author
stringclasses 275
values | title
stringlengths 2
168
| text
stringlengths 59
111k
| poem_start
stringlengths 13
36.6k
| poem_end
stringlengths 43
74.1k
| form
stringclasses 4
values |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Edna St. Vincent Millay
|
Sonnet III
|
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.
You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird's wings too high in air to view,--
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,--and the long year remembers you.
|
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
|
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.
You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird's wings too high in air to view,--
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,--and the long year remembers you.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Parson Beanes.
|
Old Parson Beanes hunts six days of the week,
And on the seventh, he has his notes to seek.
Six days he hollows so much breath away,
That on the seventh, he can nor preach or pray.
|
Old Parson Beanes hunts six days of the week,
|
And on the seventh, he has his notes to seek.
Six days he hollows so much breath away,
That on the seventh, he can nor preach or pray.
|
quatrain
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXCIV. Lullabies.
|
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough bends, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all.
|
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
|
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough bends, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Burns
|
The Book-Worms.
|
Through and through the inspir'd leaves,
Ye maggots, make your windings;
But oh! respect his lordship's taste,
And spare his golden bindings.
|
Through and through the inspir'd leaves,
|
Ye maggots, make your windings;
But oh! respect his lordship's taste,
And spare his golden bindings.
|
quatrain
|
William Wordsworth
|
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - VI - Clerical Integrity
|
Nor shall the eternal roll of praise reject
Those Unconforming; whom one rigorous day
Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty, and grief, and disrespect.
And some to want, as if by tempests wrecked
On a wild coast how destitute! did They
Feel not that Conscience never can betray,
That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect.
Their altars they forego, their homes they quit,
Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod,
And cast the future upon Providence;
As men the dictate of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.
|
Nor shall the eternal roll of praise reject
Those Unconforming; whom one rigorous day
Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty, and grief, and disrespect.
|
And some to want, as if by tempests wrecked
On a wild coast how destitute! did They
Feel not that Conscience never can betray,
That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect.
Their altars they forego, their homes they quit,
Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod,
And cast the future upon Providence;
As men the dictate of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Great Boast Small Roast.
|
Of flanks and chines of beef doth Gorrell boast
He has at home; but who tastes boil'd or roast?
Look in his brine-tub, and you shall find there
Two stiff blue pigs'-feet and a sow's cleft ear.
|
Of flanks and chines of beef doth Gorrell boast
|
He has at home; but who tastes boil'd or roast?
Look in his brine-tub, and you shall find there
Two stiff blue pigs'-feet and a sow's cleft ear.
|
quatrain
|
Thomas Moore
|
The Young Rose.
|
The young rose I give thee, so dewy and bright,
Was the floweret most dear to the sweet bird of night,
Who oft, by the moon, o'er her blushes hath hung,
And thrilled every leaf with the wild lay he sung.
Oh, take thou this young rose, and let her life be
Prolonged by the breath she will borrow from thee;
For, while o'er her bosom thy soft notes shall thrill,
She'll think the sweet night-bird is courting her still.
|
The young rose I give thee, so dewy and bright,
Was the floweret most dear to the sweet bird of night,
|
Who oft, by the moon, o'er her blushes hath hung,
And thrilled every leaf with the wild lay he sung.
Oh, take thou this young rose, and let her life be
Prolonged by the breath she will borrow from thee;
For, while o'er her bosom thy soft notes shall thrill,
She'll think the sweet night-bird is courting her still.
|
octave
|
Robert Burns
|
The Kirk Of Lamington.
|
As cauld a wind as ever blew,
As caulder kirk, and in't but few;
As cauld a minister's e'er spak,
Ye'se a' be het ere I come back.
|
As cauld a wind as ever blew,
|
As caulder kirk, and in't but few;
As cauld a minister's e'er spak,
Ye'se a' be het ere I come back.
|
quatrain
|
William Wordsworth
|
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XX - Baptism
|
Dear be the Church, that, watching o'er the needs
Of Infancy, provides a timely shower
Whose virtue changes to a Christian Flower
A Growth from sinful Nature's bed of weeds!
Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds
The ministration; while parental Love
Looks on, and Grace descendeth from above
As the high service pledges now, now pleads.
There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly
To meet the coming hours of festal mirth,
The tombs which hear and answer that brief cry,
The Infant's notice of his second birth
Recall the wandering Soul to sympathy
With what man hopes from Heaven, yet fears from Earth.
|
Dear be the Church, that, watching o'er the needs
Of Infancy, provides a timely shower
Whose virtue changes to a Christian Flower
A Growth from sinful Nature's bed of weeds!
|
Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds
The ministration; while parental Love
Looks on, and Grace descendeth from above
As the high service pledges now, now pleads.
There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly
To meet the coming hours of festal mirth,
The tombs which hear and answer that brief cry,
The Infant's notice of his second birth
Recall the wandering Soul to sympathy
With what man hopes from Heaven, yet fears from Earth.
|
sonnet
|
Horatio Alger, Jr.
|
The Poet Moralizeth - He Discourseth To Those Who Gorge And Complain.
|
Oh! Kitty Malone--Mrs. Merdle 'tis now--
Was there ever on earth than this, greater folly?
Still gorging, while groaning, and swearing a vow,
That yours is a case of most sad melancholy.
With table that Croesus never had but might covet,
You live but to eat and to eat 'cause you love it;
And yet while you swallow great sirloins of meat
Complain like a beggar of nothing to eat.
|
Oh! Kitty Malone--Mrs. Merdle 'tis now--
Was there ever on earth than this, greater folly?
|
Still gorging, while groaning, and swearing a vow,
That yours is a case of most sad melancholy.
With table that Croesus never had but might covet,
You live but to eat and to eat 'cause you love it;
And yet while you swallow great sirloins of meat
Complain like a beggar of nothing to eat.
|
octave
|
Robert Herrick
|
A Canticle To Apollo
|
Play, Phoebus, on thy lute,
And we will sit all mute;
By listening to thy lyre,
That sets all ears on fire.
Hark, hark! the God does play!
And as he leads the way
Through heaven, the very spheres,
As men, turn all to ears!
|
Play, Phoebus, on thy lute,
And we will sit all mute;
|
By listening to thy lyre,
That sets all ears on fire.
Hark, hark! the God does play!
And as he leads the way
Through heaven, the very spheres,
As men, turn all to ears!
|
octave
|
Michael Drayton
|
Amour 50
|
When I first ended, then I first began;
The more I trauell, further from my rest;
Where most I lost, there most of all I wan;
Pyned with hunger, rysing from a feast.
Mee thinks I flee, yet want I legs to goe,
Wise in conceite, in acte a very sot;
Rauisht with ioy amidst a hell of woe,
What most I seeme, that surest I am not.
I build my hopes a world aboue the skye,
Yet with a Mole I creepe into the earth:
In plenty am I staru'd with penury,
And yet I serfet in the greatest dearth.
I haue, I want, dispayre, and yet desire,
Burn'd in a Sea of Ice, and drown'd amidst a fire.
|
When I first ended, then I first began;
The more I trauell, further from my rest;
Where most I lost, there most of all I wan;
Pyned with hunger, rysing from a feast.
|
Mee thinks I flee, yet want I legs to goe,
Wise in conceite, in acte a very sot;
Rauisht with ioy amidst a hell of woe,
What most I seeme, that surest I am not.
I build my hopes a world aboue the skye,
Yet with a Mole I creepe into the earth:
In plenty am I staru'd with penury,
And yet I serfet in the greatest dearth.
I haue, I want, dispayre, and yet desire,
Burn'd in a Sea of Ice, and drown'd amidst a fire.
|
sonnet
|
Victor-Marie Hugo
|
To Some Birds Flown Away.
|
("Enfants! Oh! revenez!")
[XXII, April, 1837]
Children, come back - come back, I say -
You whom my folly chased away
A moment since, from this my room,
With bristling wrath and words of doom!
What had you done, you bandits small,
With lips as red as roses all?
What crime? - what wild and hapless deed?
What porcelain vase by you was split
To thousand pieces? Did you need
For pastime, as you handled it,
Some Gothic missal to enrich
With your designs fantastical?
Or did your tearing fingers fall
On some old picture? Which, oh, which
Your dreadful fault? Not one of these;
Only when left yourselves to please
This morning but a moment here
'Mid papers tinted by my mind
You took some embryo verses near -
Half formed, but fully well designed
To open out. Your hearts desire
Was but to throw them on the fire,
Then watch the tinder, for the sight
Of shining sparks that twinkle bright
As little boats that sail at night,
Or like the window lights that spring
From out the dark at evening.
'Twas all, and you were well content.
Fine loss was this for anger's vent -
A strophe ill made midst your play,
Sweet sound that chased the words away
In stormy flight. An ode quite new,
With rhymes inflated - stanzas, too,
That panted, moving lazily,
And heavy Alexandrine lines
That seemed to jostle bodily,
Like children full of play designs
That spring at once from schoolroom's form.
Instead of all this angry storm,
Another might have thanked you well
For saving prey from that grim cell,
That hollowed den 'neath journals great,
Where editors who poets flout
With their demoniac laughter shout.
And I have scolded you! What fate
For charming dwarfs who never meant
To anger Hercules! And I
Have frightened you! - My chair I sent
Back to the wall, and then let fly
A shower of words the envious use -
"Get out," I said, with hard abuse,
"Leave me alone - alone I say."
Poor man alone! Ah, well-a-day,
What fine result - what triumph rare!
As one turns from the coffin'd dead
So left you me: - I could but stare
Upon the door through which you fled -
I proud and grave - but punished quite.
And what care you for this my plight! -
You have recovered liberty,
Fresh air and lovely scenery,
The spacious park and wished-for grass;
The running stream, where you can throw
A blade to watch what comes to pass;
Blue sky, and all the spring can show;
Nature, serenely fair to see;
The book of birds and spirits free,
God's poem, worth much more than mine,
Where flowers for perfect stanzas shine -
Flowers that a child may pluck in play,
No harsh voice frightening it away.
And I'm alone - all pleasure o'er -
Alone with pedant called "Ennui,"
For since the morning at my door
Ennui has waited patiently.
That docto-r-London born, you mark,
One Sunday in December dark,
Poor little ones - he loved you not,
And waited till the chance he got
To enter as you passed away,
And in the very corner where
You played with frolic laughter gay,
He sighs and yawns with weary air.
What can I do? Shall I read books,
Or write more verse - or turn fond looks
Upon enamels blue, sea-green,
And white - on insects rare as seen
Upon my Dresden china ware?
Or shall I touch the globe, and care
To make the heavens turn upon
Its axis? No, not one - not one
Of all these things care I to do;
All wearies me - I think of you.
In truth with you my sunshine fled,
And gayety with your light tread -
Glad noise that set me dreaming still.
'Twas my delight to watch your will,
And mark you point with finger-tips
To help your spelling out a word;
To see the pearls between your lips
When I your joyous laughter heard;
Your honest brows that looked so true,
And said "Oh, yes!" to each intent;
Your great bright eyes, that loved to view
With admiration innocent
My fine old S'vres; the eager thought
That every kind of knowledge sought;
The elbow push with "Come and see!"
Oh, certes! spirits, sylphs, there be,
And fays the wind blows often here;
The gnomes that squat the ceiling near,
In corners made by old books dim;
The long-backed dwarfs, those goblins grim
That seem at home 'mong vases rare,
And chat to them with friendly air -
Oh, how the joyous demon throng
Must all have laughed with laughter long
To see you on my rough drafts fall,
My bald hexameters, and all
The mournful, miserable band,
And drag them with relentless hand
From out their box, with true delight
To set them each and all a-light,
And then with clapping hands to lean
Above the stove and watch the scene,
How to the mass deformed there came
A soul that showed itself in flame!
Bright tricksy children - oh, I pray
Come back and sing and dance away,
And chatter too - sometimes you may,
A giddy group, a big book seize -
Or sometimes, if it so you please,
With nimble step you'll run to me
And push the arm that holds the pen,
Till on my finished verse will be
A stroke that's like a steeple when
Seen suddenly upon a plain.
My soul longs for your breath again
To warm it. Oh, return - come here
With laugh and babble - and no fear
When with your shadow you obscure
The book I read, for I am sure,
Oh, madcaps terrible and dear,
That you were right and I was wrong.
But who has ne'er with scolding tongue
Blamed out of season. Pardon me!
You must forgive - for sad are we.
The young should not be hard and cold
And unforgiving to the old.
Children each morn your souls ope out
Like windows to the shining day,
Oh, miracle that comes about,
The miracle that children gay
Have happiness and goodness too,
Caressed by destiny are you,
Charming you are, if you but play.
But we with living overwrought,
And full of grave and sombre thought,
Are snappish oft: dear little men,
We have ill-tempered days, and then,
Are quite unjust and full of care;
It rained this morning and the air
Was chill; but clouds that dimm'd the sky
Have passed. Things spited me, and why?
But now my heart repents. Behold
What 'twas that made me cross, and scold!
All by-and-by you'll understand,
When brows are mark'd by Time's stern hand;
Then you will comprehend, be sure,
When older - that's to say, less pure.
The fault I freely own was mine.
But oh, for pardon now I pine!
Enough my punishment to meet,
You must forgive, I do entreat
With clasped hands praying - oh, come back,
Make peace, and you shall nothing lack.
See now my pencils - paper - here,
And pointless compasses, and dear
Old lacquer-work; and stoneware clear
Through glass protecting; all man's toys
So coveted by girls and boys.
Great China monsters - bodies much
Like cucumbers - you all shall touch.
I yield up all! my picture rare
Found beneath antique rubbish heap,
My great and tapestried oak chair
I will from you no longer keep.
You shall about my table climb,
And dance, or drag, without a cry
From me as if it were a crime.
Even I'll look on patiently
If you your jagged toys all throw
Upon my carved bench, till it show
The wood is torn; and freely too,
I'll leave in your own hands to view,
My pictured Bible - oft desired -
But which to touch your fear inspired -
With God in emperor's robes attired.
Then if to see my verses burn,
Should seem to you a pleasant turn,
Take them to freely tear away
Or burn. But, oh! not so I'd say,
If this were M'ry's room to-day.
That noble poet! Happy town,
Marseilles the Greek, that him doth own!
Daughter of Homer, fair to see,
Of Virgil's son the mother she.
To you I'd say, Hold, children all,
Let but your eyes on his work fall;
These papers are the sacred nest
In which his crooning fancies rest;
To-morrow winged to Heaven they'll soar,
For new-born verse imprisoned still
In manuscript may suffer sore
At your small hands and childish will,
Without a thought of bad intent,
Of cruelty quite innocent.
You wound their feet, and bruise their wings,
And make them suffer those ill things
That children's play to young birds brings.
But mine! no matter what you do,
My poetry is all in you;
You are my inspiration bright
That gives my verse its purest light.
Children whose life is made of hope,
Whose joy, within its mystic scope,
Owes all to ignorance of ill,
You have not suffered, and you still
Know not what gloomy thoughts weigh down
The poet-writer weary grown.
What warmth is shed by your sweet smile!
How much he needs to gaze awhile
Upon your shining placid brow,
When his own brow its ache doth know;
With what delight he loves to hear
Your frolic play 'neath tree that's near,
Your joyous voices mixing well
With his own song's all-mournful swell!
Come back then, children! come to me,
If you wish not that I should be
As lonely now that you're afar
As fisherman of Etr'tat,
Who listless on his elbow leans
Through all the weary winter scenes,
As tired of thought - as on Time flies -
And watching only rainy skies!
MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND.
|
("Enfants! Oh! revenez!")
[XXII, April, 1837]
Children, come back - come back, I say -
You whom my folly chased away
A moment since, from this my room,
With bristling wrath and words of doom!
What had you done, you bandits small,
With lips as red as roses all?
What crime? - what wild and hapless deed?
What porcelain vase by you was split
To thousand pieces? Did you need
For pastime, as you handled it,
Some Gothic missal to enrich
With your designs fantastical?
Or did your tearing fingers fall
On some old picture? Which, oh, which
Your dreadful fault? Not one of these;
Only when left yourselves to please
This morning but a moment here
'Mid papers tinted by my mind
You took some embryo verses near -
Half formed, but fully well designed
To open out. Your hearts desire
Was but to throw them on the fire,
Then watch the tinder, for the sight
Of shining sparks that twinkle bright
As little boats that sail at night,
Or like the window lights that spring
From out the dark at evening.
'Twas all, and you were well content.
Fine loss was this for anger's vent -
A strophe ill made midst your play,
Sweet sound that chased the words away
In stormy flight. An ode quite new,
With rhymes inflated - stanzas, too,
That panted, moving lazily,
And heavy Alexandrine lines
That seemed to jostle bodily,
Like children full of play designs
That spring at once from schoolroom's form.
Instead of all this angry storm,
Another might have thanked you well
For saving prey from that grim cell,
That hollowed den 'neath journals great,
Where editors who poets flout
With their demoniac laughter shout.
And I have scolded you! What fate
For charming dwarfs who never meant
To anger Hercules! And I
Have frightened you! - My chair I sent
Back to the wall, and then let fly
A shower of words the envious use -
"Get out," I said, with hard abuse,
"Leave me alone - alone I say."
Poor man alone! Ah, well-a-day,
What fine result - what triumph rare!
As one turns from the coffin'd dead
So left you me: - I could but stare
Upon the door through which you fled -
I proud and grave - but punished quite.
And what care you for this my plight! -
You have recovered liberty,
Fresh air and lovely scenery,
The spacious park and wished-for grass;
The running stream, where you can throw
A blade to watch what comes to pass;
Blue sky, and all the spring can show;
Nature, serenely fair to see;
The book of birds and spirits free,
God's poem, worth much more than mine,
Where flowers for perfect stanzas shine -
Flowers that a child may pluck in play,
No harsh voice frightening it away.
And I'm alone - all pleasure o'er -
Alone with pedant called "Ennui,"
For since the morning at my door
Ennui has waited patiently.
That docto-r-London born, you mark,
One Sunday in December dark,
Poor little ones - he loved you not,
And waited till the chance he got
To enter as you passed away,
And in the very corner where
|
You played with frolic laughter gay,
He sighs and yawns with weary air.
What can I do? Shall I read books,
Or write more verse - or turn fond looks
Upon enamels blue, sea-green,
And white - on insects rare as seen
Upon my Dresden china ware?
Or shall I touch the globe, and care
To make the heavens turn upon
Its axis? No, not one - not one
Of all these things care I to do;
All wearies me - I think of you.
In truth with you my sunshine fled,
And gayety with your light tread -
Glad noise that set me dreaming still.
'Twas my delight to watch your will,
And mark you point with finger-tips
To help your spelling out a word;
To see the pearls between your lips
When I your joyous laughter heard;
Your honest brows that looked so true,
And said "Oh, yes!" to each intent;
Your great bright eyes, that loved to view
With admiration innocent
My fine old S'vres; the eager thought
That every kind of knowledge sought;
The elbow push with "Come and see!"
Oh, certes! spirits, sylphs, there be,
And fays the wind blows often here;
The gnomes that squat the ceiling near,
In corners made by old books dim;
The long-backed dwarfs, those goblins grim
That seem at home 'mong vases rare,
And chat to them with friendly air -
Oh, how the joyous demon throng
Must all have laughed with laughter long
To see you on my rough drafts fall,
My bald hexameters, and all
The mournful, miserable band,
And drag them with relentless hand
From out their box, with true delight
To set them each and all a-light,
And then with clapping hands to lean
Above the stove and watch the scene,
How to the mass deformed there came
A soul that showed itself in flame!
Bright tricksy children - oh, I pray
Come back and sing and dance away,
And chatter too - sometimes you may,
A giddy group, a big book seize -
Or sometimes, if it so you please,
With nimble step you'll run to me
And push the arm that holds the pen,
Till on my finished verse will be
A stroke that's like a steeple when
Seen suddenly upon a plain.
My soul longs for your breath again
To warm it. Oh, return - come here
With laugh and babble - and no fear
When with your shadow you obscure
The book I read, for I am sure,
Oh, madcaps terrible and dear,
That you were right and I was wrong.
But who has ne'er with scolding tongue
Blamed out of season. Pardon me!
You must forgive - for sad are we.
The young should not be hard and cold
And unforgiving to the old.
Children each morn your souls ope out
Like windows to the shining day,
Oh, miracle that comes about,
The miracle that children gay
Have happiness and goodness too,
Caressed by destiny are you,
Charming you are, if you but play.
But we with living overwrought,
And full of grave and sombre thought,
Are snappish oft: dear little men,
We have ill-tempered days, and then,
Are quite unjust and full of care;
It rained this morning and the air
Was chill; but clouds that dimm'd the sky
Have passed. Things spited me, and why?
But now my heart repents. Behold
What 'twas that made me cross, and scold!
All by-and-by you'll understand,
When brows are mark'd by Time's stern hand;
Then you will comprehend, be sure,
When older - that's to say, less pure.
The fault I freely own was mine.
But oh, for pardon now I pine!
Enough my punishment to meet,
You must forgive, I do entreat
With clasped hands praying - oh, come back,
Make peace, and you shall nothing lack.
See now my pencils - paper - here,
And pointless compasses, and dear
Old lacquer-work; and stoneware clear
Through glass protecting; all man's toys
So coveted by girls and boys.
Great China monsters - bodies much
Like cucumbers - you all shall touch.
I yield up all! my picture rare
Found beneath antique rubbish heap,
My great and tapestried oak chair
I will from you no longer keep.
You shall about my table climb,
And dance, or drag, without a cry
From me as if it were a crime.
Even I'll look on patiently
If you your jagged toys all throw
Upon my carved bench, till it show
The wood is torn; and freely too,
I'll leave in your own hands to view,
My pictured Bible - oft desired -
But which to touch your fear inspired -
With God in emperor's robes attired.
Then if to see my verses burn,
Should seem to you a pleasant turn,
Take them to freely tear away
Or burn. But, oh! not so I'd say,
If this were M'ry's room to-day.
That noble poet! Happy town,
Marseilles the Greek, that him doth own!
Daughter of Homer, fair to see,
Of Virgil's son the mother she.
To you I'd say, Hold, children all,
Let but your eyes on his work fall;
These papers are the sacred nest
In which his crooning fancies rest;
To-morrow winged to Heaven they'll soar,
For new-born verse imprisoned still
In manuscript may suffer sore
At your small hands and childish will,
Without a thought of bad intent,
Of cruelty quite innocent.
You wound their feet, and bruise their wings,
And make them suffer those ill things
That children's play to young birds brings.
But mine! no matter what you do,
My poetry is all in you;
You are my inspiration bright
That gives my verse its purest light.
Children whose life is made of hope,
Whose joy, within its mystic scope,
Owes all to ignorance of ill,
You have not suffered, and you still
Know not what gloomy thoughts weigh down
The poet-writer weary grown.
What warmth is shed by your sweet smile!
How much he needs to gaze awhile
Upon your shining placid brow,
When his own brow its ache doth know;
With what delight he loves to hear
Your frolic play 'neath tree that's near,
Your joyous voices mixing well
With his own song's all-mournful swell!
Come back then, children! come to me,
If you wish not that I should be
As lonely now that you're afar
As fisherman of Etr'tat,
Who listless on his elbow leans
Through all the weary winter scenes,
As tired of thought - as on Time flies -
And watching only rainy skies!
MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND.
|
free_verse
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonnet 63 To the high and mighty Prince, James, King of Scots
|
Not thy graue Counsells, nor thy Subiects loue,
Nor all that famous Scottish royaltie,
Or what thy soueraigne greatnes may approue,
Others in vaine doe but historifie,
When thine owne glorie from thy selfe doth spring,
As though thou did'st, all meaner prayses scorne:
Of Kings a Poet, and the Poets King,
They Princes, but thou Prophets do'st adorne;
Whilst others by their Empires are renown'd,
Thou do'st enrich thy Scotland with renowne,
And Kings can but with Diadems be crown'd,
But with thy Laurell, thou doo'st crowne thy Crowne;
That they whose pens, euen life to Kings doe giue,
In thee a King, shall seeke them selues to liue.
|
Not thy graue Counsells, nor thy Subiects loue,
Nor all that famous Scottish royaltie,
Or what thy soueraigne greatnes may approue,
Others in vaine doe but historifie,
|
When thine owne glorie from thy selfe doth spring,
As though thou did'st, all meaner prayses scorne:
Of Kings a Poet, and the Poets King,
They Princes, but thou Prophets do'st adorne;
Whilst others by their Empires are renown'd,
Thou do'st enrich thy Scotland with renowne,
And Kings can but with Diadems be crown'd,
But with thy Laurell, thou doo'st crowne thy Crowne;
That they whose pens, euen life to Kings doe giue,
In thee a King, shall seeke them selues to liue.
|
sonnet
|
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
|
The Earth
|
To build a house, with love for architect,
Ranks first and foremost in the joys of life.
And in a tiny cabin, shaped for two,
The space for happiness is just as great
As in a palace. What a world were this
If each soul born received a plot of ground;
A little plot, whereon a home might rise,
And beauteous green things grow!
We give the dead,
The idle vagrant dead, the Potter's Field;
Yet to the living not one inch of soil.
Nay, we take from them soil, and sun, and air,
To fashion slums and hell-holes for the race.
And to our poor we say, 'Go starve and die
As beggars die; so gain your heritage.'
II
That was a most uncanny dream; I thought the wraiths of those
Long buried in the Potter's Field, in shredded shrouds arose;
They said, 'Against the will of God
We have usurped the fertile sod,
Now will we make it yield.'
Oh! but it was a gruesome sight, to see those phantoms toil;
Each to his own small garden bent; each spaded up the soil;
(I never knew Ghosts laboured so.)
Each scattered seed, and watched, till lo!
The Graves were opulent.
Then all among the fragrant greens, the silent, spectral train
Walked, as if breathing in the breath of plant, and flower, and grain.
(I never knew Ghosts loved such things;
Perchance it brought back early springs
Before they thought of death.)
'The mothers' milk for living babes; the earth for living hosts;
The clean flame for the un-souled dead.' (Oh, strange the words of Ghosts.)
'If we had owned this little spot
In life, we need not lie and rot
Here in a pauper's bed.'
|
To build a house, with love for architect,
Ranks first and foremost in the joys of life.
And in a tiny cabin, shaped for two,
The space for happiness is just as great
As in a palace. What a world were this
If each soul born received a plot of ground;
A little plot, whereon a home might rise,
And beauteous green things grow!
We give the dead,
The idle vagrant dead, the Potter's Field;
Yet to the living not one inch of soil.
Nay, we take from them soil, and sun, and air,
|
To fashion slums and hell-holes for the race.
And to our poor we say, 'Go starve and die
As beggars die; so gain your heritage.'
II
That was a most uncanny dream; I thought the wraiths of those
Long buried in the Potter's Field, in shredded shrouds arose;
They said, 'Against the will of God
We have usurped the fertile sod,
Now will we make it yield.'
Oh! but it was a gruesome sight, to see those phantoms toil;
Each to his own small garden bent; each spaded up the soil;
(I never knew Ghosts laboured so.)
Each scattered seed, and watched, till lo!
The Graves were opulent.
Then all among the fragrant greens, the silent, spectral train
Walked, as if breathing in the breath of plant, and flower, and grain.
(I never knew Ghosts loved such things;
Perchance it brought back early springs
Before they thought of death.)
'The mothers' milk for living babes; the earth for living hosts;
The clean flame for the un-souled dead.' (Oh, strange the words of Ghosts.)
'If we had owned this little spot
In life, we need not lie and rot
Here in a pauper's bed.'
|
free_verse
|
Hilaire Belloc
|
Heretics All
|
Heretics all, whoever you may be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
Caritas non conturbat me.
But Catholic men that live upon wine
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;
Wherever I travel I find it so,
Benedicamus Domino.
On childing women that are forelorn,
And men that sweat in nothing but scorn:
That is on all that ever were born,
Miserere Domine.
To my poor self on my deathbed,
And all my dear companions dead,
Because of the love that I bore them,
Dona Eis Requiem.
|
Heretics all, whoever you may be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
Caritas non conturbat me.
But Catholic men that live upon wine
|
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;
Wherever I travel I find it so,
Benedicamus Domino.
On childing women that are forelorn,
And men that sweat in nothing but scorn:
That is on all that ever were born,
Miserere Domine.
To my poor self on my deathbed,
And all my dear companions dead,
Because of the love that I bore them,
Dona Eis Requiem.
|
free_verse
|
Sara Teasdale
|
Epitaph
|
Serene descent, as a red leaf's descending
When there is neither wind nor noise of rain,
But only autum air and the unending
Drawing of all things to the earth again.
So be it, let the snow fall deep and cover
All that was drunken once with light and air.
The earth will not regret her tireless lover,
Nor he awake to know she does not care.
|
Serene descent, as a red leaf's descending
When there is neither wind nor noise of rain,
|
But only autum air and the unending
Drawing of all things to the earth again.
So be it, let the snow fall deep and cover
All that was drunken once with light and air.
The earth will not regret her tireless lover,
Nor he awake to know she does not care.
|
octave
|
Sara Teasdale
|
Jewls
|
If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go
Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.
Or back to oak trees in the spring
When you unloosed my hair and kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's amethyst.
And still another shining place
We would remember, how the dun
Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white with sun.
But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day.
|
If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go
Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.
Or back to oak trees in the spring
|
When you unloosed my hair and kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's amethyst.
And still another shining place
We would remember, how the dun
Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white with sun.
But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day.
|
free_verse
|
Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)
|
Impromptu.
|
You say you're glad I write - oh, say not so!
My fount of song, dear friend, 's a bitter well;
And when the numbers freely from it flow,
'Tis that my heart, and eyes, o'erflow as well.
Castalia, fam'd of yore, - the spring divine,
Apollo's smile upon its current wears:
Moore and Anacreon, found its waves were wine,
To me, it flows a sullen stream of tears.
|
You say you're glad I write - oh, say not so!
My fount of song, dear friend, 's a bitter well;
|
And when the numbers freely from it flow,
'Tis that my heart, and eyes, o'erflow as well.
Castalia, fam'd of yore, - the spring divine,
Apollo's smile upon its current wears:
Moore and Anacreon, found its waves were wine,
To me, it flows a sullen stream of tears.
|
octave
|
Ambrose Bierce
|
Elegy
|
The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The wise man homewards plods; I only stay
To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.
|
The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
|
The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The wise man homewards plods; I only stay
To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.
|
quatrain
|
Hilaire Belloc
|
The Telephone
|
To-night in million-voiced London I
Was lonely as the million-pointed sky
Until your single voice. Ah! So the sun
Peoples all heaven, although he be but one.
|
To-night in million-voiced London I
|
Was lonely as the million-pointed sky
Until your single voice. Ah! So the sun
Peoples all heaven, although he be but one.
|
quatrain
|
William Wordsworth
|
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - III - How Shall I Paint Thee?
|
How shall I paint thee? Be this naked stone
My seat, while I give way to such intent;
Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,
Make to the eyes of men thy features known.
But as of all those tripping lambs not one
Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent
To thy beginning nought that doth present
Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.
To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem
Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;
Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam
Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;
Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!
|
How shall I paint thee? Be this naked stone
My seat, while I give way to such intent;
Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,
Make to the eyes of men thy features known.
|
But as of all those tripping lambs not one
Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent
To thy beginning nought that doth present
Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.
To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem
Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;
Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam
Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;
Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Trencherman.
|
Tom shifts the trenchers; yet he never can
Endure that lukewarm name of serving-man:
Serve or not serve, let Tom do what he can,
He is a serving, who's a trencher-man.
|
Tom shifts the trenchers; yet he never can
|
Endure that lukewarm name of serving-man:
Serve or not serve, let Tom do what he can,
He is a serving, who's a trencher-man.
|
quatrain
|
Jonathan Swift
|
Epigram
|
Great folks are of a finer mould;
Lord! how politely they can scold!
While a coarse English tongue will itch,
For whore and rogue, and dog and bitch.
|
Great folks are of a finer mould;
|
Lord! how politely they can scold!
While a coarse English tongue will itch,
For whore and rogue, and dog and bitch.
|
quatrain
|
Michael Drayton
|
Amour 26
|
Cupid, dumbe-Idoll, peeuish Saint of loue,
No more shalt thou nor Saint nor Idoll be;
No God art thou, a Goddesse shee doth proue,
Of all thine honour shee hath robbed thee.
Thy Bowe, halfe broke, is peec'd with old desire;
Her Bowe is beauty with ten thousand strings
Of purest gold, tempred with vertues fire,
The least able to kyll an hoste of Kings.
Thy shafts be spent, and shee (to warre appointed)
Hydes in those christall quiuers of her eyes
More Arrowes, with hart-piercing mettel poynted,
Then there be starres at midnight in the skyes.
With these she steales mens harts for her reliefe,
Yet happy he thats robd of such a thiefe!
|
Cupid, dumbe-Idoll, peeuish Saint of loue,
No more shalt thou nor Saint nor Idoll be;
No God art thou, a Goddesse shee doth proue,
Of all thine honour shee hath robbed thee.
|
Thy Bowe, halfe broke, is peec'd with old desire;
Her Bowe is beauty with ten thousand strings
Of purest gold, tempred with vertues fire,
The least able to kyll an hoste of Kings.
Thy shafts be spent, and shee (to warre appointed)
Hydes in those christall quiuers of her eyes
More Arrowes, with hart-piercing mettel poynted,
Then there be starres at midnight in the skyes.
With these she steales mens harts for her reliefe,
Yet happy he thats robd of such a thiefe!
|
sonnet
|
George MacDonald
|
To My God
|
Oh how oft I wake and find
I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
Thou it is that wakest me.
|
Oh how oft I wake and find
|
I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
Thou it is that wakest me.
|
quatrain
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
Fulfillment
|
Yes, there are some who may look on these
Essential peoples of the earth and air
That have the stars and flowers in their care
And all their soul-suggestive secrecies:
Heart-intimates and comrades of the trees,
Who from them learn, what no known schools declare,
God's knowledge; and from winds, that discourse there,
God's gospel of diviner mysteries:
To whom the waters shall divulge a word
Of fuller faith; the sunset and the dawn
Preach sermons more inspired even than
The tongues of Penticost; as, distant heard
In forms of change, through Nature upward drawn,
God doth address th' immortal soul of Man.
|
Yes, there are some who may look on these
Essential peoples of the earth and air
That have the stars and flowers in their care
And all their soul-suggestive secrecies:
|
Heart-intimates and comrades of the trees,
Who from them learn, what no known schools declare,
God's knowledge; and from winds, that discourse there,
God's gospel of diviner mysteries:
To whom the waters shall divulge a word
Of fuller faith; the sunset and the dawn
Preach sermons more inspired even than
The tongues of Penticost; as, distant heard
In forms of change, through Nature upward drawn,
God doth address th' immortal soul of Man.
|
sonnet
|
Alan Seeger
|
Sonnet III
|
There was a youth around whose early way
White angels hung in converse and sweet choir,
Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, -
In cloud and far horizon to desire.
His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream
Born of clear showers and the mountain dew,
Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam
Forever pure against heaven's orient blue.
Within the city's shades he walked at last.
Faint and more faint in sad recessional
Down the dim corridors of Time outworn,
A chorus ebbed from that forsaken past,
A hymn of glories fled beyond recall
With the lost heights and splendor of life's morn.
|
There was a youth around whose early way
White angels hung in converse and sweet choir,
Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, -
In cloud and far horizon to desire.
|
His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream
Born of clear showers and the mountain dew,
Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam
Forever pure against heaven's orient blue.
Within the city's shades he walked at last.
Faint and more faint in sad recessional
Down the dim corridors of Time outworn,
A chorus ebbed from that forsaken past,
A hymn of glories fled beyond recall
With the lost heights and splendor of life's morn.
|
sonnet
|
Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)
|
A Triolet
|
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
It makes bad writers somewhat worse:
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
That fall beneath a reader's curse,
It is the feeblest jingle yet.
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
|
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
|
It makes bad writers somewhat worse:
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
That fall beneath a reader's curse,
It is the feeblest jingle yet.
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
|
octave
|
James Stephens
|
Custom House Quay (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
|
When a Dublin man shall say,
"Give me a little bread, I pray,"
If you do not give him bread
You will be hungry when he is fed.
And let no priest or magistrate
Scowl upon the poor man's plate,
Asking him the question sly
To which no one can reply.
|
When a Dublin man shall say,
"Give me a little bread, I pray,"
|
If you do not give him bread
You will be hungry when he is fed.
And let no priest or magistrate
Scowl upon the poor man's plate,
Asking him the question sly
To which no one can reply.
|
octave
|
Percy Bysshe Shelley
|
Fragment: The Lake's Margin.
|
The fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses
Track not the steps of him who drinks of it;
For the light breezes, which for ever fleet
Around its margin, heap the sand thereon.
|
The fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses
|
Track not the steps of him who drinks of it;
For the light breezes, which for ever fleet
Around its margin, heap the sand thereon.
|
quatrain
|
George MacDonald
|
Triolet.
|
When the heart is a cup
In the body low lying,
And wine, drop by drop
Falls into that cup
From somewhere high up,
It is good to be dying
With the heart for a cup
In the body low lying.
|
When the heart is a cup
In the body low lying,
|
And wine, drop by drop
Falls into that cup
From somewhere high up,
It is good to be dying
With the heart for a cup
In the body low lying.
|
octave
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
We Outgrow Love Like Other Things
|
We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
|
We outgrow love like other things
|
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
|
quatrain
|
Matthew Arnold
|
The Better Part
|
Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!
"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more when we have done our span."
"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,
"Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see?
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!"
|
Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!
"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;
|
We live no more when we have done our span."
"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,
"Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see?
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!"
|
sonnet
|
W. M. MacKeracher
|
Literature.
|
Here is a banquet-table of delights,
A sumptuous feast of true ambrosial food;
Here is a journey among goodly sights,
In choice society or solitude;
Here is a treasury of gems and gold -
Of purest gold and gems of brightest sheen;
Here is a landscape gloriously unroll'd,
Of heights sublime and pleasant vales between.
Here is the realm of Thought, diverse and wide,
To Genius and her sovereign sons assign'd;
The universal church, o'er which preside
The heaven-anointed hierarchy of mind
And spirit; the imperishable pride
And testament and promise of mankind.
|
Here is a banquet-table of delights,
A sumptuous feast of true ambrosial food;
Here is a journey among goodly sights,
In choice society or solitude;
|
Here is a treasury of gems and gold -
Of purest gold and gems of brightest sheen;
Here is a landscape gloriously unroll'd,
Of heights sublime and pleasant vales between.
Here is the realm of Thought, diverse and wide,
To Genius and her sovereign sons assign'd;
The universal church, o'er which preside
The heaven-anointed hierarchy of mind
And spirit; the imperishable pride
And testament and promise of mankind.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Brock. Epig.
|
To cleanse his eyes, Tom Brock makes much ado,
But not his mouth, the fouler of the two.
A clammy rheum makes loathsome both his eyes:
His mouth, worse furr'd with oaths and blasphemies.
|
To cleanse his eyes, Tom Brock makes much ado,
|
But not his mouth, the fouler of the two.
A clammy rheum makes loathsome both his eyes:
His mouth, worse furr'd with oaths and blasphemies.
|
quatrain
|
William Allingham
|
A Singer
|
That which he did not feel, he would not sing;
What most he felt, religion it was to hide
In a dumb darkling grotto, where the spring
Of tremulous tears, arising unespied,
Became a holy well that durst not glide
Into the day with moil or murmuring;
Whereto, as if to some unlawful thing,
He sto]e, musing or praying at its side.
But in the sun he sang with cheerful heart,
Of coloured season and the whirling sphere,
Warm household habitude and human mirth,
The whole faith-blooded mystery of earth;
And I, who had his secret, still could hear
The grotto's whisper low through every part.
|
That which he did not feel, he would not sing;
What most he felt, religion it was to hide
In a dumb darkling grotto, where the spring
Of tremulous tears, arising unespied,
|
Became a holy well that durst not glide
Into the day with moil or murmuring;
Whereto, as if to some unlawful thing,
He sto]e, musing or praying at its side.
But in the sun he sang with cheerful heart,
Of coloured season and the whirling sphere,
Warm household habitude and human mirth,
The whole faith-blooded mystery of earth;
And I, who had his secret, still could hear
The grotto's whisper low through every part.
|
sonnet
|
Lola Ridge
|
The Fog
|
Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk -
Snaring, illuding, concealing,
Magically conjuring -
Turning to fairy-coaches
Beetle-backed limousines
Scampering under the great Arch -
Making a decoy of blue overalls
And mystery of a scarlet shawl -
Indolently -
Knowing no impediment of its sure advance -
Descends the fog.
|
Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk -
Snaring, illuding, concealing,
Magically conjuring -
|
Turning to fairy-coaches
Beetle-backed limousines
Scampering under the great Arch -
Making a decoy of blue overalls
And mystery of a scarlet shawl -
Indolently -
Knowing no impediment of its sure advance -
Descends the fog.
|
free_verse
|
James Whitcomb Riley
|
Song - Born To The Purple
|
[W.M.]
Most-like it was this kingly lad
Spake out of the pure joy he had
In his child-heart of the wee maid
Whose eerie beauty sudden laid
A spell upon him, and his words
Burst as a song of any bird's: -
A peerless Princess thou shalt be,
Through wit of love's rare sorcery:
To crown the crown of thy gold hair
Thou shalt have rubies, bleeding there
Their crimson splendor midst the marred
Pulp of great pearls, and afterward
Leaking in fainter ruddy stains
Adown thy neck-and-armlet-chains
Of turquoise, chrysoprase, and mad
Light-frenzied diamonds, dartling glad
Swift spirts of shine that interfuse
As though with lucent crystal dews
That glance and glitter like split rays
Of sunshine, born of burgeoning Mays
When the first bee tilts down the lip
Of the first blossom, and the drip
Of blended dew and honey heaves
Him blinded midst the underleaves.
For raiment, Fays shall weave for thee -
Out of the phosphor of the sea
And the frayed floss of starlight, spun
With counterwarp of the firm sun -
A vesture of such filmy sheen
As, through all ages, never queen
Therewith strove truly to make less
One fair line of her loveliness.
Thus gowned and crowned with gems and gold,
Thou shalt, through centuries untold,
Rule, ever young and ever fair,
As now thou rulest, smiling there.
|
[W.M.]
Most-like it was this kingly lad
Spake out of the pure joy he had
In his child-heart of the wee maid
Whose eerie beauty sudden laid
A spell upon him, and his words
Burst as a song of any bird's: -
A peerless Princess thou shalt be,
Through wit of love's rare sorcery:
To crown the crown of thy gold hair
Thou shalt have rubies, bleeding there
Their crimson splendor midst the marred
|
Pulp of great pearls, and afterward
Leaking in fainter ruddy stains
Adown thy neck-and-armlet-chains
Of turquoise, chrysoprase, and mad
Light-frenzied diamonds, dartling glad
Swift spirts of shine that interfuse
As though with lucent crystal dews
That glance and glitter like split rays
Of sunshine, born of burgeoning Mays
When the first bee tilts down the lip
Of the first blossom, and the drip
Of blended dew and honey heaves
Him blinded midst the underleaves.
For raiment, Fays shall weave for thee -
Out of the phosphor of the sea
And the frayed floss of starlight, spun
With counterwarp of the firm sun -
A vesture of such filmy sheen
As, through all ages, never queen
Therewith strove truly to make less
One fair line of her loveliness.
Thus gowned and crowned with gems and gold,
Thou shalt, through centuries untold,
Rule, ever young and ever fair,
As now thou rulest, smiling there.
|
free_verse
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
September On Cape Ann
|
The partridge-berry flecks with flame the way
That leads to ferny hollows where the bee
Drones on the aster. Far away the sea
Points its deep sapphire with a gleam of grey.
Here from this height where, clustered sweet, the bay
Clumps a green couch, the haw and barberry
Beading her hair, sad Summer, seemingly,
Has fallen asleep, unmindful of the day.
The chipmunk barks upon the old stone wall;
And in the shadows, like a shadow, stirs
The woodchuck where the boneset's blossom creams.
Was that a phoebe with its pensive call?
A sighing wind that shook the drowsy firs?
Or only Summer waking from her dreams?
|
The partridge-berry flecks with flame the way
That leads to ferny hollows where the bee
Drones on the aster. Far away the sea
Points its deep sapphire with a gleam of grey.
|
Here from this height where, clustered sweet, the bay
Clumps a green couch, the haw and barberry
Beading her hair, sad Summer, seemingly,
Has fallen asleep, unmindful of the day.
The chipmunk barks upon the old stone wall;
And in the shadows, like a shadow, stirs
The woodchuck where the boneset's blossom creams.
Was that a phoebe with its pensive call?
A sighing wind that shook the drowsy firs?
Or only Summer waking from her dreams?
|
sonnet
|
John Clare
|
On Seeing A Picture Of Sacred Contemplation.
|
Serene she looks, she wears an angel's form,
Her arching eyes are fix'd upon the sky,
Gloomy, yet glist'ning 'tween black curls wip'd by,
Like a bright rainbow painted on the storm:
Her blue-vein'd breasts religion's comforts warm,
The bible open'd on her lap doth lie.
What mixing beauties in her face appear!
Charms more than mortal lighten up her smiles;
Strong Faith and Hope unite her soul to cheer,
And Resignation makes her smiles more dear.
No earthly thoughts her purity defile;
As vap'ring clouds by summer's suns are driven,
Sin's temptings from the scriptures' charm recoil,
And all her soul transported seems in heaven.
|
Serene she looks, she wears an angel's form,
Her arching eyes are fix'd upon the sky,
Gloomy, yet glist'ning 'tween black curls wip'd by,
Like a bright rainbow painted on the storm:
|
Her blue-vein'd breasts religion's comforts warm,
The bible open'd on her lap doth lie.
What mixing beauties in her face appear!
Charms more than mortal lighten up her smiles;
Strong Faith and Hope unite her soul to cheer,
And Resignation makes her smiles more dear.
No earthly thoughts her purity defile;
As vap'ring clouds by summer's suns are driven,
Sin's temptings from the scriptures' charm recoil,
And all her soul transported seems in heaven.
|
sonnet
|
Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)
|
Till I Wake
|
When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly,
Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South.
So I may, when I wake, if there be an Awakening,
Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth.
|
When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly,
|
Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South.
So I may, when I wake, if there be an Awakening,
Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth.
|
quatrain
|
James Joyce
|
Lean Out Of The Window
|
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair,
I hear you singing
A merry air.
My book was closed,
I read no more,
Watching the fire dance
On the floor.
I have left my book,
I have left my room,
For I heard you singing
Through the gloom.
Singing and singing
A merry air,
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair.
|
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair,
I hear you singing
A merry air.
My book was closed,
|
I read no more,
Watching the fire dance
On the floor.
I have left my book,
I have left my room,
For I heard you singing
Through the gloom.
Singing and singing
A merry air,
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair.
|
free_verse
|
Algernon Charles Swinburne
|
A Counsel
|
O strong Republic of the nobler years
Whose white feet shine beside time's fairer flood
That shall flow on the clearer for our blood
Now shed, and the less brackish for our tears;
When time and truth have put out hopes and fears
With certitude, and love has burst the bud,
If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud
Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears,
When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds,
Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds,
The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod,
Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds;
But let the worm Napoleon crawl untrod,
Nor grant Mastai the gallows of his God.
|
O strong Republic of the nobler years
Whose white feet shine beside time's fairer flood
That shall flow on the clearer for our blood
Now shed, and the less brackish for our tears;
|
When time and truth have put out hopes and fears
With certitude, and love has burst the bud,
If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud
Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears,
When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds,
Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds,
The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod,
Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds;
But let the worm Napoleon crawl untrod,
Nor grant Mastai the gallows of his God.
|
sonnet
|
Walter De La Mare
|
Mistletoe
|
Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.
|
Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
|
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.
|
sonnet
|
Duncan Campbell Scott
|
Retrospect
|
This is the mockery of the moving years;
Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow
Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow,
Even slower than the fount of human tears
To empty, the consuming shadow nears
That Time is casting on the worldly show
Of pomp and glory. But falter not; - below
That thought is based a deeper thought that cheers.
Glean thou thy past; that will alone inure
To catch thy heart up from a dark distress;
It were enough to find one deed mature,
Deep-rooted, mighty 'mid the toil and press;
To save one memory of the sweet and pure,
From out life's failure and its bitterness.
|
This is the mockery of the moving years;
Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow
Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow,
Even slower than the fount of human tears
|
To empty, the consuming shadow nears
That Time is casting on the worldly show
Of pomp and glory. But falter not; - below
That thought is based a deeper thought that cheers.
Glean thou thy past; that will alone inure
To catch thy heart up from a dark distress;
It were enough to find one deed mature,
Deep-rooted, mighty 'mid the toil and press;
To save one memory of the sweet and pure,
From out life's failure and its bitterness.
|
sonnet
|
Henry John Newbolt, Sir
|
The Wanderer
|
To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west:
"O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee
A life to build, a love therein to nest,
And a man's work, serving the age to be."
Peace, peace awhile! Before his tireless feet
Hill beyond hill the road in sunlight goes;
He breathes the breath of morning, clear and sweet,
And his eyes love the high eternal snows.
|
To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west:
"O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee
|
A life to build, a love therein to nest,
And a man's work, serving the age to be."
Peace, peace awhile! Before his tireless feet
Hill beyond hill the road in sunlight goes;
He breathes the breath of morning, clear and sweet,
And his eyes love the high eternal snows.
|
octave
|
Oliver Herford
|
The Jinn
|
To call a Jinn the only thing
One needed was a magic ring.
You rubbed the ring and forth there came
A monster born of smoke and flame,
A thing of Vapor, Fume and Glare
Ready to waft you anywhere.
The magic Jinns of yesterday
The wand of Science now obey.
You ring, and lo! with rush and roar
The panting monster's at the door,
A thing of Vapor, Fume and Glare
Ready to take you anywhere.
What's in a name? What choice between
The Giants, Jinn and Gasolene?
|
To call a Jinn the only thing
One needed was a magic ring.
You rubbed the ring and forth there came
A monster born of smoke and flame,
|
A thing of Vapor, Fume and Glare
Ready to waft you anywhere.
The magic Jinns of yesterday
The wand of Science now obey.
You ring, and lo! with rush and roar
The panting monster's at the door,
A thing of Vapor, Fume and Glare
Ready to take you anywhere.
What's in a name? What choice between
The Giants, Jinn and Gasolene?
|
sonnet
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCCLXXIX. Paradoxes.
|
If a man who turnips cries
Cries not when his father dies,
It is a proof that he would rather
Have a turnip than his father.
|
If a man who turnips cries
|
Cries not when his father dies,
It is a proof that he would rather
Have a turnip than his father.
|
quatrain
|
Fay Inchfawn
|
The Log Fire
|
In her last hour of life the tree
Gave up her glorious memories,
Wild scent of wood anemone,
The sapphire blue of April skies.
With faint but ever-strength'ning flame,
The dew-drenched hyacinthine spires
Were lost, as red-gold bracken came,
With maple bathed in living fires.
Grey smoke of ancient clematis
Towards the silver birch inclined,
And deep in thorny fastnesses
The coral bryony entwined.
Then softly through the dusky room
They strayed, fair ghosts of other days,
With breath like early cherry bloom,
With tender eyes and gentle ways.
They glimmered on the sombre walls,
They danced upon the oaken floor,
Till through the loudly silent halls
Joy reigned majestical once more.
Up blazed the fire, and, dazzling clear,
One rapturous Spirit radiant stood.
'Twas you at last! Yes, YOU, my dear.
We two were back in Gatcombe Wood!
|
In her last hour of life the tree
Gave up her glorious memories,
Wild scent of wood anemone,
The sapphire blue of April skies.
With faint but ever-strength'ning flame,
The dew-drenched hyacinthine spires
Were lost, as red-gold bracken came,
With maple bathed in living fires.
|
Grey smoke of ancient clematis
Towards the silver birch inclined,
And deep in thorny fastnesses
The coral bryony entwined.
Then softly through the dusky room
They strayed, fair ghosts of other days,
With breath like early cherry bloom,
With tender eyes and gentle ways.
They glimmered on the sombre walls,
They danced upon the oaken floor,
Till through the loudly silent halls
Joy reigned majestical once more.
Up blazed the fire, and, dazzling clear,
One rapturous Spirit radiant stood.
'Twas you at last! Yes, YOU, my dear.
We two were back in Gatcombe Wood!
|
free_verse
|
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
|
To George Sand: A Desire
|
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:
I would some mild miraculous thunder ran
Above the applauded circus, in appliance
Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,
Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,
From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place
With holier light! that thou to woman's claim
And man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace
Of a pure genius sanctified from blame
Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace
To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.
|
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:
|
I would some mild miraculous thunder ran
Above the applauded circus, in appliance
Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,
Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,
From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place
With holier light! that thou to woman's claim
And man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace
Of a pure genius sanctified from blame
Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace
To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.
|
sonnet
|
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
|
One And One.
|
The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can only die alone:
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!
Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!
You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;
Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:
The longed-for words, which of us ever says?
|
The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can only die alone:
|
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!
Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!
You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;
Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:
The longed-for words, which of us ever says?
|
octave
|
Alfred Lichtenstein
|
After Combat
|
In the sky the howitzers no longer explode,
The cannoneers rest next to their guns.
The infantry pitch tents now,
And the pale moon slowly rises.
On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze,
Ashen pale from death and powder.
Among them German medics squat.
The day becomes grayer, its sun redder.
Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch.
Broken carts stand at roadsides.
Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter
At a scorched wooden fence.
And orderlies are already moving
From regiment to division.
|
In the sky the howitzers no longer explode,
The cannoneers rest next to their guns.
The infantry pitch tents now,
And the pale moon slowly rises.
|
On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze,
Ashen pale from death and powder.
Among them German medics squat.
The day becomes grayer, its sun redder.
Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch.
Broken carts stand at roadsides.
Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter
At a scorched wooden fence.
And orderlies are already moving
From regiment to division.
|
sonnet
|
William Wordsworth
|
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XXIV. - The Italian Itinerant And The Swiss Goatherd. - Part I
|
I
Now that the farewell tear is dried,
Heaven prosper thee, be hope thy guide
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
Whether for London bound, to trill
Thy mountain notes with simple skill;
Or on thy head to poise a show
Of Images in seemly row;
The graceful form of milk-white Steed,
Or Bird that soared with Ganymede;
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side, a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
II
But thou, perhaps, (alert as free
Though serving sage philosophy)
Wilt ramble over hill and dale,
A Vender of the well-wrought Scale,
Whose sentient tube instructs to time
A purpose to a fickle clime:
Whether thou choose this useful part,
Or minister to finer art,
Though robbed of many a cherished dream,
And crossed by many a shattered scheme,
What stirring wonders wilt thou see
In the proud Isle of liberty!
Yet will the Wanderer sometimes pine
With thoughts which no delights can chase,
Recall a Sister's last embrace,
His Mother's neck entwine;
Nor shall forget the Maiden coy
That 'would' have loved the bright-haired Boy!
III
My Song, encouraged by the grace
That beams from his ingenuous face,
For this Adventurer scruples not
To prophesy a golden lot;
Due recompense, and safe return
To Como's steeps, his happy bourne!
Where he, aloft in garden glade,
Shall tend, with his own dark-eyed Maid,
The towering maize, and prop the twig
That ill supports the luscious fig;
Or feed his eye in paths sun-proof
With purple of the trellis-roof,
That through the jealous leaves escapes
From Cadenabbia's pendent grapes.
Oh might he tempt that Goatherd-child
To share his wanderings! him whose look
Even yet my heart can scarcely brook,
So touchingly he smiled
As with a rapture caught from heaven
For unasked alms in pity given.
|
I
Now that the farewell tear is dried,
Heaven prosper thee, be hope thy guide
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
Whether for London bound, to trill
Thy mountain notes with simple skill;
Or on thy head to poise a show
Of Images in seemly row;
The graceful form of milk-white Steed,
Or Bird that soared with Ganymede;
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side, a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
|
II
But thou, perhaps, (alert as free
Though serving sage philosophy)
Wilt ramble over hill and dale,
A Vender of the well-wrought Scale,
Whose sentient tube instructs to time
A purpose to a fickle clime:
Whether thou choose this useful part,
Or minister to finer art,
Though robbed of many a cherished dream,
And crossed by many a shattered scheme,
What stirring wonders wilt thou see
In the proud Isle of liberty!
Yet will the Wanderer sometimes pine
With thoughts which no delights can chase,
Recall a Sister's last embrace,
His Mother's neck entwine;
Nor shall forget the Maiden coy
That 'would' have loved the bright-haired Boy!
III
My Song, encouraged by the grace
That beams from his ingenuous face,
For this Adventurer scruples not
To prophesy a golden lot;
Due recompense, and safe return
To Como's steeps, his happy bourne!
Where he, aloft in garden glade,
Shall tend, with his own dark-eyed Maid,
The towering maize, and prop the twig
That ill supports the luscious fig;
Or feed his eye in paths sun-proof
With purple of the trellis-roof,
That through the jealous leaves escapes
From Cadenabbia's pendent grapes.
Oh might he tempt that Goatherd-child
To share his wanderings! him whose look
Even yet my heart can scarcely brook,
So touchingly he smiled
As with a rapture caught from heaven
For unasked alms in pity given.
|
free_verse
|
William Lisle Bowles
|
At Dover, 1786
|
Thou, whose stern spirit loves the storm,
That, borne on Terror's desolating wings,
Shakes the high forest, or remorseless flings
The shivered surge; when rising griefs deform
Thy peaceful breast, hie to yon steep, and think,
When thou dost mark the melancholy tide
Beneath thee, and the storm careering wide,
Tossed on the surge of life how many sink!
And if thy cheek with one kind tear be wet,
And if thy heart be smitten, when the cry
Of danger and of death is heard more nigh,
Oh, learn thy private sorrows to forget;
Intent, when hardest beats the storm, to save
One who, like thee, has suffered from the wave.
|
Thou, whose stern spirit loves the storm,
That, borne on Terror's desolating wings,
Shakes the high forest, or remorseless flings
The shivered surge; when rising griefs deform
|
Thy peaceful breast, hie to yon steep, and think,
When thou dost mark the melancholy tide
Beneath thee, and the storm careering wide,
Tossed on the surge of life how many sink!
And if thy cheek with one kind tear be wet,
And if thy heart be smitten, when the cry
Of danger and of death is heard more nigh,
Oh, learn thy private sorrows to forget;
Intent, when hardest beats the storm, to save
One who, like thee, has suffered from the wave.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Fuller Murray
|
The Wasted Day
|
Another day let slip! Its hours have run,
Its golden hours, with prodigal excess,
All run to waste. A day of life the less;
Of many wasted days, alas, but one!
Through my west window streams the setting sun.
I kneel within my chamber, and confess
My sin and sorrow, filled with vain distress,
In place of honest joy for work well done.
At noon I passed some labourers in a field.
The sweat ran down upon each sunburnt face,
Which shone like copper in the ardent glow.
And one looked up, with envy unconcealed,
Beholding my cool cheeks and listless pace,
Yet he was happier, though he did not know.
|
Another day let slip! Its hours have run,
Its golden hours, with prodigal excess,
All run to waste. A day of life the less;
Of many wasted days, alas, but one!
|
Through my west window streams the setting sun.
I kneel within my chamber, and confess
My sin and sorrow, filled with vain distress,
In place of honest joy for work well done.
At noon I passed some labourers in a field.
The sweat ran down upon each sunburnt face,
Which shone like copper in the ardent glow.
And one looked up, with envy unconcealed,
Beholding my cool cheeks and listless pace,
Yet he was happier, though he did not know.
|
sonnet
|
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
|
Fear
|
Fear is the twin of Faith's sworn foe, Distrust.
If one breaks in your heart the other must.
Fear is the open enemy of Good.
It means the God in man misunderstood.
Who walks with Fear adown life's road will meet
His boon companions, Failure and Defeat.
But look the bully boldly in the eyes,
With mien undaunted, and he turns and flies.
|
Fear is the twin of Faith's sworn foe, Distrust.
If one breaks in your heart the other must.
|
Fear is the open enemy of Good.
It means the God in man misunderstood.
Who walks with Fear adown life's road will meet
His boon companions, Failure and Defeat.
But look the bully boldly in the eyes,
With mien undaunted, and he turns and flies.
|
octave
|
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
|
In This Book
|
In this book I have scribbled some innocent rhymes,
In various moods, and at different times;
Some grave and some cheerful, some merry, some sad,
Though none may be good, there are none very bad.
|
In this book I have scribbled some innocent rhymes,
|
In various moods, and at different times;
Some grave and some cheerful, some merry, some sad,
Though none may be good, there are none very bad.
|
quatrain
|
Paul Cameron Brown
|
Bee An Apple
|
The taste of an apple,
the cringing of a bee
as sun stops turning
a ladle over their skins;
the fire gold stains
on apple's skin,
the honey yellow, black bits
a hornet wrinkles in.
|
The taste of an apple,
the cringing of a bee
|
as sun stops turning
a ladle over their skins;
the fire gold stains
on apple's skin,
the honey yellow, black bits
a hornet wrinkles in.
|
octave
|
James Elroy Flecker
|
The First Sonnet Of Bathrolaire
|
Over the moonless land of Bathrolaire
Rises at night, when revelry begins,
A white unreal orb, a sun that spins,
A sun that watches with a sullen stare
That dance spasmodic they are dancing there,
Whilst drone and cry and drone of violins
Hint at the sweetness of forgotten sins,
Or call the devotees of shame to prayer.
And all the spaces of the midnight town
Ring with appeal and sorrowful abuse.
There some most lonely are: some try to crown
Mad lovers with sad boughs of formal yews,
And Titan women wandering up and down
Lead on the pale fanatics of the muse.
|
Over the moonless land of Bathrolaire
Rises at night, when revelry begins,
A white unreal orb, a sun that spins,
A sun that watches with a sullen stare
|
That dance spasmodic they are dancing there,
Whilst drone and cry and drone of violins
Hint at the sweetness of forgotten sins,
Or call the devotees of shame to prayer.
And all the spaces of the midnight town
Ring with appeal and sorrowful abuse.
There some most lonely are: some try to crown
Mad lovers with sad boughs of formal yews,
And Titan women wandering up and down
Lead on the pale fanatics of the muse.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
His Last Request To Julia
|
I have been wanton, and too bold, I fear,
To chafe o'er-much the virgin's cheek or ear;
Beg for my pardon, Julia! he doth win
Grace with the gods who's sorry for his sin.
That done, my Julia, dearest Julia, come,
And go with me to choose my burial room:
My fates are ended; when thy Herrick dies,
Clasp thou his book, then close thou up his eyes.
|
I have been wanton, and too bold, I fear,
To chafe o'er-much the virgin's cheek or ear;
|
Beg for my pardon, Julia! he doth win
Grace with the gods who's sorry for his sin.
That done, my Julia, dearest Julia, come,
And go with me to choose my burial room:
My fates are ended; when thy Herrick dies,
Clasp thou his book, then close thou up his eyes.
|
octave
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. DLXXXIV. Natural History.
|
I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple-gray,
I lent him to a lady,
To ride a mile away;
She whipped him, she slashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would not lend my pony now
For all the lady's hire.
|
I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple-gray,
|
I lent him to a lady,
To ride a mile away;
She whipped him, she slashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would not lend my pony now
For all the lady's hire.
|
octave
|
Richard Hunter
|
Blue-Coat.
|
His dressing-gown's blue, and
His girdle is red;
He wears a black cap
On top of his head.
He carries a candle
To give you a light,
In case you should ever
Get up in the night.
|
His dressing-gown's blue, and
His girdle is red;
|
He wears a black cap
On top of his head.
He carries a candle
To give you a light,
In case you should ever
Get up in the night.
|
octave
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Chub.
|
When Chub brings in his harvest, still he cries,
"Aha, my boys! here's meat for Christmas pies!"
Soon after he for beer so scores his wheat,
That at the tide he has not bread to eat.
|
When Chub brings in his harvest, still he cries,
|
"Aha, my boys! here's meat for Christmas pies!"
Soon after he for beer so scores his wheat,
That at the tide he has not bread to eat.
|
quatrain
|
D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)
|
Dissolute
|
Many years have I still to burn, detained
Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine
A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained
In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.
And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of life,
What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame,
Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate,
A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever the same.
|
Many years have I still to burn, detained
Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine
|
A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained
In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.
And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of life,
What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame,
Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate,
A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever the same.
|
free_verse
|
Robert Herrick
|
Thy Flowers Change Colour
|
These fresh beauties, we can prove,
Once were virgins, sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers: still in some,
Colours go and colours come.
|
These fresh beauties, we can prove,
|
Once were virgins, sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers: still in some,
Colours go and colours come.
|
quatrain
|
Arthur Sherburne Hardy
|
Immortality
|
My window is the open sky,
The flower in farthest wood is mine;
I am the heir to all gone by,
The eldest son of all the line.
And when the robbers Time and Death
Athwart my path conspiring stand,
I cheat them with a clod, a breath,
And pass the sword from hand to hand!
|
My window is the open sky,
The flower in farthest wood is mine;
|
I am the heir to all gone by,
The eldest son of all the line.
And when the robbers Time and Death
Athwart my path conspiring stand,
I cheat them with a clod, a breath,
And pass the sword from hand to hand!
|
octave
|
Alfred Edward Housman
|
When summer's end is nighing
|
When summer's end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.
The weathercock at sunset
Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
That looked to Wales away
And saw the last of day.
From hill and cloud and heaven
The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside,
But I had youth and pride.
And I with earth and nightfall
In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
And darkness hard at hand,
And the eye lost the land.
The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of those.
They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.
So here's an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer's parting sighs,
And then the heart replies.
|
When summer's end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.
The weathercock at sunset
Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
That looked to Wales away
And saw the last of day.
From hill and cloud and heaven
|
The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside,
But I had youth and pride.
And I with earth and nightfall
In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
And darkness hard at hand,
And the eye lost the land.
The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of those.
They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.
So here's an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer's parting sighs,
And then the heart replies.
|
free_verse
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonnet 12 To Lunacie
|
As other men, so I my selfe doe muse,
Why in this sort I wrest Inuention so,
And why these giddy metaphors I vse,
Leauing the path the greater part doe goe;
I will resolue you; I am lunaticke,
And euer this in mad men you shall finde,
What they last thought on when the braine grew sick,
In most distraction keepe that still in minde.
Thus talking idely in this bedlam fit,
Reason and I, (you must conceiue) are twaine,
'Tis nine yeeres, now, since first I lost my wit
Beare with me, then, though troubled be my braine;
With diet and correction, men distraught,
(Not too farre past) may to their wits be brought.
|
As other men, so I my selfe doe muse,
Why in this sort I wrest Inuention so,
And why these giddy metaphors I vse,
Leauing the path the greater part doe goe;
|
I will resolue you; I am lunaticke,
And euer this in mad men you shall finde,
What they last thought on when the braine grew sick,
In most distraction keepe that still in minde.
Thus talking idely in this bedlam fit,
Reason and I, (you must conceiue) are twaine,
'Tis nine yeeres, now, since first I lost my wit
Beare with me, then, though troubled be my braine;
With diet and correction, men distraught,
(Not too farre past) may to their wits be brought.
|
sonnet
|
Matthew Prior
|
A True Maid
|
No, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that, says Rose, I'll die:
Behind the elms last night, cried Dick,
Rose, were you not extremely sick?
|
No, no; for my virginity,
|
When I lose that, says Rose, I'll die:
Behind the elms last night, cried Dick,
Rose, were you not extremely sick?
|
quatrain
|
George Pope Morris
|
The Tyrant Sway.
|
The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,
Whate'er its hopes may be,
Is like a bark that drifts away
Upon a shoreless sea!
No compass left to guide her on,
Upon the surge she's tempest-torn--
And such is life to me!
And what is life when love is fled?
The world, unshared by thee?
I'd rather slumber with the dead,
Than such a waif to be!
The bark that by no compass steers
Is lost, which way soe'er she veers--
And such is life to me!
|
The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,
Whate'er its hopes may be,
Is like a bark that drifts away
Upon a shoreless sea!
|
No compass left to guide her on,
Upon the surge she's tempest-torn--
And such is life to me!
And what is life when love is fled?
The world, unshared by thee?
I'd rather slumber with the dead,
Than such a waif to be!
The bark that by no compass steers
Is lost, which way soe'er she veers--
And such is life to me!
|
sonnet
|
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
Apparent Death.
|
WEEP, maiden, weep here o'er the tomb of Love;
He died of nothing by mere chance was slain.
But is he really dead? oh, that I cannot prove:
A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again.
|
WEEP, maiden, weep here o'er the tomb of Love;
|
He died of nothing by mere chance was slain.
But is he really dead? oh, that I cannot prove:
A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again.
|
quatrain
|
John Charles McNeill
|
Tear Stains
|
Tear-marks stain from page to page
This book my fathers left to me,--
So dull that nothing but its age
Were worth its freight across the sea.
But tear stains! When, by whom, and why?
Thus takes my fancy to its wings;
For grief is old, and one may cry
About so many things!
|
Tear-marks stain from page to page
This book my fathers left to me,--
|
So dull that nothing but its age
Were worth its freight across the sea.
But tear stains! When, by whom, and why?
Thus takes my fancy to its wings;
For grief is old, and one may cry
About so many things!
|
octave
|
Edna St. Vincent Millay
|
Sonnet IV
|
Not in this chamber only at my birth--
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
To gather up my little gods and go.
|
Not in this chamber only at my birth--
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
|
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
To gather up my little gods and go.
|
sonnet
|
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
|
Response.
|
I said this morning, as I leaned and threw
My shutters open to the Spring's surprise,
"Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you
Year after year the same fresh feelings rise?
How do you keep your young exultant glee?
No more those sweet emotions come to me.
"I note through all your fissures how the tide
Of healthful life goes leaping as of old;
Your royal dawns retain their pomp and pride;
Your sunsets lose no atom of their gold.
How can this wonder be?" My soul's fine ear
Leaned, listening, till a small voice answered near:
"My days lapse never over into night;
My nights encroach not on the rights of dawn.
I rush not breathless after some delight;
I waste no grief for any pleasure gone.
My July noons burn not the entire year.
Heart, hearken well!" "Yes, yes; go on; I hear."
"I do not strive to make my sunsets' gold
Pave all the dim and distant realms of space.
I do not bid my crimson dawns unfold
To lend the midnight a fictitious grace.
I break no law, for all God's laws are good.
Heart, hast thou heard?" "Yes, yes; and understood."
|
I said this morning, as I leaned and threw
My shutters open to the Spring's surprise,
"Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you
Year after year the same fresh feelings rise?
How do you keep your young exultant glee?
No more those sweet emotions come to me.
"I note through all your fissures how the tide
Of healthful life goes leaping as of old;
|
Your royal dawns retain their pomp and pride;
Your sunsets lose no atom of their gold.
How can this wonder be?" My soul's fine ear
Leaned, listening, till a small voice answered near:
"My days lapse never over into night;
My nights encroach not on the rights of dawn.
I rush not breathless after some delight;
I waste no grief for any pleasure gone.
My July noons burn not the entire year.
Heart, hearken well!" "Yes, yes; go on; I hear."
"I do not strive to make my sunsets' gold
Pave all the dim and distant realms of space.
I do not bid my crimson dawns unfold
To lend the midnight a fictitious grace.
I break no law, for all God's laws are good.
Heart, hast thou heard?" "Yes, yes; and understood."
|
free_verse
|
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
The Metamorphosis Of Plants.
|
Thou art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold union
Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another
Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;
Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could I only
Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!
Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,
Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit!
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent
Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows Its escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-motion,
Trusteth the delicate leaves, feebly beginning to shoot.
Simply slumber'd the force in the seed; a germ of the future,
Peacefully lock'd in itself, 'neath the integument lay,
Leaf and root, and bud, still void of colour, and shapeless;
Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless life.
Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding,
And, from the night where it dwelt, straightway ascendeth to light.
Yet still simple remaineth its figure, when first it appeareth;
And 'tis a token like this, points out the child 'mid the plants.
Soon a shoot, succeeding it, riseth on high, and reneweth,
Piling-up node upon node, ever the primitive form;
Yet not ever alike: for the following leaf, as thou seest,
Ever produceth itself, fashioned in manifold ways.
Longer, more indented, in points and in parts more divided,
Which. all-deform'd until now, slept in the organ below,
So at length it attaineth the noble and destined perfection,
Which, in full many a tribe, fills thee with wondering awe.
Many ribb'd and tooth'd, on a surface juicy and swelling,
Free and unending the shoot seemeth in fullness to be;
Yet here Nature restraineth, with powerful hands, the formation,
And to a perfecter end, guideth with softness its growth,
Less abundantly yielding the sap, contracting the vessels,
So that the figure ere long gentler effects doth disclose.
Soon and in silence is check'd the growth of the vigorous branches,
And the rib of the stalk fuller becometh in form.
Leafless, however, and quick the tenderer stem then up-springeth,
And a miraculous sight doth the observer enchant.
Ranged in a circle, in numbers that now are small, and now countless,
Gather the smaller-sized leaves, close by the side of their like.
Round the axis compress'd the sheltering calyx unfoldeth,
And, as the perfectest type, brilliant-hued coronals forms.
Thus doth Nature bloom, in glory still nobler and fuller,
Showing, in order arranged, member on member uprear'd.
Wonderment fresh dost thou feel, as soon as the stem rears the flower
Over the scaffolding frail of the alternating leaves.
But this glory is only the new creation's foreteller,
Yes, the leaf with its hues feeleth the hand all divine,
And on a sudden contracteth itself; the tenderest figures
Twofold as yet, hasten on, destined to blend into one.
Lovingly now the beauteous pairs are standing together,
Gather'd in countless array, there where the altar is raised.
Hymen hovereth o'er them, and scents delicious and mighty
Stream forth their fragrance so sweet, all things enliv'ning around.
Presently, parcell'd out, unnumber'd germs are seen swelling,
Sweetly conceald in the womb, where is made perfect the fruit.
Here doth Nature close the ring of her forces eternal;
Yet doth a new one, at once, cling to the one gone before,
So that the chain be prolonged for ever through all generations,
And that the whole may have life, e'en as enjoy'd by each part.
Now, my beloved one, turn thy gaze on the many-hued thousands
Which, confusing no more, gladden the mind as they wave.
Every plant unto thee proclaimeth the laws everlasting,
Every flowered speaks louder and louder to thee;
But if thou here canst decipher the mystic words of the goddess,
Everywhere will they be seen, e'en though the features are changed.
Creeping insects may linger, the eager butterfly hasten,
Plastic and forming, may man change e'en the figure decreed!
Oh, then, bethink thee, as well, how out of the germ of acquaintance,
Kindly intercourse sprang, slowly unfolding its leaves;
Soon how friendship with might unveil'd itself in our bosoms,
And how Amor, at length, brought forth blossom and fruit
Think of the manifold ways wherein Nature hath lent to our feelings,
Silently giving them birth, either the first or the last!
Yes, and rejoice in the present day! For love that is holy
Seeketh the noblest of fruits, that where the thoughts are the same,
Where the opinions agree, that the pair may, in rapt contemplation,
Lovingly blend into one, find the more excellent world.
|
Thou art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold union
Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another
Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;
Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could I only
Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!
Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,
Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit!
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent
Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows Its escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-motion,
Trusteth the delicate leaves, feebly beginning to shoot.
Simply slumber'd the force in the seed; a germ of the future,
Peacefully lock'd in itself, 'neath the integument lay,
Leaf and root, and bud, still void of colour, and shapeless;
Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless life.
Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding,
And, from the night where it dwelt, straightway ascendeth to light.
Yet still simple remaineth its figure, when first it appeareth;
And 'tis a token like this, points out the child 'mid the plants.
Soon a shoot, succeeding it, riseth on high, and reneweth,
Piling-up node upon node, ever the primitive form;
Yet not ever alike: for the following leaf, as thou seest,
Ever produceth itself, fashioned in manifold ways.
|
Longer, more indented, in points and in parts more divided,
Which. all-deform'd until now, slept in the organ below,
So at length it attaineth the noble and destined perfection,
Which, in full many a tribe, fills thee with wondering awe.
Many ribb'd and tooth'd, on a surface juicy and swelling,
Free and unending the shoot seemeth in fullness to be;
Yet here Nature restraineth, with powerful hands, the formation,
And to a perfecter end, guideth with softness its growth,
Less abundantly yielding the sap, contracting the vessels,
So that the figure ere long gentler effects doth disclose.
Soon and in silence is check'd the growth of the vigorous branches,
And the rib of the stalk fuller becometh in form.
Leafless, however, and quick the tenderer stem then up-springeth,
And a miraculous sight doth the observer enchant.
Ranged in a circle, in numbers that now are small, and now countless,
Gather the smaller-sized leaves, close by the side of their like.
Round the axis compress'd the sheltering calyx unfoldeth,
And, as the perfectest type, brilliant-hued coronals forms.
Thus doth Nature bloom, in glory still nobler and fuller,
Showing, in order arranged, member on member uprear'd.
Wonderment fresh dost thou feel, as soon as the stem rears the flower
Over the scaffolding frail of the alternating leaves.
But this glory is only the new creation's foreteller,
Yes, the leaf with its hues feeleth the hand all divine,
And on a sudden contracteth itself; the tenderest figures
Twofold as yet, hasten on, destined to blend into one.
Lovingly now the beauteous pairs are standing together,
Gather'd in countless array, there where the altar is raised.
Hymen hovereth o'er them, and scents delicious and mighty
Stream forth their fragrance so sweet, all things enliv'ning around.
Presently, parcell'd out, unnumber'd germs are seen swelling,
Sweetly conceald in the womb, where is made perfect the fruit.
Here doth Nature close the ring of her forces eternal;
Yet doth a new one, at once, cling to the one gone before,
So that the chain be prolonged for ever through all generations,
And that the whole may have life, e'en as enjoy'd by each part.
Now, my beloved one, turn thy gaze on the many-hued thousands
Which, confusing no more, gladden the mind as they wave.
Every plant unto thee proclaimeth the laws everlasting,
Every flowered speaks louder and louder to thee;
But if thou here canst decipher the mystic words of the goddess,
Everywhere will they be seen, e'en though the features are changed.
Creeping insects may linger, the eager butterfly hasten,
Plastic and forming, may man change e'en the figure decreed!
Oh, then, bethink thee, as well, how out of the germ of acquaintance,
Kindly intercourse sprang, slowly unfolding its leaves;
Soon how friendship with might unveil'd itself in our bosoms,
And how Amor, at length, brought forth blossom and fruit
Think of the manifold ways wherein Nature hath lent to our feelings,
Silently giving them birth, either the first or the last!
Yes, and rejoice in the present day! For love that is holy
Seeketh the noblest of fruits, that where the thoughts are the same,
Where the opinions agree, that the pair may, in rapt contemplation,
Lovingly blend into one, find the more excellent world.
|
free_verse
|
James Stephens
|
Breakfast Time (The Adventures Of Seumas Beg)
|
The sun is always in the sky
Whenever I get out of bed,
And I often wonder why
It's never late., My sister said
She did not know who did the trick,
And that she did not care a bit,
And I should eat my porridge quick.
... I think it's mother wakens it.
|
The sun is always in the sky
Whenever I get out of bed,
|
And I often wonder why
It's never late., My sister said
She did not know who did the trick,
And that she did not care a bit,
And I should eat my porridge quick.
... I think it's mother wakens it.
|
octave
|
James Williams
|
Bologna
|
I go from colonnade to colonnade
In streets that Dante trod, and past the towers
Aslant toward heaven, and listen to the hours
Chimed by the bells of choirs where Dante prayed.
They cease; then lo! the foot of time seems stayed
Five hundred years and more, I find me bowers
Where sweet and noble ladies weave them flowers
For one who reads Boccaccio in the shade.
The cowl'd students halt by two and threes
To hear the voice come thrilling through the trees,
Then tear themselves away to themes more trite.
Anon I mark the diligent hands that turn
Unlovely parchment scrolls whereby to learn
The beauty of inexorable right.
|
I go from colonnade to colonnade
In streets that Dante trod, and past the towers
Aslant toward heaven, and listen to the hours
Chimed by the bells of choirs where Dante prayed.
|
They cease; then lo! the foot of time seems stayed
Five hundred years and more, I find me bowers
Where sweet and noble ladies weave them flowers
For one who reads Boccaccio in the shade.
The cowl'd students halt by two and threes
To hear the voice come thrilling through the trees,
Then tear themselves away to themes more trite.
Anon I mark the diligent hands that turn
Unlovely parchment scrolls whereby to learn
The beauty of inexorable right.
|
sonnet
|
Charles Baudelaire
|
Parfum Exotique (French)
|
Quand, les deux yeux ferm's, en un soir chaud d'automne,
Je respire l'odeur de ton sein chaleureux,
Je vois se d'rouler des rivages heureux
Qu''blouissent les feux d'un soleil monotone;
Une 'le paresseuse o' la nature donne
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux;
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux,
Et des femmes dont l''il par sa franchise 'tonne.
Guid' par ton odeur vers de charmants climats,
Je vois un port rempli de voiles et de m'ts
Encor tout fatigu's par la vague marine,
Pendant que le parfum des verts tamariniers,
Qui circule dans l'air et m'enfle la narine
Se m'le dans mon 'me au chant des mariniers.
|
Quand, les deux yeux ferm's, en un soir chaud d'automne,
Je respire l'odeur de ton sein chaleureux,
Je vois se d'rouler des rivages heureux
Qu''blouissent les feux d'un soleil monotone;
|
Une 'le paresseuse o' la nature donne
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux;
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux,
Et des femmes dont l''il par sa franchise 'tonne.
Guid' par ton odeur vers de charmants climats,
Je vois un port rempli de voiles et de m'ts
Encor tout fatigu's par la vague marine,
Pendant que le parfum des verts tamariniers,
Qui circule dans l'air et m'enfle la narine
Se m'le dans mon 'me au chant des mariniers.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
God's Gifts Not Soon Granted.
|
God hears us when we pray, but yet defers
His gifts, to exercise petitioners;
And though a while He makes requesters stay,
With princely hand He'll recompense delay.
|
God hears us when we pray, but yet defers
|
His gifts, to exercise petitioners;
And though a while He makes requesters stay,
With princely hand He'll recompense delay.
|
quatrain
|
James Stephens
|
College Green (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
|
When you meet an ancient man,
Be as silent as you can;
So when old age comes to you,
Courtesies shall gather too.
And King Billy's horse will start
From our street and from our heart,
When each Irishman shall be
Perfected in courtesy.
|
When you meet an ancient man,
Be as silent as you can;
|
So when old age comes to you,
Courtesies shall gather too.
And King Billy's horse will start
From our street and from our heart,
When each Irishman shall be
Perfected in courtesy.
|
octave
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
A Valentine.
|
My life is grown a witchcraft place
Through gazing on thy form and face.
Now 't is thy Smile's soft sorcery
That makes my soul a melody.
Now 't is thy Frown, that comes and goes,
That makes my heart a page of prose.
Some day, perhaps, a word of thine
Will change me to thy VALENTINE.
|
My life is grown a witchcraft place
Through gazing on thy form and face.
|
Now 't is thy Smile's soft sorcery
That makes my soul a melody.
Now 't is thy Frown, that comes and goes,
That makes my heart a page of prose.
Some day, perhaps, a word of thine
Will change me to thy VALENTINE.
|
octave
|
William Wordsworth
|
Written Upon A Blank Leaf In "The Complete Angler."
|
While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport,
Shall live the name of Walton: Sage benign!
Whose pen, the mysteries of the rod and line
Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort
To reverend watching of each still report
That Nature utters from her rural shrine.
Meek, nobly versed in simple discipline,
He found the longest summer day too short,
To his loved pastime given by sedgy Lee,
Or down the tempting maze of Shawford brook,
Fairer than life itself, in this sweet Book,
The cowslip-bank and shady willow-tree;
And the fresh meads where flowed, from every nook
Of his full bosom, gladsome Piety!
|
While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport,
Shall live the name of Walton: Sage benign!
Whose pen, the mysteries of the rod and line
Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort
|
To reverend watching of each still report
That Nature utters from her rural shrine.
Meek, nobly versed in simple discipline,
He found the longest summer day too short,
To his loved pastime given by sedgy Lee,
Or down the tempting maze of Shawford brook,
Fairer than life itself, in this sweet Book,
The cowslip-bank and shady willow-tree;
And the fresh meads where flowed, from every nook
Of his full bosom, gladsome Piety!
|
sonnet
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. DLXXXI. Natural History.
|
Charley Warley had a cow.
Black and white about the brow;
Open the gate and let her go through,
Charley Warley's old cow!
|
Charley Warley had a cow.
|
Black and white about the brow;
Open the gate and let her go through,
Charley Warley's old cow!
|
quatrain
|
Sara Teasdale
|
The Song For Colin
|
I sang a song at dusking time
Beneath the evening star,
And Terence left his latest rhyme
To answer from afar.
Pierrot laid down his lute to weep,
And sighed, "She sings for me."
But Colin slept a careless sleep
Beneath an apple tree.
|
I sang a song at dusking time
Beneath the evening star,
|
And Terence left his latest rhyme
To answer from afar.
Pierrot laid down his lute to weep,
And sighed, "She sings for me."
But Colin slept a careless sleep
Beneath an apple tree.
|
octave
|
Robert Herrick
|
The Lawn.
|
Would I see lawn, clear as the heaven, and thin?
It should be only in my Julia's skin,
Which so betrays her blood as we discover
The blush of cherries when a lawn's cast over.
|
Would I see lawn, clear as the heaven, and thin?
|
It should be only in my Julia's skin,
Which so betrays her blood as we discover
The blush of cherries when a lawn's cast over.
|
quatrain
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
Lost Joy.
|
I had a daily bliss
I half indifferent viewed,
Till sudden I perceived it stir, --
It grew as I pursued,
Till when, around a crag,
It wasted from my sight,
Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,
I learned its sweetness right.
|
I had a daily bliss
I half indifferent viewed,
|
Till sudden I perceived it stir, --
It grew as I pursued,
Till when, around a crag,
It wasted from my sight,
Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,
I learned its sweetness right.
|
octave
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
With Flowers.
|
South winds jostle them,
Bumblebees come,
Hover, hesitate,
Drink, and are gone.
Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere;
I, softly plucking,
Present them here!
|
South winds jostle them,
Bumblebees come,
|
Hover, hesitate,
Drink, and are gone.
Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere;
I, softly plucking,
Present them here!
|
octave
|
Charles Baudelaire
|
To She Who Is Too Light-Hearted
|
Your head, your gesture, your air,
are lovely, like a lovely landscape:
laughter's alive, in your face,
a fresh breeze in a clear atmosphere.
The dour passer-by you brush past there,
is dazzled by health in flight,
flashing like a brilliant light
from your arms and shoulders.
The resounding colours
with which you sprinkle your dress,
inspire the spirits of poets
with thoughts of dancing flowers.
Those wild clothes are the emblem
of your brightly-hued mind:
madcap by whom I'm terrified,
I hate you, and love you, the same!
Sometimes in a lovely garden
where I trailed my listlessness,
I've felt the sunlight sear my breast
like some ironic weapon:
and Spring's green presence
brought such humiliation
I've levied retribution on
a flower, for Nature's insolence.
So through some night, when the hour
of sensual pleasure sounds,
I'd like to slink, mute coward, bound
for your body's treasure,
to bruise your sorry breast,
to punish your joyful flesh,
form in your startled side, a fresh
wound's yawning depth,
and breath-taking rapture!
through those lips, new and full
more vivid and more beautiful
infuse my venom, my sister!
|
Your head, your gesture, your air,
are lovely, like a lovely landscape:
laughter's alive, in your face,
a fresh breeze in a clear atmosphere.
The dour passer-by you brush past there,
is dazzled by health in flight,
flashing like a brilliant light
from your arms and shoulders.
The resounding colours
with which you sprinkle your dress,
inspire the spirits of poets
with thoughts of dancing flowers.
|
Those wild clothes are the emblem
of your brightly-hued mind:
madcap by whom I'm terrified,
I hate you, and love you, the same!
Sometimes in a lovely garden
where I trailed my listlessness,
I've felt the sunlight sear my breast
like some ironic weapon:
and Spring's green presence
brought such humiliation
I've levied retribution on
a flower, for Nature's insolence.
So through some night, when the hour
of sensual pleasure sounds,
I'd like to slink, mute coward, bound
for your body's treasure,
to bruise your sorry breast,
to punish your joyful flesh,
form in your startled side, a fresh
wound's yawning depth,
and breath-taking rapture!
through those lips, new and full
more vivid and more beautiful
infuse my venom, my sister!
|
free_verse
|
Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)
|
Though in my Firmament thou wilt not shine
|
Talk not, my Lord, of unrequited love,
Since love requites itself most royally.
Do we not live but by the sun above,
And takes he any heed of thee or me?
Though in my firmament thou wilt not shine,
Thy glory, as a Star, is none the less.
Oh, Rose, though all unplucked by hand of mine,
Still am I debtor to thy loveliness.
|
Talk not, my Lord, of unrequited love,
Since love requites itself most royally.
|
Do we not live but by the sun above,
And takes he any heed of thee or me?
Though in my firmament thou wilt not shine,
Thy glory, as a Star, is none the less.
Oh, Rose, though all unplucked by hand of mine,
Still am I debtor to thy loveliness.
|
octave
|
Sara Teasdale
|
Dreams
|
I gave my life to another lover,
I gave my love, and all, and all
But over a dream the past will hover,
Out of a dream the past will call.
I tear myself from sleep with a shiver
But on my breast a kiss is hot,
And by my bed the ghostly giver
Is waiting tho' I see him not.
|
I gave my life to another lover,
I gave my love, and all, and all
|
But over a dream the past will hover,
Out of a dream the past will call.
I tear myself from sleep with a shiver
But on my breast a kiss is hot,
And by my bed the ghostly giver
Is waiting tho' I see him not.
|
octave
|
Louisa May Alcott
|
Chevalita
|
"Chevalita,
Pretty cretr,
I do love her
Like a brother;
Just to ride
Is my delight,
For she does not
Kick or bite,"
|
"Chevalita,
Pretty cretr,
|
I do love her
Like a brother;
Just to ride
Is my delight,
For she does not
Kick or bite,"
|
octave
|
Archibald Lampman
|
A Forecast.
|
What days await this woman, whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
Frank eyes I feel the very heart's least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man's desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?
One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.
|
What days await this woman, whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
|
Frank eyes I feel the very heart's least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man's desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?
One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.
|
sonnet
|
Helen Leah Reed
|
To Leucono'. I-11 (From The Odes Of Horace)
|
Seek not to learn - Leucono', - a mortal may not know -
What term of life on you or me our deities bestow.
The Babylonian soothsayer consult not; better bear
Whatever comes, whether to you more winters Jove shall spare,
Or whether this may be the last, grinding the Tuscan sea
On yonder rocks. Even as we talk, time envious shall flee.
Filter your wine, be wise, and clip your hopes to life's brief span.
Then seize today; to-morrow trust as little as you can.
|
Seek not to learn - Leucono', - a mortal may not know -
What term of life on you or me our deities bestow.
|
The Babylonian soothsayer consult not; better bear
Whatever comes, whether to you more winters Jove shall spare,
Or whether this may be the last, grinding the Tuscan sea
On yonder rocks. Even as we talk, time envious shall flee.
Filter your wine, be wise, and clip your hopes to life's brief span.
Then seize today; to-morrow trust as little as you can.
|
octave
|
Lizzie Lawson
|
A Song.
|
I hear a Song
I think 'tis a thrush's.
He sings to the Wild Rose
See how she blushes!
|
I hear a Song
|
I think 'tis a thrush's.
He sings to the Wild Rose
See how she blushes!
|
quatrain
|
Charles Baudelaire
|
Il aimait ' la voir
|
It was in her white skirts that he loved to see
her run straight through the branches and leaves, gracefully,
but still gauche, and hiding her leg from the light,
when she tore her dress, on the briars, in her flight.
|
It was in her white skirts that he loved to see
|
her run straight through the branches and leaves, gracefully,
but still gauche, and hiding her leg from the light,
when she tore her dress, on the briars, in her flight.
|
quatrain
|
Charles Baudelaire
|
I Give To You These Verses
|
I give to you these verses, that if in
Some future time my name lands happily
To bring brief pleasure to humanity,
The craft supported by a great north wind,
Your memory, like tales from ancient times,
Will bore the reader like a dulcimer,
And by a strange fraternal chain live here
As if suspended in my lofty rhymes.
From deepest pit into the highest sky
Damned being, only I can bear you now.
0 shadow, barely present to the eye,
You lightly step, with a serene regard
On mortal fools who've judged you mean and hard
Angel with eyes of jet, great burnished brow!
|
I give to you these verses, that if in
Some future time my name lands happily
To bring brief pleasure to humanity,
The craft supported by a great north wind,
|
Your memory, like tales from ancient times,
Will bore the reader like a dulcimer,
And by a strange fraternal chain live here
As if suspended in my lofty rhymes.
From deepest pit into the highest sky
Damned being, only I can bear you now.
0 shadow, barely present to the eye,
You lightly step, with a serene regard
On mortal fools who've judged you mean and hard
Angel with eyes of jet, great burnished brow!
|
sonnet
|
William Wordsworth
|
Her Only Pilot The Soft Breeze, The Boat
|
Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat
Lingers, but Fancy is well satisfied;
With keen-eyed Hope, with Memory, at her side,
And the glad Muse at liberty to note
All that to each is precious, as we float
Gently along; regardless who shall chide
If the heavens smile, and leave us free to glide,
Happy Associates breathing air remote
From trivial cares. But, Fancy and the Muse,
Why have I crowded this small bark with you
And others of your kind, ideal crew!
While here sits One whose brightness owes its hues
To flesh and blood; no Goddess from above,
No fleeting Spirit, but my own true love?
|
Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat
Lingers, but Fancy is well satisfied;
With keen-eyed Hope, with Memory, at her side,
And the glad Muse at liberty to note
|
All that to each is precious, as we float
Gently along; regardless who shall chide
If the heavens smile, and leave us free to glide,
Happy Associates breathing air remote
From trivial cares. But, Fancy and the Muse,
Why have I crowded this small bark with you
And others of your kind, ideal crew!
While here sits One whose brightness owes its hues
To flesh and blood; no Goddess from above,
No fleeting Spirit, but my own true love?
|
sonnet
|
Alfred Lord Tennyson
|
The Play
|
Act first, this Earth, a stage so gloom'd with woe
You all but sicken at the shifting scenes.
And yet be patient. Our Playwright may show
In some fifth Act what this wild Drama means.
|
Act first, this Earth, a stage so gloom'd with woe
|
You all but sicken at the shifting scenes.
And yet be patient. Our Playwright may show
In some fifth Act what this wild Drama means.
|
quatrain
|
Matthew Prior
|
Epitaph - On Himself
|
Nobles and Heralds, by your leave!
Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior;
A son of Adam and Eve:
Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher.
|
Nobles and Heralds, by your leave!
|
Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior;
A son of Adam and Eve:
Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher.
|
quatrain
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.