| 1 | @T A Thunderstorm in Town |
| 2 | |
| 3 | She wore a new "terra-cotta" dress, |
| 4 | And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, |
| 5 | Within the hansom's dry recess, |
| 6 | Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless |
| 7 | We sat on, snug and warm. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain |
| 10 | And the glass that had screened our forms before |
| 11 | Flew up, and out she sprang to her door: |
| 12 | I should have kissed her if the rain |
| 13 | Had lasted a minute more. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | @A Thomas Hardy |
| 16 | # |
| 17 | They say my verse is sad: no wonder; |
| 18 | Its narrow measure spans |
| 19 | Tears of eternity, and sorrow, |
| 20 | Not mine, but man's. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | This is for all ill-treated fellows |
| 23 | Unborn and unbegot, |
| 24 | For them to read when they're in trouble |
| 25 | And I am not. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | @A A. E. Housman |
| 28 | # |
| 29 | @T On a Day's Stint |
| 30 | |
| 31 | And long ere dinner-time I have |
| 32 | Full eight close pages wrote. |
| 33 | What, Duty, hast thou now to crave? |
| 34 | Well done, Sir Walter Scott! |
| 35 | |
| 36 | @A Sir Walter Scott |
| 37 | # |
| 38 | @T The Choir Boy |
| 39 | |
| 40 | And when he sang in choruses |
| 41 | His voice o'ertopped the rest, |
| 42 | Which is very inartistic, |
| 43 | But the public like that best. |
| 44 | |
| 45 | @A Anonymous |
| 46 | # |
| 47 | @T For Johnny |
| 48 | |
| 49 | Do not despair |
| 50 | For Johnny-head-air; |
| 51 | He sleeps as sound |
| 52 | As Johnny underground. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | Fetch out no shroud |
| 55 | For Johnny-in-the-cloud; |
| 56 | And keep your tears |
| 57 | For him in after years. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | Better by far |
| 60 | For Johnny-the-bright-star, |
| 61 | To keep your head, |
| 62 | And see his children fed. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | @A John Pudney |
| 65 | # |
| 66 | @T Cock-Crow |
| 67 | |
| 68 | Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night |
| 69 | To be cut down by the sharp axe of light, - |
| 70 | Out of the night, two cocks together crow, |
| 71 | Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow: |
| 72 | And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand, |
| 73 | Heralds of splendour, one at either hand, |
| 74 | Each facing each as in a coat of arms: |
| 75 | The milkers lace their boots up at the farms. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 78 | # |
| 79 | @T After Long Silence |
| 80 | |
| 81 | Speech after long silence; it is right, |
| 82 | All other lovers being estranged or dead, |
| 83 | Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, |
| 84 | The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, |
| 85 | That we descant and yet again descant |
| 86 | Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: |
| 87 | Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young |
| 88 | We loved each other and were ignorant. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | @A W. B. Yeats |
| 91 | # |
| 92 | @T Clouds |
| 93 | |
| 94 | Down the blue night the unending columns press |
| 95 | In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow, |
| 96 | Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow |
| 97 | Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness. |
| 98 | Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless, |
| 99 | And turn with profound gesture vague and slow, |
| 100 | As who would pray good for the world, but know |
| 101 | Their benediction empty as they bless. |
| 102 | |
| 103 | They say that the Dead die not, but remain |
| 104 | Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. |
| 105 | I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, |
| 106 | In wise majestic melancholy train, |
| 107 | And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, |
| 108 | And men coming and going on the earth. |
| 109 | |
| 110 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 111 | # |
| 112 | @T If I should ever by Chance |
| 113 | |
| 114 | If I should ever by chance grow rich |
| 115 | I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, |
| 116 | Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, |
| 117 | And let them all to my elder daughter. |
| 118 | The rent I shall ask of her will be only |
| 119 | Each year's violets, white and lonely, |
| 120 | The first primroses and orchises - |
| 121 | She must find them before I do, that is. |
| 122 | But if she finds a blossom on furze |
| 123 | Without rent they shall all for ever be hers, |
| 124 | Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, |
| 125 | Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, - |
| 126 | I shall give them all to my elder daughter. |
| 127 | |
| 128 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 129 | # |
| 130 | @T Adlestrop |
| 131 | |
| 132 | Yes, I remember Adlestrop - |
| 133 | The name, because one afternoon |
| 134 | Of heat the express-train drew up there |
| 135 | Unwontedly. It was late June. |
| 136 | |
| 137 | The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. |
| 138 | No one left and no one came |
| 139 | On the bare platform. What I saw |
| 140 | Was Adlestrop - only the name |
| 141 | |
| 142 | And willows, willow-herb, and grass, |
| 143 | And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, |
| 144 | No whit less still and lonely fair |
| 145 | Than the high cloudlets in the sky. |
| 146 | |
| 147 | And for that minute a blackbird sang |
| 148 | Close by, and round him, mistier, |
| 149 | Farther and farther, all the birds |
| 150 | Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. |
| 151 | |
| 152 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 153 | # |
| 154 | @T Tall Nettles |
| 155 | |
| 156 | Tall nettles cover up, as they have done |
| 157 | These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough |
| 158 | Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: |
| 159 | Only the elm butt tops the nettles now. |
| 160 | |
| 161 | This corner of the farmyard I like most: |
| 162 | As well as any bloom upon a flower |
| 163 | I like the dust on the nettles, never lost |
| 164 | Except to prove the sweetness of a shower. |
| 165 | |
| 166 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 167 | # |
| 168 | @T The Cherry Trees |
| 169 | |
| 170 | The cherry trees bend over and are shedding |
| 171 | On the old road where all that passed are dead, |
| 172 | Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding |
| 173 | This early May morn when there is none to wed. |
| 174 | |
| 175 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 176 | # |
| 177 | @T What will they do? |
| 178 | |
| 179 | What will they do when I am gone? It is plain |
| 180 | That they will do without me as the rain |
| 181 | Can do without the flowers and the grass |
| 182 | That profit by it and must perish without. |
| 183 | I have but seen them in the loud street pass; |
| 184 | And I was naught to them. I turned about |
| 185 | To see them disappearing carelessly. |
| 186 | But what if I in them as they in me |
| 187 | Nourished what has great value and no price? |
| 188 | Almost I thought that rain thirsts for a draught |
| 189 | Which only in the blossom's chalice lies, |
| 190 | Until that one turned back and lightly laughed. |
| 191 | |
| 192 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 193 | # |
| 194 | @T The Lane |
| 195 | |
| 196 | Some day, I think, there will be people enough |
| 197 | In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries |
| 198 | Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight |
| 199 | Broad lane where now September hides herself |
| 200 | In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse. |
| 201 | Today, where yesterday a hundred sheep |
| 202 | Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway |
| 203 | Of waters that no vessel ever sailed... |
| 204 | It is a kind of spring: the chaffinch tries |
| 205 | His song. For heat it is like summer too. |
| 206 | This might be winter's quiet. While the glint |
| 207 | Of hollies dark in the swollen hedges lasts - |
| 208 | One mile - and those bells ring, little I know |
| 209 | Or heed if time be still the same, until |
| 210 | The lane ends and once more all is the same. |
| 211 | |
| 212 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 213 | # |
| 214 | @T In Memoriam (Easter, 1915) |
| 215 | |
| 216 | The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood |
| 217 | This Eastertide call into mind the men, |
| 218 | Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should |
| 219 | Have gathered them and will do never again. |
| 220 | |
| 221 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 222 | # |
| 223 | @T Failure |
| 224 | |
| 225 | Because God put His adamantine fate |
| 226 | Between my sullen heart and its desire, |
| 227 | I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate, |
| 228 | Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire. |
| 229 | Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy, |
| 230 | But Love was as a flame about my feet; |
| 231 | Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat |
| 232 | Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry - |
| 233 | |
| 234 | All the great courts were quiet in the sun, |
| 235 | And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown |
| 236 | Over the glassy pavement, and begun |
| 237 | To creep within the dusty council-halls. |
| 238 | An idle wind blew round an empty throne |
| 239 | And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls. |
| 240 | |
| 241 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 242 | # |
| 243 | @T Sonnet |
| 244 | |
| 245 | I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true. |
| 246 | Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea. |
| 247 | On gods or fools the high risk falls - on you - |
| 248 | The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me. |
| 249 | Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist. |
| 250 | Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell. |
| 251 | But - there are wanderers in the middle mist, |
| 252 | Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell |
| 253 | Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom: |
| 254 | An old song's lady, a fool in fancy dress, |
| 255 | Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom; |
| 256 | For love of Love, or from heart's loneliness. |
| 257 | Pleasure's not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, and sigh, |
| 258 | And do not love at all. Of these am I. |
| 259 | |
| 260 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 261 | # |
| 262 | @T The Hill |
| 263 | |
| 264 | Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, |
| 265 | Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. |
| 266 | You said, `Through glory and ecstasy we pass; |
| 267 | Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, |
| 268 | When we are old, are old...' `And when we die |
| 269 | All's over that is ours; and life burns on |
| 270 | Through other lovers, other lips,' said I, |
| 271 | `Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!' |
| 272 | |
| 273 | `We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here. |
| 274 | Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!' we said; |
| 275 | `We shall go down with unreluctant tread |
| 276 | Rose-crowned into the darkness!' ...Proud we were, |
| 277 | And laughed, that had such brave true things to say, |
| 278 | - And then you suddenly cried, and turned away. |
| 279 | |
| 280 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 281 | # |
| 282 | @T Song |
| 283 | |
| 284 | All suddenly the wind comes soft, |
| 285 | And Spring is here again; |
| 286 | And the hawthorn quickens with buds of green, |
| 287 | And my heart with buds of pain. |
| 288 | |
| 289 | My heart all Winter lay so numb, |
| 290 | The earth so dead and frore, |
| 291 | That I never thought the Spring would come, |
| 292 | Or my heart wake any more. |
| 293 | |
| 294 | But Winter's broken and earth has woken. |
| 295 | And the small birds cry again; |
| 296 | And the hawthorn hedge puts forth its buds, |
| 297 | And my heart puts forth its pain. |
| 298 | |
| 299 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 300 | # |
| 301 | @T The Way that Lovers Use |
| 302 | |
| 303 | The way that lovers use is this: |
| 304 | They bow, catch hands, with never a word, |
| 305 | And their lips meet, and they do kiss, |
| 306 | - So I have heard. |
| 307 | |
| 308 | They queerly find some healing so, |
| 309 | And strange attainment in the touch; |
| 310 | There is a secret lovers know, |
| 311 | - I have read as much. |
| 312 | |
| 313 | And theirs is no longer joy nor smart, |
| 314 | Changing or ending, night or day; |
| 315 | But mouth to mouth, and heart on heart, |
| 316 | - So lovers say. |
| 317 | |
| 318 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 319 | # |
| 320 | @T Song |
| 321 | |
| 322 | The way of love was thus. |
| 323 | He was born one winter's morn |
| 324 | With hands delicious, |
| 325 | And it was well with us. |
| 326 | |
| 327 | Love came our quiet way, |
| 328 | Lit pride in us, and died in us, |
| 329 | All in a winter's day. |
| 330 | There is no more to say. |
| 331 | |
| 332 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 333 | # |
| 334 | @T Sonnet Reversed |
| 335 | |
| 336 | Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights |
| 337 | Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. |
| 338 | |
| 339 | Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! |
| 340 | Soon they returned, and after strange adventures, |
| 341 | Settled at Balham by the end of June. |
| 342 | Their money was in Can. Pasc. B. Debentures, |
| 343 | And in Antofagastas. Still he went |
| 344 | Cityward daily; still she did abide |
| 345 | At home. And both were really quite content |
| 346 | With work and social pleasures. Then they died. |
| 347 | They left three children (besides George, who drank): |
| 348 | The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell, |
| 349 | William, the head-clerk in the County Bank, |
| 350 | And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well. |
| 351 | |
| 352 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 353 | # |
| 354 | @T A White Rose |
| 355 | |
| 356 | The red rose whispers of passion, |
| 357 | And the white rose breathes of love; |
| 358 | O, the red rose is a falcon, |
| 359 | And the white rose is a dove. |
| 360 | |
| 361 | But I send you a cream-white rosebud |
| 362 | With a flush on its petal tips; |
| 363 | For the love that is purest and sweetest |
| 364 | Has a kiss of desire on the lips. |
| 365 | |
| 366 | @A John Boyle O'Reilly |
| 367 | # |
| 368 | @T Urceus Exit |
| 369 | |
| 370 | I intended an Ode, |
| 371 | And it turn'd to a Sonnet. |
| 372 | It began 'a la mode', |
| 373 | I intended an Ode; |
| 374 | But Rose cross'd the road |
| 375 | In her latest new bonnet; |
| 376 | I intended an Ode; |
| 377 | And it turn'd to a Sonnet. |
| 378 | |
| 379 | @A Austin Dobson |
| 380 | # |
| 381 | @T Pippa's Song |
| 382 | |
| 383 | The year's at the spring, |
| 384 | And day's at the morn; |
| 385 | Morning's at seven; |
| 386 | The hill-side's dew-pearl'd; |
| 387 | The lark's on the wing; |
| 388 | The snail's on the thorn; |
| 389 | God's in His heaven - |
| 390 | All's right with the world! |
| 391 | |
| 392 | @A Robert Browning |
| 393 | # |
| 394 | @T Song |
| 395 | |
| 396 | She is not fair to outward view |
| 397 | As many maidens be, |
| 398 | Her loveliness I never knew |
| 399 | Until she smiled on me; |
| 400 | O, then I saw her eye was bright, |
| 401 | A well of love, a spring of light! |
| 402 | |
| 403 | But now her looks are coy and cold, |
| 404 | To mine they ne'er reply, |
| 405 | And yet I cease not to behold |
| 406 | The love-light in her eye: |
| 407 | Her very frowns are fairer far |
| 408 | Than smiles of other maidens are. |
| 409 | |
| 410 | @A Hartley Coleridge |
| 411 | # |
| 412 | @T Rondeau |
| 413 | |
| 414 | Jenny kiss'd me when we met, |
| 415 | Jumping from the chair she sat in; |
| 416 | Time, you thief, who love to get |
| 417 | Sweets into your list, put that in! |
| 418 | Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, |
| 419 | Say that health and wealth have miss'd me, |
| 420 | Say I'm growing old, but add, |
| 421 | Jenny kiss'd me. |
| 422 | |
| 423 | @A J. H. Leigh Hunt |
| 424 | # |
| 425 | @T A Drinking Song |
| 426 | |
| 427 | Bacchus must now his power resign - |
| 428 | I am the only God of Wine! |
| 429 | It is not fit the wretch should be |
| 430 | In competition set with me, |
| 431 | Who can drink ten times more than he. |
| 432 | |
| 433 | Make a new world, ye powers divine! |
| 434 | Stock'd with nothing else but Wine: |
| 435 | Let Wine its only product be, |
| 436 | Let Wine be earth, and air, and sea - |
| 437 | And let that Wine be all for me! |
| 438 | |
| 439 | @A Henry Carey |
| 440 | # |
| 441 | I never had a piece of toast |
| 442 | Particularly long and wide, |
| 443 | But fell upon the sanded floor |
| 444 | And always on the buttered side. |
| 445 | |
| 446 | @A James Payn |
| 447 | # |
| 448 | @T Summer Evening |
| 449 | |
| 450 | The frog, half fearful, jumps across the path, |
| 451 | And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve |
| 452 | Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath; |
| 453 | My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive, |
| 454 | Till past - and then the cricket sings more strong, |
| 455 | And grasshoppers in merry mood still wear |
| 456 | The short night weary with their fretting song. |
| 457 | Up from behind the mole-hill jumps the hare, |
| 458 | Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank |
| 459 | The yellowhammer flutters in short fears |
| 460 | From off its nest hid in the grasses rank, |
| 461 | And drops again when no more noise it hears. |
| 462 | Thus nature's human link and endless thrall, |
| 463 | Proud man, still seems the enemy of all. |
| 464 | |
| 465 | @A John Clare |
| 466 | # |
| 467 | @T Diamond Cut Diamond |
| 468 | |
| 469 | Two cats |
| 470 | One up a tree |
| 471 | One under the tree |
| 472 | The cat up a tree is he |
| 473 | The cat under the tree is she |
| 474 | The tree is witch elm, just incidentally. |
| 475 | He takes no notice of she, she takes no notice of he. |
| 476 | He stares at the woolly clouds passing, she stares at the tree. |
| 477 | There's been a lot written about cats, by Old Possum, Yeats and |
| 478 | Company |
| 479 | But not Alfred de Musset or Lord Tennyson or Poe or anybody |
| 480 | Wrote about one cat under, and one cat up, a tree. |
| 481 | God knows why this should be left for me |
| 482 | Except I like cats as cats be |
| 483 | Especially one cat up |
| 484 | And one cat under |
| 485 | A witch elm |
| 486 | Tree. |
| 487 | |
| 488 | @A Ewart Milne |
| 489 | # |
| 490 | @T Time and Love |
| 491 | |
| 492 | When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced |
| 493 | The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age; |
| 494 | When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed, |
| 495 | And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; |
| 496 | |
| 497 | When I have seen the hungry ocean gain |
| 498 | Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, |
| 499 | And the firm soil win of the watery main, |
| 500 | Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; |
| 501 | |
| 502 | When I have seen such interchange of state, |
| 503 | Or state itself confounded to decay, |
| 504 | Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate - |
| 505 | That Time will come and take my Love away: |
| 506 | |
| 507 | - This thought is as a death, which cannot choose |
| 508 | But weep to have that which it fears to lose. |
| 509 | |
| 510 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 511 | # |
| 512 | Under the greenwood tree |
| 513 | Who loves to lie with me, |
| 514 | And turn his merry note |
| 515 | Unto the sweet bird's throat - |
| 516 | Come hither, come hither, come hither ! |
| 517 | Here shall he see |
| 518 | No enemy |
| 519 | But winter and rough weather. |
| 520 | |
| 521 | Who doth ambition shun |
| 522 | And loves to live i' the sun, |
| 523 | Seeking the food he eats |
| 524 | And pleased with what he gets - |
| 525 | Come hither, come hither, come hither! |
| 526 | Here shall he see |
| 527 | No enemy |
| 528 | But winter and rough weather. |
| 529 | |
| 530 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 531 | # |
| 532 | @T Absence |
| 533 | |
| 534 | Being your slave, what should I do but tend |
| 535 | Upon the hours and times of your desire? |
| 536 | I have no precious time at all to spend |
| 537 | Nor services to do, till you require: |
| 538 | |
| 539 | Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour |
| 540 | Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, |
| 541 | Nor think the bitterness of absence sour |
| 542 | When you have bid your servant once adieu: |
| 543 | |
| 544 | Nor dare I question with my jealous thought |
| 545 | Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, |
| 546 | But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought |
| 547 | Save, where you are, how happy you make those;- |
| 548 | |
| 549 | So true a fool is love, that in your will, |
| 550 | Though you do anything, he thinks no ill. |
| 551 | |
| 552 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 553 | # |
| 554 | To me, fair Friend, you never can be old, |
| 555 | For as you were when first your eye I eyed |
| 556 | Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold |
| 557 | Have from the forests shook three summers' pride; |
| 558 | Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd |
| 559 | In process of the seasons have I seen, |
| 560 | Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, |
| 561 | Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. |
| 562 | |
| 563 | Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, |
| 564 | Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; |
| 565 | So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, |
| 566 | Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: |
| 567 | |
| 568 | For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,- |
| 569 | Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead. |
| 570 | |
| 571 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 572 | # |
| 573 | @T To His Love |
| 574 | |
| 575 | Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? |
| 576 | Thou art more lovely and more temperate: |
| 577 | Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, |
| 578 | And summer's lease hath all too short a date: |
| 579 | |
| 580 | Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, |
| 581 | And often is his gold complexion dimm'd: |
| 582 | And every fair from fair sometime declines, |
| 583 | By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd. |
| 584 | |
| 585 | But thy eternal summer shall not fade |
| 586 | Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; |
| 587 | Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, |
| 588 | When in eternal lines to time thou growest: |
| 589 | |
| 590 | So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, |
| 591 | So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. |
| 592 | |
| 593 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 594 | # |
| 595 | @T Carpe Diem |
| 596 | |
| 597 | O Mistress, where are you roaming? |
| 598 | O stay and hear! your true-love's coming |
| 599 | That can sing both high and low; |
| 600 | Trip no further, pretty sweeting, |
| 601 | Journey's end in lovers' meeting - |
| 602 | Every wise man's son doth know. |
| 603 | |
| 604 | What is love? 'tis not hereafter; |
| 605 | Present mirth hath present laughter; |
| 606 | What's to come is still unsure; |
| 607 | In delay there lies no plenty,- |
| 608 | Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty, |
| 609 | Youth's a stuff will not endure. |
| 610 | |
| 611 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 612 | # |
| 613 | @T A Sea Dirge |
| 614 | |
| 615 | Full fathom five thy father lies: |
| 616 | Of his bones are coral made; |
| 617 | Those are peals that were his eyes; |
| 618 | Nothing of him that doth fade |
| 619 | But doth suffer a sea-change |
| 620 | Into something rich and strange. |
| 621 | Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell; |
| 622 | Hark! now I hear them,- |
| 623 | Ding, dong, bell. |
| 624 | |
| 625 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 626 | # |
| 627 | @T On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey |
| 628 | |
| 629 | Mortality, behold and fear, |
| 630 | What a change of flesh is here! |
| 631 | Think how many royal bones |
| 632 | Sleep within these heaps of stones; |
| 633 | Here they lie, had realms and lands, |
| 634 | Who now want strength to stir their hands, |
| 635 | Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust |
| 636 | They preach, `In greatness is no trust.' |
| 637 | Here's an acre sown indeed |
| 638 | With the richest royallest seed |
| 639 | That the earth did e'er suck in |
| 640 | Since the first man died for sin: |
| 641 | Here the bones of birth have cried |
| 642 | `Though gods they were, as men they died!' |
| 643 | Here are sands, ignoble things, |
| 644 | Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings: |
| 645 | Here's a world of pomp and state |
| 646 | Buried in dust, once dead by fate. |
| 647 | |
| 648 | @A F. Beaumont |
| 649 | # |
| 650 | @T The Terror of Death |
| 651 | |
| 652 | When I have fears that I may cease to be |
| 653 | Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, |
| 654 | Before high-piled books, in charact'ry |
| 655 | Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; |
| 656 | |
| 657 | When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, |
| 658 | Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, |
| 659 | And think that I may never live to trace |
| 660 | Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; |
| 661 | |
| 662 | And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! |
| 663 | That I shall never look upon thee more, |
| 664 | Never have relish in the fairy power |
| 665 | Of unreflecting love - then on the shore |
| 666 | |
| 667 | Of the wide world I stand alone, and think |
| 668 | Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. |
| 669 | |
| 670 | @A J. Keats |
| 671 | # |
| 672 | @T Young and Old |
| 673 | |
| 674 | When all the world is young, lad, |
| 675 | And all the trees are green; |
| 676 | And every goose a swan, lad, |
| 677 | And every lass a queen; |
| 678 | Then hey for boot and horse, lad, |
| 679 | And round the world away; |
| 680 | Young blood must have its course, lad, |
| 681 | And every dog his day. |
| 682 | |
| 683 | When all the world is old, lad, |
| 684 | And all the trees are brown; |
| 685 | And all the sport is stale, lad, |
| 686 | And all the wheels run down; |
| 687 | Creep home, and take your place there, |
| 688 | The spent and maimed among: |
| 689 | God grant you find one face there, |
| 690 | You loved when all was young. |
| 691 | |
| 692 | @A C. Kingsley |
| 693 | # |
| 694 | @T Pied Beauty |
| 695 | |
| 696 | Glory be to God for dappled things- |
| 697 | For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow; |
| 698 | For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; |
| 699 | Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; |
| 700 | Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough; |
| 701 | And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. |
| 702 | |
| 703 | All things counter, original, spare, strange; |
| 704 | Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) |
| 705 | With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; |
| 706 | He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: |
| 707 | Praise Him. |
| 708 | |
| 709 | @A Gerard Manley-Hopkins |
| 710 | # |
| 711 | @T The Lake Isle of Innisfree |
| 712 | |
| 713 | I will arise, and go to Innisfree, |
| 714 | And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; |
| 715 | Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the hiney bee, |
| 716 | And live alone in the bee-loud glade. |
| 717 | |
| 718 | And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, |
| 719 | Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; |
| 720 | There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow, |
| 721 | And evening full of the linnet's wings. |
| 722 | |
| 723 | I will arise and go now, for always night and day |
| 724 | I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shores; |
| 725 | While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, |
| 726 | I hear it in the deep heart's core. |
| 727 | |
| 728 | @A W.B. Yeats |
| 729 | # |
| 730 | @T The Soldier |
| 731 | |
| 732 | If I should die, think only this of me: |
| 733 | That there's some corner of a foreign field |
| 734 | That is for ever England. There shall be |
| 735 | In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; |
| 736 | A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, |
| 737 | Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, |
| 738 | Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. |
| 739 | |
| 740 | And think, this heart, all evil shed away, |
| 741 | A pulse in the eternal mind, no less |
| 742 | Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; |
| 743 | Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; |
| 744 | And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, |
| 745 | In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. |
| 746 | |
| 747 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 748 | # |
| 749 | @T Towers |
| 750 | |
| 751 | Protected from the gales, we, |
| 752 | By the line of trees along the bank |
| 753 | From storms that batter Fife |
| 754 | And life here through the changing seasons - |
| 755 | Unchanging, a lonely beauty, |
| 756 | No reason to look to the rush |
| 757 | Beyond the rustle of the bushes. |
| 758 | But through the curtain of our trees, |
| 759 | The distant towers like castle turrets |
| 760 | Gleam by day and shine by night, |
| 761 | Holding, choking |
| 762 | Invisible souls within the shearing concrete height. |
| 763 | |
| 764 | @A Julian Smart |
| 765 | # |
| 766 | @T Break of Day |
| 767 | |
| 768 | Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be? |
| 769 | O wilt thou therefore rise from me? |
| 770 | Why should we rise, because 'tis light? |
| 771 | Did we lie down, because 'twas night? |
| 772 | Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither, |
| 773 | Should in despite of light keep us together. |
| 774 | |
| 775 | Light hath no tongue, but is all eye; |
| 776 | If it could speak as well as spy, |
| 777 | This were the worst, that it could say, |
| 778 | That being well, I fain would stay, |
| 779 | And that I loved my heart and honour so, |
| 780 | That I would not from him, that had them, go. |
| 781 | |
| 782 | Must business thee from hence remove? |
| 783 | Oh, that's the worst disease of love, |
| 784 | The poor, the foul, the false, love can |
| 785 | Admit. but not the busied man. |
| 786 | He which hath business, and makes love, doth do |
| 787 | Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo. |
| 788 | |
| 789 | @A John Donne |
| 790 | # |
| 791 | @T The Computation |
| 792 | |
| 793 | For the first twenty years, since yesterday, |
| 794 | I scarce believed, thou could'st be gone away, |
| 795 | For forty more, I fed on favours past, |
| 796 | And forty on hopes, that thou would'st, they might last. |
| 797 | Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two, |
| 798 | A thousand, I did neither think, nor do, |
| 799 | Or not divide, all being one thought of you; |
| 800 | Or in a thousand more, forget that too. |
| 801 | Yet call not this long life; but think that I |
| 802 | Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die? |
| 803 | |
| 804 | @A John Dunne |
| 805 | # |
| 806 | @T A Red, Red Rose |
| 807 | |
| 808 | O, my love's like a red, red rose, |
| 809 | That's newly sprung in June. |
| 810 | O, my love's like the melodie, |
| 811 | That's sweetly play'd in tune. |
| 812 | |
| 813 | As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, |
| 814 | So deep in love am I, |
| 815 | And I will love thee still, my Dear, |
| 816 | Till a' the seas gang dry. |
| 817 | |
| 818 | Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear, |
| 819 | And the rocks melt wi' the sun! |
| 820 | O, I will love thee still, my Dear, |
| 821 | While the sands o' life shall run. |
| 822 | |
| 823 | And fare thee weel, my only Love, |
| 824 | And fare thee weel a while! |
| 825 | And I will come again, my Love, |
| 826 | Tho' it were ten thousand mile! |
| 827 | |
| 828 | @A Robert Burns |
| 829 | # |
| 830 | @T On Charles II |
| 831 | |
| 832 | Here lies our sovereign Lord the King, |
| 833 | Whose word no man relies on, |
| 834 | Who never said a foolish thing |
| 835 | Nor ever did a wise one. |
| 836 | |
| 837 | @A Earl of Rochester |
| 838 | # |
| 839 | @T The Four Georges |
| 840 | |
| 841 | George the First was always reckoned |
| 842 | Vile - but viler George the Second; |
| 843 | And what mortal ever heard |
| 844 | Any good of George the Third? |
| 845 | When from earth the Fourth descended, |
| 846 | God be praised, the Georges ended! |
| 847 | |
| 848 | @A W.S. Landor |
| 849 | # |
| 850 | @T Frederick, Prince of Wales |
| 851 | |
| 852 | Here lies Fred, |
| 853 | Who was alive, and is dead, |
| 854 | Had it been his father, |
| 855 | I had much rather. |
| 856 | Had it been his brother, |
| 857 | Still better than another. |
| 858 | Had it been his sister, |
| 859 | No one would have missed her. |
| 860 | Had it been the whole generation, |
| 861 | Still better for the nation. |
| 862 | But since 'tis only Fred, |
| 863 | Who was alive, and is dead, |
| 864 | There's no more to be said. |
| 865 | |
| 866 | @A W.M. Thackeray |
| 867 | # |
| 868 | @T On an Old Woman |
| 869 | |
| 870 | Mycilla dyes her locks, 'tis said, |
| 871 | But 'tis a foul aspersion; |
| 872 | She buys them black, they therefore need |
| 873 | No subsequent immersion. |
| 874 | |
| 875 | @A W. Cowper |
| 876 | # |
| 877 | @T An Epitaph on Sir John Vanbrugh (Architect) |
| 878 | |
| 879 | Under this stone, reader, survey |
| 880 | Dead Sir John Vanbrugh's house of clay. |
| 881 | Lie heavy on him, earth! for he |
| 882 | Laid many heavy loads on thee. |
| 883 | |
| 884 | @A A. Evans |
| 885 | # |
| 886 | @T True Joy in Possession |
| 887 | |
| 888 | To have a thing is little, |
| 889 | If you're not allowed to show it, |
| 890 | And to know a thing is nothing |
| 891 | Unless others know you know it. |
| 892 | |
| 893 | @A Lord Neaves |
| 894 | # |
| 895 | @T To His Mistress Going To Bed |
| 896 | |
| 897 | Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, |
| 898 | Until I labour, I in labour lie. |
| 899 | The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, |
| 900 | Is tired with standing though he never fight. |
| 901 | Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering, |
| 902 | But a far fairer world encompassing. |
| 903 | Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, |
| 904 | That th'eyes of busy fools may be stopt there. |
| 905 | Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime |
| 906 | Tells me from you, that now it is bed time. |
| 907 | Off with that happy busk, which I envy, |
| 908 | That still can be, and still can stand so nigh. |
| 909 | Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals, |
| 910 | As when from flowry meads the hill's shadow steals. |
| 911 | @P |
| 912 | Off with that wiry coronet and show |
| 913 | The hairy diadem which on you doth grow: |
| 914 | Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread |
| 915 | In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed. |
| 916 | In such white robes, heaven's angels used to be |
| 917 | Received by men; thou angel bring'st with thee |
| 918 | A heaven like Mahomet's Paradise; and though |
| 919 | Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know, |
| 920 | By this these angels from an evil sprite, |
| 921 | Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright. |
| 922 | |
| 923 | Licence my roving hands, and let them go, |
| 924 | Before, behind, between, above, below. |
| 925 | O my America! my new-found-land, |
| 926 | My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned, |
| 927 | My mine of precious stones, My empery, |
| 928 | How blest am I in this discovering thee! |
| 929 | To enter in these bonds, is to be free; |
| 930 | Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be. |
| 931 | @P |
| 932 | Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, |
| 933 | As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, |
| 934 | To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use |
| 935 | Are like Atlanta's balls, cast in men's views, |
| 936 | That when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem, |
| 937 | His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them. |
| 938 | Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made |
| 939 | For lay-men, are all women this arrayed; |
| 940 | Themselves are mystic books, which only we |
| 941 | (Whom their imputed grace will dignify) |
| 942 | Must see revealed. Then since that I may know, |
| 943 | As liberally, as to a midwife, show |
| 944 | Thyself: cast all, yea, this white linen hence, |
| 945 | There is no penance due to innocence. |
| 946 | |
| 947 | To teach thee, I am naked first; why then |
| 948 | What needst thou have more covering than a man. |
| 949 | |
| 950 | @A John Donne |
| 951 | # |
| 952 | @T Cheltenham Waters |
| 953 | |
| 954 | Here lie I and my four daughters, |
| 955 | Killed by drinking Cheltenham waters. |
| 956 | Had we but stuck to Epsom salts, |
| 957 | We wouldn't have been in these here vaults. |
| 958 | |
| 959 | @A Anonymous |
| 960 | # |
| 961 | @T Hypocrisy |
| 962 | |
| 963 | Hypocrisy will serve as well |
| 964 | To propagate a church as zeal; |
| 965 | As persecution and promotion |
| 966 | Do equally advance devotion: |
| 967 | So round white stones will serve, they say, |
| 968 | As well as eggs to make hens lay. |
| 969 | |
| 970 | @A Samuel Butler |
| 971 | # |
| 972 | @T The Microbe |
| 973 | |
| 974 | The Microbe is so very small |
| 975 | You cannot make him out at all, |
| 976 | But many sanguine people hope |
| 977 | To see him through a microscope. |
| 978 | His jointed tongue that lies beneath |
| 979 | A hundred curious rows of teeth; |
| 980 | His seven tufted tails with lots |
| 981 | Of lovely pink and purple spots, |
| 982 | On each of which a pattern stands, |
| 983 | Composed of forty separate bands; |
| 984 | His eyebrows of a tender green; |
| 985 | All of these have never yet been seen - |
| 986 | But Scientists, who ought to know, |
| 987 | Assures us that they must be so... |
| 988 | Oh! let us never, never doubt |
| 989 | What nobody is sure about! |
| 990 | |
| 991 | @A Hilaire Belloc |
| 992 | # |
| 993 | @T Slug |
| 994 | |
| 995 | Slugs, soft upon damp carpets of rich food, |
| 996 | Make sullen love with bubbles and with sighs, |
| 997 | Silvery flaccid. They consider lewd |
| 998 | The use of eyes. |
| 999 | |
| 1000 | @A John Pudney |
| 1001 | # |
| 1002 | @T The Doctor Prescribes |
| 1003 | |
| 1004 | A lady lately, that was fully sped |
| 1005 | Of all the pleasures of the marriage-bed |
| 1006 | Ask'd a physician, whether were more fit |
| 1007 | For Venus' sports, the morning or the night? |
| 1008 | The good old man made answer, as 'twas meet, |
| 1009 | The morn more wholesome, but the night more sweet. |
| 1010 | Nay then, i'faith, quoth she, since we have leisure, |
| 1011 | We'll to't each morn for health, each night for pleasure. |
| 1012 | |
| 1013 | @A Anonymous |
| 1014 | # |
| 1015 | @T On Mary Ann |
| 1016 | |
| 1017 | Mary Ann has gone to rest, |
| 1018 | Safe at last on Abraham's breast, |
| 1019 | Which may be nuts for Mary Ann, |
| 1020 | But is certainly rough on Abraham. |
| 1021 | |
| 1022 | @A Anonymous |
| 1023 | # |
| 1024 | @T Misfortunes never come Singly |
| 1025 | |
| 1026 | Making toast at the fireside, |
| 1027 | Nurse fell in the grate and died; |
| 1028 | And what makes it ten times worse, |
| 1029 | All the toast was burnt with nurse. |
| 1030 | |
| 1031 | @A Harry Graham |
| 1032 | # |
| 1033 | @T Tender Heartedness |
| 1034 | |
| 1035 | Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, |
| 1036 | Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; |
| 1037 | Now, although the room grows chilly, |
| 1038 | I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy. |
| 1039 | |
| 1040 | @A Harry Graham |
| 1041 | # |
| 1042 | @T Miss Twye |
| 1043 | |
| 1044 | Miss Twye was soaping her breasts in her bath |
| 1045 | When she heard behind her a meaning laugh |
| 1046 | And to her amazement she discovered |
| 1047 | A wicked man in the bathroom cupboard. |
| 1048 | |
| 1049 | @A Gavin Ewart |
| 1050 | # |
| 1051 | @T The Old Loony of Lyme |
| 1052 | |
| 1053 | There was an old loony of Lyme, |
| 1054 | Whose candour was simply sublime; |
| 1055 | When they asked, 'Are you there?' |
| 1056 | 'Yes,' he said, 'but take care, |
| 1057 | For I'm never "all there" at a time.' |
| 1058 | |
| 1059 | @A Anonymous |
| 1060 | # |
| 1061 | @T The Young Lady from Wantage |
| 1062 | |
| 1063 | There was a young lady from Wantage |
| 1064 | Of whom the town clerk took advantage. |
| 1065 | Said the borough surveyor: |
| 1066 | 'Indeed you must pay `er. |
| 1067 | You've totally altered her frontage.' |
| 1068 | |
| 1069 | @A Anonymous |
| 1070 | # |
| 1071 | @T The Modern Hiawatha |
| 1072 | |
| 1073 | When he killed the Mudjokivis |
| 1074 | Of the skin he made him mittens, |
| 1075 | Made them with the fur side inside, |
| 1076 | Made them with the skin side outside, |
| 1077 | He, to get the warm side inside, |
| 1078 | Put the inside skin side outside; |
| 1079 | He, to get the cold side outside, |
| 1080 | Put the warm side fur side inside. |
| 1081 | That's why he put fur side inside, |
| 1082 | Why he put the skin side outside, |
| 1083 | Why he turned them inside outside. |
| 1084 | |
| 1085 | @A Anonymous |
| 1086 | # |
| 1087 | @T Is it a Month |
| 1088 | |
| 1089 | Is it a month since I and you |
| 1090 | In the starlight of Glen Dubh |
| 1091 | Stretched beneath a hazel bough |
| 1092 | Kissed from ear and throat to brow, |
| 1093 | Since your fingers, neck, and chin |
| 1094 | Made the bars that fence me in, |
| 1095 | Till Paradise seemed but a wreck |
| 1096 | Near your bosom, brow and neck |
| 1097 | And stars grew wilder, growing wise, |
| 1098 | In the splendour of your eyes! |
| 1099 | Since the weasel wandered near |
| 1100 | Whilst we kissed from ear to ear |
| 1101 | And the wet and withered leaves |
| 1102 | Blew about your cap and sleeves, |
| 1103 | Till the moon sank tired through the ledge |
| 1104 | Of the wet and windy hedge? |
| 1105 | And we took the starry lane |
| 1106 | Back to Dublin town again. |
| 1107 | |
| 1108 | @A J. M. Synge |
| 1109 | @A (1871-1909) |
| 1110 | # |
| 1111 | @T The Lark in the Clear Air |
| 1112 | |
| 1113 | Dear thoughts are in my mind, |
| 1114 | And my soul soars enchanted, |
| 1115 | As I hear the sweet lark sing |
| 1116 | In the clear air of the day. |
| 1117 | For a tender beaming smile |
| 1118 | To my hope has been granted, |
| 1119 | And tomorrow she shall hear |
| 1120 | All my fond heart would say. |
| 1121 | |
| 1122 | I shall tell her all my love, |
| 1123 | All my soul's adoration; |
| 1124 | And I think she will hear me |
| 1125 | And will not say me nay. |
| 1126 | It is this that fills my soul |
| 1127 | With its joyous elation, |
| 1128 | As I hear the sweet lark sing |
| 1129 | In the clear air of the day. |
| 1130 | |
| 1131 | @A Samuel Ferguson |
| 1132 | @A (1810-1886) |
| 1133 | # |
| 1134 | @T The Self-Unseeing |
| 1135 | |
| 1136 | Here is the ancient floor, |
| 1137 | Footworn and hollowed and thin, |
| 1138 | Here was the former door |
| 1139 | Where the dead feet walked in. |
| 1140 | |
| 1141 | She sat here in her chair, |
| 1142 | Smiling into the fire; |
| 1143 | He who played stood there, |
| 1144 | Bowing it higher and higher. |
| 1145 | |
| 1146 | Childlike, I danced in a dream; |
| 1147 | Blessings emblazoned that day; |
| 1148 | Everything glowed with a gleam; |
| 1149 | Yet we were looking away! |
| 1150 | |
| 1151 | @A Thomas Hardy |
| 1152 | # |
| 1153 | @T Cean Dubh Deelish (Darling Black Head) |
| 1154 | |
| 1155 | Put your head, darling, darling, darling, |
| 1156 | Your darling black head my heart above; |
| 1157 | O mouth of honey, with thyme for fragrance, |
| 1158 | Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love? |
| 1159 | |
| 1160 | O many and many a young girl for me is pining, |
| 1161 | Letting her locks of gold to the cold wind free, |
| 1162 | For me, the foremost of our gay young fellows; |
| 1163 | But I'd leave a hundred, pure love, for thee! |
| 1164 | |
| 1165 | Put your head, darling, darling, darling, |
| 1166 | Your darling black head my heart above; |
| 1167 | O mouth of honey, with thyme for fragrance, |
| 1168 | Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love? |
| 1169 | |
| 1170 | @A Samuel Ferguson |
| 1171 | @A (1810-1886) |
| 1172 | # |
| 1173 | @T From 'The Amores' |
| 1174 | |
| 1175 | Ring of mine, made to encircle my pretty mistress's finger, |
| 1176 | Valuable only in terms of the giver's love, |
| 1177 | Go, and good welcome! May she receive you with pleasure, |
| 1178 | Slip you over her knuckle there and then. |
| 1179 | May you fit her as well as she fits me, rub snugly |
| 1180 | Around her finger, precisely the right size! |
| 1181 | Lucky ring to be handled by my mistress! I'm developing |
| 1182 | A miserable jealousy of my own gift. |
| 1183 | But suppose I could be the ring, transformed in an instant |
| 1184 | By some famous magician's art - |
| 1185 | Then, when I felt like running my hand down Corinna's |
| 1186 | Dress, and exploring her breasts, I'd work |
| 1187 | Myself off her finger (tight squeeze or not) and by crafty |
| 1188 | Cunning drop into her cleavage. Let's say |
| 1189 | She was writing a private letter - I'd have to seal it, |
| 1190 | @P |
| 1191 | And a dry stone sticks on wax: |
| 1192 | She's moisten me with her tongue. Pure bliss - provided |
| 1193 | I didn't have to endorse any hostile remarks |
| 1194 | Against myself. If she wanted to put me away in her |
| 1195 | Jewel-box, I'd cling tighter, refuse to budge. |
| 1196 | (Don't worry, my sweet, I'd never cause you discomfort, |
| 1197 | or burden |
| 1198 | Your slender finger with an unwelcome weight.) |
| 1199 | Wear me whenever you take a hot shower, don't worry |
| 1200 | If water runs under your gem - |
| 1201 | Though I fancy the sight of you naked would arise my |
| 1202 | passions, leave me |
| 1203 | A ring of visibly virile parts... |
| 1204 | Pure wishful thinking! On your way, then, little present, |
| 1205 | And show her you come with all my love. |
| 1206 | |
| 1207 | @A Ovid |
| 1208 | @A (BC 43-AD 17) |
| 1209 | # |
| 1210 | @T After an Interval |
| 1211 | |
| 1212 | After an interval, reading, here in the midnight, |
| 1213 | With the great stars looking on -- all the starts of Orion looking, |
| 1214 | And the silent Pleiades -- and the duo looking of Saturn and ruddy Mars; |
| 1215 | Pondering, reading my own songs, after a long interval, |
| 1216 | (sorrow and death familiar now) |
| 1217 | Ere Closing the book, what pride! what joy! to find them |
| 1218 | Standing so well the test of death and night, |
| 1219 | And the duo of Saturn and Mars! |
| 1220 | |
| 1221 | @A Walt Whitman |
| 1222 | # |
| 1223 | @T A Last Poem |
| 1224 | |
| 1225 | A last poem, and a last, and yet another -- |
| 1226 | O, when can I give over? |
| 1227 | Must I drive the pen until the blood bursts from my nails |
| 1228 | And my breath fails and I shake with fever? |
| 1229 | Shall I never hear her whisper softly, |
| 1230 | "But this is one written by you only, |
| 1231 | And for me only; therefore, love, have done"? |
| 1232 | |
| 1233 | @A Robert Graves |
| 1234 | # |
| 1235 | I have no pain, dear Mother, now, |
| 1236 | But, oh, I am so dry; |
| 1237 | So connect me to a brewery, |
| 1238 | And leave me there to die. |
| 1239 | |
| 1240 | @A Anonymous |
| 1241 | # |
| 1242 | @T Found Poem (from the Hound of the Baskervilles) |
| 1243 | |
| 1244 | I stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol |
| 1245 | To the dreaful, shimmering head, |
| 1246 | But it was useless to press the trigger, |
| 1247 | The giant hound was dead. |
| 1248 | |
| 1249 | @A A. Conan Doyle |
| 1250 | # |
| 1251 | @T Passing through the Carron Iron Works |
| 1252 | |
| 1253 | We cam na here to view your warks, |
| 1254 | In hopes to be mair wise, |
| 1255 | But only, lest we gang to Hell, |
| 1256 | It may be nae surprise. |
| 1257 | |
| 1258 | @A Robert Burns |
| 1259 | # |
| 1260 | @T Imitation of Pope: A Compliment to the Ladies |
| 1261 | |
| 1262 | Wondrous the Gods, more wondrous are the Men, |
| 1263 | More Wondrous Wondrous still the Cock & Hen, |
| 1264 | More Wondrous still the Table, Stool & Chair; |
| 1265 | But Ah! More wondrous still the Charming Fair. |
| 1266 | |
| 1267 | @A William Blake |
| 1268 | # |
| 1269 | @T Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast |
| 1270 | |
| 1271 | Have ye beheld (with much delight) |
| 1272 | A red rose peeping through a white? |
| 1273 | Or else a cherry (double grac'd) |
| 1274 | Within a lily? Centre plac'd? |
| 1275 | Or ever mark'd the pretty beam, |
| 1276 | A strawberry shows half drown'd in cream? |
| 1277 | Or seen rich rubies blushing through |
| 1278 | A pure smooth pearl, and orient too? |
| 1279 | So like to this, nay all the rest, |
| 1280 | Is each neat niplet of her breast. |
| 1281 | |
| 1282 | @A Robert Herrick |
| 1283 | # |
| 1284 | @T Life |
| 1285 | |
| 1286 | When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; |
| 1287 | Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; |
| 1288 | Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay: |
| 1289 | Tomorrow's falser than the former day; |
| 1290 | Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blessed |
| 1291 | With some new joys, cut off what we possessed. |
| 1292 | Strange cozenage! None would live past years again, |
| 1293 | Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; |
| 1294 | And from the dregs of life think to receive |
| 1295 | What the first sprightly running could not give. |
| 1296 | |
| 1297 | @A John Dryden |
| 1298 | # |
| 1299 | @T To a Yellow Hammer |
| 1300 | |
| 1301 | Poor yellow-breasted little thing, |
| 1302 | I would thou had'st been on the wing, |
| 1303 | 'Ere 'twas my fate on thee to bring |
| 1304 | Thy death so soon; |
| 1305 | Thou'lt never more be heard to sing |
| 1306 | In joyful tune. |
| 1307 | |
| 1308 | Too late I saw thee 'mongst the dust, |
| 1309 | Gambling so gay in simple trust, |
| 1310 | I knew that with my wheel I must |
| 1311 | Thy life destroy; |
| 1312 | How cruel quick my rubber crushed |
| 1313 | Thee in thy joy. |
| 1314 | |
| 1315 | @A Anonymous |
| 1316 | # |
| 1317 | @T Wrecked |
| 1318 | |
| 1319 | A girl, a wheel, |
| 1320 | A shock, a squeal, |
| 1321 | A header, a thump, |
| 1322 | A girl in a lump, |
| 1323 | A bloomer all torn, |
| 1324 | A maiden forlorn. |
| 1325 | |
| 1326 | @A Annymous |
| 1327 | # |
| 1328 | @T Gather ye Rosebuds |
| 1329 | |
| 1330 | Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, |
| 1331 | Old Time is still a-flying; |
| 1332 | And this same flower that smiles today |
| 1333 | Tomorrow will be dying. |
| 1334 | |
| 1335 | The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun, |
| 1336 | The higher he's a-getting, |
| 1337 | The sooner will his race be run, |
| 1338 | And nearer he's to setting. |
| 1339 | |
| 1340 | That age is best, which is the first, |
| 1341 | When youth and blood are warmer |
| 1342 | But being spent, the worse, and worst |
| 1343 | Times still succeed the former. |
| 1344 | |
| 1345 | Then be not coy, but use your time, |
| 1346 | And while you may, go marry; |
| 1347 | For having lost but once your prime, |
| 1348 | You may for ever tarry. |
| 1349 | |
| 1350 | @A Robert Herrick |
| 1351 | # |
| 1352 | @T My Love's a Match |
| 1353 | |
| 1354 | My love's a match in beauty |
| 1355 | For every flower that blows, |
| 1356 | Her little ear's a lily, |
| 1357 | Her velvet cheek a rose; |
| 1358 | Her locks like gilly gowans |
| 1359 | Hang golden to her knww. |
| 1360 | If I were King of Ireland, |
| 1361 | My Queen she'd surely be. |
| 1362 | |
| 1363 | Her eyes are fond forget-me-nots, |
| 1364 | And no such snow is seen |
| 1365 | Upon the heaving hawthorn bush |
| 1366 | As crests her bodice green. |
| 1367 | The thrushes when she's talking |
| 1368 | Sit listening on the tree. |
| 1369 | If I were King of Ireland, |
| 1370 | My Queen she'd surely be. |
| 1371 | |
| 1372 | @A Alfred P. Graves |
| 1373 | # |
| 1374 | @T In a Gondola |
| 1375 | |
| 1376 | The moth's kiss, first! |
| 1377 | Kiss me as if you made believe |
| 1378 | You were not sure, this eve, |
| 1379 | How my face, your flower, had pursed |
| 1380 | Its petals up; so, here and there |
| 1381 | You brush it, till I grow aware |
| 1382 | Who wants me, and wide ope I burst. |
| 1383 | |
| 1384 | The bee's kiss, now! |
| 1385 | Kiss me as if you enter'd gay |
| 1386 | My heart at some noonday, |
| 1387 | A bud that dares not disallow |
| 1388 | The claim, so all is render'd up, |
| 1389 | And passively its shatter'd cup |
| 1390 | Over your head to sleep I bow. |
| 1391 | |
| 1392 | @A Robert Browning |
| 1393 | # |
| 1394 | @T To his Coy Mistress |
| 1395 | |
| 1396 | Had we but worlds enough, and time, |
| 1397 | This coyness, Lady, were no crime. |
| 1398 | We would sit down and think which way |
| 1399 | To walk and pass our long love's day. |
| 1400 | Thou by the Indian Ganges' side |
| 1401 | Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide |
| 1402 | Of Humber would complain. I would |
| 1403 | Love you ten years before the Flood, |
| 1404 | And you should, if you please, refuse |
| 1405 | Till the conversion of the Jews. |
| 1406 | My vegetable love should grow |
| 1407 | Vaster than empires, and more slow; |
| 1408 | An hundred years should go to praise |
| 1409 | Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; |
| 1410 | Two hundred to adore each breast, |
| 1411 | But thirty thousand to the rest; |
| 1412 | An age at least to every part, |
| 1413 | And the last age should show your heart. |
| 1414 | For, Lady, you deserve this state, |
| 1415 | Nor would I love at a lower rate. |
| 1416 | @P |
| 1417 | But at my back I always hear |
| 1418 | Time's winged chariot hurrying near; |
| 1419 | And yonder all before us lie |
| 1420 | Deserts of vast eternity. |
| 1421 | Thy beauty shall no more be found, |
| 1422 | Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound |
| 1423 | My echoing song: then worms shall try |
| 1424 | That long preserved virginity, |
| 1425 | And your quaint honour turn to dust, |
| 1426 | And into ashes all my lust: |
| 1427 | The grave's a fine and private place, |
| 1428 | But none, I think, do there embrace. |
| 1429 | @P |
| 1430 | Now therefore, while the youthful hue |
| 1431 | Sits on thy skin like morning dew, |
| 1432 | And while thy willing soul transpires |
| 1433 | At every port with instant fires, |
| 1434 | Now let us sport us while we may, |
| 1435 | And now, like amorous birds of prey, |
| 1436 | Rather at once our time devour |
| 1437 | Than languish in his slow-chapt power. |
| 1438 | Let us roll all our strength and all |
| 1439 | Our sweetness up into one ball, |
| 1440 | And tear our pleasures with rough strife |
| 1441 | Through the iron gates of life: |
| 1442 | Thus, though we cannot make our sun |
| 1443 | Stand still, yet we will make him run. |
| 1444 | |
| 1445 | @A Andrew Marvell |
| 1446 | # |
| 1447 | @T Destiny |
| 1448 | |
| 1449 | Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours |
| 1450 | For one lone soul another lonely soul, |
| 1451 | Each choosing each through all the weary hours |
| 1452 | And meeting strangely at one sudden goal. |
| 1453 | Then blend they, like green leaves with golden flowers, |
| 1454 | Into one beautiful and perfect whole; |
| 1455 | And life's long night is ended, and the way |
| 1456 | Lies open onward to eternal day. |
| 1457 | |
| 1458 | @A Edwin Arnold |
| 1459 | # |
| 1460 | @T A Stolen Kiss |
| 1461 | |
| 1462 | Now gentle sleep hath closed up those eyes |
| 1463 | Which, waking, kept my boldest thoughts in awe; |
| 1464 | And free access unto that sweet lip lies, |
| 1465 | From whence I long the rosy breath to draw. |
| 1466 | |
| 1467 | Methinks no wrong it were, if I should steal |
| 1468 | From those two melting rubies one poor kiss; |
| 1469 | None sees the theft that would the theft reveal, |
| 1470 | Nor rob I her of aught that she can miss; |
| 1471 | |
| 1472 | Nay, should I twenty kisses take away, |
| 1473 | There would be little sign I would do so; |
| 1474 | Why then should I this robbery delay? |
| 1475 | O, she may wake, and therewith angry grow! |
| 1476 | |
| 1477 | Well, if she do, I'll back restore that one, |
| 1478 | And twenty hundred thousand more for loan. |
| 1479 | |
| 1480 | @A George Wither |
| 1481 | # |
| 1482 | @T How do I love thee? |
| 1483 | |
| 1484 | How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. |
| 1485 | I love thee to the depth and breadth and height |
| 1486 | My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight |
| 1487 | For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. |
| 1488 | I love thee to the level of every day's |
| 1489 | Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. |
| 1490 | I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; |
| 1491 | I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. |
| 1492 | I love thee with the passion put to use |
| 1493 | In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. |
| 1494 | I love thee with a love I seemed to lose |
| 1495 | With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath, |
| 1496 | Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose, |
| 1497 | I shall but love thee better after death. |
| 1498 | |
| 1499 | @A Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
| 1500 | # |
| 1501 | @T Old Man |
| 1502 | |
| 1503 | Old Man, or Lad's-love, -- in the name there's nothing |
| 1504 | To one that knows not Lad's-love, or Old Man, |
| 1505 | The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree, |
| 1506 | Growing with rosemary and lavendar. |
| 1507 | Even to one that knows it well, the names |
| 1508 | Hald decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: |
| 1509 | At least, what that is clings not to the names |
| 1510 | In spite of time. And yet I like the names. |
| 1511 | |
| 1512 | The herb itself I like not, but for certain |
| 1513 | I love it, as some day the child will love it |
| 1514 | Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush |
| 1515 | Whenever she goes in or out of the house. |
| 1516 | Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivelling |
| 1517 | The shreds at last on to the path, perhaps |
| 1518 | @P |
| 1519 | Thinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs |
| 1520 | Her finger and runs off. The bush is still |
| 1521 | But half as tall as she, though it is as old; |
| 1522 | So well she clips it. Not a word she says; |
| 1523 | And I can only wonder hwo much hereafter |
| 1524 | She will remember, with that bitter scent, |
| 1525 | Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees |
| 1526 | Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door, |
| 1527 | A low thick bush beside the door, and me |
| 1528 | Forbidding her to pick. |
| 1529 | |
| 1530 | As for myself, |
| 1531 | Where first I met the bitter scent is lost. |
| 1532 | I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds, |
| 1533 | Sniff them and think and sniff again and try |
| 1534 | Once more to think what it is I am remembering, |
| 1535 | Always in vain. I cannot like the scent, |
| 1536 | Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, |
| 1537 | With no meaning, that this bitter one. |
| 1538 | @P |
| 1539 | I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray |
| 1540 | And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing; |
| 1541 | Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait |
| 1542 | For what I should, yet never can, remember: |
| 1543 | No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush |
| 1544 | Of Lad's-love, or Old Man, no child beside, |
| 1545 | Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate; |
| 1546 | Only an avenue, dark and nameless, without end. |
| 1547 | |
| 1548 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1549 | # |
| 1550 | @T The Manor Farm |
| 1551 | |
| 1552 | The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills |
| 1553 | Ran and sparkled down each side of the road |
| 1554 | Under the catkins wagging in the hedge. |
| 1555 | But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun; |
| 1556 | Nor did I value that thin gilding beam |
| 1557 | More than a pretty February thing |
| 1558 | Till I came down to the old Manor Farm, |
| 1559 | And church and yet-tree opposite, in age |
| 1560 | Its equal and in size. Small church, great yew, |
| 1561 | And farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness. |
| 1562 | The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof, |
| 1563 | With tiles duskily glowing, entertained |
| 1564 | The midday sun; and up and down the roof |
| 1565 | White pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one. |
| 1566 | Three cart-horses were looking over a gate |
| 1567 | Drowsily through their forelocks, swiching their tails |
| 1568 | Against a fly, a solitary fly. |
| 1569 | @P |
| 1570 | The Winter's cheek flushed as if he had drained |
| 1571 | Spring, Summer, and Autumn at a draught |
| 1572 | And smiled quietly. But 'twas not Winter -- |
| 1573 | Rather a season of bliss unchangeable |
| 1574 | Awakened from farm and church where it had lain |
| 1575 | Safe under tile and thatch for ages since |
| 1576 | This England, Old already, was called Merry. |
| 1577 | |
| 1578 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1579 | # |
| 1580 | @T The Unknown Bird |
| 1581 | |
| 1582 | Three lovely notes he whistled, too soft to be heard |
| 1583 | If others sang; but others never sang |
| 1584 | In the great beech-wood all that May and June. |
| 1585 | No one saw him: I alone could hear him |
| 1586 | Though many listened. Was it but four years |
| 1587 | Ago? or five? He never came again. |
| 1588 | Oftenest when I heard him I was alone, |
| 1589 | Nor could I ever make another hear. |
| 1590 | La-la-la! he called, seeming far-off -- |
| 1591 | As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world, |
| 1592 | As if the bird or I were in a dream. |
| 1593 | Yet that he travelled through the trees and soometimes |
| 1594 | Neared me, was plain, though somehow distant still |
| 1595 | He sounded. All the proof is -- I told men |
| 1596 | What I had heard. |
| 1597 | @P |
| 1598 | I never knew a voice, |
| 1599 | Man, beast, or bird, better than this. I told |
| 1600 | The naturalists; but neither had they heard |
| 1601 | Anything like the notes that did so haunt me |
| 1602 | I had them clear by heart and have them still. |
| 1603 | Four years, or five, have made no difference. Then |
| 1604 | As now that La-la-la! was bodiless sweet: |
| 1605 | Sad more than joyful it was, if I must say |
| 1606 | 'Twas sad only with joy too, too far off |
| 1607 | For me to taste it. But I cannot tell |
| 1608 | If truly never anything but fair |
| 1609 | The days were when he sang, as now they seem. |
| 1610 | This surely I know, that I who listened then, |
| 1611 | Happy sometimes, sometimes suffering |
| 1612 | A heavy body and a heavy heart, |
| 1613 | Now straightaway, if I think of it, become |
| 1614 | Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore. |
| 1615 | |
| 1616 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1617 | # |
| 1618 | @T First known when lost |
| 1619 | |
| 1620 | I never had noticed it until |
| 1621 | 'Twas gone, -- the narrow copse |
| 1622 | Where now the woodman lops |
| 1623 | The last of the willows with his bill. |
| 1624 | |
| 1625 | It was not more than a hedge o'ergrown. |
| 1626 | One meadow's breadth away |
| 1627 | I passed it day by day. |
| 1628 | Now the soil is bare as a bone, |
| 1629 | |
| 1630 | And black betwixt two meadows green, |
| 1631 | Though fresh-cut faggot ends |
| 1632 | Of hazel make some amends |
| 1633 | With a gleam as if flowers they had been. |
| 1634 | |
| 1635 | Strange it could have hidden so near! |
| 1636 | And now I see as I look |
| 1637 | That the small winding brook, |
| 1638 | A tributary's tributary rises there. |
| 1639 | |
| 1640 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1641 | # |
| 1642 | @T The Owl |
| 1643 | |
| 1644 | Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; |
| 1645 | Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof |
| 1646 | Against the North wind: tired, yet so that rest |
| 1647 | Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof. |
| 1648 | |
| 1649 | Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, |
| 1650 | Knowing how hungry, cold and tired was I. |
| 1651 | All of the night was quite barred out except |
| 1652 | An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry |
| 1653 | |
| 1654 | Shaken out long and clear upon the hill, |
| 1655 | No merry note, nor cause of merriment, |
| 1656 | But one telling me plain what I escaped |
| 1657 | And others could not, that night, as in I went. |
| 1658 | |
| 1659 | And salted was my food, and my repose, |
| 1660 | Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice |
| 1661 | Speaking for all who lay under the stars, |
| 1662 | Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice. |
| 1663 | |
| 1664 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1665 | # |
| 1666 | @T But these things also |
| 1667 | |
| 1668 | But these things also are Spring's -- |
| 1669 | On banks by the roadside the grass |
| 1670 | Long-dead that is greyer now |
| 1671 | Than all the Winter it was; |
| 1672 | |
| 1673 | The shell of a little snail bleached |
| 1674 | In the grass; chip of flint, and mite |
| 1675 | Of chalk; and the small bird's dung |
| 1676 | In splashes of purest white: |
| 1677 | |
| 1678 | All the white things a man mistakes |
| 1679 | For earliest violets |
| 1680 | Who seeks through Winter's ruins |
| 1681 | Something to pay Winter's debts, |
| 1682 | |
| 1683 | While the North blows, and starling flocks |
| 1684 | By chattering on and on |
| 1685 | Keeep their spirits up in the mist, |
| 1686 | And Spring's here, Winter's not gone. |
| 1687 | |
| 1688 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1689 | # |
| 1690 | @T The New House |
| 1691 | |
| 1692 | Now first, as I shut the door, |
| 1693 | I was alone |
| 1694 | In the new house; and the wind |
| 1695 | Began to moan. |
| 1696 | |
| 1697 | Old at once was the house, |
| 1698 | And I was old; |
| 1699 | My ears were teased with the dread |
| 1700 | Of what was foretold, |
| 1701 | |
| 1702 | Nights of storm, days of mist, without end; |
| 1703 | Sad days when the sun |
| 1704 | Shone in vain: old griefs, and griefs |
| 1705 | Not yet begun. |
| 1706 | |
| 1707 | All was foretold me; naught |
| 1708 | Could I foresee; |
| 1709 | But I learnt how the wind would sound |
| 1710 | After these things should be. |
| 1711 | |
| 1712 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1713 | # |
| 1714 | @T Lovers |
| 1715 | |
| 1716 | The two men in the road were taken aback. |
| 1717 | The lovers came out shading their eyes from the sun, |
| 1718 | And never was white so white, or black so black, |
| 1719 | As her cheeks and hair. 'There are more things than one |
| 1720 | A man might turn into a wood for, Jack,' |
| 1721 | Said George; Jack whispered: 'He has not got a gun. |
| 1722 | It's a bit too much of a good thing, I say. |
| 1723 | They are going the other road, look. And see her run.' -- |
| 1724 | She ran -- 'What a thing it is, this picking may.' |
| 1725 | |
| 1726 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1727 | # |
| 1728 | @T Melancholy |
| 1729 | |
| 1730 | The rain and wind, the rain and wind, raved endlessly. |
| 1731 | On me the Summer storm, and fever, and melancholy |
| 1732 | Wrought magic, so that if I feared the solitude |
| 1733 | Far more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude, |
| 1734 | Had been the wisest or the dearest human voice. |
| 1735 | What I desired I knew not, but whate'er my choice |
| 1736 | Vain it must be, I knew. Yet naught did my despair |
| 1737 | But sweeten the strange sweetness, while through the wild air |
| 1738 | All day long I heard a distant cuckoo calling |
| 1739 | And, soft as dulcimers, sounds of near water falling, |
| 1740 | And, softer, and remote as if in history, |
| 1741 | Rumours of what had touched my friends, my foes, or me. |
| 1742 | |
| 1743 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1744 | # |
| 1745 | @T The Glory |
| 1746 | |
| 1747 | The glory of the beauty of the morning, -- |
| 1748 | The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew; |
| 1749 | The blackbird that has found it, and the dove |
| 1750 | That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; |
| 1751 | White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay; |
| 1752 | The heat, the stir, the sublime vancancy |
| 1753 | Of sky meadow and forest and my own heart: -- |
| 1754 | The glory invites me, yet it leaves me scorning |
| 1755 | All I can ever do, all I can be, |
| 1756 | Beside the lovely of motion, shape, and hue, |
| 1757 | The happiness I fancy fit to dwell |
| 1758 | In beauty's presence. Shall I now this day |
| 1759 | @P |
| 1760 | Begin to seek as far as heaven, as hell, |
| 1761 | Wisdom or strength to match this beauty, start |
| 1762 | And tread the pale dust pitted with small dark drops, |
| 1763 | In hope to find whatever it is I seek, |
| 1764 | Hearkening to short-lived happy-seeming things |
| 1765 | That we know naught of, in the hazel copse? |
| 1766 | Or must I be content with discontent |
| 1767 | As larks and swallows are perhaps with wings? |
| 1768 | And shall I ask at the day's end once more |
| 1769 | What beauty is, and what I can have meant |
| 1770 | By happiness? And shall I let all go, |
| 1771 | Glad, weary, or both? Or shall I perhaps know |
| 1772 | That I was happy oft and oft before, |
| 1773 | Awhile forgetting how I am fast pent, |
| 1774 | How dreary-swift, with naught to travel to, |
| 1775 | Is Time? I cannot bite the day to the core. |
| 1776 | |
| 1777 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1778 | # |
| 1779 | @T The Brook |
| 1780 | |
| 1781 | Seated by a brook, watching a child |
| 1782 | Chiefly that paddled, I was this beguiled. |
| 1783 | Mellow the blackbird sang and sharp the thrush |
| 1784 | Not far off in the oak and hazel brush, |
| 1785 | Unseen. There was a scent like honeycomb |
| 1786 | From mugwort dull. And down upon the dome |
| 1787 | Of the stone the card-horse kicks against so oft |
| 1788 | A butterfly alighted. From aloft |
| 1789 | He took the heat of the sun, and from below, |
| 1790 | On the hot stone he perched contented so, |
| 1791 | As if never a cart would pass again |
| 1792 | That way; as if I were the last of men |
| 1793 | And he the first of insects to have earth |
| 1794 | And sun together and to know their worth. |
| 1795 | @P |
| 1796 | I was divided between him and the gleam, |
| 1797 | The motion, and the voices, of the stream, |
| 1798 | The waters running frizzled over gravel, |
| 1799 | Thaat never vanish and for ever travel. |
| 1800 | A grey flycatcher silent on a fence |
| 1801 | And I sat as if we had been there since |
| 1802 | The horseman and the horse lying beneath |
| 1803 | The fir-tree-covered barrow on the heath, |
| 1804 | The horseman and the horse with silver shoes, |
| 1805 | Galloped the downs last. All that I could lose |
| 1806 | I lost. And then the child's voice raised the dead. |
| 1807 | 'No one's been here before' was what she said |
| 1808 | And what I felt, yet never should have found |
| 1809 | A word for, while I gathered sight and sound. |
| 1810 | |
| 1811 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1812 | # |
| 1813 | @T This is no case of petty right or wrong |
| 1814 | |
| 1815 | This is no case of petty right or wrong |
| 1816 | That politicians or philosphers |
| 1817 | Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot |
| 1818 | With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers. |
| 1819 | Beside my hate for one fat patriot |
| 1820 | My hatred of the Kaiser is love true :-- |
| 1821 | A kind of god he is, banging a gong. |
| 1822 | But I have not to choose between the two, |
| 1823 | Or between justice and injustice. Dinned |
| 1824 | With war and argument I read no more |
| 1825 | Than in the storm smoking along the wind |
| 1826 | Athwart the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar. |
| 1827 | @P |
| 1828 | From one the weather shall rise clear and gay; |
| 1829 | Out of the other an England beautiful |
| 1830 | And like her mother that died yesterday. |
| 1831 | Little I know or care if, being dull, |
| 1832 | I shall miss something that historians |
| 1833 | Can rake out of the ashes when perchance |
| 1834 | The phoenix broods serene above their ken. |
| 1835 | But with the best and meanest Englishmen |
| 1836 | I am one in crying, God save England, lest |
| 1837 | We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed. |
| 1838 | The ages made here that made us from the dust: |
| 1839 | She is all we know and live by, and we trust |
| 1840 | She is good and must endure, loving her so: |
| 1841 | And as we love ourselves we hate her foe. |
| 1842 | |
| 1843 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1844 | # |
| 1845 | @T Helen |
| 1846 | |
| 1847 | And you, Helen, what should I give you? |
| 1848 | So many things I would give you |
| 1849 | Had I an infinite great store |
| 1850 | Offered me and I stood before |
| 1851 | To choose. I would give you youth, |
| 1852 | All kinds of lovelines and truth, |
| 1853 | A clear eye as good as mine, |
| 1854 | Lands, waters, flowers, wine, |
| 1855 | As many children as your heart |
| 1856 | Might wish for, a far better art |
| 1857 | Than mine can be, all you have lost |
| 1858 | Upon the travelling waters tossed, |
| 1859 | Or given to me. If I could choose |
| 1860 | Freely in that great treasure-house |
| 1861 | Anything from any shelf, |
| 1862 | I would give you back yourself, |
| 1863 | And power to discriminate |
| 1864 | What you want and want it not too late, |
| 1865 | Many fair days free from care |
| 1866 | And heart to enjoy both foul and fair, |
| 1867 | And myself, too, if I could find |
| 1868 | Where it lay hidden and it proved kind. |
| 1869 | |
| 1870 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1871 | # |
| 1872 | @T Bob's Lane |
| 1873 | |
| 1874 | Women he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob, |
| 1875 | Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but he |
| 1876 | Loved horses. He himself was like a cob, |
| 1877 | And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree. |
| 1878 | |
| 1879 | For the life in them he loved most living things, |
| 1880 | But a tree chiefly. All along the lane |
| 1881 | He planted elms where now the stormcock sings |
| 1882 | That travellers hear from the slow-climbing train. |
| 1883 | |
| 1884 | Till then the track had never had a name |
| 1885 | For all its thicket and the nightingales |
| 1886 | That should have earned it. No one was to blame. |
| 1887 | To name a thing beloved man sometimes fails. |
| 1888 | |
| 1889 | Many years since, Bob Hayward died, and now |
| 1890 | None passes there because the mist and the rain |
| 1891 | Out of the elms have turned the lane to slough |
| 1892 | And gloom, the name alone survives, Bob's Lane. |
| 1893 | |
| 1894 | @A Edward Thomas |
| 1895 | # |
| 1896 | @T The Poetry of Dress |
| 1897 | |
| 1898 | A sweet disorder in the dress |
| 1899 | Kindles in clothes a wantonness :-- |
| 1900 | A lawn about the shoulders thrown |
| 1901 | Into a fine distraction, -- |
| 1902 | An erring lace, which here and there |
| 1903 | Enthrals the crimson stomacher -- |
| 1904 | A cuff neglectful, and thereby |
| 1905 | Ribbands to flow confusedly, -- |
| 1906 | A winning wave, deserving note, |
| 1907 | In the tempestuous petticoat, -- |
| 1908 | A careless shoe-string, in whose tie |
| 1909 | I see a wild civility, -- |
| 1910 | Do more bewitch me, than when art |
| 1911 | Is too precise in evry part. |
| 1912 | |
| 1913 | @A R. Herrick |
| 1914 | # |
| 1915 | @T The Poetry of Dress |
| 1916 | |
| 1917 | When as in silks my Julia goes |
| 1918 | Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows |
| 1919 | That liquefaction of her clothes. |
| 1920 | |
| 1921 | Next, when I cast mine eyes and see |
| 1922 | That brave vibration each way free; |
| 1923 | O how that glittering taketh me! |
| 1924 | |
| 1925 | @A R. Herrick |
| 1926 | # |
| 1927 | My Love in her attire doth show her wit, |
| 1928 | It doth so well become her: |
| 1929 | For every season she hath dressings fit, |
| 1930 | For Winter, Spring and Summer. |
| 1931 | No beauty she doth miss |
| 1932 | When all her robes are on: |
| 1933 | But Beauty's self she is |
| 1934 | When all her robes are gone. |
| 1935 | |
| 1936 | @A Anonymous |
| 1937 | # |
| 1938 | @T On a Girdle |
| 1939 | |
| 1940 | That which her slender waist confined |
| 1941 | Shall now my joyful temples bind: |
| 1942 | No monarch but would give his crown |
| 1943 | His arms might do what this has done. |
| 1944 | |
| 1945 | It was my Heaven's extremest sphere, |
| 1946 | The pale which held that lovely deer: |
| 1947 | My joy, my grief, my hope, my love |
| 1948 | Did all within this circle move. |
| 1949 | |
| 1950 | A narrow compass! and yet there |
| 1951 | Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair: |
| 1952 | Give me but what this ribband bound, |
| 1953 | Take all the rest the Sun goes round. |
| 1954 | |
| 1955 | @A E. Waller |
| 1956 | # |
| 1957 | @T The Lost Love |
| 1958 | |
| 1959 | She dwelt among the untrodden ways |
| 1960 | Beside the springs of Dove; |
| 1961 | A maid whom there were none to praise, |
| 1962 | And very few to love: |
| 1963 | |
| 1964 | A violet by a mossy stone |
| 1965 | Half hidden from the eye! |
| 1966 | -- Fair as a star, when only one |
| 1967 | Is shining in the sky. |
| 1968 | |
| 1969 | She lived unknown, and few could know |
| 1970 | When Lucy ceased to be; |
| 1971 | But she is in her grave, and oh, |
| 1972 | The difference to me! |
| 1973 | |
| 1974 | @A W. Wordsworth |
| 1975 | # |
| 1976 | I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; |
| 1977 | Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; |
| 1978 | I warmed both hands before the fire of life |
| 1979 | It sinks, and I am ready to depart. |
| 1980 | |
| 1981 | @A W. S. Landor |
| 1982 | # |
| 1983 | @T The Miller's Daughter |
| 1984 | |
| 1985 | It is the miller's daughter, |
| 1986 | And she is grown so dear, so dear, |
| 1987 | That I would be the jewel |
| 1988 | That trembles in her ear: |
| 1989 | For his in ringlets day and night, |
| 1990 | I'd touch her neck so warm and white. |
| 1991 | |
| 1992 | And I would be the girdle |
| 1993 | About her dainty waist, |
| 1994 | And her heart would beat against me |
| 1995 | In sorrow and in rest: |
| 1996 | And I should know if it beat right, |
| 1997 | I'd clasp it round so close and tight. |
| 1998 | |
| 1999 | And I would be the necklace, |
| 2000 | And all day long to fall and rise |
| 2001 | Upon her balmy bosom, |
| 2002 | With her laughter or her sighs, |
| 2003 | And I would lie so light, so light, |
| 2004 | I scarce should be unclasp'd at night. |
| 2005 | |
| 2006 | @A Lord Tennyson |
| 2007 | # |
| 2008 | @T Sea-fever |
| 2009 | |
| 2010 | I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, |
| 2011 | And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, |
| 2012 | And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, |
| 2013 | And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking. |
| 2014 | |
| 2015 | I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide |
| 2016 | Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; |
| 2017 | And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, |
| 2018 | And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, |
| 2021 | To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; |
| 2022 | And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, |
| 2023 | And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. |
| 2024 | |
| 2025 | @A John Masefield |
| 2026 | # |
| 2027 | @T The Drum |
| 2028 | |
| 2029 | I hate that drum's discordant sound, |
| 2030 | Parading round, and round, and round: |
| 2031 | To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields, |
| 2032 | And lures from cities and from fields, |
| 2033 | To sell their liberty for charms |
| 2034 | Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms; |
| 2035 | And when Ambition's voice commands, |
| 2036 | To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands. |
| 2037 | |
| 2038 | I hate that drum's discordant sound, |
| 2039 | Parading round, and round, and round: |
| 2040 | To me it talks of ravag'd plains, |
| 2041 | And burning towns, and ruin'd swains, |
| 2042 | And mangled limbs, and dying groans, |
| 2043 | And widows' tears, and orphans' moans; |
| 2044 | And all that Misery's hand bestows, |
| 2045 | To fill the catalogue of human woes. |
| 2046 | |
| 2047 | @A John Scott |
| 2048 | @A (1730-83) |
| 2049 | # |
| 2050 | @T Everlasting Mercy |
| 2051 | |
| 2052 | Near Bullen Bank, on Gloucester road |
| 2053 | Thy everlasting mercy showed |
| 2054 | The ploughman patient on the hill, forever there, |
| 2055 | Forever still |
| 2056 | Ploughing the hill with steady yoke, |
| 2057 | The pine trees lightning-struck and broke. |
| 2058 | |
| 2059 | I've marked the May Hill ploughman stay |
| 2060 | There on his hill day after day |
| 2061 | Driving his team against the sky |
| 2062 | While men and women live and die |
| 2063 | And now and then he seems to stoop |
| 2064 | To clear the coulter with the scoop |
| 2065 | Or touch an ox, to haw or gee, |
| 2066 | While Severn's stream goes out to sea. |
| 2067 | @P |
| 2068 | Near Bullen Bank, on Gloucester road |
| 2069 | Thy everlasting mercy showed |
| 2070 | The ploughman patient on the hill, forever there, |
| 2071 | Forever still |
| 2072 | The sea with all her ships and sails, |
| 2073 | And that great smokey port in Wales, |
| 2074 | And Gloucester tower bright in the sun, |
| 2075 | All know that patient wandering one. |
| 2076 | |
| 2077 | @A John Masefield |
| 2078 | |
| 2079 | Johnny Coppin's haunting arrangement of this available from |
| 2080 | Red Sky Records, 'English Morning' RSKC 107 |
| 2081 | # |
| 2082 | @T Dawn |
| 2083 | (From the train between Bologna and Milan, Second Class) |
| 2084 | |
| 2085 | Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat. |
| 2086 | Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar. |
| 2087 | We have been here for ever: even yet |
| 2088 | A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more. |
| 2089 | The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet |
| 2090 | With a night's foetor. There are two hours more; |
| 2091 | Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet. |
| 2092 | Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore... |
| 2093 | |
| 2094 | One of them wakes, and spits, and sleeps again. |
| 2095 | The darkness shivers. A wan light through the rain |
| 2096 | Strikes on our faces, drawn and white. Somewhere |
| 2097 | A new day sprawls; and, inside, the foul air |
| 2098 | Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before... |
| 2099 | Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore. |
| 2100 | |
| 2101 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 2102 | # |
| 2103 | @T The Voice |
| 2104 | |
| 2105 | Safe in the magic of my woods |
| 2106 | I lay, and watched the dying light. |
| 2107 | Faint in the pale high solitudes, |
| 2108 | And washed with rain and veiled by night, |
| 2109 | |
| 2110 | Silver and blue and green were showing. |
| 2111 | And the dark woods grew darker still; |
| 2112 | And birds were hushed; and peace was growing; |
| 2113 | And quietness crept up the hill; |
| 2114 | |
| 2115 | And no wind was blowing... |
| 2116 | |
| 2117 | And I knew |
| 2118 | That this was the hour of knowing, |
| 2119 | And the night and the woods and you |
| 2120 | Were one together, and I should find |
| 2121 | Soon in the silence the hidden key |
| 2122 | Of all that had hurt and puzzled me -- |
| 2123 | Why you were you, and the night was kind, |
| 2124 | And the woods were part of the heart of me. |
| 2125 | @P |
| 2126 | And there I waited breathlessly, |
| 2127 | Alone; and slowly the holy three, |
| 2128 | The three that I loved, together grew |
| 2129 | One, in the hour of knowing, |
| 2130 | Night, and the woods, and you -- |
| 2131 | |
| 2132 | And suddenly |
| 2133 | There was an uproar in my woods, |
| 2134 | The noise of a fool in mock distress, |
| 2135 | Crashing and laughing and blindly going, |
| 2136 | Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress, |
| 2137 | And a Voice profaning the solitudes. |
| 2138 | @P |
| 2139 | The spell was broken, the key denied me, |
| 2140 | And at length your flat clear voice beside me |
| 2141 | Mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes. |
| 2142 | |
| 2143 | You came and quacked beside me in the wood. |
| 2144 | You said, 'The view from here is very good!' |
| 2145 | You said, 'It's nice to be alone a bit!' |
| 2146 | And, 'How the days are drawing out!' you said. |
| 2147 | You said, 'The sunset's pretty, isn't it?' |
| 2148 | |
| 2149 | * * * |
| 2150 | |
| 2151 | By God! I wish -- I wish that you were dead! |
| 2152 | |
| 2153 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 2154 | # |
| 2155 | @T On a Tired Housewife |
| 2156 | |
| 2157 | Here lies a poor woman who was always tired, |
| 2158 | She lived in a house where help wasn't hired; |
| 2159 | Her last words on earth were: 'Dear friends, I am going |
| 2160 | To where there's no cooking, or washing, or sewing, |
| 2161 | For everything there is exact to my wishes, |
| 2162 | For where they don't eat there's no washing of dishes. |
| 2163 | I'll be where loud anthems will always be ringing, |
| 2164 | But having no voice I'll be quit of the singing. |
| 2165 | Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never, |
| 2166 | I am going to do nothing for ever and ever.' |
| 2167 | |
| 2168 | @A Anonymous |
| 2169 | # |
| 2170 | @T On Johnny Cole |
| 2171 | |
| 2172 | Here lies Johnny Cole |
| 2173 | Who died, on my soul, |
| 2174 | After eating a plentiful dinner; |
| 2175 | While chewing his crust, |
| 2176 | He was turned into dust, |
| 2177 | With his crimes undigested - poor sinner. |
| 2178 | |
| 2179 | @A Anonymous |
| 2180 | # |
| 2181 | @T On a Wag in Mauchline |
| 2182 | |
| 2183 | Lament him, Mauchline husbands a', |
| 2184 | He often did assist ye; |
| 2185 | For had ye staid whole weeks awa', |
| 2186 | Your wives they ne'er had missed ye. |
| 2187 | |
| 2188 | Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye pass, |
| 2189 | To schools in bands thegither, |
| 2190 | Oh, tread ye lightly on his grass, |
| 2191 | Perhaps he was your father. |
| 2192 | |
| 2193 | @A Robert Burns |
| 2194 | # |
| 2195 | @T Willie's Epitaph |
| 2196 | |
| 2197 | Little Willie from his mirror |
| 2198 | Licked the mercury right off, |
| 2199 | Thinking, in his childish error, |
| 2200 | It would cure the whooping cough. |
| 2201 | At the funeral his mother |
| 2202 | Smartly turned to Mrs Brown: |
| 2203 | ''Twas a chilly day for Willie |
| 2204 | When the mercury went down.' |
| 2205 | |
| 2206 | @A Anonymous |
| 2207 | # |
| 2208 | @T On Mary Ann Lowder |
| 2209 | |
| 2210 | Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowder, |
| 2211 | She burst while drinking a seidlitz powder. |
| 2212 | Called from this world to her heavenly rest, |
| 2213 | She should have waited till it effervesced. |
| 2214 | |
| 2215 | @A Anonymous |
| 2216 | # |
| 2217 | @T On Miss Arabella Young |
| 2218 | |
| 2219 | Here lies, returned to clay, |
| 2220 | Miss Arabella Young, |
| 2221 | Who on the first day of May |
| 2222 | Began to hold her tongue. |
| 2223 | |
| 2224 | @A Anonymous |
| 2225 | # |
| 2226 | @T From The Westminster Drollery, 1671 |
| 2227 | |
| 2228 | I saw a peacock with a fiery tail |
| 2229 | I saw a blazing comet drop down hail |
| 2230 | I saw a cloud wrapped with ivy round |
| 2231 | I saw an oak creep upon the ground |
| 2232 | I saw a pismire swallow up a whale |
| 2233 | I saw the sea brimful of ale |
| 2234 | I saw a Venice glass full fifteen feet deep |
| 2235 | I saw a well full of men's tears that weep |
| 2236 | I saw red eyes all of a flaming fire |
| 2237 | I saw a house bigger than the moon and higher |
| 2238 | I saw the sun at twelve o'clock at night |
| 2239 | I saw the man that saw this wondrous sight. |
| 2240 | |
| 2241 | @A Anonymous |
| 2242 | # |
| 2243 | @T Epigram |
| 2244 | |
| 2245 | Engraved on the collar which I gave to his |
| 2246 | Royal Highness Frederick Prince of Wales: |
| 2247 | |
| 2248 | I am his Highness' dog at Kew |
| 2249 | Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? |
| 2250 | |
| 2251 | @A Alexander Pope |
| 2252 | # |
| 2253 | @T A Man of Words |
| 2254 | |
| 2255 | A man of words and not of deeds, |
| 2256 | Is like a garden full of weeds; |
| 2257 | And when the weeds begin to grow, |
| 2258 | It's like a garden full of snow; |
| 2259 | And when the snow begins to fall, |
| 2260 | It's like a bird upon the wall; |
| 2261 | And when the bird away does fly, |
| 2262 | It's like an eagle in the sky; |
| 2263 | And when the skye begins to roar, |
| 2264 | It's like a lion at the door; |
| 2265 | And when the door begins to crack, |
| 2266 | It's like a stick across your back; |
| 2267 | And when your back begins to smart, |
| 2268 | It's like a penknife in your heart; |
| 2269 | And when your heart begins to bleed, |
| 2270 | You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed. |
| 2271 | |
| 2272 | @A Anonymous |
| 2273 | # |
| 2274 | @T The Voice of the Lobster |
| 2275 | |
| 2276 | ''Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, |
| 2277 | "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair." |
| 2278 | As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose |
| 2279 | Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. |
| 2280 | When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, |
| 2281 | And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: |
| 2282 | But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, |
| 2283 | His voice has a timid and tremuous sound. |
| 2284 | |
| 2285 | 'I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, |
| 2286 | How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie: |
| 2287 | The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, |
| 2288 | While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. |
| 2289 | When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, |
| 2290 | Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: |
| 2291 | While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, |
| 2292 | And concluded the banquet by --' |
| 2293 | |
| 2294 | @A Lewis Carroll |
| 2295 | # |
| 2296 | @T Lines by a Humanitarian |
| 2297 | |
| 2298 | Be lenient with lobsters, and ever kind to crabs, |
| 2299 | And be not disrespectful to cuttle-fish or dabs; |
| 2300 | Chase not the Cochin-China, chaff not the ox obese, |
| 2301 | And babble not of feather-beds in company with geese. |
| 2302 | Be tender with the tadpole, and let the limpet thrive, |
| 2303 | Be merciful to mussels, don't skin your eels alive; |
| 2304 | When talking to a turtle don't mention calipee -- |
| 2305 | Be always kind to animals wherever you may be. |
| 2306 | |
| 2307 | @A Anonymous |
| 2308 | # |
| 2309 | @T The Common Cormorant |
| 2310 | |
| 2311 | The common cormorant or shag |
| 2312 | Lays eggs inside a paper bag. |
| 2313 | The reason you will see no doubt |
| 2314 | It is to keep the lightning out. |
| 2315 | But what these unobservant birds |
| 2316 | Have never noticed is that herds |
| 2317 | Of wandering bears may come with buns |
| 2318 | And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. |
| 2319 | |
| 2320 | @A Anonymous |
| 2321 | # |
| 2322 | @T Imitation of Chaucer |
| 2323 | |
| 2324 | Women ben full of Ragerie, |
| 2325 | Yet swinken not sans secresie |
| 2326 | Thilke Moral shall ye understand, |
| 2327 | From Schoole-boy's Tale of fayre Irelond: |
| 2328 | Which to the Fennes hath him betake, |
| 2329 | To filch the gray Ducke fro the Lake. |
| 2330 | Right then, there passen by the Way |
| 2331 | His Aunt, and eke her Daughters tway. |
| 2332 | Ducke in his Trowses hath he hent, |
| 2333 | Not to be spied of Ladies gent. |
| 2334 | 'But ho! our Nephew,' (crieth one) |
| 2335 | 'Ho,' quoth another, 'Cozen John'; |
| 2336 | And stoppen, and laugh, and callen out, -- |
| 2337 | This sely Clerk full low doth lout: |
| 2338 | @P |
| 2339 | They asken that, and talken this, |
| 2340 | 'Lo here is Coz, and here is Miss.' |
| 2341 | But, as he glozeth with Speeches soote, |
| 2342 | The Ducke sore tickleth his Erse-root: |
| 2343 | Fore-piece and buttons all-to-brest, |
| 2344 | Forth thrust a white neck, and red crest. |
| 2345 | 'Te-he,' cry'd Ladies; Clerke nought spake: |
| 2346 | Miss star'd; and gray Ducke crieth Quake. |
| 2347 | 'O Moder, Moder' (quoth the daughter) |
| 2348 | 'Be thilke same thing Maids longen a'ter? |
| 2349 | 'Better is to pyne on coals and chalke, |
| 2350 | 'Then trust on Mon, whose yerde can talke.' |
| 2351 | |
| 2352 | @A Alexander Pope |
| 2353 | # |
| 2354 | @T Sonnet |
| 2355 | |
| 2356 | Live with me, and be my love, |
| 2357 | And we will all the pleasures prove |
| 2358 | That hills and valleys, dales and fields, |
| 2359 | And all the craggy mountains yields. |
| 2360 | |
| 2361 | There will we sit upon the rocks, |
| 2362 | And see the shepherds feed their flocks, |
| 2363 | By shallow rivers, by whose falls |
| 2364 | Melodious birds sing madrigals. |
| 2365 | |
| 2366 | There will I make thee a bed of roses, |
| 2367 | With a thousand fragrant posies, |
| 2368 | A cap of flowers, and a kirtle |
| 2369 | Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. |
| 2370 | @P |
| 2371 | A belt of straw and ivy buds, |
| 2372 | With coral clasps and amber studs; |
| 2373 | And if these pleasures may thee move, |
| 2374 | Then live with me and be my love. |
| 2375 | |
| 2376 | LOVE'S ANSWER |
| 2377 | |
| 2378 | If that the world and love were young, |
| 2379 | And truth in every shepherd's tongue, |
| 2380 | These pretty pleasures might me move |
| 2381 | To live with thee and be thy love. |
| 2382 | |
| 2383 | @A William Shakespeare |
| 2384 | # |
| 2385 | @T O No, John! |
| 2386 | |
| 2387 | On yonder hill there stands a creature; |
| 2388 | Who she is I do not know. |
| 2389 | I'll go and court her for her beauty, |
| 2390 | She must answer yes or no. |
| 2391 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2392 | |
| 2393 | On her bosom are bunches of posies, |
| 2394 | On her breast where flowers grow; |
| 2395 | If I should chance to touch that posy, |
| 2396 | She must answer yes or no. |
| 2397 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2398 | |
| 2399 | Madam I am come for to court you, |
| 2400 | If your favour I can gain; |
| 2401 | If you will but entertain me, |
| 2402 | Perhaps then I might come again. |
| 2403 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2404 | |
| 2405 | My husband was a Spanish captain, |
| 2406 | Went to sea a month ago; |
| 2407 | The very last time we kissed and parted, |
| 2408 | Bid me always answer no. |
| 2409 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2410 | @P |
| 2411 | Madam in your face is beauty, |
| 2412 | In your bosom flowers grow; |
| 2413 | In your bedroom there is pleasure, |
| 2414 | Shall I view it, yes or no? |
| 2415 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2416 | |
| 2417 | Madam shall I tie your garter, |
| 2418 | Tie it a little above your knee; |
| 2419 | If my hands should slip a little farther, |
| 2420 | Would you think it amiss of me? |
| 2421 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2422 | |
| 2423 | My love and I went to bed together, |
| 2424 | There we lay till cocks did crow; |
| 2425 | Unclose your arms my dearest jewel, |
| 2426 | Unclose your arms and let me go. |
| 2427 | O no, John! No, John! No, John! No! |
| 2428 | |
| 2429 | @A Old English Folk Song |
| 2430 | # |
| 2431 | @T Unfortunate |
| 2432 | |
| 2433 | Heart, you are as restless as a paper scrap |
| 2434 | That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind; |
| 2435 | Saying, 'She is most wise, patient and kind. |
| 2436 | Between the small hands folded in her lap |
| 2437 | Surely a shamed head may bow down at length, |
| 2438 | And find forgiveness where the shadows stir |
| 2439 | About her lips, and wisdom in her strength, |
| 2440 | Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!' . . . |
| 2441 | |
| 2442 | She will not care. She'll smile to see me come, |
| 2443 | So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me. |
| 2444 | She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me, |
| 2445 | And open wide upon that holy air |
| 2446 | The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home, |
| 2447 | Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care. |
| 2448 | |
| 2449 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 2450 | # |
| 2451 | @T The Busy Heart |
| 2452 | |
| 2453 | Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, |
| 2454 | I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. |
| 2455 | (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) |
| 2456 | I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; |
| 2457 | Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; |
| 2458 | And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; |
| 2459 | And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; |
| 2460 | And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; |
| 2461 | And evening hush, broken by homing wings; |
| 2462 | And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy, |
| 2463 | That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, |
| 2464 | Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, |
| 2465 | One after one, like tasting a sweet food. |
| 2466 | I have need to busy my heart with quietude. |
| 2467 | |
| 2468 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 2469 | # |
| 2470 | @T Love |
| 2471 | |
| 2472 | Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, |
| 2473 | Where that comes in that shall not go again; |
| 2474 | Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate. |
| 2475 | They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then |
| 2476 | When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, |
| 2477 | And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying |
| 2478 | Of credulous hearts, in heaven -- such are but taking |
| 2479 | Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying |
| 2480 | Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost. |
| 2481 | Some share that night. But they know, love grows colder, |
| 2482 | Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most. |
| 2483 | Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder, |
| 2484 | But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss. |
| 2485 | All this love; and all love is but this. |
| 2486 | |
| 2487 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 2488 | # |
| 2489 | @T One Day |
| 2490 | |
| 2491 | Today I have been happy. All the day |
| 2492 | I held the memory of you, and wove |
| 2493 | Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray, |
| 2494 | And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, |
| 2495 | And sent you following the white waves of sea, |
| 2496 | And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth, |
| 2497 | Stray buds from that old dust of misery, |
| 2498 | Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth. |
| 2499 | |
| 2500 | So lightly I played with those dark memories, |
| 2501 | Just as a child, beneath the summer skies, |
| 2502 | Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone, |
| 2503 | For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old, |
| 2504 | And love has been betrayed, and murder done, |
| 2505 | And great kings turned to a little bitter mould. |
| 2506 | |
| 2507 | @A Rupert Brooke |
| 2508 | # |
| 2509 | @T Doubts |
| 2510 | |
| 2511 | When she sleeps, her soul, I know, |
| 2512 | Goes a wanderer on the air, |
| 2513 | Wings where I may never go, |
| 2514 | Leaves her lying, still and fair, |
| 2515 | Waiting, empty, laid aside, |
| 2516 | Like a dress upon a chair... |
| 2517 | This I know, and yet I know |
| 2518 | Doubts that will not be denied. |
| 2519 | |
| 2520 | For if the soul be not in place, |
| 2521 | What has laid trouble in her face? |
| 2522 | And, sits there nothing ware and wise |
| 2523 | Behind the curtains of her eyes, |
| 2524 | What is it, in the self's eclipse, |
| 2525 | Shadows, soft and passingly, |
| 2526 | About the corners of her lips, |
| 2527 | The smile that is essential she? |
| 2528 | |
| 2529 | And if the spirit be not there, |
| 2530 | Why is fragrance in the hair? |
| 2531 | |
| 2532 | @A Rupert Brooke |