Lyrics Poetry

Herbert, Prayer I

God's breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six-days world transposing in an hour, A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear; Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, Exalted manna, gladness of the best, Heaven in ordinary, man well drest, The milky way, the bird of Paradise, Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood, The land of spices; something understood.

Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up

A rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!The Child is father of the Man;And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety.

Coleridge, Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

Sonnet 20 (prick'd thee out)

A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;A woman's gentle heart, but not acquaintedWith shifting change, as is false women's fashion:An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;A man in hue all hues in his controlling,Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.And for a woman wert thou first created;Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,And by addition me of thee defeated,By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

Herbert, Judgement

ALmighty Judge, how shall poore wretches brook Thy dreadfull look, Able a heart of iron to appall, When thou shalt call For ev'ry mans peculiar book? What others mean to do, I know not well, Yet I heare tell, That some will turn thee to some leaves therein So void of sinne, That they in merit shall excell. But I resolve, when thou shalt call for mine, That to decline, And thrust a Testament into thy hand: Let that be scann'd. There thou shalt finde my faults are thine.

Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful—a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said— 'I love thee true'. She took me to her Elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four.

Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium"

An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.

Blake, "The Garden of Love"

And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Blake, Jerusalem

And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire!

Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

Blake, The Tyger

And what shoulder, & what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand? & what dread feet?What the hammer? what the chain,In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread grasp,Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

Hopkins, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is — Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men's faces

Donne - A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.

Donne, Batter My Heart 3 Personed God

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Herbert, Love III

Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.

Frost, The Aim was Song

Before man came to blow it right The wind once blew itself untaught, And did its loudest day and night In any rough place where it caught. Man came to tell it what was wrong: It hadn't found the place to blow; It blew too hard—the aim was song. And listen—how it ought to go! He took a little in his mouth, And held it long enough for north To be converted into south, And then by measure blew it forth. By measure. It was word and note, The wind the wind had meant to be— A little through the lips and throat. The aim was song—the wind could see.

Keats, "When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be"

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night's starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. Related

Donne, Hony Sonnets: Spit in my face you Jews and pierce my side

Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me,For I have sinn'd, and sinne', and only He,Who could do no iniquity, hath died.But by my death can not be satisfiedMy sins, which pass the Jews' impiety.They kill'd once an inglorious man, but ICrucify him daily, being now glorified.O let me then His strange love still admire ;Kings pardon, but He bore our punishment ;And Jacob came clothed in vile harsh attire,But to supplant, and with gainful intent ;God clothed Himself in vile man's flesh, that soHe might be weak enough to suffer woe.

Donne, The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices, Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. She's all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

Blake, "The Lamb"

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee

Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not any thing to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still! Related

Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom

Wordsworth, the world is too much with us

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Hopkins, Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things - For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.

Donne, The Canonization

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or his stampèd face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love. Alas, alas, who's injured by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned? Who says my tears have overflowed his ground? When did my colds a forward spring remove? When did the heats which my veins fill Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still Litigious men, which quarrels move, Though she and I do love. Call us what you will, we are made such by love; Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die, And we in us find the eagle and the dove. The phœnix riddle hath more wit By us; we two being one, are it. So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit. We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love. We can die by it, if not live by love, And if unfit for tombs and hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no piece of chronicle we prove, We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms; As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs, And by these hymns, all shall approve Us canonized for Love. And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love Made one another's hermitage; You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage; Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove Into the glasses of your eyes (So made such mirrors, and such spies, That they did all to you epitomize) Countries, towns, courts: beg from above A pattern of your love!"

Sonnet 1 (feed'st thy light's flame)

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory; But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

Sonnet 33 (sun's splendor)

Full many a glorious morning have I seenFlatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,Kissing with golden face the meadows green,Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;Anon permit the basest clouds to rideWith ugly rack on his celestial face,And from the forlorn world his visage hide,Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:Even so my sun one early morn did shine,With all triumphant splendour on my brow;But out, alack, he was but one hour mine,The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

Shelley, To A Skylark

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of Heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Herbert, Redemption

Having been tenant long to a rich lord, Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold, And make a suit unto him, to afford A new small-rented lease, and cancel th' old. In heaven at his manor I him sought; They told me there that he was lately gone About some land, which he had dearly bought Long since on earth, to take possessiòn. I straight returned, and knowing his great birth, Sought him accordingly in great resorts; In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts; At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied, Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

Ryan, Turtle

Her track is graceless, like dragging a packing-case places, and almost any slope defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, she's often stuck up to the axle on her way to something edible. With everything optimal, she skirts the ditch which would convert her shell into a serving dish. She lives below luck-level, never imagining some lottery will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, the sport of truly chastened things.

Sonnet 38 (muse one)

How can my muse want subject to invent,While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verseThine own sweet argument, too excellentFor every vulgar paper to rehearse?O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in meWorthy perusal stand against thy sight;For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,When thou thy self dost give invention light?Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worthThan those old nine which rhymers invocate;And he that calls on thee, let him bring forthEternal numbers to outlive long date. If my slight muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Marvell, The Garden

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays, And their uncessant labours see Crown'd from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow'rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose. Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence, thy sister dear! Mistaken long, I sought you then In busy companies of men; Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow. Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude. No white nor red was ever seen So am'rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress' name; Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! wheres'e'er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found. When we have run our passion's heat, Love hither makes his best retreat. The gods, that mortal beauty chase, Still in a tree did end their race: Apollo hunted Daphne so, Only that she might laurel grow; And Pan did after Syrinx speed, Not as a nymph, but for a reed. What wond'rous life in this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons as I pass, Ensnar'd with flow'rs, I fall on grass. Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find, Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade. Here at the fountain's sliding foot, Or at some fruit tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide; There like a bird it sits and sings, Then whets, and combs its silver wings; And, till prepar'd for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light. Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walk'd without a mate; After a place so pure and sweet, What other help could yet be meet! But 'twas beyond a mortal's share To wander solitary there: Two paradises 'twere in one To live in paradise alone. How well the skillful gard'ner drew Of flow'rs and herbs this dial new, Where from above the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run; And as it works, th' industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckon'd but with herbs and flow'rs!

Herbert, Justice I

I Cannot skill of these thy ways. Lord, thou didst make me, yet thou woundest me; Lord, thou dost wound me, yet thou dost relieve me: Lord, thou relievest, yet I die by thee: Lord, thou dost kill me, yet thou dost reprieve me. But when I mark my life and praise, Thy justice me most fitly payes: For, I do praise thee, yet I praise thee not: My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray: I would do well, yet sinne the hand hath got: My soul doth love thee, yet it loves delay. I cannot skill of these my wayes.

Hopkins, The Windhover

I caught this morning morning's minion, king- dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Frost, Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,On a white heal-all, holding up a mothLike a white piece of rigid satin cloth--Assorted characters of death and blightMixed ready to begin the morning right,Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white,The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?What brought the kindred spider to that height,Then steered the white moth thither in the night?What but design of darkness to appall?--If design govern in a thing so small.

Byron, "Darkness"

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd, And men were gather'd round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

The British Church

I joy, dear mother, when I view Thy perfect lineaments, and hue Both sweet and bright. Beauty in thee takes up her place, And dates her letters from thy face, When she doth write. A fine aspect in fit array, Neither too mean nor yet too gay, Shows who is best. Outlandish looks may not compare, For all they either painted are, Or else undress'd. She on the hills which wantonly Allureth all, in hope to be By her preferr'd, Hath kiss'd so long her painted shrines, That ev'n her face by kissing shines, For her reward. She in the valley is so shy Of dressing, that her hair doth lie About her ears; While she avoids her neighbour's pride, She wholly goes on th' other side, And nothing wears. But, dearest mother, what those miss, The mean, thy praise and glory is And long may be. Blessed be God, whose love it was To double-moat thee with his grace, And none but thee.

Shelley, Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Herbert, The Collar

I struck the board, and cried, "No more; I will abroad! What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free, free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it. Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it, No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? All wasted? Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, And thou hast hands. Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage, Thy rope of sands, Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee Good cable, to enforce and draw, And be thy law, While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. Away! take heed; I will abroad. Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears; He that forbears To suit and serve his need Deserves his load." But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling, Child! And I replied My Lord.

Frost, The Tuft of Flowers

I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the levelled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been,—alone, 'As all must be,' I said within my heart, 'Whether they work together or apart.' But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly, Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night Some resting flower of yesterday's delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook, A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. I left my place to know them by their name, Finding them butterfly weed when I came. The mower in the dew had loved them thus, By leaving them to flourish, not for us, Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. The butterfly and I had lit upon, Nevertheless, a message from the dawn, That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone; But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. 'Men work together,' I told him from the heart, 'Whether they work together or apart.'

Donne, The Good Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Sonnet 116 (Love's not time's fool)

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Keats "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien

Sonnet 3 (tillage of thine husbandry)

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live rememb'red not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Herbert, Easter Wings

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore: With thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age in sorrow did beginne And still with sicknesses and shame. Thou didst so punish sinne, That I became Most thinne. With thee Let me combine, And feel thy victorie: For, if I imp my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Frost, To Earthward

Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air That crossed me from sweet things, The flow of—was it musk From hidden grapevine springs Downhill at dusk? I had the swirl and ache From sprays of honeysuckle That when they're gathered shake Dew on the knuckle. I craved strong sweets, but those Seemed strong when I was young; The petal of the rose It was that stung. Now no joy but lacks salt, That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove. When stiff and sore and scarred I take away my hand From leaning on it hard In grass and sand, The hurt is not enough: I long for weight and strength To feel the earth as rough To all my length.

Herbert - The Altar

Made of a heart and cemented with tears: Whose parts are as thy hand did frame; No workman's tool hath touch'd the same. A HEART alone Is such a stone, As nothing but Thy pow'r doth cut. Wherefore each part Of my hard heart Meets in this frame, To praise thy name: That if I chance to hold my peace, These stones to praise thee may not cease. Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine, And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

Ryan, Blanduer

Make valleysslightly higher,widen fissuresto arable land,remand yourterrible glaciersand silencetheir calving,halving or doublingall geographical featurestoward the mean.

Donne, The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met, And cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; 'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Donne, "Death Be Not Proud"

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Hopkins, No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.

More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing — Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."' O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Sonnet 130 (dark lady)

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red, than her lips red:If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damasked, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound:I grant I never saw a goddess go,My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare.

Donne, Holy Sonnets, This is my play's last scene

My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race, Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My span's last inch, my minute's latest point; And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space; But my'ever-waking part shall see that face Whose fear already shakes my every joint. Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight, And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell, So fall my sins, that all may have their right, To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell. Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil, For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Herbert, Death

Nothing but bones, The sad effect of sadder groans: Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing. For we considered thee as at some six Or ten years hence, After the loss of life and sense, Flesh being turned to dust, and bones to sticks. We looked on this side of thee, shooting short; Where we did find The shells of fledge souls left behind, Dry dust, which sheds no tears, but may extort. But since our Savior's death did put some blood Into thy face, Thou art grown fair and full of grace, Much in request, much sought for as a good. For we do now behold thee gay and glad, As at Doomsday; When souls shall wear their new array, And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad. Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust Half that we have Unto an honest faithful grave; Making our pillows either down, or dust.

Wilbur, Praise in Summer

Obscurely yet most surely called to praise,As sometimes summer calls us all, I saidThe hills are heavens full of branching waysWhere star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead;I said the trees are mines in air, I saidSee how the sparrow burrows in the sky!And then I wondered why this mad insteadPerverts our praise to uncreation, whySuch savour's in this wrenching things awry.Does sense so stale that it must needs derangeThe world to know it? To a praiseful eyeShould it not be enough of fresh and strangeThat trees grow green, and moles can coursein clay,And sparrows sweep the ceiling of our day?

Byron, She Walks in Beauty

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Herbert, The Jews

POore nation, whose sweet sap and juice Our cyens1 have purloin'd,2 and left you drie: Whose streams we got by the Apostles sluce,3 And use in baptisme, while ye pine and die: Who by not keeping once, became a debter; And now be keeping lose the letter: Oh that my prayers! mine, alas! Oh that some Angel might a trumpet sound; At which the Church falling upon her face. Should crie so loud, untill the trump were drown'd, And by that crie of her deare Lord obtain, That your sweet sap might come again!

Sonnet 18 (the basic one)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Herbert, The Agony

Philosophers have measur'd the mountains,Fathom'd the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,Walk'd with a staffe to heav'n, and traced fountains: But there are two vast, spacious things,The which to measure it doth more behove:Yet few there are that found them; Sinne and Love. Who would know Sinne, let him repairUnto mount Olivet; there shall he seeA man so wrung with pains, that all his hair, His skinne, his garments bloudie be.Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth painTo hunt his cruell food through ev'ry vein. Who knows not Love, let him assay,And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pikeDid set again abroach; then let him say If ever he did taste the like.Love in that liquor sweet and most divine,Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.

Blake "Introduction to the Songs of Innocence"

Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child. And he laughing said to me. Pipe a song about a Lamb; So I piped with merry chear, Piper pipe that song again— So I piped, he wept to hear. Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe Sing thy songs of happy chear, So I sung the same again While he wept with joy to hear Piper sit thee down and write In a book that all may read— So he vanish'd from my sight. And I pluck'd a hollow reed. And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear

Sonnet 146 (worms)

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,... ... ... these rebel powers that thee arrayWhy dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?Why so large cost, having so short a lease,Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,And let that pine to aggravate thy store;Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;Within be fed, without be rich no more: So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

Hopkins, The Habit of Perfection

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: It is the shut, the curfew sent From there where all surrenders come Which only makes you eloquent. Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark And find the uncreated light: This ruck and reel which you remark Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight. Palate, the hutch of tasty lust, Desire not to be rinsed with wine: The can must be so sweet, the crust So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Sonnet 65 (Wrackful siege of battering days)

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,But sad mortality o'ersways their power,How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,Whose action is no stronger than a flower?O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,Against the wrackful siege of battering days,When rocks impregnable are not so stout,Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?O fearful meditation! where, alack,Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O! none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Keats, To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Herbert, Virtue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky; The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye; Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives.

Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

Auden, The Shield of Achilles

The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the sameLay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shameWas all the worst could wish; they lost their prideAnd died as men before their bodies died. She looked over his shoulder For athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance Moving their sweet limbs Quick, quick, to music, But there on the shining shield His hands had set no dancing-floor But a weed-choked field.

Herbert, The Affliction I

When first thou didst entice to thee my heart, I thought the service brave; So many joys I writ down for my part, Besides what I might have Out of my stock of natural delights, Augmented with thy gracious benefits. I looked on thy furniture so fine, And made it fine to me; Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine, And 'tice me unto thee. Such stars I counted mine: both heav'n and earth; Paid me my wages in a world of mirth. What pleasures could I want, whose King I serv'd, Where joys my fellows were? Thus argu'd into hopes, my thoughts reserv'd No place for grief or fear. Therefore my sudden soul caught at the place, And made her youth and fierceness seek thy face. At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesses; I had my wish and way; My days were straw'd with flow'rs and happiness; There was no month but May. But with my years sorrow did twist and grow, And made a party unawares for woe. My flesh began unto my soul in pain, "Sicknesses cleave my bones; Consuming agues dwell in ev'ry vein, And tune my breath to groans." Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce believ'd, Till grief did tell me roundly, that I liv'd. When I got health, thou took'st away my life, And more, for my friends die; My mirth and edge was lost, a blunted knife Was of more use than I. Thus thin and lean without a fence or friend, I was blown through with ev'ry storm and wind. Whereas my birth and spirit rather took The way that takes the town; Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book, And wrap me in a gown. I was entangled in the world of strife, Before I had the power to change my life. Yet, for I threaten'd oft the siege to raise, Not simp'ring all mine age, Thou often didst with academic praise Melt and dissolve my rage. I took thy sweet'ned pill, till I came where I could not go away, nor persevere. Yet lest perchance I should too happy be In my unhappiness, Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me Into more sicknesses. Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making Thine own gift good, yet me from my ways taking. Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me None of my books will show; I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree, For sure then I should grow To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust Her household to me, and I should be just. Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek; In weakness must be stout; Well, I will change the service, and go seek Some other master out. Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot, Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

Sonnet 129 (man in pursuit)

The expense of spirit in a waste of shameIs lust in action: and till action, lustIs perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,On purpose laid to make the taker mad.Mad in pursuit and in possession so;Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Frost, "The Oven Bird"

There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast; And comes that other fall we name the fall. He says the highway dust is over all. The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing

Frost, Dust of Snow

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. Related

Hopkins, God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Eliot, Journey of the Magi

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,And three trees on the low sky,And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.But there was no information, and so we continuedAnd arriving at evening, not a moment too soonFinding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.All this was a long time ago, I remember,And I would do it again, but set downThis set downThis: were we led all that way forBirth or Death? There was a Birth, certainlyWe had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,But had thought they were different; this Birth wasHard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,With an alien people clutching their gods.I should be glad of another death.

Sonnet 6 (ten one)

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That's for thy self to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigured thee: Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir

Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day. The things which I have seen I now can see no more.... Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young Lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Frost, Spring Pools

These pools that, though in forests, still reflectThe total sky almost without defect,And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,And yet not out by any brook or river,But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.The trees that have it in their pent-up budsTo darken nature and be summer woods---Let them think twice before they use their powersTo blot out and drink up and sweep awayThese flowery waters and these watery flowersFrom snow that melted only yesterday.

Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Herbert, Discipline

Throw away thy rod, Throw away thy wrath: O my God, Take the gentle path. For my heart's desire Unto thine is bent: I aspire To a full consent. Not a word or look I affect to own, But by book, And thy book alone. Though I fail, I weep: Though I halt in pace, Yet I creep To the throne of grace. Then let wrath remove; Love will do the deed: For with love Stony hearts will bleed. Love is swift of foot; Love's a man of war, And can shoot, And can hit from far. Who can 'scape his bow? That which wrought on thee, Brought thee low, Needs must work on me. Throw away thy rod; Though man frailties hath, Thou art God: Throw away thy wrath.

Sonnet 29 (bootless cries)

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself, and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet 43 (eyes, winking)

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,For all the day they view things unrespected;But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,How would thy shadow's form form happy showTo the clear day with thy much clearer light,When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed madeBy looking on thee in the living day,When in dead night thy fair imperfect shadeThrough heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

Yeats, The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity... A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Wordworth, The Tables turned

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless— Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.

Marvell: To His Coy Mistress

We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. Related

Poe, The Bells

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells,What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells

Sonnet 53 (greek one)

What is your substance, whereof are you made,That millions of strange shadows on you tend?Since every one hath, every one, one shade,And you but one, can every shadow lend.Describe Adonis, and the counterfeitIs poorly imitated after you;On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,And you in Grecian tires are painted new:Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,The one doth shadow of your beauty show,The other as your bounty doth appear;And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

Donne, Holy Sonnets: Show me dear Christ thy spouse so bright and clear

What! is it she which on the other shore Goes richly painted? or which, robb'd and tore, Laments and mourns in Germany and here? Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year? Is she self-truth, and errs? now new, now outwore? Doth she, and did she, and shall she evermore On one, on seven, or on no hill appear? Dwells she with us, or like adventuring knights First travel we to seek, and then make love? Betray, kind husband, thy spouse to our sights, And let mine amorous soul court thy mild Dove, Who is most true and pleasing to thee then When she'is embrac'd and open to most men.

Herbert, "The Pulley"

When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, "Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can. Let the world's riches, which dispersèd lie, Contract into a span." So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay. "For if I should," said he, "Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He would adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature; So both should losers be. "Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessness; Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast."

Sonnet 30 (moaning, grievance)

When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,And heavily from woe to woe tell o'erThe sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

Herbert, Jordan I

Who says that fictions only and false hair Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty? Is all good structure in a winding stair? May no lines pass, except they do their duty Not to a true, but painted chair? Is it no verse, except enchanted groves And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines? Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves? Must all be veil'd, while he that reads, divines, Catching the sense at two removes? Shepherds are honest people; let them sing; Riddle who list, for me, and pull for prime; I envy no man's nightingale or spring; Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme, Who plainly say, my God, my King.

Sonnet 17 (no one will believe me)

Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.' So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet's rage And stretched metre of an antique song: But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.

Frost, "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening"

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Sonnet 76 (barren of new pride)

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,So far from variation or quick change?Why with the time do I not glance asideTo new-found methods, and to compounds strange?Why write I still all one, ever the same,And keep invention in a noted weed,That every word doth almost tell my name,Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?O! know sweet love I always write of you,And you and love are still my argument;So all my best is dressing old words new,Spending again what is already spent: For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told.

Frost, I have been one acquainted with the night

have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night

Blake, London

n every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse Related