingham
|
I have no hopes, the Duke he says, and dies.
In sure and certain hopes, the prelate cries:
Of these two learned peers, I pr'ythee say, man,
Who is the lying knave, the priest or layman?
The Duke he stands an infidel confess'd:
He's our dear brother, quoth the lordly priest.
The Duke, though knave, still brother dear he cries
And who can say the reverend Prelate lies?
|
I have no hopes, the Duke he says, and dies.
In sure and certain hopes, the prelate cries:
|
Of these two learned peers, I pr'ythee say, man,
Who is the lying knave, the priest or layman?
The Duke he stands an infidel confess'd:
He's our dear brother, quoth the lordly priest.
The Duke, though knave, still brother dear he cries
And who can say the reverend Prelate lies?
|
octave
|
Ben Jonson
|
Song To Diana
|
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
|
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
|
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
|
free_verse
|
Paul Bewsher
|
The Sea.
|
Sad is the lonely sea -
So vast, and smooth, and grey
It stretches far from me.
Sad is the lonely sea!
Its cheerful colours flee
Before the fading day.
Sad is the lonely sea
So vast, and smooth, and grey!
|
Sad is the lonely sea -
So vast, and smooth, and grey
|
It stretches far from me.
Sad is the lonely sea!
Its cheerful colours flee
Before the fading day.
Sad is the lonely sea
So vast, and smooth, and grey!
|
octave
|
Matthew Prior
|
Remedy Worse Than The Disease, A
|
I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.
But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.
|
I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
|
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.
But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.
|
octave
|
William Butler Yeats
|
Youth And Age
|
Much did I rage when young,
Being by the world oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.
|
Much did I rage when young,
|
Being by the world oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.
|
quatrain
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCI. Lullabies.
|
[From Yorkshire. A nursery-cry.]
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit-Pie!
Come, my ladies, come and buy;
Else your babies they will cry.
|
[From Yorkshire. A nursery-cry.]
|
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit-Pie!
Come, my ladies, come and buy;
Else your babies they will cry.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Fuller Murray
|
Tears
|
Mourn that which will not come again,
The joy, the strength of early years.
Bow down thy head, and let thy tears
Water the grave where hope lies slain.
For tears are like a summer rain,
To murmur in a mourner's ears,
To soften all the field of fears,
To moisten valleys parched with pain.
And though thy tears will not awake
What lies beneath of young or fair
And sleeps so sound it draws no breath,
Yet, watered thus, the sod may break
In flowers which sweeten all the air,
And fill with life the place of death.
|
Mourn that which will not come again,
The joy, the strength of early years.
Bow down thy head, and let thy tears
Water the grave where hope lies slain.
|
For tears are like a summer rain,
To murmur in a mourner's ears,
To soften all the field of fears,
To moisten valleys parched with pain.
And though thy tears will not awake
What lies beneath of young or fair
And sleeps so sound it draws no breath,
Yet, watered thus, the sod may break
In flowers which sweeten all the air,
And fill with life the place of death.
|
sonnet
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonnets: Idea LX
|
Define my weal, and tell the joys of heaven;
Express my woes and show the pains of hell;
Declare what fate unlucky stars have given,
And ask a world upon my life to dwell;
Make known the faith that fortune could no move,
Compare my worth with others' base desert,
Let virtue be the touchstone of my love,
So may the heavens read wonders in my heart;
Behold the clouds which have eclipsed my sun,
And view the crosses which my course do let;
Tell me, if ever since the world begun
So fair a rising had so foul a set?
And see if time, if he would strive to prove,
Can show a second to so pure a love.
|
Define my weal, and tell the joys of heaven;
Express my woes and show the pains of hell;
Declare what fate unlucky stars have given,
And ask a world upon my life to dwell;
|
Make known the faith that fortune could no move,
Compare my worth with others' base desert,
Let virtue be the touchstone of my love,
So may the heavens read wonders in my heart;
Behold the clouds which have eclipsed my sun,
And view the crosses which my course do let;
Tell me, if ever since the world begun
So fair a rising had so foul a set?
And see if time, if he would strive to prove,
Can show a second to so pure a love.
|
sonnet
|
John Masefield
|
The Lemmings
|
Once in a hundred years the Lemmings come
Westward, in search of food, over the snow;
Westward until the salt sea drowns them dumb;
Westward, till all are drowned, those Lemmings go.
Once, it is thought, there was a westward land
Now drowned where there was food for those starved things,
And memory of the place has burnt its brand
In the little brains of all the Lemming Kings.
Perhaps, long since, there was a land beyond
Westward from death, some city, some calm place
Where one could taste God's quiet and be fond
With the little beauty of a human face;
But now the land is drowned. Yet we still press
Westward, in search, to death, to nothingness.
|
Once in a hundred years the Lemmings come
Westward, in search of food, over the snow;
Westward until the salt sea drowns them dumb;
Westward, till all are drowned, those Lemmings go.
|
Once, it is thought, there was a westward land
Now drowned where there was food for those starved things,
And memory of the place has burnt its brand
In the little brains of all the Lemming Kings.
Perhaps, long since, there was a land beyond
Westward from death, some city, some calm place
Where one could taste God's quiet and be fond
With the little beauty of a human face;
But now the land is drowned. Yet we still press
Westward, in search, to death, to nothingness.
|
sonnet
|
Alexander Pope
|
Lines On A Grotto, At Crux-Easton, Hants.
|
Here shunning idleness at once and praise,
This radiant pile nine rural sisters[130] raise;
The glittering emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul, and shining as her frame;
Beauty which nature only can impart,
And such a polish as disgraces art;
But Fate disposed them in this humble sort,
And hid in deserts what would charm a court.
|
Here shunning idleness at once and praise,
This radiant pile nine rural sisters[130] raise;
|
The glittering emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul, and shining as her frame;
Beauty which nature only can impart,
And such a polish as disgraces art;
But Fate disposed them in this humble sort,
And hid in deserts what would charm a court.
|
octave
|
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
From The Mountain.
|
If I, dearest Lily, did not love thee,
How this prospect would enchant my sight!
And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee,
Could I find, or here, or there, delight?
|
If I, dearest Lily, did not love thee,
|
How this prospect would enchant my sight!
And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee,
Could I find, or here, or there, delight?
|
quatrain
|
Richard Hunter
|
Prince Charming.
|
This is Prince Charming,
Whom often you meet,
Riding or walking
In Nursery Street.
See the red feather
He wears in his hat,
Always you know he's
Prince Charming by that.
|
This is Prince Charming,
Whom often you meet,
|
Riding or walking
In Nursery Street.
See the red feather
He wears in his hat,
Always you know he's
Prince Charming by that.
|
octave
|
Sara Teasdale
|
At Sea
|
In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,
Wild night around me, wild water under me,
Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.
Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,
Why do I look for a place to rest?
I must fight always and die fighting
With fear an unhealing wound in my breast.
|
In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,
|
Wild night around me, wild water under me,
Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.
Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,
Why do I look for a place to rest?
I must fight always and die fighting
With fear an unhealing wound in my breast.
|
octave
|
Robert Herrick
|
A Sonnet Of Perilla.
|
Then did I live when I did see
Perilla smile on none but me.
But, ah! by stars malignant crossed,
The life I got I quickly lost;
But yet a way there doth remain
For me embalm'd to live again,
And that's to love me; in which state
I'll live as one regenerate.
|
Then did I live when I did see
Perilla smile on none but me.
|
But, ah! by stars malignant crossed,
The life I got I quickly lost;
But yet a way there doth remain
For me embalm'd to live again,
And that's to love me; in which state
I'll live as one regenerate.
|
octave
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCC. Games.
|
Jack be nimble,
And Jack be quick:
And Jack jump over
The candle-stick.
|
Jack be nimble,
|
And Jack be quick:
And Jack jump over
The candle-stick.
|
quatrain
|
George MacDonald
|
A Prisoner
|
The hinges are so rusty
The door is fixed and fast;
The windows are so dusty
The sun looks in aghast:
Knock out the glass, I pray,
Or dash the door away,
Or break the house down bodily,
And let my soul go free!
|
The hinges are so rusty
The door is fixed and fast;
|
The windows are so dusty
The sun looks in aghast:
Knock out the glass, I pray,
Or dash the door away,
Or break the house down bodily,
And let my soul go free!
|
octave
|
Susanna Moodie
|
Youth And Age.
|
YOUTH.
Pilgrim of life! thy hoary head
Is bent with age, thine eye
Looks downward to the silent dead,
Wreck of mortality!--
The friends who flourished in thy day
Have sought their narrow home;
Their spirits whisper, "Come away!"--
AGE.
My soul replies, I come.--
I tread the path I trod a child,
The fields I loved of yore;
The flowers that 'neath my footsteps smiled
Now meet my gaze no more.
I stand beneath this giant oak!
It was an aged tree,
Hollowed by time's resistless stroke,
When life was green with me.
Its lofty head it proudly rears
To greet the summer sky,
Whilst, bending with the weight of years,
I feebly totter by.
And hushed are all the thousand songs
That filled these branches high:
Echo no more for me prolongs
The woodland minstrelsy.
Silence has gathered round life's hall;
My friends are in the clay;
I hear no more the footsteps fall,
That cheered my early day;
I see no more the faces dear,
Which shone around my hearth:
Bereft of all--I sojourn here--
Still happy, though on earth!--
YOUTH.
And canst thou smile when all are gone
Who shared thy youthful prime;
Content to wait and watch alone,
To grapple still with time?
How comes it that thou thus below
Hast rest above the sod,
Which brings to memory scenes of woe?
AGE.
It is the will of God!
|
YOUTH.
Pilgrim of life! thy hoary head
Is bent with age, thine eye
Looks downward to the silent dead,
Wreck of mortality!--
The friends who flourished in thy day
Have sought their narrow home;
Their spirits whisper, "Come away!"--
AGE.
My soul replies, I come.--
I tread the path I trod a child,
The fields I loved of yore;
The flowers that 'neath my footsteps smiled
Now meet my gaze no more.
|
I stand beneath this giant oak!
It was an aged tree,
Hollowed by time's resistless stroke,
When life was green with me.
Its lofty head it proudly rears
To greet the summer sky,
Whilst, bending with the weight of years,
I feebly totter by.
And hushed are all the thousand songs
That filled these branches high:
Echo no more for me prolongs
The woodland minstrelsy.
Silence has gathered round life's hall;
My friends are in the clay;
I hear no more the footsteps fall,
That cheered my early day;
I see no more the faces dear,
Which shone around my hearth:
Bereft of all--I sojourn here--
Still happy, though on earth!--
YOUTH.
And canst thou smile when all are gone
Who shared thy youthful prime;
Content to wait and watch alone,
To grapple still with time?
How comes it that thou thus below
Hast rest above the sod,
Which brings to memory scenes of woe?
AGE.
It is the will of God!
|
free_verse
|
Percy Bysshe Shelley
|
Fragment: Sufficient Unto The Day.
|
Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer
Into the darkness of the day to come?
Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?
And will the day that follows change thy doom?
Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way;
And who waits for thee in that cheerless home
Whence thou hast fled, whither thou must return
Charged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?
|
Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer
Into the darkness of the day to come?
|
Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?
And will the day that follows change thy doom?
Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way;
And who waits for thee in that cheerless home
Whence thou hast fled, whither thou must return
Charged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?
|
octave
|
Robert Herrick
|
How Primroses Came Green.
|
Virgins, time-past, known were these,
Troubled with green-sicknesses:
Turn'd to flowers, still the hue,
Sickly girls, they bear of you.
|
Virgins, time-past, known were these,
|
Troubled with green-sicknesses:
Turn'd to flowers, still the hue,
Sickly girls, they bear of you.
|
quatrain
|
Anna Akhmatova
|
Thunder
|
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say ' She asked for storms.' The entire
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.
That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,
soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving my shadow here in the sky.
|
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say ' She asked for storms.' The entire
|
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.
That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,
soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving my shadow here in the sky.
|
octave
|
Maurice Henry Hewlett
|
Aspetto Reale
|
That hour when thou and Grief were first acquainted
Thou wrotest, "Come, for I have lookt on death."
Piteous I held my indeterminate breath
And sought thee out, and saw how he had painted
Thine eyes with rings of black; yet never fainted
Thy radiant immortality underneath
Such stress of dark; but then, as one that saith,
"I know Love liveth," sat on by death untainted.
O to whom Grief too poignant was and dry
To sow in thee a fountain crop of tears!
O youth, O pride, set too remote and high
For touch of solace that gives grace to men!
Thy life must be our death, thy hopes our fears:
We weep, thou lookest strangely--we know thee then!
|
That hour when thou and Grief were first acquainted
Thou wrotest, "Come, for I have lookt on death."
Piteous I held my indeterminate breath
And sought thee out, and saw how he had painted
|
Thine eyes with rings of black; yet never fainted
Thy radiant immortality underneath
Such stress of dark; but then, as one that saith,
"I know Love liveth," sat on by death untainted.
O to whom Grief too poignant was and dry
To sow in thee a fountain crop of tears!
O youth, O pride, set too remote and high
For touch of solace that gives grace to men!
Thy life must be our death, thy hopes our fears:
We weep, thou lookest strangely--we know thee then!
|
sonnet
|
Robert Lee Frost
|
Stars
|
How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!
As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,
And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.
|
How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!
|
As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,
And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.
|
free_verse
|
William Cowper
|
On A Mistake In His Translation Of Homer.
|
Cowper had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
He had committed this abuse
Of changing ewes for wethers;[1]
But, male for female is a trope,
Or rather bold misnomer,
That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.
|
Cowper had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
|
He had committed this abuse
Of changing ewes for wethers;[1]
But, male for female is a trope,
Or rather bold misnomer,
That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.
|
octave
|
Thomas Gent
|
Sonnet. To Lydia, On Her Birth-Day.
|
Bless'd be the hour that gave my LYDIA birth,
The day be sacred 'mid each varying year;
How oft the name recals thy spotless worth,
And joys departed, still to memory dear!
If matchless friendship, constancy, and love,
Have power to charm, or one sad grief beguile,
'Tis thine the gloom of sorrow to remove,
And on the tearful cheek imprint a smile.
May every after-season to thee bring
New joys, to cheer life's dark eventful way,
Till time shall close thee in his pond'rous wing,
And angels waft thee to eternal day!
Loved friend, farewell! thy name this heart shall fill,
Till memory sinks, and all its griefs are still!
|
Bless'd be the hour that gave my LYDIA birth,
The day be sacred 'mid each varying year;
How oft the name recals thy spotless worth,
And joys departed, still to memory dear!
|
If matchless friendship, constancy, and love,
Have power to charm, or one sad grief beguile,
'Tis thine the gloom of sorrow to remove,
And on the tearful cheek imprint a smile.
May every after-season to thee bring
New joys, to cheer life's dark eventful way,
Till time shall close thee in his pond'rous wing,
And angels waft thee to eternal day!
Loved friend, farewell! thy name this heart shall fill,
Till memory sinks, and all its griefs are still!
|
sonnet
|
Michael Drayton
|
Amour 23
|
Wonder of Heauen, glasse of diuinitie,
Rare beautie, Natures joy, perfections Mother,
The worke of that vnited Trinitie,
Wherein each fayrest part excelleth other!
Loues Mithridate, the purest of perfection,
Celestiall Image, Load-stone of desire,
The soules delight, the sences true direction,
Sunne of the world, thou hart reuyuing fire!
Why should'st thou place thy Trophies in those eyes,
Which scorne the honor that is done to thee,
Or make my pen her name immortalize,
Who in her pride sdaynes once to look on me?
It is thy heauen within her face to dwell,
And in thy heauen, there onely, is my hell.
|
Wonder of Heauen, glasse of diuinitie,
Rare beautie, Natures joy, perfections Mother,
The worke of that vnited Trinitie,
Wherein each fayrest part excelleth other!
|
Loues Mithridate, the purest of perfection,
Celestiall Image, Load-stone of desire,
The soules delight, the sences true direction,
Sunne of the world, thou hart reuyuing fire!
Why should'st thou place thy Trophies in those eyes,
Which scorne the honor that is done to thee,
Or make my pen her name immortalize,
Who in her pride sdaynes once to look on me?
It is thy heauen within her face to dwell,
And in thy heauen, there onely, is my hell.
|
sonnet
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. DXVI. Natural History.
|
The cock doth crow,
To let you know,
If you be wise,
'Tis time to rise.
|
The cock doth crow,
|
To let you know,
If you be wise,
'Tis time to rise.
|
quatrain
|
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