Benchmark - Poems

A Midsummer Noon in the Australian Forest
 
By: Charles Harpur
 
 
NOT a sound disturbs the air,     
There is quiet everywhere;         
Over plains and over woods       
What a mighty stillness broods!
 
All the birds and insects keep             5
Where the coolest shadows sleep;          
Even the busy ants are found     
Resting in their pebbled mound;              
Even the locust clingeth now     
Silent to the barky bough:                    10
Over hills and over plains             
Quiet, vast and slumbrous, reigns.           
 
Only there ’s a drowsy humming              
From yon warm lagoon slow coming:      
’Tis the dragon-hornet—see!              15
All bedaubed resplendently,      
Yellow on a tawny ground—      
Each rich spot nor square nor round,      
Rudely heart-shaped, as it were
The blurred and hasty impress there               20
Of a vermeil-crusted seal,           
Dusted o’er with golden meal.   
Only there ’s a droning where   
Yon bright beetle shines in air,   
Tracks it in its gleaming flight              25
With a slanting beam of light,    
Rising in the sunshine higher,    
Till its shards flame out like fire.
 
Every other thing is still,
Save the ever-wakeful rill,                    30
Whose cool murmur only throws             
Cooler comfort round repose;   
Or some ripple in the sea             
Of leafy boughs, where, lazily,   
Tired summer, in her bower                35
Turning with the noontide hour,               
Heaves a slumbrous breath ere she         
Once more slumbers peacefully.              
 
Oh, ’tis easeful here to lie            
Hidden from noon’s scorching eye,                  40
In this grassy cool recess              
Musing thus of quietness.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harpur

The Daisy
 
By: Rennell Rodd
 
 
WITH little white leaves in the grasses,  
  Spread wide for the smile of the sun,   
It waits till the daylight passes   
  And closes them one by one.   
 
I have asked why it closed at even,                   5
  And I know what it wished to say:          
There are stars all night in the heaven,  
  And I am the star of day.            
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennell_Rodd,_1st_Baron_Rennell

The Cliffside Path
(from A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems, 1884)
By: Algernon Charles Swinburne
 
Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down
We, before the night upon his grave be sealed.
Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town,
High before us heaves the steep rough silent field.
Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield:
Half the path is broken, half the banks divide;
Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide
Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand
Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
 
Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down,
Golden spear-points glance against a silver shield.
Over banks and bents, across the headland’s crown,
As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled,
Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald.
Moor and copse and fallow, near or far descried.
Feel the mild wings move, and gladden where they glide:
Silence, uttering love that all things understand,
Bids the quiet fields forget that hard beside
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
 
Yet may sight, ere all the hoar soft shade grow brown,
Hardly reckon half the rifts and rents unhealed
Where the scarred cliffs downward sundering drive and drown,
Hewn as if with stroke of swords in tempest steeled,
Wielded as the night’s will and the wind’s may wield.
Crowned and zoned in vain with flowers of autumn-tide,
Soon the blasts shall break them, soon the waters hide,
Soon, where late we stood, shall no man ever stand.
Life and love seek harbourage on the landward side:
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
 
Friend, though man be less than these, for all his pride,
Yet, for all his weakness, shall not hope abide?
Wind and change can wreck but life and waste but land:
Truth and trust are sure, though here till all subside
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne

Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath
By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 
This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,—
Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed
May all its agèd boughs o'er-canopy
The small round basin, which this jutting stone
Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,
Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller
With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.
Here Twilight is and Coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, Pilgrim, here; Here rest! and if thy heart
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

Voices of the Air
By: Katherine Mansfield
 
But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.
 
The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats
 
The little throats that sing and rise
Up into the light with lovely ease
And a kind of magical, sweet surprise
To hear and know themselves for these
 
For these little voices: the bee, the fly,
The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,
The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,
The shrill quick sound that the insect makes.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Mansfield

Sunset on the Spire
 
By: Elinor Wylie
All that I dream
    By day or night
Lives in that stream
    Of lovely light.
Here is the earth,
    And there is the spire;
This is my hearth,
    And that is my fire.
From the sun's dome
    I am shouted proof
That this is my home,
    And that is my roof.
Here is my food,
    And here is my drink,
And I am wooed
    From the moon's brink.
And the days go over,
    And the nights end;
Here is my lover,
    Here is my friend.
All that I
    Could ever ask
Wears that sky
    Like a thin gold mask.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Wylie

Winter: A Dirge
By: Robert Burns

The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,
The joyless winter-day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Pow’r Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do Thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,

Autumn
By: Alexander Posey
In the dreamy silence
Of the afternoon, a
Cloth of gold is woven
Over wood and prairie;
And the jaybird, newly
Fallen from the heaven,
Scatters cordial greetings,
And the air is filled with
Scarlet leaves, that, dropping,
Rise again, as ever,
With a useless sigh for
Rest—and it is Autumn.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Posey

Trees in the Garden
By: D. H. Lawrence
 
Ah in the thunder air
how still the trees are!
 
And the lime-tree, lovely and tall, every leaf silent
hardly looses even a last breath of perfume.
 
And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves
white, ivory white among the rambling greens
how evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass
as if, in another moment, she would disappear
with all her grace of foam!
 
And the larch that is only a column, it goes up too tall to see:
and the balsam-pines that are blue with the grey-blue blueness of
     things from the sea,
and the young copper beech, its leaves red-rosy at the ends
how still they are together, they stand so still
in the thunder air, all strangers to one another
as the green grass glows upwards, strangers in the silent garden.
 
                              Lichtental
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence

Song of Myself, 51
By: Walt Whitman
 
The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
 
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
 
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
 
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
 
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
 
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

The Four Lakes of Madison
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 
FOUR limpid lakes,—four Naiades           
Or sylvan deities are these,        
  In flowing robes of azure dressed;         
Four lovely handmaids, that uphold        
Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold,                        5
  To the fair city in the West.      
 
By day the coursers of the sun   
Drink of these waters as they run             
  Their swift diurnal round on high;          
By night the constellations glow         10
Far down the hollow deeps below,          
  And glimmer in another sky.    
 
Fair lakes, serene and full of light,            
Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,      
  How visionary ye appear!                   15
All like a floating landscape seems           
In cloud-land or the land of dreams,       
  Bathed in a golden atmosphere!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

Song in the Key of Autumn
 
By: Scudder Middleton
 
WE are walking with the month
To a quiet place.              
See, only here and there the gentians stand!      
Tonight the homing loon              
Will fly across the moon,                      5
Over the tired land.        
 
We were the idlers and the sowers,        
The watchers in the sun,              
The harvesters who laid away the grain.
Now there’s a sign in every vacant tree,         10
Now there’s a hint in every stubble field,              
Something we must not forget  
When the blossoms fly again.     
 
Give me your hand!       
There were too many promises in June.         15
Human-tinted buds of spring      
Told only half the truth.
The withering leaf beneath our feet,      
That wrinkled apple overhead, 
Say more than vital boughs have said              20
When we went walking
In this growing place.    
There is something in this hour 
More honest than a flower         
Or laughter from a sunny face.

Crickets at Dawn
 
By: Leonora Speyer
 
 
ALL night the crickets chirp,        
Like little stars of twinkling sound            
In the dark silence.         
 
They sparkle through the summer stillness          
With a crisp rhythm:               5
They lift the shadows on their tiny voices.            
 
But at the shining note of birds that wake,           
Flashing from tree to tree till all the wood is lit—              
O golden coloratura of dawn!—
The cricket-stars fade slowly,              10
One by one.
https://www.bartleby.com/273/27.html

The Vine
By: James Thomson (1834–1882)
 
THE WINE of Love is music,         
  And the feast of Love is song:  
And when Love sits down to the banquet,           
    Love sits long:              
 
Sits long and arises drunken,              5
  But not with the feast and the wine;    
He reeleth with his own heart,  
    That great, rich Vine.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thomson_(poet,_born_1834)

Up in the Hills
From “Autumn Leaves”
 
By: Helen Louise Birch
 
THE EARTH smells old and warm and mellow, and all things lie at peace.
I too serenely lie here under the white-oak tree, and know the splendid flight of hours all blue and gay, sun-drenched and still.              
The dogs chase rabbits through the hazel-brush;
I hear now close at hand their eager cries, now swift receding into the distance, leaving a-trail behind them in the clear sweet air shrill bursts of joy.            
There’s something almost drowsy in that waning clamor;                       5
It brings the stillness nearer and a sense of being bodily at one with the old warm earth,
Blessedly at one with the fragrant laughing sun-baked earth,      
At one with its sly delightful wicked old laughter.              
 

On Music
By: Anon.

Music
 
Our passion
 
Puts us nearest
 
To God
 
 
 
Moves us
 
To tears and joy
 
Away from life
 
Into the heavens
 
 
 
As with
 
Hearing
 
Site
 
And art
 
 
 
But More so
 
Of infinite variety
 
And space
 
Our ultimate muse

Easter Day
By: Oscar Wilde
The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
 
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.
 
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Lost in the Flood
By: Henry Kendall
   When God drave the ruthless waters
    From our cornfields to the sea,
   Came she where our wives and daughters
    Sobbed their thanks on bended knee.
   Hidden faces! there ye found her
    Mute as death, and staring wild
   At the shadow waxing round her
    Like the presence of her child—
      Of her drenched and drowning child!
 
   Dark thoughts live when tears won't gather;
    Who can tell us what she felt?
   It was human, O my Father,
    If she blamed Thee while she knelt!
   Ever, as a benediction
    Fell like balm on all and each,
   Rose a young face whose affliction
    Choked and stayed the founts of speech—
     Stayed and shut the founts of speech!
 
   Often doth she sit and ponder
    Over gleams of happy hair!
   How her white hands used to wander,
    Like a flood of moonlight there!
   Lord—our Lord! Thou know'st her weakness:
    Give her faith that she may pray;
   And the subtle strength of meekness,
    Lest she falter by the way—
     Falter, fainting, by the way!
 
   "Darling!" saith she, wildly moaning
    Where the grass-grown silence lies,
   "Is there rest from sobs and groaning—
    Rest with you beyond the skies?
   Child of mine, so far above me!
    Late it waxeth—dark and late;
   Will the love with which I love thee,
    Lift me where you sit and wait—
     Darling! where you sit and wait?"
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kendall_(poet)

Upon the Hill and Grove at Bilbrough
By Andrew Marvell
 
TO THE LORD FAIRFAX
 
See how the archèd earth does here
Rise in a perfect hemisphere!
The stiffest compass could not strike
A line more circular and like;
Nor softest pencil draw a brow
So equal as this hill does bow.
It seems as for a model laid,
And that the world by it was made.
 
Here learn, ye mountains more unjust,
Which to abrupter greatness thrust,
That do with your hook-shouldered height
The earth deform and heaven fright,
For whose excrescence, ill-designed,
Nature must a new centre find,
Learn here those humble steps to tread,
Which to securer glory lead.
 
See what a soft access and wide
Lies open to its grassy side;
Nor with the rugged path deters
The feet of breathless travellers.
See then how courteous it ascends,
And all the way it rises bends;
Nor for itself the height does gain,
But only strives to raise the plain.
 
Yet thus it all the field commands,
And in unenvied greatness stands,
Discerning further than the cliff
Of heaven-daring Tenerife.
How glad the weary seamen haste
When they salute it from the mast!
By night the Northern Star their way
Directs, and this no less by day.
 
Upon its crest this mountain grave
A plump of agèd trees does wave.
No hostile hand durst ere invade
With impious steel the sacred shade.
For something always did appear
Of the great Master’s terror there:
And men could hear his armour still
Rattling through all the grove and hill.
 
Fear of the Master, and respect
Of the great Nymph, did it protect,
Vera the Nymph that him inspired,
To whom he often here retired,
And on these oaks engraved her name;
Such wounds alone these woods became:
But ere he well the barks could part
’Twas writ already in their heart.
 
For they (’tis credible) have sense,
As we, of love and reverence,
And underneath the coarser rind
The genius of the house do bind.
Hence they successes seem to know,
And in their Lord’s advancement grow;
But in no memory were seen,
As under this, so straight and green;
 
Yet now no further strive to shoot,
Contented if they fix their root.
Nor to the wind’s uncertain gust,
Their prudent heads too far intrust.
Only sometimes a fluttering breeze
Discourses with the breathing trees,
Which in their modest whispers name
Those acts that swelled the cheek of fame.
 
‘Much other groves’, say they, ‘than these
And other hills him once did please.
Through groves of pikes he thundered then,
And mountains raised of dying men.
For all the civic garlands due
To him, our branches are but few.
Nor are our trunks enow to bear
The trophies of one fertile year.’
 
’Tis true, ye trees, nor ever spoke
More certain oracles in oak.
But peace, (if you his favour prize):
That courage its own praises flies.
Therefore to your obscurer seats
From his own brightness he retreats:
Nor he the hills without the groves,
Nor height, but with retirement, loves.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Marvell

Sonnet 78
 
By: William Shakespeare
 
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
   But thou art all my art, and dost advance
   As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
 

’Scaped
 
By:  Stephen Crane
 
ONCE I knew a fine song,             
—It is true, believe me,—           
It was all of birds,            
And I held them in a basket;       
When I opened the wicket,                  5
Heavens! they all flew away.      
I cried, “Come back, Little Thoughts!”    
But they only laughed.  
They flew on     
Until they were as sand         10
Thrown between me and the sky.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Crane

 
Learning
And then knowing
Then closing down
In routine
And certainty
With loss of vision
Clouded by ignorance
And comfort
 

IX
By: Emily Dickinson
 
AN altered look about the hills; 
A Tyrian light the village fills;      
A wider sunrise in the dawn;      
A deeper twilight on the lawn;   
A print of a vermilion foot;                   5
A purple finger on the slope;      
A flippant fly upon the pane;      
A spider at his trade again;          
An added strut in chanticleer;    
A flower expected everywhere;         10
An axe shrill singing in the woods;           
Fern-odors on untravelled roads,—        
All this, and more I cannot tell,  
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus’ mystery                     15
Receives its annual reply.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

Verses to the Shearwater—On the Morning after a Storm at Sea
By: Richard Alsop
 
WHENCE 1 with morn’s first blush of light             
  Com’st thou thus to greet mine eye,    
Whilst the furious storm of night              
  Hovers yet around the sky?      
 
On the fiery tossing wave,                    5
  Calmly cradled dost thou sleep,              
When the midnight tempests rave,         
  Lonely wanderer of the deep?
 
Or from some rude isle afar,       
  Castled ’mid the roaring waste,                       10
With the beams of morning’s star,           
  On lightning pinion dost thou haste?    
 
In thy mottled plumage drest,   
  Light thou skimm’st the ocean o’er,      
Sporting round the breaker’s crest                   15
  Exulting in the tempest’s roar.
 
O’er the vast-rolling watry way 
  While our trembling bark is borne,        
And joyful peers the lamp of day,             
  Lighting up the brow of morn;          20
 
As through yon cloud its struggling beams           
  Around a partial lustre shed,    
And mark at fits with golden gleams       
  The mountain billow’s surging head;    
 
Whilst the long lines of foamy white,              25
  At distance o’er the expanse so blue,   
As domes and castles spiring bright,        
  Commingling, rise on fancy’s view—    
 
From wave to wave swift skimming light,              
  Now near, and now at distance found,         30
Thy airy form, in ceaseless flight,              
  Cheers the lone dreariness around.      
 
Through the vessel’s storm-rent sides,  
  When the rushing billows rave;               
And with fierce gigantic strides,         35
  Death terrific walks the wave, 
 
Still on hovering pinion near,     
  Thou pursuest thy sportive way;             
Still uncheck’d by aught of fear,
  Calmly seek’st thy finny prey.           40
 
Far from earth’s remotest trace,
  What impels thee thus to roam?            
What hast thou to mark the place            
  When thou seek’st thy distant home? 
 
Without star or magnet’s aid,             45
  Thou thy faithful course dost keep;       
Sportive still, still undismay’d,   
  Lonely wanderer of the deep! 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Alsop
 

Sonnet 21
By: William Shakespeare
So is it not with me as with that Muse
Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare,
With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,
With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.
O, let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother’s child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fix’d in heaven’s air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_21

Somewhere
By: David Conolly
 
Somewhere,                      The voice speaks to
unexpectedly,                   a world grown used to
    hope is born.                       darkness, despair.
               
A voice.                                The voice says,
At first, only the cry                 You are light for the world;
    of a new-born                       Let it shine.
  gulping for breath.                Love, and forgive.
 
In time, a voice.                And suddenly, hope is born.

Song: ‘The bee to the heather’
By: Sir Henry Taylor
 
THE BEE to the heather,
  The lark to the sky,      
The roe to the greenwood,         
  And whither shall I?     
 
O, Alice! Ah, Alice!                 5
  So sweet to the bee     
Are the moorland and heather   
  By Cannock and Leigh!
 
O, Alice! Ah, Alice!        
  O’er Teddesley Park             10
The sunny sky scatters   
  The notes of the lark!  
 
O, Alice! Ah, Alice!        
  In Beaudesert glade    
The roes toss their antlers                   15
  For joy of the shade!—
 
But Alice, dear Alice!     
  Glade, moorland, nor sky         
Without you can content me—  
  And whither shall I?              20
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Taylor_(dramatist)

To a Skylark
By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
 
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,
 
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
 
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.
 
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
 
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
 
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
 
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aëreal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
 
Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
 
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
 
Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
 
Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match'd with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
 
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
 
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
 
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
 
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
 
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
 
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
 
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley

A Stormy November Evening, Gradually Clearing up in a Mountainous Country
By: Anna Seward
 
CEASED is the rain, but heavy drops yet fall         
  From the drenched roof; yet murmurs the sunk wind     
  Round the dim hills; can yet a passage find       
Whistling through yon cleft rock, and ruined wall.            
Loud roar the angry torrents, and appall,                     5
  Though distant. A few stars, emerging kind,      
With green rays tremble through their misty shrouds;     
And the moon gleams between the sailing clouds            
On half the darkened hill. Now blasts remove     
  The shadowing clouds, and on the mountain’s brow,               10
Full-orbed she shines. Half sunk within its cove   
  Heaves the lone boat, with gulphing sound:—and lo!     
Bright rolls the settling lake, and brimming rove
  The vale’s blue rills, and glitter as they flow!     
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Seward

Summer Night
 
By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
 
NOW sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;   
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;           
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:         
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.
 
  Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,                     5
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
 
  Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,          
And all thy heart lies open unto me.       
 
  Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves      
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.    10
 
  Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:       
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip            
Into my bosom and be lost in me.           
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson

A Light in a Distant Window among Mountains
By: William Wordsworth
 
EVEN as a dragon’s eye that feels the stress        
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp       
Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,         
So burns yon Taper ’mid a black recess  
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless;         5
The Lake below reflects it not; the sky,   
Muffled in clouds, affords no company   
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.       
Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing
Which sends so far its melancholy light,          10
Perhaps are seated in domestic ring       
A gay society, with faces bright, 
Conversing, reading, laughing;—or they sing,     
While hearts and voices in the song unite.           
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

For the Fallen
By: Laurence Binyon
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
 
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
 
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
 
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
 
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
 
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
 
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Binyon

Summer Dawn
By William Morris
 
PRAY but one prayer for me ’twixt thy closed lips,             
  Think but one thought of me up in the stars.     
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips            
  Faint and gray ’twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars,    
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:             5
  Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold   
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
  The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold        
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;                      10
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn              
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.  
    Speak but one word to me over the corn,         
    Over the tender, bow’d locks of the corn.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris

The Grasshopper
By: Richard Lovelace
 
O THOU that swing'st upon the waving hair         
  Of some well-fillèd oaten beard,            
Drunk every night with a delicious tear  
  Dropt thee from heaven, where thou wert rear'd!         
 
The joys of earth and air are thine entire,                       5
  That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly; 
And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire       
  To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.
 
Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then,  
  Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,     10
And all these merry days mak'st merry men,       
  Thyself, and melancholy streams.          
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lovelace
 

“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art”
By: John Keats
 
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
         Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
         Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
         Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

To the Nightingale
By: John Milton
 
O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray          
  Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still;    
  Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill,
  While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.  
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,                     5
  First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill,       
  Portend success in love; O, if Jove’s will               
  Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,              
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate           
  Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;                      10
  As thou from year to year, hast sung too late    
For my relief, yet had’st no reason why:
  Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, 
  Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton

From: A Cosmic Outlook
By: Frederick William Henry Myers
 
BACKWARD!—beyond this momentary woe!— 
  Thine was the world’s dim dawn, the prime emprize;   
  Eternal aeons gaze thro’ these sad eyes,            
And all the empyreal sphere hath shaped thee so.           
Nay! all is living, all is plain to know!                5
    This rock has drunk the ray from ancient skies;              
    Strike! and the sheen of that remote sunrise  
Gleams in the marble’s unforgetful glow.             
  Thus hath the cosmic light endured the same   
    Ere first that ray from Sun to Sirius flew;                  10
  Aye, and in heaven I heard the mystic Name     
    Sound, and a breathing of the Spirit blew;       
  Lit the long Past, bade shine the slumbering flame         
    And all the Cosmorama blaze anew.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_W._H._Myers

Fragment of an Ode to Maia
By: John Keats
 
MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!      
          May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymnèd on the shores of Baiæ?     
          Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles           5
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,   
  Leaving great verse unto a little clan?   
O give me their old vigour! and unheard
  Save of the quiet primrose, and the span               10
          Of heaven, and few ears,  
Rounded by thee, my song should die away        
          Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
 
https://www.bartleby.com/101/629.html

From: Ode to the Moon
By Thomas Hood
 
I
MOTHER of light! how fairly dost thou go             
Over those hoary crests, divinely led!—
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow
Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below,              5
Like the wild Chamois from her Alpine snow,      
Where hunter never climb’d,—secure from dread?         
How many antique fancies have I read   
Of that mild presence! and how many wrought!
      Wondrous and bright,                     10
      Upon the silver light,               
Chasing fair figures with the artist, Thought!       
 
II
What art thou like? Sometimes I see thee ride   
A far-bound galley on its perilous way,  
Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray;—                     15
      Sometimes behold thee glide,            
Cluster’d by all thy family of stars,           
Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide,       
Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars;—             
Sometimes I watch thee on from steep to steep,         20
Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch,          
Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep,          
To catch the young Endymion asleep,—
Leaving thy splendour at the jagged porch!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hood

The Rainbow
By: William Wordsworth
 
MY heart leaps up when I behold             
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,             5
      Or let me die!            
The Child is father of the Man;  
I could wish my days to be          
Bound each to each by natural piety.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth       

Sonnet.
By: Edward Lord Herbert, Baron of Cherbery and Castle-Island
 
YOu well compacted Groves, whose light & shade
Mixt equally, produce nor heat, nor cold,
Either to burn the young, or freeze the old,
But to one even temper being made,
Upon a Grave embroidering through each Glade
An Airy Silver, and a Sunny Gold,
So cloath the poorest that they do behold
Themselves, in riches which can never fade,
While the wind whistles, and the birds do sing▪
While your twigs clip, and while the leaves do friss,
While the fruit ripens which those trunks do bring,
Sensless to all but love, do you not spring
Pleasure of such a kind, as truly is
A self-renewing vegetable bliss.
 
Made upon the Groves near Merlow Castle.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Herbert,_1st_Baron_Herbert_of_Cherbury

Bag-Pipes at Sea
 
By: Clinton Scollard
 
ABOVE the shouting of the gale,
  The whipping sheet, the dashing spray,
I heard, with notes of joy and wail,          
  A piper play.    
 
Along the dipping deck he trod,         5
  The dusk about his shadowy form;        
He seemed like some strange ancient god            
  Of song and storm.       
 
He gave his dim-seen pipes a skirl            
  And war went down the darkling air;             10
Then came a sudden subtle swirl,             
  And love was there.     
 
What were the winds that flailed and flayed       
  The sea to him, the night obscure?       
In dreams he strayed some brackened glade,              15
  Some heathery moor. 
 
And if he saw the slanting spars,
  And if he watched the shifting track,     
He marked, too, the eternal stars             
  Shine through the wrack.                  20
 
And so amid the deep sea din,   
  And so amid the wastes of foam,           
Afar his heart was happy in         
  His highland home!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Scollard

The Bridge
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 
I STOOD on the bridge at midnight,         
  As the clocks were striking the hour,    
And the moon rose o’er the city,              
  Behind the dark church-tower.
 
I saw her bright reflection                    5
  In the waters under me,            
Like a golden goblet falling          
  And sinking into the sea.            
 
And far in the hazy distance       
  Of that lovely night in June,               10
The blaze of the flaming furnace              
  Gleamed redder than the moon.            
 
Among the long, black rafters    
  The wavering shadows lay,       
And the current that came from the ocean                   15
  Seemed to lift and bear them away;     
 
As, sweeping and eddying through them,             
  Rose the belated tide, 
And, streaming into the moonlight,         
  The seaweed floated wide.               20
 
And like those waters rushing    
  Among the wooden piers,         
A flood of thoughts came o’er me            
  That filled my eyes with tears. 
 
How often, oh how often,                    25
  In the days that had gone by,   
I had stood on that bridge at midnight   
  And gazed on that wave and sky!           
 
How often, oh how often,           
  I had wished that the ebbing tide                    30
Would bear me away on its bosom         
  O’er the ocean wild and wide!
 
For my heart was hot and restless,          
  And my life was full of care,      
And the burden laid upon me             35
  Seemed greater than I could bear.         
 
But now it has fallen from me,  
  It is buried in the sea;  
And only the sorrow of others   
  Throws its shadow over me.              40
 
Yet whenever I cross the river    
  On its bridge with wooden piers,           
Like the odor of brine from the ocean    
  Comes the thought of other years.        
 
And I think how many thousands                      45
  Of care-encumbered men,       
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,         
  Have crossed the bridge since then.     
 
I see the long procession             
  Still passing to and fro,         50
The young heart hot and restless,            
  And the old subdued and slow!               
 
And forever and forever,             
  As long as the river flows,         
As long as the heart has passions,                     55
  As long as life has woes;            
 
The moon and its broken reflection        
  And its shadows shall appear,  
As the symbol of love in heaven,              
  And its wavering image here.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

Sonnet to the Nightingale
By: John Milton
 
O NIGHTINGALE that on yon blooming spray       
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,      
Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill,               
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.    
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,                    5
First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill,         
Portend success in love. O if Jove’s will  
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate           
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;         10
As thou from year to year hast sung too late       
For my relief, yet had’st no reason why.
Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,    
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton

From: In the Moonlight
By: David McKee Wright
 
THE MOON is bright, and the winds are laid, and the river is roaring by;  
Orion swings, with his belted lights low down in the western sky;              
North and south from the mountain gorge to the heart of the silver plain               
There’s many an eye will see no sleep till the east grows bright again;     
There’s many a hand will toil to-night, from the centre down to the sea;         5
And I’m far from the men I used to know—and my love is far from me.   
 
Where the broad flood eddies the dredge is moored to the beach of shingle white,          
And the straining cable whips the stream in a spray of silver light;             
The groaning buckets bear their load, and the engine throbs away,          
And the wash pours red on the turning screen that knows not night or day;                   10
For there’s many an ounce of gold to save, from the gorge to the shining sea—  
And there’s many a league of the bare brown hills between my love and me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McKee_Wright

Illa Creek
By: Henry Kendall
 
(Excerpt)
 
A STRONG sea-wind flies up and sings    
  Across the blown-wet border, 
Whose stormy echo runs and rings          
  Like bells in wild disorder.         
 
Fierce breath hath vext the foreland’s face,                  5
  It glistens, glooms, and glistens;             
But deep within this quiet place
  Sweet Illa lies and listens.          
 
Sweet Illa of the shining sands, 
  She sleeps in shady hollows               10
Where August flits with flowerful hands
  And silver Summer follows.      
 
Far up the naked hills is heard   
  A noise of many waters;            
But green-haired Illa lies unstirred                    15
  Amongst her star-like daughters.           
 
The tempest pent in moaning ways         
  Awakes the shepherd yonder;
But Illa dreams, unknown to days            
  Whose wings are wind and thunder.             20
 
Here fairy hands and floral feet
  Are brought by bright October;
Here stained with grapes, and smit with heat,    
  Comes Autumn sweet and sober.          
 
Here lovers rest, what time the red                  25
  And yellow colors mingle,         
And daylight droops with dying head      
  Beyond the western dingle.     
 
And here, from month to month, the time           
  Is kissed by Peace and Pleasure,                      30
While Nature sings her woodland rhyme              
  And hoards her woodland treasure.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kendall_(poet)

Abou Ben Adhem
 
By: Leigh Hunt
 
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
 
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
 
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
 
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
 
And to the presence in the room he said,
 
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
 
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
 
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
 
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
 
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
 
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."
 
 
 
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
 
It came again with a great wakening light,
 
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
 
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Hunt

The Wall-flower
By: Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
 
THE PLACE where soon I think to lie,       
In its old creviced nook hard-by
      Rears many a weed:
If parties bring you there, will you            
Drop slily in a grain or two                    5
      Of wall-flower seed?
 
I shall not see it, and (too sure!)
I shall not ever hear that your    
      Light step was there;              
But the rich odour some fine day                      10
Will, what I cannot do, repay     
      That little care.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Savage_Landor

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By: William Butler Yeats
 
I WILL arise and go now, and go to 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,                   5
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;     10
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
  I hear it in the deep heart's core.          
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats

Misconceptions
By: Robert Browning
 
    THIS is a spray the Bird clung to,           
      Making it blossom with pleasure,      
    Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,   
      Fit for her nest and her treasure.       
      O, what a hope beyond measure                5
Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,—   
So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!            
 
    This is a heart the Queen leant on,      
      Thrill'd in a minute erratic,   
    Ere the true bosom she bent on,             10
      Meet for love's regal dalmatic.            
      O, what a fancy ecstatic         
Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on—         
Love to be saved for it, proffer'd to, spent on!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning

The Elephant
By: John Donne
Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant
(The only harmless great thing), the giant
Of beasts, who thought none had to make him wise,
But to be just and thankful, loth to offend
(Yet nature hath given him no knees to bend)
Himself he up-props, on himself relies,
And, foe to none, suspects no enemies,
Still sleeping stood; vex'd not his fantasy
Black dreams; like an unbent bow carelessly
His sinewy proboscis did remissly lie.
 
John Donne

Motor Bus
By: Alfred Denis Godley
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo—
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._D._Godley

The Fly
By: William Oldys
An Anacreontick
Busy, curious, thirsty Fly,
Gently drink, and drink as I;
Freely welcome to my Cup,
Could’st thou sip and sip it up;
Make the most of Life you may,
Life is short and wears away.
Just alike, both mine and thine,
Hasten quick to their Decline;
Thine’s a Summer, mine’s no more,
Though repeated to threescore;
Threescore Summers, when they’re gone,
Will appear as short as one.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Oldys

Peace
By: Samuel Greenberg
The blue faded purple Horizon mount
Seemed to bellow the vallies in mists
Of enriching ensueing divine shadowings
Where may this be? perhaps unpopulated
Crags of stepping rocks, where thought
Slumbers, inhaled thought, unbearing
Real earth, that refines, e'en the insects muse
Royality defies the haunt they chose
Therein mingles wild prespective charms
As immortelle's thorny entangled growth
Mongst the field of oaks pressing steep
Twilight's vail, Milky way's fence, the deep
Lionized eagle hisses o'er this scene
Birds, wild swans, glide paly o'er a charming stream
 
Samuel Greenberg

Two Lacquer Prints
By: Amy Lowell
 
The Emperor's Garden
 
ONCE, in the sultry heat of midsummer,
An Emperor caused the miniature mountains in his garden          
To be covered with white silk,    
That so crowned,            
They might cool his eyes              
With the sparkle of snow.           
 
Meditation
 
A wise man,       
Watching the stars pass across the sky, 
Remarked:         
In the upper air the fireflies move more slowly.
 
Amy Lowell
 
 

The Green Linnet
By: William Wordsworth
Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.
 
One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.
 
While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment:
A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair;
Thyself thy own enjoyment.
 
Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.
 
My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;
As if by that exulting strain
He mocked and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

Among the Rocks
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

To Spring
By: William Blake
 
THOU with dewy locks, who lookest down           
Through the clear windows of the morning, turn 
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, 
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring! 
 
The hills tell one another, and the listening                   5
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn'd        
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth      
And let thy holy feet visit our clime!       
 
Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds     
Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste   10
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.      
 
O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour         
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put     
Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head,          15
Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.     
 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

From: Coogee
By: Henry Kendall (1839–1882)
 
SING the song of wave-worn Coogee,—Coogee in the distance white        
With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light!  
Haunt of gledes and restless plovers of the melancholy wail         
Ever lending deeper pathos to the melancholy gale.        
There, my brothers, down the fissures, chasms deep and wan and wild,            5
Grows the sea-bloom, one that blushes like a shrinking, fair, blind child;  
And amongst the oozing forelands many a glad green rock-vine runs,       
Getting ease on earthy ledges sheltered from December suns.    
 
Often, when a gusty morning, rising cold and gray and strange,   
Lifts its face from watery spaces, vistas full with cloudy change;           10
Bearing up a gloomy burden which anon begins to wane,
Fading in the sudden shadow of a dark determined rain; 
Do I seek an eastern window, so to watch the breakers beat        
Round the steadfast crags of Coogee, dim with drifts of driving sleet:       
Hearing hollow mournful noises sweeping down a solemn shore           15
While the grim sea-caves are tideless and the storm strives at their core.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kendall_(poet)

The Bee
By: Emily Dickinson
 
Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry
Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.
His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

A December Day
 
By: Sara Teasdale
 
Dawn turned on her purple pillow
— And late, late came the winter day,
Snow was curved to the boughs of the willow.
— The sunless world was white and grey.
 
At noon we heard a blue-jay scolding,
— At five the last thin light was lost
From snow-banked windows faintly holding
— The feathery filigree of frost.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale

Fairy Land ii
 
By: William Shakespeare
 
YOU spotted snakes with double tongue,
  Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
  Come not near our fairy queen.
 
      Philomel, with melody,
      Sing in our sweet lullaby;
    Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
        Never harm,
        Nor spell nor charm,
      Come our lovely lady nigh;
      So, good night, with lullaby.
 
Weaving spiders, come not here;
  Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
  Worm nor snail, do no offence.
 
      Philomel, with melody,
      Sing in our sweet lullaby;
    Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
        Never harm,
        Nor spell nor charm,
      Come our lovely lady nigh;
      So, good night, with lullaby.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

A Garden Song
By: Henry Austin Dobson
 
HERE in this sequester'd close    
Bloom the hyacinth and rose,     
Here beside the modest stock    
Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;     
Here, without a pang, one sees            5
Ranks, conditions, and degrees. 
 
All the seasons run their race     
In this quiet resting-place;          
Peach and apricot and fig           
Here will ripen and grow big;        10
Here is store and overplus,—     
More had not Alcinoüs! 
 
Here, in alleys cool and green,   
Far ahead the thrush is seen;     
Here along the southern wall        15
Keeps the bee his festival;          
All is quiet else—afar    
Sounds of toil and turmoil are.   
 
Here be shadows large and long;            
Here be spaces meet for song;      20
Grant, O garden-god, that I,       
Now that none profane is nigh,—            
Now that mood and moment please,—  
Find the fair Pierides!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Austin_Dobson

“Alone”
By Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—
 
Edgar Allan Poe
 
This Lime-tree Bower my Prison
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 
 
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.
 
                                           Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.
 
                                                        A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

For the Fallen
By Laurence Binyon
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
 
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
 
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
 
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
 
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
 
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
 
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Binyon
 
In Flanders’ Field
By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD
In Flanders’ Fields the poppies blow
Between the headstones, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders’ fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders’ fields.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae
 
We Shall Keep the Faith
By Moina Michael
Oh! You who sleep in Flanders’ Fields
Sleep sweet - to rise anew;
We caught the torch you threw,
And holding high we kept
The faith with those who died.
We cherish, too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led.
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
But lends a lustre to the red
On the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders’ fields.
And now the torch and Poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught:
We've learned the lesson that ye taught
In Flanders’ fields.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moina_Michael

CIII
By Emily Dickinson
 
THE MOON was but a chin of gold
 
  A night or two ago,
 
And now she turns her perfect face
 
  Upon the world below.
 
 
Her forehead is of amplest blond;
        5
  Her cheek like beryl stone;
 
Her eye unto the summer dew
 
  The likest I have known.
 
 
Her lips of amber never part;
 
  But what must be the smile
        10
Upon her friend she could bestow
 
  Were such her silver will!
 
 
And what a privilege to be
 
  But the remotest star!
 
For certainly her way might pass
        15
  Beside your twinkling door.
 
 
Her bonnet is the firmament,
 
  The universe her shoe,
 
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
 
  Her dimities of blue.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
John Donahue

The Wind
By: Harold Monro
 
SO wayward is the wind to-night
 
  ’Twill send the planets tumbling down;
 
And all the waving trees are dight
 
  In gauzes wafted from the moon.
 
 
Faint streaky wisps of roaming cloud
       
  Are swiftly from the mountains swirl’d;
 
The wind is like a floating shroud
 
  Wound light about the shivering world.
 
 
I think I see a little star
 
  Entangled in a knotty tree,
       
As trembling fishes captured are
 
  In nets from the eternal sea.
 
 
There seems a bevy in the air
 
  Of spirits from the sparkling skies:
 
There seems a maiden with her hair
       
  All tumbled in my blinded eyes.
 
 
O, how they whisper, how conspire,
 
  And shrill to one another call!
 
I fear that, if they cannot tire,
 
  The moon, her shining self, will fall.
      
 
Blow! Scatter even if you will
 
  Like spray the stars about mine eyes!
 
Wind, overturn the goblet, spill
 
  On me the everlasting skies!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Monro

Poems of Sentiment: I. Time
Procrastination
By: Edward Young (1681–1765)
From “Night Thoughts,” Night I.
 
  BE wise to-day; ’t is madness to defer;  
Next day the fatal precedent will plead; 
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;         
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,          5
And to the mercies of a moment leaves 
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.   
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?      
That ’t is so frequent, this is stranger still.           
  Of man’s miraculous mistakes this bears                    10
The palm, “That all men are about to live,”         
Forever on the brink of being born.         
All pay themselves the compliment to think        
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride      
On this reversion takes up ready praise;          15
At least, their own; their future selves applaud:  
How excellent that life they ne’er will lead!        
Time lodged in their own hands is folly’s veils;    
That lodged in Fate’s, to wisdom they consign;    
The thing they can’t but purpose, they postpone:         20
’T is not in folly not to scorn a fool,         
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.           
All promise is poor dilatory man,            
And that through every stage. When young, indeed,        
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,         25
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,  
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.     
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;    
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;  
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,                   30
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;   
In all the magnanimity of thought,          
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.    
  And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. 
All men think all men mortal but themselves;              35
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate  
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread; 
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, 
Soon close; where passed the shaft, no trace is found.     
As from the wing no scar the sky retains,         40
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,          
So dies in human hearts the thought of death:     
Even with the tender tears which Nature sheds   
O’er those we love, we drop it in their grave.      
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Young

The Panic
By: John Stagg

GOD prosper long auld T ALLENTIRE , 

 His wife an' bairns an' a', 

An' uncot feary fray there did, 

 At Renwick yence befa'. 

The guod fwoak of the parish erst, 

 A vow to god did make, 

That as the Kurk was like to fa', 

 They down the pile wad take. 

And on that spot and self-same room, 

 Their former Church had fill'd, 

They wad, as soon as possible, 

 A better new yen build. 

For in their Tabernacle frail, 

 The people dought not bide, 

And yet t'were mete on the Lword's day, 

 The Lord war glorify'd. 

To raise this fane wi' leyme an' stane, 

 A' Renwick tuok their way; 

The bairn sal laugh that's yet unbworn, 

 At that eventful day. 

But ere a temple could be rais'd, 

 Wherein to preach and pray, 

'Twas needful furst the auld yen sud 

 Be tirl'd and clear'd away. 

Wi' meeght and main the parish rwose, 

 (God fearing), pious people; 

Wi' easy fa's furst fell the wa's, 

 Then bang came down the steeple. 

For as king Solomon hath said, 

 The place I'll not turn tilt, 

There is a teyme to big and eke, 

 To pull down that that's built. 

Sea here wi' gavelicks, hacks, and shouls, 

 The fwoak leyke furies work, 

And lang or hauf the day was duone, 

 They'd feckly down'd the kurk. 

When as with lev'ling bats they bang'd, 

 About the steeple's base, 

To down an nndemolish'd nuok, 

 An' fairly clear the place. 

Wi' dreadful noise on sounding wings, 

 A hideous monster rose, 

And round their faces, eyes, and ears, 

 Its dingy pinnions throws. 

In corriscations here and there, 

 Now high, now low it flew. 

The people glop'd wi' deep surprise, 

 Away their wark-gear threw. 

And to their heels they tuok wi' speed, 

 Seyne he that fastest ran, 

Esteem'd himsel as fair he meeght, 

 Wate weel the luckiest man. 

For whea wad be sea daftly baul, 

 Expos'd in sec a cease, 

As madly stop and turn to meet 

 The deevil in the feace. 

Nae, for a meyle they ran at least, 

 Till a' war felly spent, 

Then down they sat in council grave, 

 To muse on this event. 

There monny a curious judgment past, 

 And queerfar'd exposition, 

What this infernal spright might be, 

 This flaysome apparition. 

Some said it was the de'il himsel, 

 Whae aye in secret lurks, 

To counteract the works of grace, 

 In corner of auld kurks. 

But others of opinion war, 

 Some wand'ring ghaist 't meeght be, 

That had been conjur'd here of yore, 

 And thus by chance set free. 

Tho' the majority agreed, 

 Which nwotion took the sway, 

That 'twas a Cockatrice an' weel, 

 War they that ran away. 

For had the monster fix'd his een, 

 On them befwore they fled, 

They had as seer as eggs are eggs, 

 Been every soul struck dead. 

But seyne 't'ad pleas'd the powers abuin, 

 To shield them frae annoy, 

'Twas mete that methods they devis'd, 

 This pestment to destroy. 

Yet where a champion might be fund, 

 With heart and valour stout, 

Sea terrible a foe to feace, 

 Was matter of dispute. 

Then up ruose doughty T ALLENTIRE , 

 At that teyme parish clerk, 

And said guod neebor's ne'er be baz'd, 

 I'll undertake the wark. 

Wi' Rowan Tree weel fenc'd about, 

 We're seafe frae every evil, 

For weel I ken that wood has power, 

 To scar away the deevil. 

Sea said frae the furst buss they met, 

 Each man ruove down a beugh, 

But Tallentire cut for his sel, 

 A stow'r beath lang and teugh. 

Then back to Renwick Kurk they march, 

 Tho' not at sec a peace 

As when they left it, but as if 

 They had the De'il to feace. 

Bauld Tallentire wi' spelfu' spear, 

 Unrival'd takes the lead, 

The lave tho' hang'dly follow him, 

 Wi' nea uncommon speed. 

And monny a panting heart was there, 

 That buode full bitter picks, 

For tho' wi' witch wood weard, yet weel, 

 They kend auld Hornie's tricks. 

And should miscarriage in the end, 

 Their tryste thus bauld befa', 

Auld Nick wi' cowper han' wad tek 

 Full vengeance on them a'. 

At length they reach'd the fated spot, 

 And circling round the peyle; 

Halt, ere the bruoly they begin, 

 To breathe and think awheyle. 

For whea wi' rashness wad proceed, 

 The de'il sea clwose at han', 

Nay een the bauldest of the bauld, 

 Wad here have meade a stan. 

But suon tbe steans they gin to rowk, 

 An' bicker but an' ben', 

Wi' picks an' poles agean to raise, 

 The deevil frae his den. 

Forth frae the bit they scry'd it furst, 

 Agean the demon springs, 

An' roun' their lugs an' haffits flaps, 

 His diabolic wings. 

Struck wi' surprise, these sons of fear, 

 Set up a piteous rwoar, 

Tuok to their heels an' run as fast 

 As they had done befwore. 

Save Tallentire, the dauntless clerk, 

 Of heart and mettle sound, 

He scworn'd an Ignominious fleeght, 

 And bravely stuode his ground. 

And as the foe his circles wheel'd, 

 Now darting high, now low, 

The Champion at the fluttering fiend, 

 Aim'd many a harmless blow. 

Still by agility or chance, 

 It shuns his fiercest strokes, 

Tho' baith wi' pith and skill bestow'd, 

 Which sair the Clerk provokes. 

For tweyce or threyce between his een, 

 It peck'd some sharpish blows, 

At last as if from mere contempt, 

 It s—t upon his nose. 

An' lang the goblin vex'd him sare, 

 Till by yae lucky drub, 

His adversary sunk beneath 

 His massy magic club. 

Drawn by his shouts triumphant, back 

 His friends far scatter'd round 

Returns to see the foe whea lies 

 Expiring on the ground. 

But what was their surprise to see 

 This demon dire, why what? 

In sooth 'twas nowther mair nor less, 

 Than a puor owrgrown bat. 

Thus hath the world been oft alarm'd, 

 By bugbear panic fears; 

The mountain labours, and behold 

 A feckless mouse appears.