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Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. DCXXXI. Relics.
|
Little Tom Tucker
Sings for his supper;
What shall he eat?
White bread and butter.
How shall he cut it
Without e'er a knife?
How will he be married
Without e'er a wife?
|
Little Tom Tucker
Sings for his supper;
|
What shall he eat?
White bread and butter.
How shall he cut it
Without e'er a knife?
How will he be married
Without e'er a wife?
|
octave
|
Thomas Moore
|
To .......
|
When I loved you, I can't but allow
I had many an exquisite minute;
But the scorn that I feel for you now
Hath even more luxury in it.
Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you was pleasant enough,
And, oh! 'tis delicious hate you!
|
When I loved you, I can't but allow
I had many an exquisite minute;
|
But the scorn that I feel for you now
Hath even more luxury in it.
Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you was pleasant enough,
And, oh! 'tis delicious hate you!
|
octave
|
William Butler Yeats
|
The Fish
|
Although you hide in the ebb and flow
Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind,
And blame you with many bitter words.
|
Although you hide in the ebb and flow
Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
|
The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind,
And blame you with many bitter words.
|
octave
|
George Gordon Byron
|
Reply To Some Verses Of J. M. B. Pigot, Esq., On The Cruelty Of His Mistress. [1]
|
1.
Why, Pigot, complain
Of this damsel's disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret?
For months you may try,
Yet, believe me, a sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.
2.
Would you teach her to love?
For a time seem to rove;
At first she may frown in a pet;
But leave her awhile,
She shortly will smile,
And then you may kiss your coquette.
3.
For such are the airs
Of these fanciful fairs,
They think all our homage a debt:
Yet a partial neglect
Soon takes an effect,
And humbles the proudest coquette.
4.
Dissemble your pain,
And lengthen your chain,
And seem her hauteur to regret;
If again you shall sigh,
She no more will deny,
That yours is the rosy coquette.
5.
If still, from false pride,
Your pangs she deride,
This whimsical virgin forget;
Some other admire,
Who will melt with your fire,
And laugh at the little coquette.
6.
For me, I adore
Some twenty or more,
And love them most dearly; but yet,
Though my heart they enthral,
I'd abandon them all,
Did they act like your blooming coquette.
7.
No longer repine,
Adopt this design,
And break through her slight-woven net!
Away with despair,
No longer forbear
To fly from the captious coquette.
8.
Then quit her, my friend!
Your bosom defend,
Ere quite with her snares you're beset:
Lest your deep-wounded heart,
When incens'd by the smart,
Should lead you to curse the coquette.
|
1.
Why, Pigot, complain
Of this damsel's disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret?
For months you may try,
Yet, believe me, a sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.
2.
Would you teach her to love?
For a time seem to rove;
At first she may frown in a pet;
But leave her awhile,
She shortly will smile,
And then you may kiss your coquette.
3.
For such are the airs
Of these fanciful fairs,
They think all our homage a debt:
|
Yet a partial neglect
Soon takes an effect,
And humbles the proudest coquette.
4.
Dissemble your pain,
And lengthen your chain,
And seem her hauteur to regret;
If again you shall sigh,
She no more will deny,
That yours is the rosy coquette.
5.
If still, from false pride,
Your pangs she deride,
This whimsical virgin forget;
Some other admire,
Who will melt with your fire,
And laugh at the little coquette.
6.
For me, I adore
Some twenty or more,
And love them most dearly; but yet,
Though my heart they enthral,
I'd abandon them all,
Did they act like your blooming coquette.
7.
No longer repine,
Adopt this design,
And break through her slight-woven net!
Away with despair,
No longer forbear
To fly from the captious coquette.
8.
Then quit her, my friend!
Your bosom defend,
Ere quite with her snares you're beset:
Lest your deep-wounded heart,
When incens'd by the smart,
Should lead you to curse the coquette.
|
free_verse
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXXX. Jingles.
|
Pussicat, wussicat, with a white foot,
When is your wedding? for I'll come to't.
The beer's to brew, the bread's to bake,
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, don't be too late.
|
Pussicat, wussicat, with a white foot,
|
When is your wedding? for I'll come to't.
The beer's to brew, the bread's to bake,
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, don't be too late.
|
quatrain
|
John Keats
|
Sonnet: On A Picture Of Leander.
|
Come hither all sweet Maidens soberly
Down looking aye, and with a chasten'd light
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see,
Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea.
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death.
Nigh swooning he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips
Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile;
He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!
|
Come hither all sweet Maidens soberly
Down looking aye, and with a chasten'd light
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
|
As if so gentle that ye could not see,
Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea.
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death.
Nigh swooning he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips
Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile;
He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!
|
sonnet
|
George Pope Morris
|
The Soldier's Welcome Home.
|
(Written upon the return of General Scott from his brilliant Mexican campaign.)
Victorious the hero returns from the wars,
His brow bound with laurels that never will fade,
While streams the free standard of stripes and of stars,
Whose field in the battle the foeman dismayed.
When the Mexican hosts in their fury came on,
Like a tower of strength in his might he arose,
Where danger most threatened his banner was borne,
Waving hope to his friends and despair to his foes!
The soldier of honor and liberty hail!
His deeds in the temple of Fame are enrolled;
His precepts, like flower-seeds sown by the gale,
Take root in the hearts of the valiant and bold.
The warrior's escutcheon his foes seek to blot,
But vain is the effort of partisan bands--
For freemen will render full justice to SCOTT,
And welcome him home with their hearts in their hands.
|
(Written upon the return of General Scott from his brilliant Mexican campaign.)
Victorious the hero returns from the wars,
His brow bound with laurels that never will fade,
While streams the free standard of stripes and of stars,
Whose field in the battle the foeman dismayed.
|
When the Mexican hosts in their fury came on,
Like a tower of strength in his might he arose,
Where danger most threatened his banner was borne,
Waving hope to his friends and despair to his foes!
The soldier of honor and liberty hail!
His deeds in the temple of Fame are enrolled;
His precepts, like flower-seeds sown by the gale,
Take root in the hearts of the valiant and bold.
The warrior's escutcheon his foes seek to blot,
But vain is the effort of partisan bands--
For freemen will render full justice to SCOTT,
And welcome him home with their hearts in their hands.
|
free_verse
|
Thomas Hardy
|
From Victor Hugo
|
Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,
My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
For a glance from you!
Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,
Angels, the demons abject under me,
Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,
Time, space, all would I give - aye, upper spheres,
For a kiss from thee!
|
Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,
My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
|
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
For a glance from you!
Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,
Angels, the demons abject under me,
Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,
Time, space, all would I give - aye, upper spheres,
For a kiss from thee!
|
free_verse
|
Robert Herrick
|
To Julia.
|
The saints'-bell calls, and, Julia, I must read
The proper lessons for the saints now dead:
To grace which service, Julia, there shall be
One holy collect said or sung for thee.
Dead when thou art, dear Julia, thou shalt have
A trentall sung by virgins o'er thy grave:
Meantime we two will sing the dirge of these,
Who dead, deserve our best remembrances.
|
The saints'-bell calls, and, Julia, I must read
The proper lessons for the saints now dead:
|
To grace which service, Julia, there shall be
One holy collect said or sung for thee.
Dead when thou art, dear Julia, thou shalt have
A trentall sung by virgins o'er thy grave:
Meantime we two will sing the dirge of these,
Who dead, deserve our best remembrances.
|
octave
|
Richard Hunter
|
The Highlander.
|
Right about, left about,
Halt and stand at ease!
Shoulder arms, attention,
Steady, if you please.
Order arms, present arms,
Forward, by your right!
Double, double, double,
Double to the fight!
|
Right about, left about,
Halt and stand at ease!
|
Shoulder arms, attention,
Steady, if you please.
Order arms, present arms,
Forward, by your right!
Double, double, double,
Double to the fight!
|
octave
|
Percy Bysshe Shelley
|
The Waning Moon.
|
And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass -
|
And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,
|
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass -
|
free_verse
|
John McCrae
|
The Dead Master
|
Amid earth's vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime:
To-day around him surges from the silences of Time
A flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad,
Fit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God.
|
Amid earth's vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime:
|
To-day around him surges from the silences of Time
A flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad,
Fit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God.
|
quatrain
|
Edwin C. Ranck
|
Lent.
|
"Oh lend me five," the young man cried,
"My money all is spent."
The maiden shook her head and sighed,
"I'm sorry but it's Lent."
|
"Oh lend me five," the young man cried,
|
"My money all is spent."
The maiden shook her head and sighed,
"I'm sorry but it's Lent."
|
quatrain
|
Friedrich Schiller
|
The Merchant.
|
Where sails the ship? It leads the Tyrian forth
For the rich amber of the liberal north.
Be kind, ye seas winds, lend your gentlest wing,
May in each creek sweet wells restoring spring!
To you, ye gods, belong the merchant! o'er
The waves his sails the wide world's goods explore;
And, all the while, wherever waft the gales
The wide world's good sails with him as he sails!
|
Where sails the ship? It leads the Tyrian forth
For the rich amber of the liberal north.
|
Be kind, ye seas winds, lend your gentlest wing,
May in each creek sweet wells restoring spring!
To you, ye gods, belong the merchant! o'er
The waves his sails the wide world's goods explore;
And, all the while, wherever waft the gales
The wide world's good sails with him as he sails!
|
octave
|
Anna Seward
|
Sonnet LXVIII. On The Posthumous Fame Of Doctor Johnson.
|
Well it becomes thee, Britain, to avow
JOHNSON's high claims! - yet boasting that his fires
Were of unclouded lustre, TRUTH retires
Blushing, and JUSTICE knits her solemn brow;
The eyes of GRATITUDE withdraw the glow
His moral strain inspir'd. - Their zeal requires
That thou should'st better guard the sacred Lyres,
Sources of thy bright fame, than to bestow
Perfection's wreath on him, whose ruthless hand,
Goaded by jealous rage, the laurels tore,
That JUSTICE, TRUTH, and GRATITUDE demand
Should deck those Lyres till Time shall be no more. -
A radiant course did Johnson's Glory run,
But large the spots that darken'd on its Sun.
|
Well it becomes thee, Britain, to avow
JOHNSON's high claims! - yet boasting that his fires
Were of unclouded lustre, TRUTH retires
Blushing, and JUSTICE knits her solemn brow;
|
The eyes of GRATITUDE withdraw the glow
His moral strain inspir'd. - Their zeal requires
That thou should'st better guard the sacred Lyres,
Sources of thy bright fame, than to bestow
Perfection's wreath on him, whose ruthless hand,
Goaded by jealous rage, the laurels tore,
That JUSTICE, TRUTH, and GRATITUDE demand
Should deck those Lyres till Time shall be no more. -
A radiant course did Johnson's Glory run,
But large the spots that darken'd on its Sun.
|
sonnet
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
"As Children Bid The Guest Good-Night,"
|
As children bid the guest good-night,
And then reluctant turn,
My flowers raise their pretty lips,
Then put their nightgowns on.
As children caper when they wake,
Merry that it is morn,
My flowers from a hundred cribs
Will peep, and prance again.
|
As children bid the guest good-night,
And then reluctant turn,
|
My flowers raise their pretty lips,
Then put their nightgowns on.
As children caper when they wake,
Merry that it is morn,
My flowers from a hundred cribs
Will peep, and prance again.
|
octave
|
Charles Hamilton Musgrove
|
The Dungeoned Anarchist.
|
He crouches, voiceless, in his tomb-like cell,
Forgot of all things save his jailer's hate
That turns the daylight from his iron grate
To make his prison more and more a hell;
For him no coming day or hour shall spell
Deliverance, or bid his soul await
The hand of Mercy at his dungeon gate:
He would not know even though a kingdom fell!
The black night hides his hand before his eyes,--
That grim, clenched hand still burning with the sting
Of royal blood; he holds it like a prize,
Waiting the hour when he at last shall fling
The stain in God's face, shrieking as he dies:
"Behold the unconquered arm that slew a king!"
|
He crouches, voiceless, in his tomb-like cell,
Forgot of all things save his jailer's hate
That turns the daylight from his iron grate
To make his prison more and more a hell;
|
For him no coming day or hour shall spell
Deliverance, or bid his soul await
The hand of Mercy at his dungeon gate:
He would not know even though a kingdom fell!
The black night hides his hand before his eyes,--
That grim, clenched hand still burning with the sting
Of royal blood; he holds it like a prize,
Waiting the hour when he at last shall fling
The stain in God's face, shrieking as he dies:
"Behold the unconquered arm that slew a king!"
|
sonnet
|
Alfred Lichtenstein
|
Invasion
|
Decline already -
But that was quick...
Hardly a trace of rising -
I have grown above the whole world.
I have become the complete God
And horribly awake.
And now I must cast away death.
My death is mute
And without images...
Without redemption -
|
Decline already -
But that was quick...
Hardly a trace of rising -
|
I have grown above the whole world.
I have become the complete God
And horribly awake.
And now I must cast away death.
My death is mute
And without images...
Without redemption -
|
free_verse
|
George MacDonald
|
Truth, Not Form!
|
I came upon a fountain on my way
When it was hot, and sat me down to drink
Its sparkling stream, when all around the brink
I spied full many vessels made of clay,
Whereon were written, not without display,
In deep engraving or with merely ink,
The blessings which each owner seemed to think
Would light on him who drank with each alway.
I looked so hard my eyes were looking double
Into them all, but when I came to see
That they were filthy, each in his degree,
I bent my head, though not without some trouble,
To where the little waves did leap and bubble,
And so I journeyed on most pleasantly.
|
I came upon a fountain on my way
When it was hot, and sat me down to drink
Its sparkling stream, when all around the brink
I spied full many vessels made of clay,
|
Whereon were written, not without display,
In deep engraving or with merely ink,
The blessings which each owner seemed to think
Would light on him who drank with each alway.
I looked so hard my eyes were looking double
Into them all, but when I came to see
That they were filthy, each in his degree,
I bent my head, though not without some trouble,
To where the little waves did leap and bubble,
And so I journeyed on most pleasantly.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
On Himself
|
Weep for the dead, for they have lost this light;
And weep for me, lost in an endless night;
Or mourn, or make a marble verse for me,
Who writ for many. BENEDICTE.
|
Weep for the dead, for they have lost this light;
|
And weep for me, lost in an endless night;
Or mourn, or make a marble verse for me,
Who writ for many. BENEDICTE.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon His Spaniel Tracy.
|
Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see,
For shape and service, spaniel like to thee.
This shall my love do, give thy sad death one
Tear, that deserves of me a million.
|
Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see,
|
For shape and service, spaniel like to thee.
This shall my love do, give thy sad death one
Tear, that deserves of me a million.
|
quatrain
|
William Wordsworth
|
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XXXVII - English Reformers In Exile
|
Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand;
Most happy, re-assembled in a land
By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
Their Country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,
Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines: their union is beset
With speculative notions rashly sown,
Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds;
Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest
Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!
|
Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand;
Most happy, re-assembled in a land
By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
|
Their Country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,
Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines: their union is beset
With speculative notions rashly sown,
Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds;
Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest
Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!
|
sonnet
|
Walter Savage Landor
|
Daniel Defoe
|
Few will acknowledge what they owe
To persecuted, brave Defoe.
Achilles, in Homeric song,
May, or he may not, live so long
As Crusoe; few their strength had tried
Without so staunch and safe a guide.
What boy is there who never laid
Under his pillow, half afraid,
That precious volume, lest the morrow
For unlearnt lessons might bring sorrow?
But nobler lessons he has taught
Wide-awake scholars who fear'd naught:
A Rodney and a Nelson may
Without him not have won the day.
|
Few will acknowledge what they owe
To persecuted, brave Defoe.
Achilles, in Homeric song,
May, or he may not, live so long
|
As Crusoe; few their strength had tried
Without so staunch and safe a guide.
What boy is there who never laid
Under his pillow, half afraid,
That precious volume, lest the morrow
For unlearnt lessons might bring sorrow?
But nobler lessons he has taught
Wide-awake scholars who fear'd naught:
A Rodney and a Nelson may
Without him not have won the day.
|
sonnet
|
Charles Sangster
|
The Light In The Window Pane.
|
A joy from my soul's departed,
A bliss from my heart is flown,
As weary, weary-hearted,
I wander alone - alone!
The night wind sadly sigheth
A withering, wild refrain,
And my heart within me dieth
For the light in the window pane.
The stars overhead are shining,
As brightly as e'er they shone,
As heartless - sad - repining,
I wander alone - alone!
A sudden flash comes streaming,
And flickers adown the lane,
But no more for me is gleaming
The light in the window pane.
The voices that pass are cheerful,
Men laugh as the night winds moan;
They cannot tell how fearful
'Tis to wander alone - alone!
For them, with each night's returning,
Life singeth its tenderest strain,
Where the beacon of love is burning -
The light in the window pane.
Oh, sorrow beyond all sorrows
To which human life is prone:
Without thee, through all the morrows,
To wander alone - alone!
Oh, dark, deserted dwelling!
Where Hope like a lamb was slain,
No voice from thy lone walls welling,
No light in thy window pane.
But memory, sainted angel!
Rolls back the sepulchral stone,
And sings like a sweet evangel:
"No - never, never alone!
True grief has its royal palace,
Each loss is a greater gain;
And Sorrow ne'er filled a chalice
That Joy did not wait to drain!
- - -
"Man must be perfected
By suffering," he said;
"And Death is but the stepping-stone, whereby
We mount towards the gate
Of heaven, soon or late.
Death is the penalty of life; we die,
Because we live; and life
Is but a constant strife
With the immortal Impulse that within
Our bodies seeks control -
The time-abiding Soul,
That wrestles with us - yet we fain would win.
And what? the victory
Would make us slaves; and we,
Who in our blindness struggle for the prize
Of this illusive state
Called Life, do but frustrate
The higher law - refusing to be wise."
Rightly he knew, indeed,
Earth's brightest paths but lead
To the true wisdom of that perfect state,
Where Knowledge, heaven-born,
And Love's eternal morn,
Awaiteth those who would be truly great.
With what abiding trust
He rose from out the dust,
As Death's swift chariot passed him by the way;
No visionary dream
Was his - no trifling theme -
The Soul's great Mystery before him lay:
|
A joy from my soul's departed,
A bliss from my heart is flown,
As weary, weary-hearted,
I wander alone - alone!
The night wind sadly sigheth
A withering, wild refrain,
And my heart within me dieth
For the light in the window pane.
The stars overhead are shining,
As brightly as e'er they shone,
As heartless - sad - repining,
I wander alone - alone!
A sudden flash comes streaming,
And flickers adown the lane,
But no more for me is gleaming
The light in the window pane.
The voices that pass are cheerful,
Men laugh as the night winds moan;
They cannot tell how fearful
'Tis to wander alone - alone!
For them, with each night's returning,
Life singeth its tenderest strain,
Where the beacon of love is burning -
|
The light in the window pane.
Oh, sorrow beyond all sorrows
To which human life is prone:
Without thee, through all the morrows,
To wander alone - alone!
Oh, dark, deserted dwelling!
Where Hope like a lamb was slain,
No voice from thy lone walls welling,
No light in thy window pane.
But memory, sainted angel!
Rolls back the sepulchral stone,
And sings like a sweet evangel:
"No - never, never alone!
True grief has its royal palace,
Each loss is a greater gain;
And Sorrow ne'er filled a chalice
That Joy did not wait to drain!
- - -
"Man must be perfected
By suffering," he said;
"And Death is but the stepping-stone, whereby
We mount towards the gate
Of heaven, soon or late.
Death is the penalty of life; we die,
Because we live; and life
Is but a constant strife
With the immortal Impulse that within
Our bodies seeks control -
The time-abiding Soul,
That wrestles with us - yet we fain would win.
And what? the victory
Would make us slaves; and we,
Who in our blindness struggle for the prize
Of this illusive state
Called Life, do but frustrate
The higher law - refusing to be wise."
Rightly he knew, indeed,
Earth's brightest paths but lead
To the true wisdom of that perfect state,
Where Knowledge, heaven-born,
And Love's eternal morn,
Awaiteth those who would be truly great.
With what abiding trust
He rose from out the dust,
As Death's swift chariot passed him by the way;
No visionary dream
Was his - no trifling theme -
The Soul's great Mystery before him lay:
|
free_verse
|
John Alexander McCrae
|
Unsolved
|
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
Knew in a moment that the eternal skies
Were measured but in inches, to the quest
That lay before me in that mystic gaze.
"Surely I have been errant: it is best
That I should tread, with men their human ways."
God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,
And to my lonely books again I turned.
|
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
|
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
Knew in a moment that the eternal skies
Were measured but in inches, to the quest
That lay before me in that mystic gaze.
"Surely I have been errant: it is best
That I should tread, with men their human ways."
God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,
And to my lonely books again I turned.
|
sonnet
|
Elizabeth Anderson
|
To Earl And Georgia:
|
The little Man, and tiny Maid,
Who love the Fairies in the glade,
Who see them in the tangled grass
The Gnomes and Brownies, as they pass,
Who hear the Sprites from Elf-land call
Go, frolic with these Brownies small,
And join these merry sporting Elves,
But ever be your own sweet selves.
|
The little Man, and tiny Maid,
Who love the Fairies in the glade,
|
Who see them in the tangled grass
The Gnomes and Brownies, as they pass,
Who hear the Sprites from Elf-land call
Go, frolic with these Brownies small,
And join these merry sporting Elves,
But ever be your own sweet selves.
|
octave
|
James Joyce
|
Simples
|
O bella bionda,
Sei come l'onda!
Of cool sweet dew and radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
In the still garden where a child
Gathers the simple salad leaves.
A moondew stars her hanging hair
And moonlight kisses her young brow
And, gathering, she sings an air:
Fair as the wave is, fair, art thou!
Be mine, I pray, a waxen ear
To shield me from her childish croon
And mine a shielded heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.
|
O bella bionda,
Sei come l'onda!
Of cool sweet dew and radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
|
In the still garden where a child
Gathers the simple salad leaves.
A moondew stars her hanging hair
And moonlight kisses her young brow
And, gathering, she sings an air:
Fair as the wave is, fair, art thou!
Be mine, I pray, a waxen ear
To shield me from her childish croon
And mine a shielded heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Burns
|
Sonnet, Written On The Twenty-Fifth Of January, 1793, The Birthday Of The Author, On Hearing A Thrush Sing In A Morning Walk.
|
Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
See, aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow.
So, in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart,
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.
I thank Thee, Author of this opening day!
Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, Thy boon was purer joys,
What wealth could never give nor take away.
Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
The mite high Heaven bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.
|
Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
See, aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow.
|
So, in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart,
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.
I thank Thee, Author of this opening day!
Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, Thy boon was purer joys,
What wealth could never give nor take away.
Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
The mite high Heaven bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.
|
sonnet
|
Oliver Herford
|
Shakespeare
|
Will Shakespeare, the Baconians say,
Was the Belasco of his day--
Others more plausibly maintain
He was the double of Hall Caine.
|
Will Shakespeare, the Baconians say,
|
Was the Belasco of his day--
Others more plausibly maintain
He was the double of Hall Caine.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Lee Frost
|
Fragmentary Blue
|
Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet),
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
|
Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
|
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet),
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
|
octave
|
Louisa May Alcott
|
Song Of The Queer Green Frog
|
"No, no, come and fly
Through the sunny sky,
Or honey sip
From the rose's lip,
Or dance in the air,
Like spirits fair.
Come away, come away;
'Tis our holiday."
|
"No, no, come and fly
Through the sunny sky,
|
Or honey sip
From the rose's lip,
Or dance in the air,
Like spirits fair.
Come away, come away;
'Tis our holiday."
|
octave
|
Vachel Lindsay
|
Shakespeare
|
Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came
Visible emperor of the deeds of Time,
With Justice still the genius of his rhyme,
Giving each man his due, each passion grace,
Impartial as the rain from Heaven's face
Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun.
Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again.
Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.
|
Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came
Visible emperor of the deeds of Time,
|
With Justice still the genius of his rhyme,
Giving each man his due, each passion grace,
Impartial as the rain from Heaven's face
Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun.
Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again.
Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.
|
octave
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. DCXXVII. Relics.
|
To market, to market, a gallop, a trot,
To buy some meat to put in the pot;
Threepence a quarter, a groat a side,
If it hadn't been kill'd, it must have died.
|
To market, to market, a gallop, a trot,
|
To buy some meat to put in the pot;
Threepence a quarter, a groat a side,
If it hadn't been kill'd, it must have died.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
On Himself.
|
Let me not live if I not love:
Since I as yet did never prove
Where pleasures met, at last do find
All pleasures meet in womankind.
|
Let me not live if I not love:
|
Since I as yet did never prove
Where pleasures met, at last do find
All pleasures meet in womankind.
|
quatrain
|
Duncan Campbell Scott
|
Dream Voyageurs
|
To ports of balm through isles of musk
The gentle airs are leading us;
To curtained calm and tents of dusk,
The wood-wild things unheeding us
Will share their hoards of hardihood,
Cool dew and roots of fern for food,
Frail berries full of the sun's blood.
To planets bland with dales of dream
A tranquil life is leading us,
We shall land from the languid stream,
The musing shades, unheeding us,
Will share their veils of angelhood,
Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food,
Still broodings tinct with a seraph's blood.
|
To ports of balm through isles of musk
The gentle airs are leading us;
To curtained calm and tents of dusk,
The wood-wild things unheeding us
|
Will share their hoards of hardihood,
Cool dew and roots of fern for food,
Frail berries full of the sun's blood.
To planets bland with dales of dream
A tranquil life is leading us,
We shall land from the languid stream,
The musing shades, unheeding us,
Will share their veils of angelhood,
Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food,
Still broodings tinct with a seraph's blood.
|
sonnet
|
Jonathan Swift
|
The Elephant; Or, The Parliament Man
|
WRITTEN MANY YEARS SINCE; AND TAKEN FROM COKE'S FOURTH INSTITUTE THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT, CAP. I
Sir E. Coke says: "Every member of the house being a counsellor should have three properties of the elephant; first that he hath no gall; secondly, that he is inflexible and cannot bow; thirdly, that he is of a most ripe and perfect memory ... first, to be without gall, that is, without malice, rancor, heat, and envy: ... secondly, that he be constant, inflexible, and not be bowed, or turned from the right either for fear, reward, or favour, nor in judgement respect any person: ... thirdly, of a ripe memory, that they remembering perils past, might prevent dangers to come."
Ere bribes convince you whom to choose,
The precepts of Lord Coke peruse.
Observe an elephant, says he,
And let him like your member be:
First take a man that's free from Gaul,
For elephants have none at all;
In flocks or parties he must keep;
For elephants live just like sheep.
Stubborn in honour he must be;
For elephants ne'er bend the knee.
Last, let his memory be sound,
In which your elephant's profound;
That old examples from the wise
May prompt him in his noes and ayes.
Thus the Lord Coke hath gravely writ,
In all the form of lawyer's wit:
And then, with Latin and all that,
Shows the comparison is pat.
Yet in some points my lord is wrong,
One's teeth are sold, and t'other's tongue:
Now, men of parliament, God knows,
Are more like elephants of shows;
Whose docile memory and sense
Are turn'd to trick, to gather pence;
To get their master half-a-crown,
They spread the flag, or lay it down:
Those who bore bulwarks on their backs,
And guarded nations from attacks,
Now practise every pliant gesture,
Opening their trunk for every tester.
Siam, for elephants so famed,
Is not with England to be named:
Their elephants by men are sold;
Ours sell themselves, and take the gold.
|
WRITTEN MANY YEARS SINCE; AND TAKEN FROM COKE'S FOURTH INSTITUTE THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT, CAP. I
Sir E. Coke says: "Every member of the house being a counsellor should have three properties of the elephant; first that he hath no gall; secondly, that he is inflexible and cannot bow; thirdly, that he is of a most ripe and perfect memory ... first, to be without gall, that is, without malice, rancor, heat, and envy: ... secondly, that he be constant, inflexible, and not be bowed, or turned from the right either for fear, reward, or favour, nor in judgement respect any person: ... thirdly, of a ripe memory, that they remembering perils past, might prevent dangers to come."
Ere bribes convince you whom to choose,
The precepts of Lord Coke peruse.
Observe an elephant, says he,
And let him like your member be:
First take a man that's free from Gaul,
For elephants have none at all;
In flocks or parties he must keep;
For elephants live just like sheep.
Stubborn in honour he must be;
For elephants ne'er bend the knee.
|
Last, let his memory be sound,
In which your elephant's profound;
That old examples from the wise
May prompt him in his noes and ayes.
Thus the Lord Coke hath gravely writ,
In all the form of lawyer's wit:
And then, with Latin and all that,
Shows the comparison is pat.
Yet in some points my lord is wrong,
One's teeth are sold, and t'other's tongue:
Now, men of parliament, God knows,
Are more like elephants of shows;
Whose docile memory and sense
Are turn'd to trick, to gather pence;
To get their master half-a-crown,
They spread the flag, or lay it down:
Those who bore bulwarks on their backs,
And guarded nations from attacks,
Now practise every pliant gesture,
Opening their trunk for every tester.
Siam, for elephants so famed,
Is not with England to be named:
Their elephants by men are sold;
Ours sell themselves, and take the gold.
|
free_verse
|
George MacDonald
|
The Lily Of The Valley
|
There is not any weed but hath its shower,
There is not any pool but hath its star;
And black and muddy though the waters are
We may not miss the glory of a flower,
And winter moons will give them magic power
To spin in cylinders of diamond spar;
And everything hath beauty near and far,
And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour!
And I, when I encounter on my road
A human soul that looketh black and grim,
Shall I more ceremonious be than God?
Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him
Who once beside our deepest woe did bud
A patient watching flower about the brim?
|
There is not any weed but hath its shower,
There is not any pool but hath its star;
And black and muddy though the waters are
We may not miss the glory of a flower,
|
And winter moons will give them magic power
To spin in cylinders of diamond spar;
And everything hath beauty near and far,
And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour!
And I, when I encounter on my road
A human soul that looketh black and grim,
Shall I more ceremonious be than God?
Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him
Who once beside our deepest woe did bud
A patient watching flower about the brim?
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Lucia.
|
I ask'd my Lucia but a kiss,
And she with scorn denied me this;
Say then, how ill should I have sped,
Had I then ask'd her maidenhead?
|
I ask'd my Lucia but a kiss,
|
And she with scorn denied me this;
Say then, how ill should I have sped,
Had I then ask'd her maidenhead?
|
quatrain
|
Oliver Goldsmith
|
On A Beautiful Youth Struck Blind With Lightning
|
Sure 'twas by Providence design'd,
Rather in pity, than in hate,
That he should be, like Cupid, blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate.
|
Sure 'twas by Providence design'd,
|
Rather in pity, than in hate,
That he should be, like Cupid, blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate.
|
quatrain
|
Henry John Newbolt, Sir
|
Peace
|
No more to watch by Night's eternal shore,
With England's chivalry at dawn to ride;
No more defeat, faith, victory---O! no more
A cause on earth for which we might have died.
|
No more to watch by Night's eternal shore,
|
With England's chivalry at dawn to ride;
No more defeat, faith, victory---O! no more
A cause on earth for which we might have died.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
To The Ladies.
|
Trust me, ladies, I will do
Nothing to distemper you;
If I any fret or vex,
Men they shall be, not your sex.
|
Trust me, ladies, I will do
|
Nothing to distemper you;
If I any fret or vex,
Men they shall be, not your sex.
|
quatrain
|
Anna Seward
|
Sonnet XXVI.
|
O partial MEMORY! Years, that fled too fast,
From thee in more than pristine beauty rise,
Forgotten all the transient tears and sighs
Somewhat that dimm'd their brightness! Thou hast chas'd
Each hovering mist from the soft Suns, that grac'd
Our fresh, gay morn of Youth; - the Heart's high prize,
Friendship, - and all that charm'd us in the eyes
Of yet unutter'd Love. - So pleasures past,
That in thy crystal prism thus glow sublime,
Beam on the gloom'd and disappointed Mind
When Youth and Health, in the chill'd grasp of Time,
Shudder and fade; - and cypress buds we find
Ordain'd Life's blighted roses to supply,
While but reflected shine the golden lights of Joy.
|
O partial MEMORY! Years, that fled too fast,
From thee in more than pristine beauty rise,
Forgotten all the transient tears and sighs
Somewhat that dimm'd their brightness! Thou hast chas'd
|
Each hovering mist from the soft Suns, that grac'd
Our fresh, gay morn of Youth; - the Heart's high prize,
Friendship, - and all that charm'd us in the eyes
Of yet unutter'd Love. - So pleasures past,
That in thy crystal prism thus glow sublime,
Beam on the gloom'd and disappointed Mind
When Youth and Health, in the chill'd grasp of Time,
Shudder and fade; - and cypress buds we find
Ordain'd Life's blighted roses to supply,
While but reflected shine the golden lights of Joy.
|
sonnet
|
Rupert Brooke
|
Now, God Be Thanked Who Has Matched Us With His Hour
|
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Nought broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
|
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
|
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Nought broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
|
sonnet
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
Echo
|
Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.
|
Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
|
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.
|
quatrain
|
Walter Savage Landor
|
Death Stands Above Me
|
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
|
Death stands above me, whispering low
|
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Adam Peapes. Epig.
|
Peapes he does strut, and pick his teeth, as if
His jaws had tir'd on some large chine of beef.
But nothing so: the dinner Adam had,
Was cheese full ripe with tears, with bread as sad.
|
Peapes he does strut, and pick his teeth, as if
|
His jaws had tir'd on some large chine of beef.
But nothing so: the dinner Adam had,
Was cheese full ripe with tears, with bread as sad.
|
quatrain
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CXXIX. Scholastic.
|
When I was a little boy, I had but little wit
It is some time ago, and I've no more yet;
Nor ever ever shall, until that I die,
For the longer I live, the more fool am I.
|
When I was a little boy, I had but little wit
|
It is some time ago, and I've no more yet;
Nor ever ever shall, until that I die,
For the longer I live, the more fool am I.
|
quatrain
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXL. Love And Matrimony.
|
Brave news is come to town,
Brave news is carried;
Brave news is come to town,
Jemmy Dawson's married.
|
Brave news is come to town,
|
Brave news is carried;
Brave news is come to town,
Jemmy Dawson's married.
|
quatrain
|
Robert Herrick
|
Safety To Look To Oneself.
|
For my neighbour I'll not know,
Whether high he builds or no:
Only this I'll look upon,
Firm be my foundation.
Sound or unsound, let it be!
'Tis the lot ordain'd for me.
He who to the ground does fall
Has not whence to sink at all.
|
For my neighbour I'll not know,
Whether high he builds or no:
|
Only this I'll look upon,
Firm be my foundation.
Sound or unsound, let it be!
'Tis the lot ordain'd for me.
He who to the ground does fall
Has not whence to sink at all.
|
octave
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. DCV. Local.
|
Driddlety drum, driddlety drum,
There you see the beggars are come;
Some are here, and some are there,
And some are gone to Chidley fair.
|
Driddlety drum, driddlety drum,
|
There you see the beggars are come;
Some are here, and some are there,
And some are gone to Chidley fair.
|
quatrain
|
Algernon Charles Swinburne
|
Stratford-on-Avon
|
Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,
Most royal and most loyal born of men,
Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared
Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.
The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth,
Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome,
Forgets not how of all on English earth
Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.
Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate
The commonweal whose empire sets men free
Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate
A soul was born as boundless as the sea.
If life, if love, if memory now be thine,
Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.
|
Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,
Most royal and most loyal born of men,
Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared
Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.
|
The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth,
Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome,
Forgets not how of all on English earth
Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.
Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate
The commonweal whose empire sets men free
Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate
A soul was born as boundless as the sea.
If life, if love, if memory now be thine,
Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.
|
sonnet
|
Ralph Waldo Emerson
|
Compensation
|
Why should I keep holiday
When other men have none?
Why but because, when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone?
And why, when mirth unseals all tongues,
Should mine alone be dumb?
Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,
And now their hour is come.
|
Why should I keep holiday
When other men have none?
|
Why but because, when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone?
And why, when mirth unseals all tongues,
Should mine alone be dumb?
Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,
And now their hour is come.
|
octave
|
William Shakespeare
|
The Sonnets CXXVIII - How oft when thou, my music, music play'st
|
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
|
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
|
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
|
sonnet
|
Alexander Pope
|
Epigram.
|
A Bishop, by his neighbours hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated:
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem'd by all the nation?
Yet, if it be the old man's case,
I'll lay my life I know the place:
'Tis where God sent some that adore Him,
And whither Enoch went before him.
|
A Bishop, by his neighbours hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated:
|
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem'd by all the nation?
Yet, if it be the old man's case,
I'll lay my life I know the place:
'Tis where God sent some that adore Him,
And whither Enoch went before him.
|
octave
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
The Intruder
|
There is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.
The pattern of the paper, and the grain
Of carpet, with its stain,
Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.
It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried,
But all her tears were dried.
A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
And then a whispered word,
And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.
And then she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong:
She listened, while the silence filled with song
Oh, she had waited long!
She dared not turn to see; she dared not look;
But slowly closed her book,
And waited for his kiss; could scarcely brook
The weary time he took.
There was no one remembered her no one!
But him, beneath the sun.
Who then had entered? entered but to shun
Her whose long work was done.
She raised her eyes, and no one! Yet she felt
A presence near, that smelt
Like faded roses; and that seemed to melt
Into her soul that knelt.
She could not see, but knew that he was there,
Smoothing her hands and hair;
Filling with scents of roses all the air,
Standing beside her chair.
And so they found her, sitting quietly,
Her book upon her knee,
Staring before her, as if she could see
What was it Death? or he?
|
There is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.
The pattern of the paper, and the grain
Of carpet, with its stain,
Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.
It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried,
But all her tears were dried.
A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
|
And then a whispered word,
And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.
And then she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong:
She listened, while the silence filled with song
Oh, she had waited long!
She dared not turn to see; she dared not look;
But slowly closed her book,
And waited for his kiss; could scarcely brook
The weary time he took.
There was no one remembered her no one!
But him, beneath the sun.
Who then had entered? entered but to shun
Her whose long work was done.
She raised her eyes, and no one! Yet she felt
A presence near, that smelt
Like faded roses; and that seemed to melt
Into her soul that knelt.
She could not see, but knew that he was there,
Smoothing her hands and hair;
Filling with scents of roses all the air,
Standing beside her chair.
And so they found her, sitting quietly,
Her book upon her knee,
Staring before her, as if she could see
What was it Death? or he?
|
free_verse
|
Henry Lawson
|
Knockin' Around
|
Weary old wife, with the bucket and cow,
'How's your son Jack? and where is he now?'
Haggard old eyes that turn to the west,
'Boys will be boys, and he's gone with the rest!'
Grief without tears and grief without sound;
'Somewhere up-country he's knocking around.'
Knocking around with a vagabond crew,
Does for himself what a mother would do;
Maybe in trouble and maybe hard-up,
Maybe in want of a bite or a sup;
Dead of the fever, or lost in the drought,
Lonely old mother! he's knocking about.
Wiry old man at the tail of the plough,
'Heard of Jack lately? and where is he now?'
Pauses a moment his forehead to wipe,
Drops the rope reins while he feels for his pipe,
Scratches his grey head in sorrow or doubt:
'Somewheers or others he's knocking about.'
Knocking about on the runs of the West,
Holding his own with the worst and the best
Breaking in horses and risking his neck,
Droving or shearing and making a cheque;
Straight as a sapling,six-foot and sound,
Jack is all right when he's knocking around
|
Weary old wife, with the bucket and cow,
'How's your son Jack? and where is he now?'
Haggard old eyes that turn to the west,
'Boys will be boys, and he's gone with the rest!'
Grief without tears and grief without sound;
'Somewhere up-country he's knocking around.'
Knocking around with a vagabond crew,
Does for himself what a mother would do;
|
Maybe in trouble and maybe hard-up,
Maybe in want of a bite or a sup;
Dead of the fever, or lost in the drought,
Lonely old mother! he's knocking about.
Wiry old man at the tail of the plough,
'Heard of Jack lately? and where is he now?'
Pauses a moment his forehead to wipe,
Drops the rope reins while he feels for his pipe,
Scratches his grey head in sorrow or doubt:
'Somewheers or others he's knocking about.'
Knocking about on the runs of the West,
Holding his own with the worst and the best
Breaking in horses and risking his neck,
Droving or shearing and making a cheque;
Straight as a sapling,six-foot and sound,
Jack is all right when he's knocking around
|
free_verse
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
Cobwebs.
|
The spider as an artist
Has never been employed
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified
By every broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,
I take thee by the hand.
|
The spider as an artist
Has never been employed
|
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified
By every broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,
I take thee by the hand.
|
octave
|
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
West-Eastern Divan.
|
Who the song would understand,
Needs must seek the song's own land.
Who the minstrel understand,
Needs must seek the minstrel's land.
|
Who the song would understand,
|
Needs must seek the song's own land.
Who the minstrel understand,
Needs must seek the minstrel's land.
|
quatrain
|
Matthew Arnold
|
A Caution To Poets
|
What poets feel not, when they make,
A pleasure in creating,
The world, in its turn, will not take
Pleasure in contemplating
|
What poets feel not, when they make,
|
A pleasure in creating,
The world, in its turn, will not take
Pleasure in contemplating
|
quatrain
|
Thomas Gent
|
Sonnet. To A Lyre.
|
Friend of the lonely hour, from thy lov'd strain
The magic pow'r of pleasure have I known:
Awhile I lose remembrance of my pain,
And seem to taste of joys that long had flown.
When o'er my suffering soul reflection casts
The gloom of sorrow's sable-shadowing veil,
Recalling sad misfortunes chilling blasts
How sweet to thee to tell the mournful tale!
And tho' denied to me the strings to move
Like heavenly-gifted bards, to whom belong
The power to melt the yielding soul to love,
Or wake to war, with energetic song.
Yet thou, my Lyre, canst cheer the gloomy hour,
When sullen grief asserts her tyrant pow'r.
|
Friend of the lonely hour, from thy lov'd strain
The magic pow'r of pleasure have I known:
Awhile I lose remembrance of my pain,
And seem to taste of joys that long had flown.
|
When o'er my suffering soul reflection casts
The gloom of sorrow's sable-shadowing veil,
Recalling sad misfortunes chilling blasts
How sweet to thee to tell the mournful tale!
And tho' denied to me the strings to move
Like heavenly-gifted bards, to whom belong
The power to melt the yielding soul to love,
Or wake to war, with energetic song.
Yet thou, my Lyre, canst cheer the gloomy hour,
When sullen grief asserts her tyrant pow'r.
|
sonnet
|
William Wordsworth
|
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XLI - New Churchyard
|
The encircling ground, in native turf arrayed,
Is now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to favouring Heaven;
And where the rugged colts their gambols played,
And wild deer bounded through the forest glade,
Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven,
Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even;
And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton's spade
Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small,
But infinite its grasp of weal and woe!
Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow;
The spousal trembling, and the "dust to dust,"
The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust
That to the Almighty Father looks through all.
|
The encircling ground, in native turf arrayed,
Is now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to favouring Heaven;
And where the rugged colts their gambols played,
|
And wild deer bounded through the forest glade,
Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven,
Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even;
And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton's spade
Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small,
But infinite its grasp of weal and woe!
Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow;
The spousal trembling, and the "dust to dust,"
The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust
That to the Almighty Father looks through all.
|
sonnet
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonnets: Idea XXXI To The Critics
|
Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer,
And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace;
Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?"
Making withal some filthy antic face.
I fear no censure nor what thou canst say,
Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigour lose.
Think'st thou, my wit shall keep the packhorse way,
That every dudgeon low invention goes?
Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest,
And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear,
Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest
That every dowdy, every trull doth wear?
Up to my pitch no common judgment flies;
I scorn all earthly dung-bred scarabies.
|
Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer,
And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace;
Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?"
Making withal some filthy antic face.
|
I fear no censure nor what thou canst say,
Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigour lose.
Think'st thou, my wit shall keep the packhorse way,
That every dudgeon low invention goes?
Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest,
And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear,
Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest
That every dowdy, every trull doth wear?
Up to my pitch no common judgment flies;
I scorn all earthly dung-bred scarabies.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Barley-Break; Or, Last In Hell
|
We two are last in hell; what may we fear
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here
Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.
|
We two are last in hell; what may we fear
|
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here
Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.
|
quatrain
|
George Gordon Byron
|
Written After Swimming From Sestos To Abydos
|
If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream broad Hellespont.
If, when the wint'ry tempest roar'd,
He sped to Hero nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo, and, Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
'T were hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labor, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I've the ague.
|
If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream broad Hellespont.
If, when the wint'ry tempest roar'd,
He sped to Hero nothing loth,
|
And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo, and, Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
'T were hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labor, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I've the ague.
|
free_verse
|
Paul Cameron Brown
|
Flashpoint
|
1
The moon has a larder
and a kitchen,
wears a nightcap
as Father in the Night Before Christmas.
2
The moon hoards pistachios,
marzipan
commands the shadows
is mustachioed
sleeps in a sloop
(at least when I look)
like the boat
owl and pussycat
took to sea.
3
And on country nights
in high summer
fishing nets seem drawn
about his face,
reveal ribbons of light,
eerie panhandlers grubbing quarters;
a sinister sailor with a sack
on a pitch black wharf.
4
Between clouds,
leafy barques
the hinge reflected on the
thick, ashen door
the moon will pirate
your senses
set them adrift
amidst twilight islands
in the mind's Outer Hebrides
where mystery is king
and the hem of robe you kiss
is an envelope pilfered.
|
1
The moon has a larder
and a kitchen,
wears a nightcap
as Father in the Night Before Christmas.
2
The moon hoards pistachios,
marzipan
commands the shadows
is mustachioed
sleeps in a sloop
(at least when I look)
|
like the boat
owl and pussycat
took to sea.
3
And on country nights
in high summer
fishing nets seem drawn
about his face,
reveal ribbons of light,
eerie panhandlers grubbing quarters;
a sinister sailor with a sack
on a pitch black wharf.
4
Between clouds,
leafy barques
the hinge reflected on the
thick, ashen door
the moon will pirate
your senses
set them adrift
amidst twilight islands
in the mind's Outer Hebrides
where mystery is king
and the hem of robe you kiss
is an envelope pilfered.
|
free_verse
|
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
|
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - A Prophecy Of Judgment. No. 1. The Reign Of Antichrist.
|
Mentre l'acquila invola.
While yet the eagle preys, and growls the bear;
While roars the lion; while the crow defies
The lamb who raised our race above the skies;
While yet the dove laments to the deaf air;
While, mixed with goodly wheat, darnel and tare
Within the field of human nature rise;--
Let that ungodly sect, profanely wise,
That scorns our hope, feed, fatten, and beware!
Soon comes the day when those grim giants fell,
Famed through the world, dyed deep with sanguine hue,
Whom with feigned flatteries you applaud, shall be
Swept from the earth, and sunk in horrid Hell,
Girt round with flames, to weep and wail with you,
In doleful dungeons everlastingly.
|
Mentre l'acquila invola.
While yet the eagle preys, and growls the bear;
While roars the lion; while the crow defies
The lamb who raised our race above the skies;
While yet the dove laments to the deaf air;
|
While, mixed with goodly wheat, darnel and tare
Within the field of human nature rise;--
Let that ungodly sect, profanely wise,
That scorns our hope, feed, fatten, and beware!
Soon comes the day when those grim giants fell,
Famed through the world, dyed deep with sanguine hue,
Whom with feigned flatteries you applaud, shall be
Swept from the earth, and sunk in horrid Hell,
Girt round with flames, to weep and wail with you,
In doleful dungeons everlastingly.
|
free_verse
|
Algernon Charles Swinburne
|
The Turning of the Tide
|
Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,
Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,
As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow
Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate
Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate
Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,
And humbleness whence holiness must grow,
And greatness born of shame to be so great.
The winter day that withered hope and pride
Shines now triumphal on the turning tide
That sets once more our trust in freedom free,
That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe
And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low,
And England's name a light on land and sea.
|
Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,
Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,
As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow
Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate
|
Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate
Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,
And humbleness whence holiness must grow,
And greatness born of shame to be so great.
The winter day that withered hope and pride
Shines now triumphal on the turning tide
That sets once more our trust in freedom free,
That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe
And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low,
And England's name a light on land and sea.
|
sonnet
|
Robert William Service
|
The Convalescent
|
. . . So I walked among the willows very quietly all night;
There was no moon at all, at all; no timid star alight;
There was no light at all, at all; I wint from tree to tree,
And I called him as his mother called, but he nivver answered me.
Oh I called him all the night-time, as I walked the wood alone;
And I listened and I listened, but I nivver heard a moan;
Then I found him at the dawnin', when the sorry sky was red:
I was lookin' for the livin', but I only found the dead.
Sure I know that it was Shamus by the silver cross he wore;
But the bugles they were callin', and I heard the cannon roar.
Oh I had no time to tarry, so I said a little prayer,
And I clasped his hands together, and I left him lyin' there.
Now the birds are singin', singin', and I'm home in Donegal,
And it's Springtime, and I'm thinkin' that I only dreamed it all;
I dreamed about that evil wood, all crowded with its dead,
Where I knelt beside me brother when the battle-dawn was red.
Where I prayed beside me brother ere I wint to fight anew:
Such dreams as these are evil dreams; I can't believe it's true.
Where all is love and laughter, sure it's hard to think of loss . . .
But mother's sayin' nothin', and she clasps - A SILVER CROSS.
|
. . . So I walked among the willows very quietly all night;
There was no moon at all, at all; no timid star alight;
There was no light at all, at all; I wint from tree to tree,
And I called him as his mother called, but he nivver answered me.
Oh I called him all the night-time, as I walked the wood alone;
And I listened and I listened, but I nivver heard a moan;
|
Then I found him at the dawnin', when the sorry sky was red:
I was lookin' for the livin', but I only found the dead.
Sure I know that it was Shamus by the silver cross he wore;
But the bugles they were callin', and I heard the cannon roar.
Oh I had no time to tarry, so I said a little prayer,
And I clasped his hands together, and I left him lyin' there.
Now the birds are singin', singin', and I'm home in Donegal,
And it's Springtime, and I'm thinkin' that I only dreamed it all;
I dreamed about that evil wood, all crowded with its dead,
Where I knelt beside me brother when the battle-dawn was red.
Where I prayed beside me brother ere I wint to fight anew:
Such dreams as these are evil dreams; I can't believe it's true.
Where all is love and laughter, sure it's hard to think of loss . . .
But mother's sayin' nothin', and she clasps - A SILVER CROSS.
|
free_verse
|
Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson
|
The Dove (From Halte Hulda)
|
I saw a dove fear-daunted,
By howling storm-blast driven;
Where waves their power vaunted,
From land it had been riven.
No cry nor moan it uttered,
I heard no plaint repeated;
In vain its pinions fluttered -
It had to sink, defeated.
|
I saw a dove fear-daunted,
By howling storm-blast driven;
|
Where waves their power vaunted,
From land it had been riven.
No cry nor moan it uttered,
I heard no plaint repeated;
In vain its pinions fluttered -
It had to sink, defeated.
|
octave
|
William Butler Yeats
|
The Magi
|
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
|
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
|
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
|
octave
|
Henry Kendall
|
Mountain Moss
|
It lies amongst the sleeping stones,
Far down the hidden mountain glade;
And past its brink the torrent moans
For ever in a dreamy shade.
A little patch of dark-green moss,
Whose softness grew of quiet ways
(With all its deep, delicious floss)
In slumb'rous suns of summer days.
You know the place? With pleasant tints
The broken sunset lights the bowers;
And then the woods are full with hints
Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!
'Tis often now the pilgrim turns
A faded face towards that seat,
And cools his brow amongst the ferns;
The runnel dabbling at his feet.
There fierce December seldom goes,
With scorching step and dust and drouth;
But, soft and low, October blows
Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.
And Autumn, like a gipsy bold,
Doth gather near it grapes and grain,
Ere Winter comes, the woodman old,
To lop the leaves in wind and rain.
O, greenest moss of mountain glen,
The face of Rose is known to thee;
But we shall never share with men
A knowledge dear to love and me!
For are they not between us saved,
The words my darling used to say,
What time the western waters laved
The forehead of the fainting day?
Cool comfort had we on your breast
While yet the fervid noon burned mute
O'er barley field and barren crest,
And leagues of gardens flushed with fruit.
Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so,
And sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
But it was many years ago,
When each, you know, was loved of each.
|
It lies amongst the sleeping stones,
Far down the hidden mountain glade;
And past its brink the torrent moans
For ever in a dreamy shade.
A little patch of dark-green moss,
Whose softness grew of quiet ways
(With all its deep, delicious floss)
In slumb'rous suns of summer days.
You know the place? With pleasant tints
The broken sunset lights the bowers;
And then the woods are full with hints
Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!
'Tis often now the pilgrim turns
|
A faded face towards that seat,
And cools his brow amongst the ferns;
The runnel dabbling at his feet.
There fierce December seldom goes,
With scorching step and dust and drouth;
But, soft and low, October blows
Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.
And Autumn, like a gipsy bold,
Doth gather near it grapes and grain,
Ere Winter comes, the woodman old,
To lop the leaves in wind and rain.
O, greenest moss of mountain glen,
The face of Rose is known to thee;
But we shall never share with men
A knowledge dear to love and me!
For are they not between us saved,
The words my darling used to say,
What time the western waters laved
The forehead of the fainting day?
Cool comfort had we on your breast
While yet the fervid noon burned mute
O'er barley field and barren crest,
And leagues of gardens flushed with fruit.
Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so,
And sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
But it was many years ago,
When each, you know, was loved of each.
|
free_verse
|
Michael Drayton
|
Sonnets: Idea XII To The Soul
|
That learned Father which so firmly proves
The soul of man immortal and divine,
And doth the several offices define
Anima. Gives her that name, as she the body moves.
Amor. Then is she love, embracing charity.
Animus. Moving a will in us, it is the mind;
Mens. Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind.
Memoria. As intellectual, it is memory.
Ratio. In judging, reason only is her name.
Sensus. In speedy apprehension, it is sense.
Conscientia. In right and wrong they call her conscience;
Spiritus. The spirit, when it to God-ward doth inflame:
These of the soul the several functions be,
Which my heart lightened by thy love doth see.
|
That learned Father which so firmly proves
The soul of man immortal and divine,
And doth the several offices define
Anima. Gives her that name, as she the body moves.
|
Amor. Then is she love, embracing charity.
Animus. Moving a will in us, it is the mind;
Mens. Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind.
Memoria. As intellectual, it is memory.
Ratio. In judging, reason only is her name.
Sensus. In speedy apprehension, it is sense.
Conscientia. In right and wrong they call her conscience;
Spiritus. The spirit, when it to God-ward doth inflame:
These of the soul the several functions be,
Which my heart lightened by thy love doth see.
|
sonnet
|
Edgar Lee Masters
|
J. Milton Miles
|
Whenever the Presbyterian bell
Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell.
But when its sound was mingled
With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian,
The Baptist and the Congregational,
I could no longer distinguish it,
Nor any one from the others, or either of them.
And as many voices called to me in life
Marvel not that I could not tell
The true from the false,
Nor even, at last, the voice that
I should have known.
|
Whenever the Presbyterian bell
Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell.
But when its sound was mingled
With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian,
|
The Baptist and the Congregational,
I could no longer distinguish it,
Nor any one from the others, or either of them.
And as many voices called to me in life
Marvel not that I could not tell
The true from the false,
Nor even, at last, the voice that
I should have known.
|
free_verse
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
"A Little Road Not Made Of Man,"
|
A little road not made of man,
Enabled of the eye,
Accessible to thill of bee,
Or cart of butterfly.
If town it have, beyond itself,
'T is that I cannot say;
I only sigh, -- no vehicle
Bears me along that way.
|
A little road not made of man,
Enabled of the eye,
|
Accessible to thill of bee,
Or cart of butterfly.
If town it have, beyond itself,
'T is that I cannot say;
I only sigh, -- no vehicle
Bears me along that way.
|
octave
|
Henry Lawson
|
Laughing And Sneering
|
What though the world does me ill turns
And cares my life environ;
I'd sooner laugh with Bobbie Burns
Than sneer with titled Byron.
The smile has always been the best;
'Tis stronger than the frown, sirs:
And Venus smiled the waves to rest;
She didn't sneer them down, sirs.
|
What though the world does me ill turns
And cares my life environ;
|
I'd sooner laugh with Bobbie Burns
Than sneer with titled Byron.
The smile has always been the best;
'Tis stronger than the frown, sirs:
And Venus smiled the waves to rest;
She didn't sneer them down, sirs.
|
octave
|
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
|
To-Morrow
|
'T is late at night, and in the realm of sleep
My little lambs are folded like the flocks;
From room to room I hear the wakeful clocks
Challenge the passing hour, like guards that keep
Their solitary watch on tower and steep;
Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks,
And through the opening door that time unlocks
Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep.
To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,
Who cries to me: "Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest."
And I make answer: "I am satisfied;
I dare not ask; I know not what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide."
|
'T is late at night, and in the realm of sleep
My little lambs are folded like the flocks;
From room to room I hear the wakeful clocks
Challenge the passing hour, like guards that keep
|
Their solitary watch on tower and steep;
Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks,
And through the opening door that time unlocks
Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep.
To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,
Who cries to me: "Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest."
And I make answer: "I am satisfied;
I dare not ask; I know not what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide."
|
sonnet
|
John Carr (Sir)
|
Lines Upon The Rev. Mr. C ---- 's Impromptu Compositions Of Some Of Bowles's Sonnets.
|
No sweeter verse did e'er inspire
A kindred Muse with all its fire;
Nor sweeter strains could Music lend,
To sooth the sorrows of her friend.
Associate Genius bids them flow
With sounds that give a charm to woe;
We weep as tho' it were our own,
As if our hearts were play'd upon.
|
No sweeter verse did e'er inspire
A kindred Muse with all its fire;
|
Nor sweeter strains could Music lend,
To sooth the sorrows of her friend.
Associate Genius bids them flow
With sounds that give a charm to woe;
We weep as tho' it were our own,
As if our hearts were play'd upon.
|
octave
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
Prototypes
|
Whether it be that we in letters trace
The pure exactness of a wood bird's strain,
And name it song; or with the brush attain
The high perfection of a wildflower's face;
Or mold in difficult marble all the grace
We know as man; or from the wind and rain
Catch elemental rapture of refrain
And mark in music to due time and place:
The aim of Art is Nature; to unfold
Her truth and beauty to the souls of men
In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast
Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old;
Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when
The mind conceived it in the ages past.
|
Whether it be that we in letters trace
The pure exactness of a wood bird's strain,
And name it song; or with the brush attain
The high perfection of a wildflower's face;
|
Or mold in difficult marble all the grace
We know as man; or from the wind and rain
Catch elemental rapture of refrain
And mark in music to due time and place:
The aim of Art is Nature; to unfold
Her truth and beauty to the souls of men
In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast
Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old;
Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when
The mind conceived it in the ages past.
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
Herrick's Fairy Poems And The Description Of The King And Queene Of Fayries Published 1635.
|
The publisher's freak, by which Herrick's three chief Fairy poems ("The Fairy Temple; or, Oberon's Chapel," "Oberon's Feast," and "Oberon's Palace") are separated from each other, is greatly to be regretted. The last two, both dedicated to Shapcott, are distinctly connected by their opening lines, and "Oberon's Chapel," dedicated to Mr. John Merrifield, Herrick's other fairy-loving lawyer, of course belongs to the same group. All three were probably first written in 1626 and cannot be dissociated from Drayton's _Nymphidia_, published in 1627, and Sir Simeon Steward's "A Description of the King of Fayries clothes, brought to him on New-yeares day in the morning, 1626 [O. S.], by his Queenes Chambermaids". In 1635 there was published a little book of a dozen leaves, most kindly transcribed for this edition by Mr. E. Gordon Duff, from the unique copy at the Bodleian Library. It is entitled:--
"A | Description | of the King and Queene of | Fayries, their habit, fare, their | abode pompe and state. | Beeing very delightfull to the sense, and | full of mirth. | [Wood-cut.] London. | _Printed for Richard Harper, and are to be sold | at his shop, at the Hospitall gate._ 1635."
Fol. 1 is blank; fol. 2 occupied by the title-page; ff. 3, 4 (verso blank) by a letter "To the Reader," signed: "Yours hereafter, If now approved on, R. S.," beginning: "Courteous Reader, I present thee here with the Description of the King of the Fayries, of his Attendants, Apparel, Gesture, and Victuals, which though comprehended in the brevity of so short a volume, yet as the Proverbe truely averres, it hath as mellifluous and pleasing discourse, as that whose amplitude contains the fulnesse of a bigger composition"; on fol. 5 (verso blank) occurs the following poem [spelling here modernised]:--
"Deep-skilled Geographers, whose art and skill
Do traverse all the world, and with their quill
Declare the strangeness of each several clime,
The nature, situation, and the time
Of being inhabited, yet all their art
And deep inform'd skill could not impart
In what set climate of this Orb or Isle,
The King of Fairies kept, whose honoured style
Is here inclosed, with the sincere description
Of his abode, his nature, and the region
In which he rules: read, and thou shalt find
Delightful mirth, fit to content thy mind.
May the contents thereof thy palate suit,
With its mellifluous and pleasing fruit:
For nought can more be sweetened to my mind
Than that this Pamphlet thy contentment find;
Which if it shall, my labour is sufficed,
In being by your liking highly prized.
"Yours to his power,
"R. S."
This is followed (pp. 1-3) by: "A Description of the Kings [sic] of Fayries Clothes, brought to him on New-Yeares day in the morning, 1626, by his Queenes Chambermaids:--
"First a cobweb shirt, more thin
Than ever spider since could spin.
Changed to the whiteness of the snow,
By the stormy winds that blow
In the vast and frozen air,
No shirt half so fine, so fair;
A rich waistcoat they did bring,
Made of the Trout-fly's gilded wing:
At which his Elveship 'gan to fret
The wearing it would make him sweat
Even with its weight: he needs would wear
A waistcoat made of downy hair
New shaven off an Eunuch's chin,
That pleased him well, 'twas wondrous thin.
The outside of his doublet was
Made of the four-leaved, true-loved grass,
Changed into so fine a gloss,
With the oil of crispy moss:
It made a rainbow in the night
Which gave a lustre passing light.
On every seam there was a lace
Drawn by the unctuous snail's slow pace,
To which the finest, purest, silver thread
Compared, did look like dull pale lead.
His breeches of the Fleece was wrought,
Which from Colchos Jason brought:
Spun into so fine a yarn
No mortal wight might it discern,
Weaved by Arachne on her loom,
Just before she had her doom.
A rich Mantle he did wear,
Made of tinsel gossamer.
Beflowered over with a few
Diamond stars of morning dew:
Dyed crimson in a maiden's blush,
Lined with humble-bees' lost plush.
His cap was all of ladies' love,
So wondrous light, that it did move
If any humming gnat or fly
Buzzed the air in passing by,
About his neck a wreath of pearl,
Dropped from the eyes of some poor girl,
Pinched, because she had forgot
To leave clean water in the pot."
The next page is occupied by a woodcut, and then (pp. 5, misnumbered 4, and 6) comes the variation on Herrick's "Oberon's Feast":--
"A DESCRIPTION OF HIS DIET.
"Now they, the Elves, within a trice,
Prepared a feast less great than nice,
Where you may imagine first,
The Elves prepare to quench his thirst,
In pure seed pearl of infant dew
Brought and sweetened with a blue
And pregnant violet; which done,
His killing eyes begin to run
Quite o'er the table, where he spies
The horns of watered butterflies,
Of which he eats, but with a little
Neat cool allay of cuckoo's spittle.
Next this the red-cap worm that's shut
Within the concave of a nut.
Moles' eyes he tastes, then adders' ears;
To these for sauce the slain stags' tears,
A bloated earwig, and the pith
Of sugared rush he glads him with.
Then he takes a little moth,
Late fatted in a scarlet cloth,
A spinner's ham, the beards of mice,
Nits carbonadoed, a device
Before unknown; the blood of fleas,
Which gave his Elveship's stomach ease.
The unctuous dew-laps of a snail,
The broke heart of a nightingale
O'ercome in music, with the sag
And well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag.
Conserves of atoms, and the mites,
The silk-worm's sperm, and the delights
Of all that ever yet hath blest
Fairy-land: so ends his feast."
On the next page is printed: "Orpheus. Thrice excelling, for the finishment of this Feast, thou must music it so that the Deities may descend to grace it." This is succeeded by a page bearing a woodcut, then we have "The Fairies Fegaries," a poem occupying three more pages followed by another woodcut, and then "The Melancholly Lover's Song," and a third woodcut. The occurrence of the _Melancholy Lover's Song_ (the well-known lines beginning: "Hence all you vain delights") in print in 1635 is interesting, as I believe that _The Nice Valour_, the play in which they occur, was not printed till 1647, and Milton's _Il Penseroso_, which they suggested, appeared in 1645. But the verses are rather out of place in the little Fairy-Book.
|
The publisher's freak, by which Herrick's three chief Fairy poems ("The Fairy Temple; or, Oberon's Chapel," "Oberon's Feast," and "Oberon's Palace") are separated from each other, is greatly to be regretted. The last two, both dedicated to Shapcott, are distinctly connected by their opening lines, and "Oberon's Chapel," dedicated to Mr. John Merrifield, Herrick's other fairy-loving lawyer, of course belongs to the same group. All three were probably first written in 1626 and cannot be dissociated from Drayton's _Nymphidia_, published in 1627, and Sir Simeon Steward's "A Description of the King of Fayries clothes, brought to him on New-yeares day in the morning, 1626 [O. S.], by his Queenes Chambermaids". In 1635 there was published a little book of a dozen leaves, most kindly transcribed for this edition by Mr. E. Gordon Duff, from the unique copy at the Bodleian Library. It is entitled:--
"A | Description | of the King and Queene of | Fayries, their habit, fare, their | abode pompe and state. | Beeing very delightfull to the sense, and | full of mirth. | [Wood-cut.] London. | _Printed for Richard Harper, and are to be sold | at his shop, at the Hospitall gate._ 1635."
Fol. 1 is blank; fol. 2 occupied by the title-page; ff. 3, 4 (verso blank) by a letter "To the Reader," signed: "Yours hereafter, If now approved on, R. S.," beginning: "Courteous Reader, I present thee here with the Description of the King of the Fayries, of his Attendants, Apparel, Gesture, and Victuals, which though comprehended in the brevity of so short a volume, yet as the Proverbe truely averres, it hath as mellifluous and pleasing discourse, as that whose amplitude contains the fulnesse of a bigger composition"; on fol. 5 (verso blank) occurs the following poem [spelling here modernised]:--
"Deep-skilled Geographers, whose art and skill
Do traverse all the world, and with their quill
Declare the strangeness of each several clime,
The nature, situation, and the time
Of being inhabited, yet all their art
And deep inform'd skill could not impart
In what set climate of this Orb or Isle,
The King of Fairies kept, whose honoured style
Is here inclosed, with the sincere description
Of his abode, his nature, and the region
In which he rules: read, and thou shalt find
Delightful mirth, fit to content thy mind.
May the contents thereof thy palate suit,
With its mellifluous and pleasing fruit:
For nought can more be sweetened to my mind
Than that this Pamphlet thy contentment find;
Which if it shall, my labour is sufficed,
In being by your liking highly prized.
"Yours to his power,
"R. S."
This is followed (pp. 1-3) by: "A Description of the Kings [sic] of Fayries Clothes, brought to him on New-Yeares day in the morning, 1626, by his Queenes Chambermaids:--
"First a cobweb shirt, more thin
Than ever spider since could spin.
Changed to the whiteness of the snow,
By the stormy winds that blow
In the vast and frozen air,
No shirt half so fine, so fair;
A rich waistcoat they did bring,
Made of the Trout-fly's gilded wing:
At which his Elveship 'gan to fret
The wearing it would make him sweat
|
Even with its weight: he needs would wear
A waistcoat made of downy hair
New shaven off an Eunuch's chin,
That pleased him well, 'twas wondrous thin.
The outside of his doublet was
Made of the four-leaved, true-loved grass,
Changed into so fine a gloss,
With the oil of crispy moss:
It made a rainbow in the night
Which gave a lustre passing light.
On every seam there was a lace
Drawn by the unctuous snail's slow pace,
To which the finest, purest, silver thread
Compared, did look like dull pale lead.
His breeches of the Fleece was wrought,
Which from Colchos Jason brought:
Spun into so fine a yarn
No mortal wight might it discern,
Weaved by Arachne on her loom,
Just before she had her doom.
A rich Mantle he did wear,
Made of tinsel gossamer.
Beflowered over with a few
Diamond stars of morning dew:
Dyed crimson in a maiden's blush,
Lined with humble-bees' lost plush.
His cap was all of ladies' love,
So wondrous light, that it did move
If any humming gnat or fly
Buzzed the air in passing by,
About his neck a wreath of pearl,
Dropped from the eyes of some poor girl,
Pinched, because she had forgot
To leave clean water in the pot."
The next page is occupied by a woodcut, and then (pp. 5, misnumbered 4, and 6) comes the variation on Herrick's "Oberon's Feast":--
"A DESCRIPTION OF HIS DIET.
"Now they, the Elves, within a trice,
Prepared a feast less great than nice,
Where you may imagine first,
The Elves prepare to quench his thirst,
In pure seed pearl of infant dew
Brought and sweetened with a blue
And pregnant violet; which done,
His killing eyes begin to run
Quite o'er the table, where he spies
The horns of watered butterflies,
Of which he eats, but with a little
Neat cool allay of cuckoo's spittle.
Next this the red-cap worm that's shut
Within the concave of a nut.
Moles' eyes he tastes, then adders' ears;
To these for sauce the slain stags' tears,
A bloated earwig, and the pith
Of sugared rush he glads him with.
Then he takes a little moth,
Late fatted in a scarlet cloth,
A spinner's ham, the beards of mice,
Nits carbonadoed, a device
Before unknown; the blood of fleas,
Which gave his Elveship's stomach ease.
The unctuous dew-laps of a snail,
The broke heart of a nightingale
O'ercome in music, with the sag
And well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag.
Conserves of atoms, and the mites,
The silk-worm's sperm, and the delights
Of all that ever yet hath blest
Fairy-land: so ends his feast."
On the next page is printed: "Orpheus. Thrice excelling, for the finishment of this Feast, thou must music it so that the Deities may descend to grace it." This is succeeded by a page bearing a woodcut, then we have "The Fairies Fegaries," a poem occupying three more pages followed by another woodcut, and then "The Melancholly Lover's Song," and a third woodcut. The occurrence of the _Melancholy Lover's Song_ (the well-known lines beginning: "Hence all you vain delights") in print in 1635 is interesting, as I believe that _The Nice Valour_, the play in which they occur, was not printed till 1647, and Milton's _Il Penseroso_, which they suggested, appeared in 1645. But the verses are rather out of place in the little Fairy-Book.
|
free_verse
|
Robert Herrick
|
Upon Clunn.
|
A roll of parchment Clunn about him bears,
Charg'd with the arms of all his ancestors:
And seems half ravish'd, when he looks upon
That bar, this bend; that fess, this cheveron;
This manch, that moon; this martlet, and that mound;
This counterchange of pearl and diamond.
What joy can Clunn have in that coat, or this,
Whenas his own still out at elbows is?
|
A roll of parchment Clunn about him bears,
Charg'd with the arms of all his ancestors:
|
And seems half ravish'd, when he looks upon
That bar, this bend; that fess, this cheveron;
This manch, that moon; this martlet, and that mound;
This counterchange of pearl and diamond.
What joy can Clunn have in that coat, or this,
Whenas his own still out at elbows is?
|
octave
|
Walter De La Mare
|
Banquo
|
What dost thou here far from thy native place?
What piercing influences of heaven have stirred
Thy heart's last mansion all-corruptible to wake,
To move, and in the sweets of wine and fire
Sit tempting madness with unholy eyes?
Begone, thou shuddering, pale anomaly!
The dark presses without on yew and thorn;
Stoops now the owl upon her lonely quest;
The pomp runs high here, and our beauteous women
Seek no cold witness - O, let murder cry,
Too shrill for human ear, only to God.
Come not in power to wreak so wild a vengeance!
Thou knowest not now the limit of man's heart;
He is beyond thy knowledge. Gaze not then,
Horror enthroned lit with insanest light!
|
What dost thou here far from thy native place?
What piercing influences of heaven have stirred
Thy heart's last mansion all-corruptible to wake,
To move, and in the sweets of wine and fire
Sit tempting madness with unholy eyes?
|
Begone, thou shuddering, pale anomaly!
The dark presses without on yew and thorn;
Stoops now the owl upon her lonely quest;
The pomp runs high here, and our beauteous women
Seek no cold witness - O, let murder cry,
Too shrill for human ear, only to God.
Come not in power to wreak so wild a vengeance!
Thou knowest not now the limit of man's heart;
He is beyond thy knowledge. Gaze not then,
Horror enthroned lit with insanest light!
|
free_verse
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
Real.
|
I like a look of agony,
Because I know it's true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.
|
I like a look of agony,
Because I know it's true;
|
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.
|
octave
|
George Pope Morris
|
Epigram. On Reading Grim's Attack Upon Clinton.
|
'Tis the opinion of the town
That Grim's a silly elf:
In trying to write Clinton down,
He went RIGHT DOWN HIMSELF.
|
'Tis the opinion of the town
|
That Grim's a silly elf:
In trying to write Clinton down,
He went RIGHT DOWN HIMSELF.
|
quatrain
|
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
|
A Death-Blow Is A Life-Blow To Some
|
A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.
|
A death-blow is a life-blow to some
|
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.
|
quatrain
|
Alfred Lord Tennyson
|
Poets And Their Bibliographies
|
Old poets foster'd under friendlier skies,
Old Virgil who would write ten lines, they say,
At dawn, and lavish all the golden day
To make them wealthier in his readers' eyes;
And you, old popular Horace, you the wise
Adviser of the nine-years-ponder'd lay,
And you, that wear a wreath of sweeter bay,
Catullus, whose dead songster never dies;
If, glancing downward on the kindly sphere
That once had roll'd you round and round the sun,
You see your Art still shrined in human shelves,
You should be jubilant that you flourish'd here
Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
Had swampt the sacred poets with themselves.
|
Old poets foster'd under friendlier skies,
Old Virgil who would write ten lines, they say,
At dawn, and lavish all the golden day
To make them wealthier in his readers' eyes;
|
And you, old popular Horace, you the wise
Adviser of the nine-years-ponder'd lay,
And you, that wear a wreath of sweeter bay,
Catullus, whose dead songster never dies;
If, glancing downward on the kindly sphere
That once had roll'd you round and round the sun,
You see your Art still shrined in human shelves,
You should be jubilant that you flourish'd here
Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
Had swampt the sacred poets with themselves.
|
sonnet
|
Madison Julius Cawein
|
Happiness
|
Around its mountain many footpaths wind,
But only one unto its top attains;
Not he who searches closest, takes most pains,
But he who seeks not, that one way may find.
|
Around its mountain many footpaths wind,
|
But only one unto its top attains;
Not he who searches closest, takes most pains,
But he who seeks not, that one way may find.
|
quatrain
|
D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)
|
Birdcage Walk
|
When the wind blows her veil
And uncovers her laughter
I cease, I turn pale.
When the wind blows her veil
From the woes I bewail
Of love and hereafter:
When the wind blows her veil
I cease, I turn pale.
|
When the wind blows her veil
And uncovers her laughter
|
I cease, I turn pale.
When the wind blows her veil
From the woes I bewail
Of love and hereafter:
When the wind blows her veil
I cease, I turn pale.
|
octave
|
Jean Ingelow
|
Songs Of The Night Watches, - Introductory.
|
(Old English Manner.)
APPRENTICED.
Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O!
The dropping thorn makes white the grass, O sweetest lass, and sweetest lass;
Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me, O!"
"My granny nods before her wheel, and drops her reel, and drops her reel;
My father with his crony talks as gay as gay can be, O!
But all the milk is yet to skim, ere light wax dim, ere light wax dim;
How can I step adown the croft, my 'prentice lad, with thee, O?"
"And must ye bide, yet waiting's long, and love is strong, and love is strong;
And O! had I but served the time, that takes so long to flee, O!
And thou, my lass, by morning's light wast all in white, wast all in white,
And parson stood within the rails, a-marrying me and thee, O."
|
(Old English Manner.)
APPRENTICED.
Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O!
|
The dropping thorn makes white the grass, O sweetest lass, and sweetest lass;
Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me, O!"
"My granny nods before her wheel, and drops her reel, and drops her reel;
My father with his crony talks as gay as gay can be, O!
But all the milk is yet to skim, ere light wax dim, ere light wax dim;
How can I step adown the croft, my 'prentice lad, with thee, O?"
"And must ye bide, yet waiting's long, and love is strong, and love is strong;
And O! had I but served the time, that takes so long to flee, O!
And thou, my lass, by morning's light wast all in white, wast all in white,
And parson stood within the rails, a-marrying me and thee, O."
|
sonnet
|
Paul Cameron Brown
|
Bloodcount
|
My mind had almost died.
It had refused a game of tag on a common
with surly children and they steadfastly took revenge.
My fate like Blondin's walk across Niagara
saw cataracts looming large,
hiss & foam,
then visions of serpents,
farawy monsters &
inner tension of rocks opening.
The churned, brown water opened like a basket before me.
Maurading bubbles took on elephantine shapes,
my barrel creeked.
Faraway, the edge & drop yawned in indifferent harmony.
The brown walls of my fortress barrel became like palates
& sutures of my skull imprisoning the brain;
the trickle of invading water ever a reminder.
The close of the story?
Nothing. What is there to record after a river passes?
What remains of things unseen, of antelopes in flight?
The shroud of Monte Cristo tossed carelessly into sea
did not fall open to the touch but was knifed with rifle force.
|
My mind had almost died.
It had refused a game of tag on a common
with surly children and they steadfastly took revenge.
My fate like Blondin's walk across Niagara
saw cataracts looming large,
hiss & foam,
then visions of serpents,
|
farawy monsters &
inner tension of rocks opening.
The churned, brown water opened like a basket before me.
Maurading bubbles took on elephantine shapes,
my barrel creeked.
Faraway, the edge & drop yawned in indifferent harmony.
The brown walls of my fortress barrel became like palates
& sutures of my skull imprisoning the brain;
the trickle of invading water ever a reminder.
The close of the story?
Nothing. What is there to record after a river passes?
What remains of things unseen, of antelopes in flight?
The shroud of Monte Cristo tossed carelessly into sea
did not fall open to the touch but was knifed with rifle force.
|
free_verse
|
Robert Burns
|
On A Schoolmaster.
|
Here lie Willie Michie's banes;
O, Satan! when ye tak' him,
Gi' him the schoolin' o' your weans,
For clever de'ils he'll mak' them.
|
Here lie Willie Michie's banes;
|
O, Satan! when ye tak' him,
Gi' him the schoolin' o' your weans,
For clever de'ils he'll mak' them.
|
quatrain
|
Bliss Carman (William)
|
The Wood-God.
|
Brother, lost brother!
Thou of mine ancient kin!
Thou of the swift will that no ponderings smother!
The dumb life in me fumbles out to the shade
Thou lurkest in.
In vain--evasive ever through the glade
Departing footsteps fail;
And only where the grasses have been pressed,
Or by snapped twigs I follow a fruitless trail.
So--give o'er the quest!
Sprawl on the roots and moss!
Let the lithe garter squirm across my throat!
Let the slow clouds and leaves above me float
Into mine eyeballs and across,--
Nor think them further! Lo, the marvel! now,
Thou whom my soul desireth, even thou
Sprawl'st by my side, who fled'st at my pursuit.
I hear thy fluting; at my shoulder there
I see the sharp ears through the tangled hair,
And birds and bunnies at thy music mute.
|
Brother, lost brother!
Thou of mine ancient kin!
Thou of the swift will that no ponderings smother!
The dumb life in me fumbles out to the shade
Thou lurkest in.
In vain--evasive ever through the glade
|
Departing footsteps fail;
And only where the grasses have been pressed,
Or by snapped twigs I follow a fruitless trail.
So--give o'er the quest!
Sprawl on the roots and moss!
Let the lithe garter squirm across my throat!
Let the slow clouds and leaves above me float
Into mine eyeballs and across,--
Nor think them further! Lo, the marvel! now,
Thou whom my soul desireth, even thou
Sprawl'st by my side, who fled'st at my pursuit.
I hear thy fluting; at my shoulder there
I see the sharp ears through the tangled hair,
And birds and bunnies at thy music mute.
|
free_verse
|
John William Ivimey
|
Complete Version Of Ye Three Blind Mice
|
Three Small Mice
Three Small Mice
Three Small Mice
Pined for some fun
Pined for some fun
Pined for some fun
They made up their minds to set out to roam;
Said they, "'Tis dull to remain at home,"
And all the luggage they took was a comb,
These three Small Mice
Three Bold Mice
Three Bold Mice
Came to an Inn
Came to an Inn
Came to an Inn
"Good evening, Host, can you give us a bed?"
But the Host he grinned and he shook his head;
So they all slept out in a field instead,
These three Bold Mice.
Three Cold Mice
Three Cold Mice
Woke up next morn
Woke up next morn
Woke up next morn
They each had a cold and a swollen face,
Through sleeping all night in an open space;
So they rose quite early and left the place,
These three Cold Mice.
Three Hungry Mice
Three Hungry Mice
Searched for some food
Searched for some food
Searched for some food
But all they found was a walnut shell
That lay by the side of a dried-up well;
Who had eaten the nut they could not tell,
These three Hungry Mice.
Three Starved Mice
Three Starved Mice
Came to a Farm
Came to a Farm
Came to a Farm
The Farmer was eating some bread and cheese;
So they all went down on their hands and knees,
And squeaked, "Pray, give us a morsel, please,"
These three Starved Mice.
Three Glad Mice
Three Glad Mice
Ate all they could
Ate all they could
Ate all they could
They felt so happy they danced with glee;
But the Farmer's Wife came in to see
What might this merry-making be
Of three Glad Mice.
Three Poor Mice
Three Poor Mice
Soon changed their tone
Soon changed their tone
Soon changed their tone
The Farmer's Wife said, "What are you at,
And why were you capering round like that?
Just wait a minute: I'll fetch the Cat"
Oh dear! Poor Mice.
Three Scared Mice
Three Scared Mice
Ran for their lives
Ran for their lives
Ran for their lives
They jumped out on to the window ledge;
The mention of "Cat" set their teeth on edge;
So they hid themselves in the bramble hedge,
These three Scared Mice.
Three Sad Mice
Three Sad Mice
What could they do?
What could they do?
What could they do?
The bramble hedge was most unkind:
It scratched their eyes and made them blind,
And soon each Mouse went out of his mind,
These three Sad Mice.
Three Blind Mice
Three Blind Mice
See how they run
See how they run
See how they run
They all ran after the Farmer's Wife,
Who cut off their tails with the carving knife.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
As three Blind Mice?
Three Sick Mice
Three Sick Mice
Gave way to tears
Gave way to tears
Gave way to tears
They could not see and they had no end;
They sought a Chemist and found a Friend
He gave them some "Never too late to mend,"
These Three Sick Mice.
Three Wise Mice
Three Wise Mice
Rubbed rubbed away
Rubbed rubbed away
Rubbed rubbed away
And soon their tails began to grow,
And their eyes recovered their sight, you know;
They looked in the glass and it told them so.
These three Wise Mice.
Three Proud Mice
Three Proud Mice
Soon settled down
Soon settled down
Soon settled down
The name of their house I cannot tell,
But they've learnt a trade and are doing well.
If you call upon them, ring the bell
Three times twice.
Erratum
And all the luggage they took was a comb,
These three Small Mice
|
Three Small Mice
Three Small Mice
Three Small Mice
Pined for some fun
Pined for some fun
Pined for some fun
They made up their minds to set out to roam;
Said they, "'Tis dull to remain at home,"
And all the luggage they took was a comb,
These three Small Mice
Three Bold Mice
Three Bold Mice
Came to an Inn
Came to an Inn
Came to an Inn
"Good evening, Host, can you give us a bed?"
But the Host he grinned and he shook his head;
So they all slept out in a field instead,
These three Bold Mice.
Three Cold Mice
Three Cold Mice
Woke up next morn
Woke up next morn
Woke up next morn
They each had a cold and a swollen face,
Through sleeping all night in an open space;
So they rose quite early and left the place,
These three Cold Mice.
Three Hungry Mice
Three Hungry Mice
Searched for some food
Searched for some food
Searched for some food
But all they found was a walnut shell
That lay by the side of a dried-up well;
Who had eaten the nut they could not tell,
These three Hungry Mice.
Three Starved Mice
Three Starved Mice
Came to a Farm
|
Came to a Farm
Came to a Farm
The Farmer was eating some bread and cheese;
So they all went down on their hands and knees,
And squeaked, "Pray, give us a morsel, please,"
These three Starved Mice.
Three Glad Mice
Three Glad Mice
Ate all they could
Ate all they could
Ate all they could
They felt so happy they danced with glee;
But the Farmer's Wife came in to see
What might this merry-making be
Of three Glad Mice.
Three Poor Mice
Three Poor Mice
Soon changed their tone
Soon changed their tone
Soon changed their tone
The Farmer's Wife said, "What are you at,
And why were you capering round like that?
Just wait a minute: I'll fetch the Cat"
Oh dear! Poor Mice.
Three Scared Mice
Three Scared Mice
Ran for their lives
Ran for their lives
Ran for their lives
They jumped out on to the window ledge;
The mention of "Cat" set their teeth on edge;
So they hid themselves in the bramble hedge,
These three Scared Mice.
Three Sad Mice
Three Sad Mice
What could they do?
What could they do?
What could they do?
The bramble hedge was most unkind:
It scratched their eyes and made them blind,
And soon each Mouse went out of his mind,
These three Sad Mice.
Three Blind Mice
Three Blind Mice
See how they run
See how they run
See how they run
They all ran after the Farmer's Wife,
Who cut off their tails with the carving knife.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
As three Blind Mice?
Three Sick Mice
Three Sick Mice
Gave way to tears
Gave way to tears
Gave way to tears
They could not see and they had no end;
They sought a Chemist and found a Friend
He gave them some "Never too late to mend,"
These Three Sick Mice.
Three Wise Mice
Three Wise Mice
Rubbed rubbed away
Rubbed rubbed away
Rubbed rubbed away
And soon their tails began to grow,
And their eyes recovered their sight, you know;
They looked in the glass and it told them so.
These three Wise Mice.
Three Proud Mice
Three Proud Mice
Soon settled down
Soon settled down
Soon settled down
The name of their house I cannot tell,
But they've learnt a trade and are doing well.
If you call upon them, ring the bell
Three times twice.
Erratum
And all the luggage they took was a comb,
These three Small Mice
|
free_verse
|
Abram Joseph Ryan
|
A Mystery
|
His face was sad; some shadow must have hung
Above his soul; its folds, now falling dark,
Now almost bright; but dark or not so dark,
Like cloud upon a mount, 'twas always there --
A shadow; and his face was always sad.
His eyes were changeful; for the gloom of gray
Within them met and blended with the blue,
And when they gazed they seemed almost to dream
They looked beyond you into far-away,
And often drooped; his face was always sad.
His eyes were deep; I often saw them dim,
As if the edges of a cloud of tears
Had gathered there, and only left a mist
That made them moist and kept them ever moist.
He never wept; his face was always sad.
I mean, not many saw him ever weep,
And yet he seemed as one who often wept,
Or always, tears that were too proud to flow
In outer streams, but shrunk within and froze --
Froze down into himself; his face was sad.
And yet sometimes he smiled -- a sudden smile,
As if some far-gone joy came back again,
Surprised his heart, and flashed across his face
A moment like a light through rifts in clouds,
Which falls upon an unforgotten grave;
He rarely laughed; his face was ever sad.
And when he spoke his words were sad as wails,
And strange as stories of an unknown land,
And full of meanings as the sea of moans.
At times he was so still that silence seemed
To sentinel his lips; and not a word
Would leave his heart; his face was strangely sad.
But then at times his speech flowed like a stream --
A deep and dreamy stream through lonely dells
Of lofty mountain-thoughts, and o'er its waves
Hung mysteries of gloom; and in its flow
It rippled on lone shores fair-fringed with flowers,
And deepened as it flowed; his face was sad.
He had his moods of silence and of speech.
I asked him once the reason, and he said:
"When I speak much, my words are only words,
When I speak least, my words are more than words,
When I speak not, I then reveal myself!"
It was his way of saying things -- he spoke
In quaintest riddles; and his face was sad.
And, when he wished, he wove around his words
A nameless spell that marvelously thrilled
The dullest ear. 'Twas strange that he so cold
Could warm the coldest heart; that he so hard
Could soften hardest soul; that he so still
Could rouse the stillest mind: his face was sad.
He spoke of death as if it were a toy
For thought to play with; and of life he spoke
As of a toy not worth the play of thought;
And of this world he spoke as captives speak
Of prisons where they pine; he spoke of men
As one who found pure gold in each of them.
He spoke of women just as if he dreamed
About his mother; and he spoke of God
As if he walked with Him and knew His heart --
But he was weary, and his face was sad.
He had a weary way in all he did,
As if he dragged a chain, or bore a cross;
And yet the weary went to him for rest.
His heart seemed scarce to know an earthly joy,
And yet the joyless were rejoiced by him.
He seemed to have two selves -- his outer self
Was free to any passer-by, and kind to all,
And gentle as a child's; that outer self
Kept open all its gates, that who so wished
Might enter them and find therein a place;
And many entered; but his face was sad.
The inner self he guarded from approach,
He kept it sealed and sacred as a shrine;
He guarded it with silence and reserve;
Its gates were locked and watched, and none might pass
Beyond the portals; and his face was sad.
But whoso entered there -- and few were they --
So very few -- so very, very few,
They never did forget; they said: "How strange!"
They murmured still: "How strange! how strangely strange!"
They went their ways, but wore a lifted look,
And higher meanings came to common words,
And lowly thoughts took on the grandest tones;
And, near or far, they never did forget
The "Shadow and the Shrine"; his face was sad.
He was not young nor old -- yet he was both;
Nor both by turns, but always both at once;
For youth and age commingled in his ways,
His words, his feelings, and his thoughts and acts.
At times the "old man" tottered in his thoughts,
The child played thro' his words; his face was sad.
I one day asked his age; he smiled and said:
"The rose that sleeps upon yon valley's breast,
Just born to-day, is not as young as I;
The moss-robed oak of twice a thousand storms --
An acorn cradled ages long ago --
Is old, in sooth, but not as old as I."
It was his way -- he always answered thus,
But when he did his face was very sad.
|
His face was sad; some shadow must have hung
Above his soul; its folds, now falling dark,
Now almost bright; but dark or not so dark,
Like cloud upon a mount, 'twas always there --
A shadow; and his face was always sad.
His eyes were changeful; for the gloom of gray
Within them met and blended with the blue,
And when they gazed they seemed almost to dream
They looked beyond you into far-away,
And often drooped; his face was always sad.
His eyes were deep; I often saw them dim,
As if the edges of a cloud of tears
Had gathered there, and only left a mist
That made them moist and kept them ever moist.
He never wept; his face was always sad.
I mean, not many saw him ever weep,
And yet he seemed as one who often wept,
Or always, tears that were too proud to flow
In outer streams, but shrunk within and froze --
Froze down into himself; his face was sad.
And yet sometimes he smiled -- a sudden smile,
As if some far-gone joy came back again,
Surprised his heart, and flashed across his face
A moment like a light through rifts in clouds,
Which falls upon an unforgotten grave;
He rarely laughed; his face was ever sad.
And when he spoke his words were sad as wails,
And strange as stories of an unknown land,
And full of meanings as the sea of moans.
At times he was so still that silence seemed
To sentinel his lips; and not a word
Would leave his heart; his face was strangely sad.
But then at times his speech flowed like a stream --
|
A deep and dreamy stream through lonely dells
Of lofty mountain-thoughts, and o'er its waves
Hung mysteries of gloom; and in its flow
It rippled on lone shores fair-fringed with flowers,
And deepened as it flowed; his face was sad.
He had his moods of silence and of speech.
I asked him once the reason, and he said:
"When I speak much, my words are only words,
When I speak least, my words are more than words,
When I speak not, I then reveal myself!"
It was his way of saying things -- he spoke
In quaintest riddles; and his face was sad.
And, when he wished, he wove around his words
A nameless spell that marvelously thrilled
The dullest ear. 'Twas strange that he so cold
Could warm the coldest heart; that he so hard
Could soften hardest soul; that he so still
Could rouse the stillest mind: his face was sad.
He spoke of death as if it were a toy
For thought to play with; and of life he spoke
As of a toy not worth the play of thought;
And of this world he spoke as captives speak
Of prisons where they pine; he spoke of men
As one who found pure gold in each of them.
He spoke of women just as if he dreamed
About his mother; and he spoke of God
As if he walked with Him and knew His heart --
But he was weary, and his face was sad.
He had a weary way in all he did,
As if he dragged a chain, or bore a cross;
And yet the weary went to him for rest.
His heart seemed scarce to know an earthly joy,
And yet the joyless were rejoiced by him.
He seemed to have two selves -- his outer self
Was free to any passer-by, and kind to all,
And gentle as a child's; that outer self
Kept open all its gates, that who so wished
Might enter them and find therein a place;
And many entered; but his face was sad.
The inner self he guarded from approach,
He kept it sealed and sacred as a shrine;
He guarded it with silence and reserve;
Its gates were locked and watched, and none might pass
Beyond the portals; and his face was sad.
But whoso entered there -- and few were they --
So very few -- so very, very few,
They never did forget; they said: "How strange!"
They murmured still: "How strange! how strangely strange!"
They went their ways, but wore a lifted look,
And higher meanings came to common words,
And lowly thoughts took on the grandest tones;
And, near or far, they never did forget
The "Shadow and the Shrine"; his face was sad.
He was not young nor old -- yet he was both;
Nor both by turns, but always both at once;
For youth and age commingled in his ways,
His words, his feelings, and his thoughts and acts.
At times the "old man" tottered in his thoughts,
The child played thro' his words; his face was sad.
I one day asked his age; he smiled and said:
"The rose that sleeps upon yon valley's breast,
Just born to-day, is not as young as I;
The moss-robed oak of twice a thousand storms --
An acorn cradled ages long ago --
Is old, in sooth, but not as old as I."
It was his way -- he always answered thus,
But when he did his face was very sad.
|
free_verse
|
Oliver Goldsmith
|
Song From 'The Vicar Of Wakefield'
|
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is to die.
|
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
|
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is to die.
|
octave
|
William Lisle Bowles
|
In Age
|
And art thou he, now "fall'n on evil days,"
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
As in the sight of God intent to seek,
'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways
Of hard adversity, the approving look
Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!
|
And art thou he, now "fall'n on evil days,"
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,
|
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
As in the sight of God intent to seek,
'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways
Of hard adversity, the approving look
Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!
|
sonnet
|
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
|
Fragment - October 22, 1838.
|
Neglected record of a mind neglected,
Unto what "lets and stops" art thou subjected!
The day with all its toils and occupations,
The night with its reflections and sensations,
The future, and the present, and the past,--
All I remember, feel, and hope at last,
All shapes of joy and sorrow, as they pass,--
Find but a dusty image in this glass.
|
Neglected record of a mind neglected,
Unto what "lets and stops" art thou subjected!
|
The day with all its toils and occupations,
The night with its reflections and sensations,
The future, and the present, and the past,--
All I remember, feel, and hope at last,
All shapes of joy and sorrow, as they pass,--
Find but a dusty image in this glass.
|
octave
|
William Lisle Bowles
|
Little Mary's Linnet. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
|
Dear Mary, if thy little bird
Should, all the winter long,
Pleased from the window to be heard,
Repay thee with a song;
A lesson let it still convey
To all with sense endued;
And such the voice, oh! let it say,
The still small voice of love.
|
Dear Mary, if thy little bird
Should, all the winter long,
|
Pleased from the window to be heard,
Repay thee with a song;
A lesson let it still convey
To all with sense endued;
And such the voice, oh! let it say,
The still small voice of love.
|
octave
|
Unknown
|
Nursery Rhyme. IX. Historical
|
The king of France, with twenty thousand men,
Went up the hill, and then came down again;
The king of Spain, with twenty thousand more,
Climb'd the same hill the French had climb'd before.
|
The king of France, with twenty thousand men,
|
Went up the hill, and then came down again;
The king of Spain, with twenty thousand more,
Climb'd the same hill the French had climb'd before.
|
quatrain
|
John Charles McNeill
|
Sonnet
|
To-day was but a dead day in my hands.
Hour by hour did nothing more than pass,
Mere idle winds above the faded grass.
And I, as though a captive held in bands,
Who, seeing a pageant, wonders much, but stands
Apart, saw the sun blaze his course with brass
And sink into his fabled sea of glass
With glory of farewell to many lands.
Thou knowest, thou who talliest life by days,
That I have suffered more than pain of toil,
Ah, more than they whose wounds are soothed with oil,
And they who see new light on beaten ways!
The prisoner I, who grasps his iron bars
And stares out into depth on depth of stars!
|
To-day was but a dead day in my hands.
Hour by hour did nothing more than pass,
Mere idle winds above the faded grass.
And I, as though a captive held in bands,
|
Who, seeing a pageant, wonders much, but stands
Apart, saw the sun blaze his course with brass
And sink into his fabled sea of glass
With glory of farewell to many lands.
Thou knowest, thou who talliest life by days,
That I have suffered more than pain of toil,
Ah, more than they whose wounds are soothed with oil,
And they who see new light on beaten ways!
The prisoner I, who grasps his iron bars
And stares out into depth on depth of stars!
|
sonnet
|
Robert Herrick
|
A Charm, Or An Allay For Love.
|
If so be a toad be laid
In a sheep's-skin newly flay'd,
And that tied to man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever.
|
If so be a toad be laid
|
In a sheep's-skin newly flay'd,
And that tied to man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever.
|
quatrain
|
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