Benchmark - Poems

To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris
By: Helen Maria Williams
 
What crowding thoughts around me wake,
What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound
Encrusted in its snowy round?
For magic surely lurks in this,
A cake that tells of vanished bliss;
A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;
When memory knew no sorrows past,
And hope believed in joys that last! —
Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life’s calendar of bliss and pain;
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
And wakes the tears I love to shed.
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
From whose fair hand the offering came:
For she recalls the artless smile
Of nymphs that deck my native isle;
Of beauty that we love to trace,
Allied with tender, modest grace;
Of those who, while abroad they roam,
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
And whose dear friendships can impart
A Christmas banquet for the heart!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Maria_Williams
 
Helen Maria Williams (17 June 1759 – 15 December 1827) was a British novelist, poet, and translator of French-language works. A religious dissenter, she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution; she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror, but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France.. A controversial figure in her own time, the ..

Summer Wind
By: William Cullen Bryant
It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven–
Their bases on the mountains–their white tops
Shining in the far ether–fire the air
With a reflected radiance, and make turn
The gazer’s eye away. For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays his coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?
Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life! Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,
The pine is bending his proud top, and now
Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak
Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes;
Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves!
The deep distressful silence of the scene
Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
And universal motion. He is come,
Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings
Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs,
And sound of swaying branches, and the voice
Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers,
By the road-side and the borders of the brook,
Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves
Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
Were on them yet, and silver waters break
Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cullen_Bryant

Dream On
 
By: David Conolly
 
A child in a gallery sits,                       From another womb
    takes paper and pencil,                 in a faraway age
    and starts to draw.                          another child emerged
The paintings around her                 with a dream –
    disappear.                                              the Great Dream
They have served                                of a world renewed by
    their purpose.                                       peace and justice,
                                                                    formed in the womb of
They have sparked in her                     love.
    the spirit to create –                                  
    the spirit formed in her                 He said that children
along with bone and blood                  show us
in the mystic dark of                           what God is like.
    her mother’s womb –                               
humanity’s sacred site.                     No wonder
                                                                    we celebrate
Thus is passed                                           his birth.
from age to age                                                               
    imagination,                                       No wonder that Dream
    wonder,                                                   still lives, and passes
    dreams.                                               to children yet unborn.

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

The Rainbow
By: Charlotte Richardson
 
Soft falls the shower, the thunders cease!
And see the messenger of peace
Illumes the eastern skies;
Blest sign of firm unchanging love!
While others seek the cause to prove,
That bids thy beauties rise.
 
My soul, content with humbler views,
Well pleased admires thy varied hues,
And can with joy behold
Thy beauteous form, and wondering gaze
Enraptured on thy mingled rays
Of purple, green, and gold.
 
Enough for me to deem divine
The hand that paints each glowing line;
To think that thou art given
A transient gleam of that bright place
Where Beauty owns celestial grace,
A faint display of Heaven!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Richardson

Spring, the sweet spring
By: Thomas Nashe
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
      Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
 
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
      Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
 
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
      Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!
            Spring, the sweet spring!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nashe

Floating Island
By: Dorothy Wordsworth
Harmonious Powers with Nature work
On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea:
Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze
All in one duteous task agree.
 
Once did I see a slip of earth,
By throbbing waves long undermined,
Loosed from its hold; � how no one knew
But all might see it float, obedient to the wind.
 
Might see it, from the mossy shore
Dissevered float upon the Lake,
Float, with its crest of trees adorned
On which the warbling birds their pastime take.
 
Food, shelter, safety there they find
There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;
There insects live their lives � and die:
A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room.
 
And thus through many seasons� space
This little Island may survive
But Nature, though we mark her not,
Will take away � may cease to give.
 
Perchance when you are wandering forth
Upon some vacant sunny day
Without an object, hope, or fear,
Thither your eyes may turn � the Isle is passed away.
 
Buried beneath the glittering Lake!
Its place no longer to be found,
Yet the lost fragments shall remain,
To fertilize some other ground.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Wordsworth

From Halloween
By: Robert Burns, 1759 - 1796
 
Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta�en,
Beneath the moon�s pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.
 
Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin� clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu� blithe that night.
 
The lasses feat, and cleanly neat,
Mair braw than when they�re fine;
Their faces blithe, fu� sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, and warm, and kin�;
The lads sae trig, wi� wooer-babs,
Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, and some wi� gabs,
Gar lasses� hearts gang startin�
Whiles fast at night.
 
Then, first and foremost, through the kail,
Their stocks maun a� be sought ance;
They steek their een, and graip and wale,
For muckle anes and straught anes.
Poor hav�rel Will fell aff the drift,
And wander�d through the bow-kail,
And pou�t, for want o� better shift,
A runt was like a sow-tail,
Sae bow�t that night.
 
Then, staught or crooked, yird or nane,
They roar and cry a� throu�ther;
The very wee things, todlin�, rin,
Wi� stocks out owre their shouther;
And gif the custoc�s sweet or sour.
Wi� joctelegs they taste them;
Syne cozily, aboon the door,
Wi cannie care, they�ve placed them
To lie that night.
 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns

Love's Good-Morrow
By: Thomas Heywood
Pack, clouds away! and welcome day!
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, mount larks aloft
To give my love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I�ll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow;
To give my love good-morrow;
Notes from them both I�ll borrow.
 
Wake from thy nest, Robin Redbreast,
Sing birds in every furrow;
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow;
To give my love good-morrow,
Sing birds in every furrow.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Heywood
 

Sonnet 53
By: William Shakespeare
 
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 counterfeit
Is 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.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

Evening Song
 
 
By: Sherwood Anderson
 
 
MY song will rest while I rest. I struggle along. I�ll get back to the corn and the open fields. Don�t fret, love, I�ll come out all right.
 
Back of Chicago the open fields. Were you ever there�trains coming toward you out of the West�streaks of light on the long gray plains? Many a song�aching to sing.
 
I�ve got a gray and ragged brother in my breast�that�s a fact. Back of Chicago the open fields�long trains go west too�in the silence. Don�t fret, love. I�ll come out all right.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Anderson
 

A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth
 
By: Ben Jonson
 
I that have been a lover, and could show it,
Though not in these, in rithmes not wholly dumb,
Since I exscribe your sonnets, am become
A better lover, and much better poet.
Nor is my Muse or I ashamed to owe it
To those true numerous graces, whereof some
But charm the senses, others overcome
Both brains and hearts; and mine now best do know it:
For in your verse all Cupid�s armory,
His flames, his shafts, his quiver, and his bow,
His very eyes are yours to overthrow.
But then his mother�s sweets you so apply,
Her joys, her smiles, her loves, as readers take
For Venus� ceston every line you make.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson

XVIII
 
By: Emily Dickinson
 
TWO butterflies went out at noon
 
And waltzed above a stream,
 
Then stepped straight through the firmament
 
And rested on a beam;
 
 
And then together bore away
 
Upon a shining sea,�
 
Though never yet, in any port,
 
Their coming mentioned be.
 
 
If spoken by the distant bird,
 
If met in ether sea
 
By frigate or by merchantman,
 
Report was not to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

Drifting Flowers of the Sea
By: Sadakichi Hartmann
 
Sadakichi Hartmann
Across the dunes, in the waning light,
The rising moon pours her amber rays,
Through the slumbrous air of the dim, brown night
The pungent smell of the seaweed strays�
     From vast and trackless spaces
       Where wind and water meet,
         White flowers, that rise from the sleepless deep,
             Come drifting to my feet.
     They flutter the shore in a drowsy tune,
       Unfurl their bloom to the lightlorn sky,
         Allow a caress to the rising moon,
             Then fall to slumber, and fade, and die.
 
White flowers, a-bloom on the vagrant deep,
Like dreams of love, rising out of sleep,
You are the songs, I dreamt but never sung,
Pale hopes my thoughts alone have known,
Vain words ne�er uttered, though on the tongue,
That winds to the sibilant seas have blown.
      In you, I see the everlasting drift of years
        That will endure all sorrows, smiles and tears;
          For when the bell of time will ring the doom
            To all the follies of the human race,
               You still will rise in fugitive bloom
                  And garland the shores of ruined space.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadakichi_Hartmann

The Crocuses
 
By: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
They heard the South wind sighing
    A murmur of the rain;
And they knew that Earth was longing
   To see them all again.
 
While the snow-drops still were sleeping
   Beneath the silent sod;
They felt their new life pulsing
   Within the dark, cold clod.
 
Not a daffodil nor daisy
   Had dared to raise its head;
Not a fairhaired dandelion
   Peeped timid from its bed;
 
Though a tremor of the winter
   Did shivering through them run;
Yet they lifted up their foreheads
   To greet the vernal sun.
 
And the sunbeams gave them welcome,
   As did the morning air�
And scattered o�er their simple robes
   Rich tints of beauty rare.
 
Soon a host of lovely flowers
   From vales and woodland burst;
But in all that fair procession
   The crocuses were first.
 
First to weave for Earth a chaplet
   To crown her dear old head;
And to beauty the pathway
   Where winter still did tread.
 
And their loved and white haired mother
   Smiled sweetly �neath the touch,
When she knew her faithful children
   Were loving her so much.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Harper

To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady�s Bonnet at Church
By: Robert Burns
 
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
                                Owre gawze and lace;
Tho� faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
                                On sic a place.
 
Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn�d, by saunt an� sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
                                Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
                                On some poor body.
 
Swith, in some beggar�s haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi� ither kindred, jumping cattle,
                                In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne�er daur unsettle,
                                Your thick plantations.
 
Now haud you there, ye�re out o� sight,
Below the fatt�rels, snug and tight,
Na faith ye yet! ye�ll no be right,
                                Till ye�ve got on it,
The vera topmost, towrin height
                                O� Miss�s bonnet.
 
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an� gray as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
                                Or fell, red smeddum,
I�d gie you sic a hearty dose o�t,
                                Wad dress your droddum!
 
I wad na been surpriz�d to spy
You on an auld wife�s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
                                On �s wylecoat;
But Miss�s fine Lunardi, fye!
                How daur ye do �t?
 
O Jenny dinna toss your head,
An� set your beauties a� abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
                                The blastie�s makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
                                Are notice takin!
 
O wad some Pow�r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
                                An� foolish notion:
What airs in dress an� gait wad lea�e us,
                                And ev�n Devotion!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns

Haymaking
 
By: John Clare
�Tis haytime and the red-complexioned sun
Was scarcely up ere blackbirds had begun
Along the meadow hedges here and there
To sing loud songs to the sweet-smelling air
Where breath of flowers and grass and happy cow
Fling o�er one�s senses streams of fragrance now
while in some pleasant nook the swain and maid
Lean o�er their rakes and loiter in the shade
Or bend a minute o�er the bridge and throw
Crumbs in their leisure to the fish below
�Hark at that happy shout�and song between
�Tis pleasure�s birthday in her meadow scene.
What joy seems half so rich from pleasure won
As the loud laugh of maidens in the sun?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare

The Complaint of Lisa
 
By: Algernon Charles Swinburne
 
There is no woman living that draws breath
So sad as I, though all things sadden her.
There is not one upon life's weariest way
Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.
Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower
All day with all his whole soul toward the sun;
While in the sun's sight I make moan all day,
And all night on my sleepless maiden bed
Weep and call out on death, O Love, and thee,
That thou or he would take me to the dead,
And know not what thing evil I have done
That life should lay such heavy hand on me.
 
Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?
What honour shalt thou have to quench my breath,
Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed:
I am the least flower in thy flowery way,
But till my time be come that I be dead
Let me live out my flower-time in the sun
Though my leaves shut before the sunflower.
 
O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower!
Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me,
That live down here in shade, out of the sun,
Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death?
Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day
Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath?
Because she loves him shall my lord love her
Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way?
I shall not see him or know him alive or dead;
But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee
That in brief while my brief life-days be done,
And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed.
 
For underground there is no sleepless bed:
But here since I beheld my sunflower
These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day
His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun.
Wherefore if anywhere be any death,
I would fain find and fold him fast to me,
That I may sleep with the world's eldest dead,
With her that died seven centuries since, and her
That went last night down the night-wandering way.
For this is sleep indeed, when labour is done,
Without love, without dreams, and without breath,
And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee.
 
Ah, but, forgetting all things, shall I thee?
Wilt thou not be as now about my bed
There underground as here before the sun?
Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,
Thy moving vision without form or breath?
I read long since the bitter tale of her
Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day,
And died, and had no quiet after death,
But was moved ever along a weary way,
Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me,
O my king, O my lordly sunflower,
Would God to me too such a thing were done!
 
But if such sweet and bitter things be done,
Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee.
For in that living world without a sun
Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead,
And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death.
Yet if being wroth God had such pity on her,
Who was a sinner and foolish in her day,
That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath,
Why should he not in some wise pity me?
So if I sleep not in my soft strait bed
I may look up and see my sunflower
As he the sun, in some divine strange way.
 
O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way
This sore sweet evil unto us was done.
For on a holy and a heavy day
I was arisen out of my still small bed
To see the knights tilt, and one said to me
"The king," and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath,
And if the girl spake more, I heard not her,
For only I saw what I shall see when dead,
A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower,
That shone against the sunlight like the sun,
And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee,
The fire of love that lights the pyre of death.
 
Howbeit I shall not die an evil death
Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way,
That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee.
So when mine eyes are shut against the sun,
O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower,
Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead.
And dying I pray with all my low last breath
That thy whole life may be as was that day,
That feast-day that made trothplight death and me,
Giving the world light of thy great deeds done;
And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed,
That God be good as God hath been to her.
 
That all things goodly and glad remain with her,
All things that make glad life and goodly death;
That as a bee sucks from a sunflower
Honey, when summer draws delighted breath,
Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way,
And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed
Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day
And night to night till days and nights be dead.
And as she gives light of her love to thee,
Give thou to her the old glory of days long done;
And either give some heat of light to me,
To warm me where I sleep without the sun.
 
O sunflower made drunken with the sun,
O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her,
Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee.
There is a weed lives out of the sun's way,
Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed,
That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath,
A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day
Will gaze her soul out on the sunflower
For very love till twilight finds her dead.
But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death,
Knows not when all her loving life is done;
And so much knows my lord the king of me.
 
Aye, all day long he has no eye for me;
With golden eye following the golden sun
From rose-coloured to purple-pillowed bed,
From birthplace to the flame-lit place of death,
From eastern end to western of his way.
So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower,
So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee,
The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead,
Trod underfoot if any pass by her,
Pale, without colour of summer or summer breath
In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done
No work but love, and die before the day.
 
But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day,
Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me.
Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun
Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way,
That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee
For grain and flower and fruit of works well done;
Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower,
Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed
As like the sun shall outlive age and death.
And yet I would thine heart had heed of her
Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead.
Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath.
 
Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead;
From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,
To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death
Down the sun's way after the flying sun,
For love of her that gave thee wings and breath,
Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne
 
 
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 � 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclop�dia Britannica

The Fallow Deer At The Lonely House

By: Thomas Hardy

One without looks in tonight
Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white;
One without looks in tonight
As we sit and think
By the fender-brink.
 
We do not discern those eyes
Watching in the snow;
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
Wandering, aglow
Four-footed, tiptoe.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy

Sonnet 76
By: William Shakespeare
 
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To 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.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

Above the Dock
By: T. E. Hulme
Above the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast’s corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child’s balloon, forgotten after play.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Hulme

Up-Hill

By: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.
 
But is there for the night a resting-place?
   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
   You cannot miss that inn.
 
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
   Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
   They will not keep you standing at that door.
 
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
   Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
   Yea, beds for all who come.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is famous for writing Goblin Market and "Remember". She also wrote the words of the Christmas carols "In the Bleak Midwinter", set to a tune by Gustav Holst, and "Love Came Down at Christmas"

Sonnet 109  
By: William Shakespeare
 
O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

Early life. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.

Heaven
By: Rupert Brooke
 
Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! – Death eddies near –
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! Never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Brooke

When I Read the Book
By: Walt Whitman
 
When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real  life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman
 

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

Sonnet 1
 
By: William Shakespeare
 
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,
Thy self 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.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare
 
William Shakespeare - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Early life. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.

Elegy V: His Picture
 
By: John Donne
Here take my picture; though I bid farewell
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more
When we are shadows both, than 'twas before.
When weather-beaten I come back, my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun beams tann’d,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s rash sudden storms being o’erspread,
My body’a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to’have lov’d a man
So foul and coarse as, oh, I may seem then,
This shall say what I was, and thou shalt say,
“Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk which in love's childish state
Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to disus’d tastes seems tough.”
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne

The Word
 
By: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Oh, a word is a gem, or a stone, or a song,
   Or a flame, or a two-edged sword;
Or a rose in bloom, or a sweet perfume,
   Or a drop of gall is a word.
 
You may choose your word like a connoisseur,
   And polish it up with art,
But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays,
   Is the word that comes from the heart.
 
You may work on your word a thousand weeks,
   But it will not glow like one
That all unsought, leaps forth white hot,
   When the fountains of feeling run.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Wheeler_Wilcox

The Vast Hour
 
By: Genevieve Taggard
All essences of sweetness from the white
Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark
Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,
Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night
Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.
Mysterious wings have brushed the air; and light
Float all the ghosts of sense and sound and sight;
The silent hive is echoing the bees.
So stir my thoughts at this slow, solemn time.
Now only is there certainty for me
When all the day's distilled and understood.
Now light meets darkness: now my tendrils climb
In this vast hour, up the living tree,
Where gloom foregathers, and the stern winds brood.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevieve_Taggard
 

Poetry
 
By: Claude McKay
Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower,
And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee,
Bowing my head in deep humility
Before the silent thunder of thy power.
Sometimes I flee before thy blazing light,
As from the specter of pursuing death;
Intimidated lest thy mighty breath,
Windways, will sweep me into utter night.
For oh, I fear they will be swallowed up—
The loves which are to me of vital worth,
My passion and my pleasure in the earth—
And lost forever in thy magic cup!
I fear, I fear my truly human heart
Will perish on the altar-stone of art!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_McKay
 
Claude McKay - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay (September 15, 1889 – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican writer and poet, who was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance.He wrote four novels: Home to Harlem (1928), a best-seller that won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo (1929), Banana Bottom (1933), and in 1941 a manuscript called Amiable With Big ...

To Winter
By: William Blake
 
O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.
He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathed
In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes;
For he hath rear’d his scepter o’er the world.
Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o’er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and in his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.
He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch! that deal’st
With storms; till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driven yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
 

Moments of Vision
 
By: Thomas Hardy
            That mirror
         Which makes of men a transparency,
            Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bared spectacle to see
            Of you and me?
 
            That mirror
         Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
            Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
            Until we start?
 
            That mirror
         Works well in these night hours of ache;
            Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
            When the world is awake?
 
            That mirror
          Can test each mortal when unaware;
            Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
            Reflecting it—where?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy
Thomas Hardy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Thomas Hardy OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth.

By the Stream
 
By: Paul Laurence Dunbar
By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens
pass,
And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,
Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.
And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,
For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show,
And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries,
When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar
 
Paul Laurence Dunbar - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began to write stories and verse when still a child; he was president of his high school's ...

Still On Patrol
By: Lt Col Frederick Lambert
 
In their submarines they went,
Some never to return
In those dark years of war.
We called them Yanks.
Do not forget them,
We give out our thanks.
Roll calls for their battle losses
The tolling of the bells
Dong, dong, dong.
War claimed its sacrifices
Tributes paid, wreathes laid.
Messages from aching hearts
Of loved ones far from home.
Lives for freedom.
Submarines,
Still on patrol.
 
 Lt Col Frederick Lambert
"Z Special Force"
 Borneo, 1944/45

Still On Patrol
By: Lt Col Frederick Lambert
 
In their submarines they went,
Some never to return
In those dark years of war.
We called them Yanks.
Do not forget them,
We give out our thanks.
Roll calls for their battle losses
The tolling of the bells
Dong, dong, dong.
War claimed its sacrifices
Tributes paid, wreathes laid.
Messages from aching hearts
Of loved ones far from home.
Lives for freedom.
Submarines,
Still on patrol.
 
 Lt Col Frederick Lambert
"Z Special Force"
 Borneo, 1944/45

Fragment: Questions
 
By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
 
Is it that in some brighter sphere
We part from friends we meet with here?
Or do we see the Future pass
Over the Present’s dusky glass?
Or what is that that makes us seem
To patch up fragments of a dream,
Part of which comes true, and part
Beats and trembles in the heart?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Percy Bysshe Shelley (/ ˈ p ɜːr s i ˈ b ɪ ʃ ˈ ʃ ɛ l i; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric poets in the English language, and one of the most influential.

The Definition of Love
 
By: Andrew Marvell
My Love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by despair
Upon Impossibility.
 
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne’r have flown
But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing.
 
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended Soul is fixt,
But Fate does Iron wedges drive,
And alwaies crowds it self betwixt.
 
For Fate with jealous Eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruine be,
And her Tyrannick pow’er depose.
 
And therefore her Decrees of Steel
Us as the distant Poles have plac’d,
(Though Love’s whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac’d.
 
Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new Convulsion tear;
And, us to joyn, the World should all
Be cramp’d into a Planisphere.
 
As Lines so Loves oblique may well
Themselves in every Angle greet:
But ours so truly Parallel,
Though infinite can never meet.
                                                  
Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debarrs,
Is the Conjunction of the Mind,
And Opposition of the Stars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Marvell
 
Andrew Marvell - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Andrew Marvell (/ ˈ m ɑːr v əl /; 31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678.

The Exposed Nest
 
By: Robert Frost
You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But ‘twas no make-believe with you to-day,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.
‘Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once—could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven’t any memory—have you?—
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.
Robert Frost
 
Robert Frost - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, to journalist William Prescott Frost, Jr., and Isabelle Moodie. His mother was a Scottish immigrant, and his ...

Book 1, Epigram 5: Ad lectorem de subjecto operis sui.

 
By: Thomas Bastard
 
The little world, the subject of my muse,
Is a huge task and labor infinite;
Like to a wilderness or mass confuse,
Or to an endless gulf, or to the night:
How many strange Meanders do I find?
How many paths do turn my straying pen?
How many doubtful twilights make me blind,
Which seek to limb out this strange All of men?
Easy it were the earth to portray out,
Or to draw forth the heavens’ purest frame,
Whose restless course, by order whirls about
Of change and place, and still remains the same.
    But how shall man’s, or manner’s, form appear,
    Which while I write, do change from what they were?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bastard

en.wikipedia.org The Reverend Thomas Bastard (1565/1566 – April 19, 1618) was an English clergyman famed for his published English language epigrams. Life. Born in Blandford Forum ...

Sonnet 105
 
By: William Shakespeare
 
Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, 
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
'Fair, kind and true' is all my argument,
'Fair, kind, and true' varying to other words; 
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
    'Fair, kind, and true,' have often lived alone,
    Which three till now never kept seat in one.



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

That Bright Chimeric Beast
By: Countee Cullen
 
That bright chimeric beast
Conceived yet never born,
Save in the poet’s breast,
The white-flanked unicorn,
Never may be shaken
From his solitude;
Never may be taken
In any earthly wood.
That bird forever feathered,
Of its new self the sire,
After aeons weathered,
Reincarnate by fire,
Falcon may not nor eagle
Swerve from his eyrie,
Nor any crumb inveigle
Down to an earthly tree.
 
That fish of the dread regime
Invented to become
The fable and the dream
Of the Lord’s aquarium,
Leviathan, the jointed
Harpoon was never wrought
By which the Lord’s anointed
Will suffer to be caught.
 
Bird of the deathless breast,
Fish of the frantic fin,
That bright chimeric beast
Flashing the argent skin, –
If beasts like these you’d harry,
Plumb then the poet’s dream;
Make it your aviary,
Make it your wood and stream.
 
There only shall the swish
Be heard of the regal fish;
There like a golden knife
Dart the feet of the unicorn,
And there, death brought to life,
The dead bird be reborn.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countee_Cullen
 
Countee Cullen - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Early life Childhood. Countee Cullen was born on May 30, 1903, but due to a lack of records of his early childhood, it has been difficult to pinpoint his city of birth.

Autumn
By: John Clare
 
The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.
 
The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
 
Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare
John Clare - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer, who became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and ...

Seaweed
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 
 
When descends on the Atlantic
      The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
      The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
 
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
      Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
      Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
 
From the tumbling surf, that buries
      The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
      Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas; —
 
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
      On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
      Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
 
So when storms of wild emotion
      Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
      In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:
 
From the far-off isles enchanted,
      Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
      Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
 
From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
      That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
      Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate; —
 
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
      On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
      They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

To a Friend who sent me some Roses
By: John Keats
As late I rambled in the happy fields,      
   What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew         
   From his lush clover covert;—when anew         
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,               
   A fresh-blown musk-rose; ‘twas the first that threw      
   Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew  
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.            
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,           
   I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:                   
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me           
   My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:  
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea          
   Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

A Musical Instrument
By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
    Down in the reeds by the river ?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
    With the dragon-fly on the river.
 
II.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
    From the deep cool bed of the river :
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
    Ere he brought it out of the river.
 
III.
High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
    While turbidly flowed the river ;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
    To prove it fresh from the river.
 
IV.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
    (How tall it stood in the river !)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
    In holes, as he sate by the river.
 
V.
This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan,
    Laughed while he sate by the river,)
The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
    He blew in power by the river.
 
VI.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan !
    Piercing sweet by the river !
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan !
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
    Came back to dream on the river.
 
VII.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
    To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man :
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, —
For the reed which grows nevermore again
    As a reed with the reeds in the river.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning

The House of Life: 19. Silent Noon
 
By: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
 
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,—
   The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
   Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
   Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
   Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
 
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:—
   So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
   When twofold silence was the song of love.

Empty Manger
By: David Conolly

Once a church,
the little building
gathers dust.

Has he finally
abandoned us?

Is this the end
of
the lovely dream?

Look
at the hot, silent land - 
and remember:

it was to planet earth
he came,
not to bricks
and crumbling mortar.

And to earth's inhabitants.

Wherever his Way
still lives -
and in whom - 

he is present.

Always will be.

Sonnet 59
 
By: William Shakespeare
 
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

Of Love, A Sonnet
By:  Robert Herrick
How love came in I do not know,
Whether by the eye, or ear, or no;
Or whether with the soul it came
(At first) infused with the same;
Whether in part ’tis here or there,
Or, like the soul, whole everywhere,
This troubles me: but I as well
As any other this can tell:
That when from hence she does depart
The outlet then is from the heart.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Herrick_(poet)

Cock-Crow
By: Edward Thomas
 
Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night
To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,—
Out of the night, two cocks together crow,
Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:
And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,
Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,
Each facing each as in a coat of arms:
The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_(poet)

Love's Growth          By: John Donne
 
I scarce believe my love to be so pure 
   As I had thought it was, 
   Because it doth endure 
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass; 
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore 
My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more. 
 
But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow 
With more, not only be no quintessence, 
But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense, 
And of the sun his working vigor borrow, 
Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use 
To say, which have no mistress but their muse, 
But as all else, being elemented too, 
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do. 
 
And yet no greater, but more eminent, 
   Love by the spring is grown; 
   As, in the firmament, 
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown, 
Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough, 
From love’s awakened root do bud out now. 
 
If, as water stirred more circles be 
Produced by one, love such additions take, 
Those, like so many spheres, but one heaven make, 
For they are all concentric unto thee; 
And though each spring do add to love new heat, 
As princes do in time of action get 
New taxes, and remit them not in peace, 
No winter shall abate the spring’s increase. 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne

The Argument of His Book
 
By: Robert Herrick
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers.
I sing of maypoles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.
I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece,
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.
I sing of time’s trans-shifting; and I write
How roses first came red, and lilies white.
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The court of Mab, and of the fairy king.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Herrick_(poet)​

An Invite to Eternity
By: John Clare 

Wilt thou go with me sweet maid
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through the valley depths of shade
Of night and dark obscurity
Where the path hath lost its way
Where the sun forgets the day
Where there’s nor life nor light to see
Sweet maiden wilt thou go with me
Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves.
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot
And sisters live and know us not
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be
To live in death and be the same
Without this life, or home, or name
At once to be, and not to be
That was, and is not – yet to see
Things pass like shadows – and the sky
Above, below, around us lie
The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look – nor know each other’s face
The present mixed with reasons gone
And past, and present all as one
Say maiden can thy life be led
To join the living to the dead
Then trace thy footsteps on with me
We’re wed to one eternity​
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare

An Idyll of Dandaloo
By: A.B 'Banjo' Paterson
 
 
 
On Western plains, where shade is not,
  ‘Neath summer skies of cloudless blue,
Where all is dry and all is hot,
  There stands the town of Dandaloo —
A township where life’s total sum
Is sleep, diversified with rum.
It’s grass-grown streets with dust are deep,
  ’Twere vain endeavour to express
The dreamless silence of its sleep,
  Its wide, expansive drunkenness.
The yearly races mostly drew
A lively crowd to Dandaloo.
There came a sportsman from the East,
  The eastern land where sportsmen blow,
And brought with him a speedy beast —
  A speedy beast as horses go.
He came afar in hope to ‘do’
The little town of Dandaloo.
Now this was weak of him, I wot —
  Exceeding weak, it seemed to me —
For we in Dandaloo were not
  The Jugginses we seemed to be;
In fact, we rather thought we knew
Our book by heart in Dandaloo.
We held a meeting at the bar,
  And met the question fair and square —
‘We’ve stumped the country near and far
  To raise the cash for races here;
We’ve got a hundred pounds or two —
Not half so bad for Dandaloo.
‘And now, it seems, we have to be
  Cleaned out by this here Sydney bloke,
With his imported horse; and he
  Will scoop the pool and leave us broke
Shall we sit still, and make no fuss
While this chap climbs all over us?’
       . . . . .
The races came to Dandaloo,
  And all the cornstalks from the West,
On ev’ry kind of moke and screw,
  Came forth in all their glory drest.
The stranger’s horse, as hard as nails,
Look’d fit to run for New South Wales.
He won the race by half a length —
  QUITE half a length, it seemed to me —
But Dandaloo, with all its strength,
  Roared out ‘Dead heat!’ most fervently;
And, after hesitation meet,
The judge’s verdict was ‘Dead heat!’
And many men there were could tell
  What gave the verdict extra force:
The stewards, and the judge as well —
  They all had backed the second horse.
For things like this they sometimes do
In larger towns than Dandaloo.
They ran it off; the stranger won,
  Hands down, by near a hundred yards
He smiled to think his troubles done;
  But Dandaloo held all the cards.
They went to scale and — cruel fate! —
His jockey turned out under-weight.
Perhaps they’d tampered with the scale!
  I cannot tell. I only know
It weighed him OUT all right. I fail
  To paint that Sydney sportsman’s woe.
He said the stewards were a crew
Of low-lived thieves in Dandaloo.
He lifted up his voice, irate,
  And swore till all the air was blue;
So then we rose to vindicate
  The dignity of Dandaloo.
‘Look here,’ said we, ‘you must not poke
Such oaths at us poor country folk.’
We rode him softly on a rail,
  We shied at him, in careless glee,
Some large tomatoes, rank and stale,
  And eggs of great antiquity —
Their wild, unholy fragrance flew
About the town of Dandaloo.
He left the town at break of day,
  He led his race-horse through the streets,
And now he tells the tale, they say,
  To every racing man he meets.
And Sydney sportsmen all eschew
The atmosphere of Dandaloo.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Paterson

Song: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun”
 
By: William Shakespeare
(from Cymbeline)
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
 
Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
 
Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
 
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

The Snail
By: Richard Lovelace
Wise emblem of our politic world,
Sage snail, within thine own self curl’d;
Instruct me softly to make haste,
Whilst these my feet go slowly fast.
 
Compendious snail! thou seem’st to me,
Large Euclid’s strict epitome;
And in each diagram dost fling
Thee from the point unto the ring;
A figure now triangular,
An oval now, and now a square;
And then a serpentine dost crawl,
Now a straight line, now crook’d, now all.
 
Preventing rival of the day,
Th’art up and openest thy ray,
And ere the morn cradles the moon
Th’art broke into a beauteous noon.
Then when the sun sups in the deep,
Thy silver horns ere Cynthia’s peep;
And thou from thine own liquid bed
New Phoebus heav’st thy pleasant head.
 
Who shall a name for thee create,
Deep riddle of mysterious state?
Bold Nature that gives common birth
To all products of seas and earth,
Of thee, as earthquakes, is afraid,
Nor will thy dire deliv’ry aid.
 
Thou thine own daughter then, and sire,
That son and mother art entire,
That big still with thy self dost go,
And liv’st an aged embryo;
That like the cubs of India,
Thou from thyself a while dost play;
But frighted with a dog or gun,
In thine own belly thou dost run,
And as thy house was thine own womb,
So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.
 
But now I must (analyz’d king)
Thy economic virtues sing;
Thou great stay’d husband still within,
Thou, thee, that’s thine dost discipline;
And when thou art to progress bent,
Thou mov’st thy self and tenement,
As warlike Scythians travell’d, you
Remove your men and city too;
Then after a sad dearth and rain,
Thou scatterest thy silver train;
And when the trees grow nak’d and old,
Thou clothest them with cloth of gold,
Which from thy bowels thou dost spin,
And draw from the rich mines within.
 
Now hast thou chang’d thee saint; and made
Thy self a fane that’s cupola’d;
And in thy wreathed cloister thou
Walkest thine own grey friar too;
Strict, and lock’d up, th’art hood all o’er,
And ne’er eliminat’st thy door.
On salads thou dost feed severe,
And ’stead of beads thou dropp’st a tear;
And when to rest, each calls the bell,
Thou sleep’st within thy marble cell,
Where in dark contemplation plac’d,
The sweets of nature thou dost taste;
Who now with time thy days resolve,
And in a jelly thee dissolve,
Like a shot star, which doth repair
Upward, and rarify the air.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lovelace

Moonrise
By Gerard Manley Hopkins


I AWOKE in the Midsummer not to call night, in the
     white and the walk of the morning:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a
     finger-nail held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but
     lustreless,
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of
     dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, en-
     tangled him, not quit utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, pre-
     sented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of
     slumber.

Shakespeare
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
A vision as of crowded city streets,
      With human life in endless overflow;
      Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow
      To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats, Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets;
      Tolling of bells in turrets, and below
      Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw
      O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets!
This vision comes to me when I unfold
      The volume of the Poet paramount,
      Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone; — Into his hands they put the lyre of gold,
      And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount,
      Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

The Oak
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
 
. . . It is the last survivor of a race
Strong in their forest-pride when I was young.
I can remember when, for miles around,
In place of those smooth meadows and corn-fields, There stood ten thousand tall and stately trees, Such as had braved the winds of March, the bolt Sent by the summer lightning, and the snow Heaping for weeks their boughs. Even in the depth Of hot July the glades were cool; the grass, Yellow and parched elsewhere, grew long and fresh, Shading wild strawberries and violets, Or the lark’s nest; and overhead the dove Had her lone dwelling, paying for her home With melancholy songs; and scarce a beech Was there without a honeysuckle linked Around, with its red tendrils and pink flowers; Or girdled by a brier-rose, whose buds Yield fragrant harvest for the honey-bee There dwelt the last red deer, those antler’d kings . . .
But this is as dream,—the plough has pass’d Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked On the green twilight of the forest-trees.
This oak has no companion! . . . .
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letitia_Elizabeth_Landon

Song: 'The feathers of the willow'
By Richard Watson Dixon
 
THE FEATHERS of the willow       
Are half of them grown yellow 
  Above the swelling stream;      
And ragged are the bushes,       
And rusty now the rushes,         
And wild the clouded gleam.     
 
The thistle now is older,               
His stalk begins to moulder,       
  His head is white as snow;        
The branches all are barer,         
The linnet’s song is rarer,            
  The robin pipeth now.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Watson_Dixon​

To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent
 BY JOHN KEATS
To one who has been long in city pent, 
         'Tis very sweet to look into the fair 
         And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer 
Full in the smile of the blue firmament. 
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, 
         Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair 
         Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair 
And gentle tale of love and languishment? 
Returning home at evening, with an ear 
         Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye 
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, 
         He mourns that day so soon has glided by: 
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear 
         That falls through the clear ether silently. ​
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats​

Today's poem, 'Thoughts 1', is the first poem from Volume 1 of 'Three Hundred Tang Poems', an anthology compiled by the Qing Dynasty scholar Sun Zhu in around 1763.
 
Thoughts I 
 
By Zhang Jiuling 
 
 
A lonely swan from the sea flies, 
To alight on puddles it does not deign. 
Nesting in the poplar of pearls 
It spies and questions green birds twain: 
"Don't you fear the threat of slings, 
Perched on top of branches so high? 
Nice clothes invite pointing fingers, 
High climbers god's good will defy. 
Bird-hunters will crave me in vain, 
For I roam the limitless sky." ​
 
All five volumes of the anthology may be downloaded for reading and listening from the LibriVox website.

Inviting a Friend to Supper

BY BEN JONSON
Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I 
Do equally desire your company; 
Not that we think us worthy such a guest, 
But that your worth will dignify our feast 
With those that come, whose grace may make that seem 
Something, which else could hope for no esteem. 
It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates 
The entertainment perfect, not the cates. 
Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate, 
An olive, capers, or some better salad 
Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen, 
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then 
Lemons, and wine for sauce; to these a cony 
Is not to be despaired of, for our money; 
And, though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, 
The sky not falling, think we may have larks. 
I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: 
Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some 
May yet be there, and godwit, if we can; 
Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe’er, my man 
Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, 
Livy, or of some better book to us, 
Of which we’ll speak our minds, amidst our meat; 
And I’ll profess no verses to repeat. 
To this, if ought appear which I not know of, 
That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.
Digestive cheese and fruit there sure will be; 
But that which most doth take my Muse and me, 
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine, 
Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine; 
Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted, 
Their lives, as so their lines, till now had lasted. 
Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, 
Are all but Luther's beer to this I sing. 
Of this we will sup free, but moderately, 
And we will have no Pooley, or Parrot by, 
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; 
But, at our parting we will be as when 
We innocently met. No simple word 
That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, 
Shall make us sad next morning or affright 
The liberty that we’ll enjoy tonight.
 
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ben-jonson​

from Endymion

BY JOHN KEATS
A Poetic Romance 

(excerpt)
BOOK I 
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in; and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: 
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
We have imagined for the mighty dead; 
All lovely tales that we have heard or read: 
An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 
 
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats​

from  The Prelude: Book 2: School-time 
 BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much 
Unvisited, endeavour'd to retrace 
My life through its first years, and measured back 
The way I travell'd when I first began 
To love the woods and fields; the passion yet 
Was in its birth, sustain'd, as might befal, 
By nourishment that came unsought, for still, 
From week to week, from month to month, we liv'd 
A round of tumult: duly were our games 
Prolong'd in summer till the day-light fail'd; 
No chair remain'd before the doors, the bench 
And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep 
The Labourer, and the old Man who had sate, 
A later lingerer, yet the revelry 
Continued, and the loud uproar: at last, 
When all the ground was dark, and the huge clouds 
Were edged with twinkling stars, to bed we went, 
With weary joints, and with a beating mind. 
Ah! is there one who ever has been young, 
Nor needs a monitory voice to tame 
The pride of virtue, and of intellect? 
And is there one, the wisest and the best 
Of all mankind, who does not sometimes wish 
For things which cannot be, who would not give, 
If so he might, to duty and to truth 
The eagerness of infantine desire? 
A tranquillizing spirit presses now 
On my corporeal frame: so wide appears 
The vacancy between me and those days, 
Which yet have such self-presence in my mind 
That, sometimes, when I think of them, I seem 
Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself 
And of some other Being. A grey Stone 
Of native rock, left midway in the Square 
Of our small market Village, was the home 
And centre of these joys, and when, return'd 
After long absence, thither I repair'd, 
I found that it was split, and gone to build 
A smart Assembly-room that perk'd and flar'd 
With wash and rough-cast elbowing the ground 
Which had been ours. But let the fiddle scream, 
And be ye happy! yet, my Friends! I know 
That more than one of you will think with me 
Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame 
From whom the stone was nam'd who there had sate 
And watch'd her Table with its huckster's wares 
Assiduous, thro' the length of sixty years. 
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth​

The Wine of Love
By James Thomson (Bysshe Vanolis)
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 ariseth drunken,
   But not with the feast and the wine;
He reeleth with his own heart,
   That great rich Vine.

The Garden
By Andrew Marvell
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!

Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments
By William Shakespeare
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

To Margaret W------
By Charles Lamb
Margaret, in happy hour
Christen'd from that humble flower
Which we a daisy call!
May thy pretty name-sake be
In all things a type of thee,
And image thee in all.
 
Like it you show a modest face,
An unpretending native grace;—
The tulip, and the pink,
The china and the damask rose,
And every flaunting flower that blows,
In the comparing shrink.
 
Of lowly fields you think no scorn;
Yet gayest gardens would adorn,
And grace, wherever set.
Home-seated in your lonely bower,
Or wedded—a transplanted flower—
I bless you, Margaret!

The Author to Her Book
By Anne Bradstreet
 
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.

Bell-Birds 
by Henry Kendall
By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling:
It lives in the mountain where moss and the sedges
Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges.
Through breaks of the cedar and sycamore bowers
Struggles the light that is love to the flowers;
And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,
The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.
 
The silver-voiced bell birds, the darlings of daytime!
They sing in September their songs of the May-time;
When shadows wax strong, and the thunder bolts hurtle,
They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;
When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together,
They start up like fairies that follow fair weather;
And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden
Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.
 
October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,
Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;
Loiters, knee-deep, in the grasses, to listen,
Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten:
Then is the time when the water-moons splendid
Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended
Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning
Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the Morning.
 
Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers
Are the voices of bell-birds to the thirsty far-comers.
When fiery December sets foot in the forest,
And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,
Pent in the ridges for ever and ever
The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river,
With ring and with ripple, like runnels who torrents
Are toned by the pebbles and the leaves in the currents.

Often I sit, looking back to a childhood,
Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,
Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion,
Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of Passion; -
Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters
Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest-rafters;
So I might keep in the city and alleys
The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys:
Charming to slumber the pain of my losses
With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.

Sonnet I
by Henry Kendall
     I

I purposed once to take my pen and write,
    Not songs, like some, tormented and awry
    With passion, but a cunning harmony
Of words and music caught from glen and height,
And lucid colours born of woodland light
    And shining places where the sea-streams lie.
But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,
    And since I've put the faded purpose by.
I have no faultless fruits to offer you
    Who read this book; but certain syllables
    Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells
And secret hollows dear to noontide dew;
And these at least, though far between and few,
    May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.

For Once, Then, Something
By Robert Frost
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

The Owl
By Edward Thomas
Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
 
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
 
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.
 
And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

“Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray”
By Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
from Sonnets, First Series 
 
VI 
 
Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray 
With trees and trail of mosses, wringing-wet; 
Beds of the black pitchpine in dead leaves set 
Whose wasted red has wasted to white away; 
Remnants of rain and droppings of decay, — 
Why hold ye so my heart, nor dimly let 
Through your deep leaves the light of yesterday, 
The faded glimmer of a sunshine set? 
Is it that in your darkness, shut from strife, 
The bread of tears becomes the bread of life? 
Far from the roar of day, beneath your boughs 
Fresh griefs beat tranquilly, and loves and vows 
Grow green in your gray shadows, dearer far 
Even than all lovely lights and roses are?

When that I was and a little tiny boy (With hey, ho, the wind and the rain)
            (from Twelth Night)
By William Shakespeare
 
When that I was and a little tiny boy, 
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
A foolish thing was but a toy, 
    For the rain it raineth every day. 
 
But when I came to man’s estate, 
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, 
    For the rain it raineth every day. 
 
But when I came, alas! to wive, 
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
By swaggering could I never thrive, 
    For the rain it raineth every day. 
 
But when I came unto my beds, 
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
With toss-pots still had drunken heads, 
    For the rain it raineth every day. 
 
A great while ago the world begun, 
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
But that’s all one, our play is done, 
    And we’ll strive to please you every day.

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!

from The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued)
By William Wordsworth
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
Unvisited, endeavour'd to retrace
My life through its first years, and measured back
The way I travell'd when I first began
To love the woods and fields; the passion yet
Was in its birth, sustain'd, as might befal,
By nourishment that came unsought, for still,
From week to week, from month to month, we liv'd
A round of tumult: duly were our games
Prolong'd in summer till the day-light fail'd;
No chair remain'd before the doors, the bench
And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep
The Labourer, and the old Man who had sate,
A later lingerer, yet the revelry
Continued, and the loud uproar: at last,
When all the ground was dark, and the huge clouds
Were edged with twinkling stars, to bed we went,
With weary joints, and with a beating mind.
Ah! is there one who ever has been young,
Nor needs a monitory voice to tame
The pride of virtue, and of intellect?
And is there one, the wisest and the best
Of all mankind, who does not sometimes wish
For things which cannot be, who would not give,
If so he might, to duty and to truth
The eagerness of infantine desire?
A tranquillizing spirit presses now
On my corporeal frame: so wide appears
The vacancy between me and those days,
Which yet have such self-presence in my mind
That, sometimes, when I think of them, I seem
Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself
And of some other Being.

The Arrow and the Song
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 
I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 
 
I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song? 
 
Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Delia 31: Look, Delia, how we 'steem the half-blown rose (1592 version)
By Samuel Daniel
 
Look, Delia, how we 'steem the half-blown rose,
The image of thy blush and summer's honour,
Whilst in her tender green she doth enclose
That pure sweet beauty time bestows upon her.
No sooner spreads her glory in the air
But straight her full-blown pride is in declining;
She then is scorn'd that late adorn'd the fair:
So clouds thy beauty after fairest shining.
No April can revive thy wither'd flowers,
Whose blooming grace adorns thy beauty now;
Swift speedy time, feather'd with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
O let not then such riches waste in vain,
But love whilst that thou mayst be lov'd again.

Wash of Cold River
By Hilda Doolittle
Wash of cold river 
in a glacial land, 
Ionian water, 
chill, snow-ribbed sand, 
drift of rare flowers, 
clear, with delicate shell- 
like leaf enclosing 
frozen lily-leaf, 
camellia texture, 
colder than a rose; 
 
wind-flower 
that keeps the breath 
of the north-wind— 
these and none other; 
 
intimate thoughts and kind 
reach out to share 
the treasure of my mind, 
intimate hands and dear 
drawn garden-ward and sea-ward 
all the sheer rapture 
that I would take 
to mould a clear 
and frigid statue; 
 
rare, of pure texture, 
beautiful space and line, 
marble to grace 
your inaccessible shrine.

The Cloud Confines
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The day is dark and the night 
         To him that would search their heart; 
         No lips of cloud that will part 
Nor morning song in the light: 
         Only, gazing alone, 
         To him wild shadows are shown, 
         Deep under deep unknown 
And height above unknown height. 
                Still we say as we go,
                        "Strange to think by the way, 
                Whatever there is to know, 
                        That shall we know one day." 
 
The Past is over and fled; 
         Nam'd new, we name it the old; 
         Thereof some tale hath been told, 
But no word comes from the dead; 
         Whether at all they be, 
         Or whether as bond or free, 
         Or whether they too were we, 
Or by what spell they have sped. 
                Still we say as we go,
                        "Strange to think by the way, 
                Whatever there is to know, 
                        That shall we know one day." 
 
What of the heart of hate 
         That beats in thy breast, O Time?
         Red strife from the furthest prime, 
And anguish of fierce debate; 
         War that shatters her slain, 
         And peace that grinds them as grain, 
         And eyes fix'd ever in vain 
On the pitiless eyes of Fate. 
                Still we say as we go,
                        "Strange to think by the way, 
                Whatever there is to know, 
                        That shall we know one day." 
 
What of the heart of love 
         That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?
         Thy kisses snatch'd 'neath the ban 
Of fangs that mock them above; 
         Thy bells prolong'd unto knells, 
         Thy hope that a breath dispels, 
         Thy bitter forlorn farewells 
And the empty echoes thereof? 
                Still we say as we go,
                        "Strange to think by the way, 
                Whatever there is to know, 
                        That shall we know one day." 
 
The sky leans dumb on the sea, 
         Aweary with all its wings; 
         And oh! the song the sea sings 
Is dark everlastingly. 
         Our past is clean forgot, 
         Our present is and is not, 
         Our future's a seal'd seedplot, 
And what betwixt them are we?
                We who say as we go,
                        "Strange to think by the way, 
                Whatever there is to know, 
                           That shall we know one day."

Who Has Seen the Wind?
By Christina Rossetti
Who has seen the wind? 
Neither I nor you: 
But when the leaves hang trembling, 
The wind is passing through. 
 
Who has seen the wind? 
Neither you nor I: 
But when the trees bow down their heads, 
The wind is passing by.

It was a Lover and his Lass
By William Shakespeare
 
It was a lover and his lass, 
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
That o’er the green cornfield did pass, 
   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 
Sweet lovers love the spring. 
 
Between the acres of the rye, 
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
Those pretty country folks would lie, 
   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 
Sweet lovers love the spring. 
 
This carol they began that hour, 
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
How that a life was but a flower 
   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 
Sweet lovers love the spring. 
 
And therefore take the present time, 
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
For love is crownèd with the prime 
   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 
Sweet lovers love the spring.

II   Thompson’s Lunch Room—Grand Central Station
Study in Whites
By Amy Lowell

Wax-white—
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping.
The big room is coloured like the petals
Of a great magnolia,
And has a patina
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps.
Chairs are ranged in rows
Like sepia seeds
Waiting fulfilment.
The chalk-white spot of a cook’s cap
Moves unglossily against the vaguely bright wall—
Dull chalk-white striking the retina like a blow
Through the wavering uncertainty of steam.
Vitreous-white of glasses with green reflections,
Ice-green carboys, shifting—greener, bluer—with the jar of moving water.
Jagged green-white bowls of pressed glass
Rearing snow-peaks of chipped sugar
Above the lighthouse-shaped castors
Of grey pepper and grey-white salt.
Grey-white placards: “Oyster Stew, Cornbeef Hash, Frankfurters”:
Marble slabs veined with words in meandering lines.
Dropping on the white counter like horn notes
Through a web of violins,
The flat yellow lights of oranges,
The cube-red splashes of apples,
In high plated épergnes.
The electric clock jerks every half-minute:
“Coming!—Past!”
“Three beef-steaks and a chicken-pie,”
Bawled through a slide while the clock jerks heavily.
A man carries a china mug of coffee to a distant chair.
Two rice puddings and a salmon salad
Are pushed over the counter;
The unfulfilled chairs open to receive them.
A spoon falls upon the floor with the impact of metal striking stone,
And the sound throws across the room
Sharp, invisible zigzags
Of silver.

The Seasons: Spring
By James Thomson
As rising from the vegetable World 
My Theme ascends, with equal Wing ascend, 
My panting Muse; and hark, how loud the Woods 
Invite you forth in all your gayest Trim. 
Lend me your Song, ye Nightingales! oh pour 
The mazy-running Soul of Melody 
Into my varied Verse! while I deduce, 
From the first Note the hollow Cuckoo sings, 
The Symphony of Spring, and touch a Theme 
Unknown to Fame, the Passion of the Groves.

Are They Shadows
By Samuel Daniel
Are they shadows that we see? 
And can shadows pleasure give? 
Pleasures only shadows be 
Cast by bodies we conceive 
And are made the things we deem 
In those figures which they seem. 
 
But these pleasures vanish fast 
Which by shadows are expressed; 
Pleasures are not, if they last; 
In their passing is their best. 
Glory is most bright and gay 
In a flash, and so away. 
 
Feed apace then, greedy eyes, 
On the wonder you behold; 
Take it sudden as it flies, 
Though you take it not to hold. 
When your eyes have done their part, 
Thought must length it in the heart.

The Evening Wind
By William Cullen Bryant
Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou 
That cool’st the twilight of the sultry day, 
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow: 
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, 
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, 
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray 
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee 
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea! 
 
Nor I alone—a thousand blossoms round 
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; 
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound 
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; 
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, 
Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight. 
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, 
God’s blessing breathed upon the fainting earth! 
 
Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, 
Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse 
The wide old wood from his majestic rest, 
Summoning from the innumerable boughs 
The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast: 
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows. 
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, 
And where the o’ershadowing branches sweep the grass. 
 
The faint old man shall lean his silver head 
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, 
And dry the moistened curls that overspread 
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep: 
And they who stand about the sick man’s bed, 
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, 
And softly part his curtains to allow 
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. 
 
Go—but the circle of eternal change, 
Which is the life of nature, shall restore, 
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range 
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; 
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange, 
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore; 
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem 
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

The Solitary Reaper
By William Wordsworth
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
 
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
 
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
 
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more. 

What mystery pervades a well!
By Emily Dickinson
 
What mystery pervades a well!
That water lives so far–
A neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar
 
Whose limit none has ever seen,
But just his lid of glass–
Like looking every time you please
In an abyss's face!
 
The grass does not appear afraid,
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is awe to me.
 
Related somehow they may be,
The sedge stands near the sea–
Where he is floorless
And does no timidity betray
 
But nature is a stranger yet:
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.
 
To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.

Youth and Age
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, 
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee— 
Both were mine! Life went a-maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
When I was young! 
 
When I was young?—Ah, woful When! 
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that does me grievous wrong, 
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, 
How lightly then it flashed along:— 
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
On winding lakes and rivers wide, 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
That fear no spite of wind or tide! 
Nought cared this body for wind or weather 
When Youth and I lived in't together. 
 
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree; 
O! the joys, that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 
Ere I was old! 
Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, 
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! 
O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, 
I'll think it but a fond conceit— 
It cannot be that Thou art gone! 
 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:— 
And thou wert aye a masker bold! 
What strange disguise hast now put on, 
To make believe, that thou are gone? 
I see these locks in silvery slips, 
This drooping gait, this altered size: 
But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! 
Life is but thought: so think I will 
That Youth and I are house-mates still. 
 
Dew-drops are the gems of morning, 
But the tears of mournful eve! 
Where no hope is, life's a warning 
That only serves to make us grieve, 
When we are old: 
That only serves to make us grieve 
With oft and tedious taking-leave, 
Like some poor nigh-related guest, 
That may not rudely be dismist; 
Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, 
And tells the jest without the smile. 

 The Cloud
By Percy Bysshe Shelley 
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 
From the seas and the streams; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 
The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 
As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
And whiten the green plains under, 
And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
And laugh as I pass in thunder. 
 
I sift the snow on the mountains below, 
And their great pines groan aghast; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 
While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 
Lightning my pilot sits; 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 
It struggles and howls at fits; 
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 
This pilot is guiding me, 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 
In the depths of the purple sea; 
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 
Over the lakes and the plains, 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 
The Spirit he loves remains; 
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, 
Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 
 
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 
And his burning plumes outspread, 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 
When the morning star shines dead; 
As on the jag of a mountain crag, 
Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 
In the light of its golden wings. 
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 
Its ardours of rest and of love, 
And the crimson pall of eve may fall 
From the depth of Heaven above, 
With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest, 
As still as a brooding dove. 
 
That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, 
Whom mortals call the Moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 
By the midnight breezes strewn; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
Which only the angels hear, 
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 
The stars peep behind her and peer; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 
Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 
Till calm the rivers, lakes, and seas, 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 
Are each paved with the moon and these. 
 
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, 
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl; 
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 
Over a torrent sea, 
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 
The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which I march 
With hurricane, fire, and snow, 
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, 
Is the million-coloured bow; 
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 
While the moist Earth was laughing below. 
 
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, 
And the nursling of the Sky; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; 
I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain when with never a stain 
The pavilion of Heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams 
Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 
And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 
I arise and unbuild it again.

Astrophil and Stella 72: Desire, though thou my old companion art
By Sir Philip Sidney
 
Desire, though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clings to my pure Love that I
One from the other scarcely can descry,
While each doth blow the fire of my heart,
Now from thy fellowship I needs must part;
Venus is taught with Dian’s wings to fly;
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie;
Virtue’s gold now must head my Cupid’s dart.
Service and honor, wonder with delight,
Fear to offend, will worthy to appear,
Care shining in mine eyes, faith in my sprite:
These things are let me by my only dear;
But thou, Desire, because thou wouldst have all,
Now banished art. But yet alas how shall?

Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace
By St. Francis of Assisi
 
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
 
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
 
Amen.
 
 
---
The Sydney Male Choir today sing the famous reflection of St Francis of Assisi to the setting of Rutter ‘Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace’, in memory of Jason David McCarthy.
 
The great Sydney Male Choir is now rehearsing at 6.15PM at Aquinas Institute Harrington Street Sydney each Tuesday and are auditioning. enquiries@sydneymalechoir.com.au

The Twelve Days of Christmas
By Anonymous
 
The first day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The second day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The third day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The fourth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The fifth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The sixth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The seventh day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The eighth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The ninth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Nine drummers drumming,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The tenth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Ten pipers piping,
Nine drummers drumming,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The eleventh day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Eleven ladies dancing,
Ten pipers piping,
Nine drummers drumming,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
 
The twelfth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Twelve fiddlers fiddling,
Eleven ladies dancing,
Ten pipers piping,
Nine drummers drumming,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.

Sun of God
By David Conolly


No need to search the skies.                          They beam light
                                                                        to reach
The light is here,                                              the shadow places
down here –                                                     in us    
everywhere.                                                     and our poor world.
                                                                       
Shimmering                                                     Light                                                   
in people                                                          from the Light-source
whose lives                                                      whose birth
banish                                                              we celebrate.
rejection,                                                        
bitterness,                                                        They don’t know
indifference,                                                    they do it.
fear.                                                                 That’s why they shine.

The Sea and the Skylark
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
On ear and ear two noises too old to end 
Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore; 
With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar, 
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score 
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour 
And pelt music, till none ’s to spill nor spend.
How these two shame this shallow and frail town! 
How ring right out our sordid turbid time,
Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown,
Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime: 
Our make and making break, are breaking, down 
To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.

The Sun's Shame (Sonnets XCII and XCIII)

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti


I 
Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught 
From life; and mocking pulses that remain 
When the soul’s death of bodily death is fain; 
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought; 
And penury’s sedulous self-torturing thought 
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane; 
And longed-for woman longing all in vain 
For lonely man with love’s desire distraught; 
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness, 
Given unto bodies of whose souls men say, 
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:— 
Beholding these things, I behold no less 
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess 
The shame that loads the intolerable day.


II 
As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress 
Of life’s disastrous eld, on blossoming youth 
May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth,— 
“Might I thy fruitless treasure but possess, 
Such blessing of mine all coming years should bless;”— 
Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal, 
And bitterly feels breathe against his soul 
The hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness:— 
Even so the World’s grey Soul to the green World 
Perchance one hour must cry: “Woe’s me, for whom 
Inveteracy of ill portends the doom,— 
Whose heart’s old fire in shadow of shame is furl’d: 
While thou even as of yore art journeying, 
All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!”

Theocritus: A Villanelle
By Oscar Wilde
 
O singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 
Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!
 
Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 
Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!
 
And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
For thee the jocund shepherds wait;
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
By Edward Lear
 
I 
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea 
   In a beautiful pea-green boat, 
They took some honey, and plenty of money, 
   Wrapped up in a five-pound note. 
The Owl looked up to the stars above, 
   And sang to a small guitar, 
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, 
    What a beautiful Pussy you are, 
         You are, 
         You are! 
What a beautiful Pussy you are!" 
 
II 
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl! 
   How charmingly sweet you sing! 
O let us be married! too long we have tarried: 
   But what shall we do for a ring?" 
They sailed away, for a year and a day, 
   To the land where the Bong-Tree grows 
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood 
   With a ring at the end of his nose, 
             His nose, 
             His nose, 
   With a ring at the end of his nose. 
 
III 
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling 
   Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will." 
So they took it away, and were married next day 
   By the Turkey who lives on the hill. 
They dined on mince, and slices of quince, 
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon; 
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, 
   They danced by the light of the moon, 
             The moon, 
             The moon, 
They danced by the light of the moon.

Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring
 
By William Shakespeare
 
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight
Drawn after you, – you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.​

Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve
By Banjo Paterson
 
You never heard tell of the story?
Well, now, I can hardly believe!
Never heard of the honour and glory
Of Pardon, the son of Reprieve?
But maybe you're only a Johnnie
And don't know a horse from a hoe?
Well, well, don't get angry, my sonny,
But, really, a young un should know.
 
They bred him out back on the `Never',
His mother was Mameluke breed.
To the front -- and then stay there -- was ever
The root of the Mameluke creed.
He seemed to inherit their wiry
Strong frames -- and their pluck to receive --
As hard as a flint and as fiery
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
 
We ran him at many a meeting
At crossing and gully and town,
And nothing could give him a beating --
At least when our money was down.
For weight wouldn't stop him, nor distance,
Nor odds, though the others were fast,
He'd race with a dogged persistence,
And wear them all down at the last.
 
At the Turon the Yattendon filly
Led by lengths at the mile-and-a-half,
And we all began to look silly,
While HER crowd were starting to laugh;
But the old horse came faster and faster,
His pluck told its tale, and his strength,
He gained on her, caught her, and passed her,
And won it, hands-down, by a length.
 
And then we swooped down on Menindie
To run for the President's Cup --
Oh! that's a sweet township -- a shindy
To them is board, lodging, and sup.
Eye-openers they are, and their system
Is never to suffer defeat;
It's `win, tie, or wrangle' -- to best 'em
You must lose 'em, or else it's `dead heat'.
 
We strolled down the township and found 'em
At drinking and gaming and play;
If sorrows they had, why they drowned 'em,
And betting was soon under way.
Their horses were good 'uns and fit 'uns,
There was plenty of cash in the town;
They backed their own horses like Britons,
And, Lord! how WE rattled it down!
 
With gladness we thought of the morrow,
We counted our wagers with glee,
A simile homely to borrow --
`There was plenty of milk in our tea.'
You see we were green; and we never
Had even a thought of foul play,
Though we well might have known that the clever
Division would `put us away'.
 
Experience `docet', they tell us,
At least so I've frequently heard,
But, `dosing' or `stuffing', those fellows
Were up to each move on the board:
They got to his stall -- it is sinful
To think what such villains would do --
And they gave him a regular skinful
Of barley -- green barley -- to chew.
 
He munched it all night, and we found him
Next morning as full as a hog --
The girths wouldn't nearly meet round him;
He looked like an overfed frog.
We saw we were done like a dinner --
The odds were a thousand to one
Against Pardon turning up winner,
'Twas cruel to ask him to run.
 
We got to the course with our troubles,
A crestfallen couple were we;
And we heard the `books' calling the doubles --
A roar like the surf of the sea;
And over the tumult and louder
Rang `Any price Pardon, I lay!'
Says Jimmy, `The children of Judah
Are out on the warpath to-day.'
 
Three miles in three heats: -- Ah, my sonny,
The horses in those days were stout,
They had to run well to win money;
I don't see such horses about.
Your six-furlong vermin that scamper
Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up;
They wouldn't earn much of their damper
In a race like the President's Cup.
 
The first heat was soon set a-going;
The Dancer went off to the front;
The Don on his quarters was showing,
With Pardon right out of the hunt.
He rolled and he weltered and wallowed --
You'd kick your hat faster, I'll bet;
They finished all bunched, and he followed
All lathered and dripping with sweat.
 
But troubles came thicker upon us,
For while we were rubbing him dry
The stewards came over to warn us:
`We hear you are running a bye!
If Pardon don't spiel like tarnation
And win the next heat -- if he can --
He'll earn a disqualification;
Just think over THAT, now, my man!'
 
Our money all gone and our credit,
Our horse couldn't gallop a yard;
And then people thought that WE did it!
It really was terribly hard.
We were objects of mirth and derision
To folk in the lawn and the stand,
And the yells of the clever division
Of `Any price Pardon!' were grand.
 
We still had a chance for the money,
Two heats still remained to be run;
If both fell to us -- why, my sonny,
The clever division were done.
And Pardon was better, we reckoned,
His sickness was passing away,
So he went to the post for the second
And principal heat of the day.
 
They're off and away with a rattle,
Like dogs from the leashes let slip,
And right at the back of the battle
He followed them under the whip.
They gained ten good lengths on him quickly
He dropped right away from the pack;
I tell you it made me feel sickly
To see the blue jacket fall back.
 
Our very last hope had departed --
We thought the old fellow was done,
When all of a sudden he started
To go like a shot from a gun.
His chances seemed slight to embolden
Our hearts; but, with teeth firmly set,
We thought, `Now or never! The old 'un
May reckon with some of 'em yet.'
 
Then loud rose the war-cry for Pardon;
He swept like the wind down the dip,
And over the rise by the garden,
The jockey was done with the whip
The field were at sixes and sevens --
The pace at the first had been fast --
And hope seemed to drop from the heavens,
For Pardon was coming at last.
 
And how he did come! It was splendid;
He gained on them yards every bound,
Stretching out like a greyhound extended,
His girth laid right down on the ground.
A shimmer of silk in the cedars
As into the running they wheeled,
And out flashed the whips on the leaders,
For Pardon had collared the field.
 
Then right through the ruck he came sailing --
I knew that the battle was won --
The son of Haphazard was failing,
The Yattendon filly was done;
He cut down the Don and the Dancer,
He raced clean away from the mare --
He's in front! Catch him now if you can, sir!
And up went my hat in the air!
 
Then loud from the lawn and the garden
Rose offers of `Ten to one ON!'
`Who'll bet on the field? I back Pardon!'
No use; all the money was gone.
He came for the third heat light-hearted,
A-jumping and dancing about;
The others were done ere they started
Crestfallen, and tired, and worn out.
 
He won it, and ran it much faster
Than even the first, I believe
Oh, he was the daddy, the master,
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
He showed 'em the method to travel --
The boy sat as still as a stone --
They never could see him for gravel;
He came in hard-held, and alone.
 
. . . . .
 
But he's old -- and his eyes are grown hollow;
Like me, with my thatch of the snow;
When he dies, then I hope I may follow,
And go where the racehorses go.
I don't want no harping nor singing --
Such things with my style don't agree;
Where the hoofs of the horses are ringing
There's music sufficient for me.
 
And surely the thoroughbred horses
Will rise up again and begin
Fresh races on far-away courses,
And p'raps they might let me slip in.
It would look rather well the race-card on
'Mongst Cherubs and Seraphs and things,
`Angel Harrison's black gelding Pardon,
Blue halo, white body and wings.'
 
And if they have racing hereafter,
(And who is to say they will not?)
When the cheers and the shouting and laughter
Proclaim that the battle grows hot;
As they come down the racecourse a-steering,
He'll rush to the front, I believe;
And you'll hear the great multitude cheering
For Pardon, the son of Reprieve.

Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve
By Banjo Paterson
 
You never heard tell of the story?
Well, now, I can hardly believe!
Never heard of the honour and glory
Of Pardon, the son of Reprieve?
But maybe you're only a Johnnie
And don't know a horse from a hoe?
Well, well, don't get angry, my sonny,
But, really, a young un should know.
 
They bred him out back on the `Never',
His mother was Mameluke breed.
To the front -- and then stay there -- was ever
The root of the Mameluke creed.
He seemed to inherit their wiry
Strong frames -- and their pluck to receive --
As hard as a flint and as fiery
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
 
We ran him at many a meeting
At crossing and gully and town,
And nothing could give him a beating --
At least when our money was down.
For weight wouldn't stop him, nor distance,
Nor odds, though the others were fast,
He'd race with a dogged persistence,
And wear them all down at the last.
 
At the Turon the Yattendon filly
Led by lengths at the mile-and-a-half,
And we all began to look silly,
While HER crowd were starting to laugh;
But the old horse came faster and faster,
His pluck told its tale, and his strength,
He gained on her, caught her, and passed her,
And won it, hands-down, by a length.
 
And then we swooped down on Menindie
To run for the President's Cup --
Oh! that's a sweet township -- a shindy
To them is board, lodging, and sup.
Eye-openers they are, and their system
Is never to suffer defeat;
It's `win, tie, or wrangle' -- to best 'em
You must lose 'em, or else it's `dead heat'.
 
We strolled down the township and found 'em
At drinking and gaming and play;
If sorrows they had, why they drowned 'em,
And betting was soon under way.
Their horses were good 'uns and fit 'uns,
There was plenty of cash in the town;
They backed their own horses like Britons,
And, Lord! how WE rattled it down!
 
With gladness we thought of the morrow,
We counted our wagers with glee,
A simile homely to borrow --
`There was plenty of milk in our tea.'
You see we were green; and we never
Had even a thought of foul play,
Though we well might have known that the clever
Division would `put us away'.
 
Experience `docet', they tell us,
At least so I've frequently heard,
But, `dosing' or `stuffing', those fellows
Were up to each move on the board:
They got to his stall -- it is sinful
To think what such villains would do --
And they gave him a regular skinful
Of barley -- green barley -- to chew.
 
He munched it all night, and we found him
Next morning as full as a hog --
The girths wouldn't nearly meet round him;
He looked like an overfed frog.
We saw we were done like a dinner --
The odds were a thousand to one
Against Pardon turning up winner,
'Twas cruel to ask him to run.
 
We got to the course with our troubles,
A crestfallen couple were we;
And we heard the `books' calling the doubles --
A roar like the surf of the sea;
And over the tumult and louder
Rang `Any price Pardon, I lay!'
Says Jimmy, `The children of Judah
Are out on the warpath to-day.'
 
Three miles in three heats: -- Ah, my sonny,
The horses in those days were stout,
They had to run well to win money;
I don't see such horses about.
Your six-furlong vermin that scamper
Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up;
They wouldn't earn much of their damper
In a race like the President's Cup.
 
The first heat was soon set a-going;
The Dancer went off to the front;
The Don on his quarters was showing,
With Pardon right out of the hunt.
He rolled and he weltered and wallowed --
You'd kick your hat faster, I'll bet;
They finished all bunched, and he followed
All lathered and dripping with sweat.
 
But troubles came thicker upon us,
For while we were rubbing him dry
The stewards came over to warn us:
`We hear you are running a bye!
If Pardon don't spiel like tarnation
And win the next heat -- if he can --
He'll earn a disqualification;
Just think over THAT, now, my man!'
 
Our money all gone and our credit,
Our horse couldn't gallop a yard;
And then people thought that WE did it!
It really was terribly hard.
We were objects of mirth and derision
To folk in the lawn and the stand,
And the yells of the clever division
Of `Any price Pardon!' were grand.
 
We still had a chance for the money,
Two heats still remained to be run;
If both fell to us -- why, my sonny,
The clever division were done.
And Pardon was better, we reckoned,
His sickness was passing away,
So he went to the post for the second
And principal heat of the day.
 
They're off and away with a rattle,
Like dogs from the leashes let slip,
And right at the back of the battle
He followed them under the whip.
They gained ten good lengths on him quickly
He dropped right away from the pack;
I tell you it made me feel sickly
To see the blue jacket fall back.
 
Our very last hope had departed --
We thought the old fellow was done,
When all of a sudden he started
To go like a shot from a gun.
His chances seemed slight to embolden
Our hearts; but, with teeth firmly set,
We thought, `Now or never! The old 'un
May reckon with some of 'em yet.'
 
Then loud rose the war-cry for Pardon;
He swept like the wind down the dip,
And over the rise by the garden,
The jockey was done with the whip
The field were at sixes and sevens --
The pace at the first had been fast --
And hope seemed to drop from the heavens,
For Pardon was coming at last.
 
And how he did come! It was splendid;
He gained on them yards every bound,
Stretching out like a greyhound extended,
His girth laid right down on the ground.
A shimmer of silk in the cedars
As into the running they wheeled,
And out flashed the whips on the leaders,
For Pardon had collared the field.
 
Then right through the ruck he came sailing --
I knew that the battle was won --
The son of Haphazard was failing,
The Yattendon filly was done;
He cut down the Don and the Dancer,
He raced clean away from the mare --
He's in front! Catch him now if you can, sir!
And up went my hat in the air!
 
Then loud from the lawn and the garden
Rose offers of `Ten to one ON!'
`Who'll bet on the field? I back Pardon!'
No use; all the money was gone.
He came for the third heat light-hearted,
A-jumping and dancing about;
The others were done ere they started
Crestfallen, and tired, and worn out.
 
He won it, and ran it much faster
Than even the first, I believe
Oh, he was the daddy, the master,
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
He showed 'em the method to travel --
The boy sat as still as a stone --
They never could see him for gravel;
He came in hard-held, and alone.
 
. . . . .
 
But he's old -- and his eyes are grown hollow;
Like me, with my thatch of the snow;
When he dies, then I hope I may follow,
And go where the racehorses go.
I don't want no harping nor singing --
Such things with my style don't agree;
Where the hoofs of the horses are ringing
There's music sufficient for me.
 
And surely the thoroughbred horses
Will rise up again and begin
Fresh races on far-away courses,
And p'raps they might let me slip in.
It would look rather well the race-card on
'Mongst Cherubs and Seraphs and things,
`Angel Harrison's black gelding Pardon,
Blue halo, white body and wings.'
 
And if they have racing hereafter,
(And who is to say they will not?)
When the cheers and the shouting and laughter
Proclaim that the battle grows hot;
As they come down the racecourse a-steering,
He'll rush to the front, I believe;
And you'll hear the great multitude cheering
For Pardon, the son of Reprieve.

Spirits of the Dead
By Edgar Allan Poe


I 
Thy soul shall find itself alone 
’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone— 
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry 
Into thine hour of secrecy. 
 
II 
Be silent in that solitude, 
Which is not loneliness—for then 
The spirits of the dead who stood 
In life before thee are again 
In death around thee—and their will 
Shall overshadow thee: be still. 
 
III 
The night, tho’ clear, shall frown— 
And the stars shall look not down 
From their high thrones in the heaven, 
With light like Hope to mortals given— 
But their red orbs, without beam, 
To thy weariness shall seem 
As a burning and a fever 
Which would cling to thee for ever. 

IV 
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish, 
Now are visions ne’er to vanish; 
From thy spirit shall they pass 
No more—like dew-drop from the grass. 

V 
The breeze—the breath of God—is still— 
And the mist upon the hill, 
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken, 
Is a symbol and a token— 
How it hangs upon the trees, 
A mystery of mysteries!​

The Poppy
By Jane Taylor
 
High on a bright and sunny bed 
A scarlet poppy grew 
And up it held its staring head, 
And thrust it full in view. 
 
Yet no attention did it win, 
By all these efforts made, 
And less unwelcome had it been 
In some retired shade. 
 
Although within its scarlet breast 
No sweet perfume was found, 
It seemed to think itself the best 
Of all the flowers round, 
 
From this I may a hint obtain 
And take great care indeed, 
Lest I appear as pert and vain 
As does this gaudy weed.​

Scorn not the Sonnet ​
By William Wordsworth
 
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
 
By William Blake
 
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​

Lines Written in Early Spring 
By William Wordsworth
 
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
 
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
 
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
 
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
 
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
 
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

November Night
By Adelaide Crapsey
Listen.
With faint dry sound, 
Like steps of passing ghosts, 
The leaves, frost - crisp'd, break from the trees 
And fall.

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.

Lights Out
Edward Thomas, 1878 - 1917
I have come to the borders of sleep, 
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
 
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn’s first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
 
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.

Floating Island
By Dorothy Wordsworth
 
Harmonious Powers with Nature work 
On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea: 
Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze 
All in one duteous task agree. 
 
Once did I see a slip of earth, 
By throbbing waves long undermined, 
Loosed from its hold; — how no one knew 
But all might see it float, obedient to the wind. 
 
Might see it, from the mossy shore 
Dissevered float upon the Lake, 
Float, with its crest of trees adorned 
On which the warbling birds their pastime take. 
 
Food, shelter, safety there they find 
There berries ripen, flowerets bloom; 
There insects live their lives — and die: 
A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room. 
 
And thus through many seasons’ space 
This little Island may survive 
But Nature, though we mark her not, 
Will take away — may cease to give. 
 
Perchance when you are wandering forth 
Upon some vacant sunny day 
Without an object, hope, or fear, 
Thither your eyes may turn — the Isle is passed away. 
 
Buried beneath the glittering Lake! 
Its place no longer to be found, 
Yet the lost fragments shall remain, 
To fertilize some other ground. 

Sonnet 15: When I consider everything that grows
By William Shakespeare
When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

A Man Said to the Universe
BY STEPHEN CRANE
 
A man said to the universe: 
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe, 
“The fact has not created in me 
A sense of obligation.”

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind”
By William Shakespeare
 
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 
As man’s ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude. 
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: 
Then, heigh-ho, the holly! 
This life is most jolly.
 
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
That dost not bite so nigh 
As benefits forgot: 
Though thou the waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remembered not. 
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly...

Piano
by D.H. Lawrence
 
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; 
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see 
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings 
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. 
 
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song 
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong 
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside 
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. 
 
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour 
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour 
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast 
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past. 

Moon in the Morning
By Mary Eleanor Roberts

WHAT dost thou, so ghostly white
  In the halls of day?—
Facing the triumphant light,
  Reveler astray?
 
When thy silver court was kept,
  Thou and thine were free,
And the sun, while dotards slept,
  Did not spy on thee.
 
Scent of jasmine, voices low,
  Dost thou seek them yet—
Lovers of the long ago
  Thou canst not forget?
 
Day’s gay banners all unfurled
  Flaunt from sea to sea:
All the work of all the world
  Calls the sun and me.
 
Nay, thou shalt not bid me stand!
  Nay, I will not yield!
Strong to-day in my right hand
  Is the brand I wield.
 
Then aroint thee, shadow fly!
  Wherefore haunt me so—
Hanging mournful in the sky,
  Pale and loath to go?

The Flower Boat
By Robert Frost

THE FISHERMAN’S swapping a yarn for a yarn
Under the hand of the village barber,
And here in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.

At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel with flowers a-growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George’s Bank when winds were blowing.

And I know from that Elysian freight
She will brave but once more the Atlantic weather,
When dory and fisherman sail by fate
To seek for the Happy Isles together.

Robin Hood
By John Keats

TO A FRIEND

No! those days are gone away
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years:
Many times have winter's shears,
Frozen North, and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces,
Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill
Past the heath and up the hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone Echo gives the half
To some wight, amaz'd to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June
You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold;
Never one, of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair hostess Merriment,
Down beside the pasture Trent;
For he left the merry tale
Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone, the merry morris din;
Gone, the song of Gamelyn;
Gone, the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the "grenè shawe";
All are gone away and past!
And if Robin should be cast
Sudden from his turfed grave,
And if Marian should have
Once again her forest days,
She would weep, and he would craze:
He would swear, for all his oaks,
Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,
Have rotted on the briny seas;
She would weep that her wild bees
Sang not to her—strange! that honey
Can't be got without hard money!

So it is: yet let us sing,
Honour to the old bow-string!
Honour to the bugle-horn!
Honour to the woods unshorn!
Honour to the Lincoln green!
Honour to the archer keen!
Honour to tight little John,
And the horse he rode upon!
Honour to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honour to maid Marian,
And to all the Sherwood-clan!
Though their days have hurried by
Let us two a burden try.

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
By Robert Burns

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

The Sydney Male Choir

The Sydney Male Choir formed in 1913. Each year, since 1930, the Choir has led the singing at the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at the Cenotaph in Martin Place Sydney. In 2013, the choir's Centenary Year, it sung at the ANZAC Day service in Villers-Bretonneux, France and took part in the Cornwall International Male Voice Choral Festival.

www.sydneymalechoir.com.au

Autumn Leaves
By Yves Montand

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hand I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hand I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall


The Sydney Male Choir

The Sydney Male Choir formed in 1913. Each year, since 1930, the Choir has led the singing at the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at the Cenotaph in Martin Place Sydney. In 2013, the choir's Centenary Year, it sung at the ANZAC Day service in Villers-Bretonneux, France and took part in the Cornwall International Male Voice Choral Festival.

www.sydneymalechoir.com.au

An Evening Prayer from Under Milk Wood
by Dylan Thomas

Every morning when I wake,
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please do keep Thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die.

And every evening at sun-down
I ask a blessing on the town,
For whether we last the night or no
I’m sure is always touch-and-go.

We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood,
And Thou, I know, wilt be the first
To see our best side, not our worst.

O let us see another day!
Bless us all this night, I pray,
And to the sun we all will bow
And say, good-bye – but just for now!

The Sydney Male Choir

The Sydney Male Choir formed in 1913. Each year, since 1930, the Choir has led the singing at the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at the Cenotaph in Martin Place Sydney. In 2013, the choir's Centenary Year, it sung at the ANZAC Day service in Villers-Bretonneux, France and took part in the Cornwall International Male Voice Choral Festival.

www.sydneymalechoir.com.au

Of a Poynted Diamond given by the Author to his Wife, at the Birth of his Eldest Son
John Harington

Deare, I to thee this diamond commend,
In which a modell of thyself I send.
How just unto thy joints this circlet sitteth,
So just thy face and shape my fancy fitteth.
The touch will try this ring of purest gold,
My touch tries thee, as pure though softer mold.
That metal precious is, the stone is true,
As true, and then how much more precious, you.
The gem is cleare, and hath nor needes no foyle,
Thy face, nay more, thy fame is free from soil.
Youle deem this deere, because from me you have it,
I deem your faith more deer, because you gave it.
This pointed Diamond cuts glass and Steele,
Your love’s like force in my firme heart I feele.
But this, as all things else, time wastes with wearing,
Where you my jewels multiply with bearing.

John Harington

The Lover’s Maze
Attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh

Her Face, her Tonge, her Wytte,
So fayre, so sweete, so sharpe,
First bent, then drew, then hytte,
Myne Eye, mine Eare, my Hartt:

Myne eye, mine eare, mine Harte,
To Lyke, to Learne, to Love,
Your face, your Tonge, your Wytt,
Doth Leade, doth teache, doth move:

Her face, her Tongue, her Wytt,
With Beames, with Sound, with Arte,
Doth bynde, doth Charm, doth Rule,
Myne eye, myne eare, my harte.

Myne eye, myne eare, my harte,
With Lyfe, with Hope, with Skill,
Your face, your Tonge, your wytt,
Doth feed, doth feast, doth fill:

Oh face, Oh Tonge, Oh Wytte,
With Frownes, with Checkes, with Smarte,
Wronge not, vex not, wound not,
Mine eye, mine eare, my Harte.

This Eye, This eare, This harte,
Shall joy, shall bynd, shall sweare
Your Face, your Tonge, your Wytt,
To Serve, to Love, to Feare.

Attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh

The Tides
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I saw the long line of the vacant shore,
The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,
And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,
As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Then heard I, more distinctly than before,
The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,
And hurrying came on the defenceless land
The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.
All thought and feeling and desire, I said,
Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song
Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o’er me
They swept again from their deep ocean bed,
And in a tumult of delight, and strong
As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Sun’s Shame (Sonnets XCII and XCIII)
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I
Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught
From life; and mocking pulses that remain
When the soul’s death of bodily death is fain;
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
And penury’s sedulous self-torturing thought
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
And longed-for woman longing all in vain
For lonely man with love’s desire distraught;
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,
Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:—
Beholding these things, I behold no less
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
The shame that loads the intolerable day.

II
As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress
Of life’s disastrous eld, on blossoming youth
May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth,—
“Might I thy fruitless treasure but possess,
Such blessing of mine all coming years should bless;”—
Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal,
And bitterly feels breathe against his soul
The hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness:—
Even so the World’s grey Soul to the green World
Perchance one hour must cry: “Woe’s me, for whom
Inveteracy of ill portends the doom,—
Whose heart’s old fire in shadow of shame is furl’d:
While thou even as of yore art journeying,
All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Sonnet XIII
By William Shakespeare

O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
You had a father: let your son say so.

William Shakespeare

Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount
By Ben Jonson

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop, herbs and flowers,
Fall grief in showers;
Our beauties are not ours:
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.

BEN JONSON

Book 1, Epigram 5: Ad lectorem de subjecto operis sui
BY THOMAS BASTARD

The little world, the subject of my muse,
Is a huge task and labor infinite;
Like to a wilderness or mass confuse,
Or to an endless gulf, or to the night:
How many strange Meanders do I find?
How many paths do turn my straying pen?
How many doubtful twilights make me blind,
Which seek to limb out this strange All of men?
Easy it were the earth to portray out,
Or to draw forth the heavens’ purest frame,
Whose restless course, by order whirls about
Of change and place, and still remains the same.
But how shall man’s, or manner’s, form appear,
Which while I write, do change from what they were?

THOMAS BASTARD

The Late Worm
By Kay Ryan

The worms
which had been
thick are thin
upon the ground
now that it's gotten
later. They stick
against the path,
their pink chapped
and their inching
labored. It's a
matter of moisture
isn't it? Time, a
measure of wet,
shrinking, the
drier you get.

Kay Ryan

MULGA BILL'S BICYCLE
by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;

He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"


"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."


'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But 'ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver steak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.


It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dean Man's Creek.


'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I've encountered yet.
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it's shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek, we'll leave it lying still;
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."


A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

The Florist Wears Knee-Breeches
Wallace Stevens

My flowers are reflected
In your mind
As you are reflected in your glass.
When you look at them,
There is nothing in your mind
Except the reflections
Of my flowers.
But when I look at them
I see only the reflections
In your mind,
And not my flowers.
It is my desire
To bring roses,
And place them before you
In a white dish.

Wallace Stevens

A Shropshire Lad: 52: Far in a western brookland
BY A. E. HOUSMAN

Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By pools I used to know.
There, in the windless night-time,
The wanderer, marvelling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sigh.
He hears: long since forgotten
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.
There, by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs.

A. E. HOUSMAN

from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 217-221
BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

217
Ambition was my idol, which was broken
Before the shrines of Sorrow and of Pleasure;
And the two last have left me many a token
O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:
Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken,
'Time is, Time was, Time's past', a chymic treasure
Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes—
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

218
What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills', is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their 'midnight taper,'
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

219
What are the hopes of man? old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.

220
But I being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, 'Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again—'twould pass—
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.'

221
But for the present, gentle reader! and
Still gentler purchaser! the bard—that's I—
Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,
And so your humble servant, and good bye!
We meet again, if we should understand
Each other; and if not, I shall not try
Your patience further than by this short sample—
'Twere well if others follow'd my example.

LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

I would not paint — a picture — (348)
BY EMILY DICKINSON

I would not paint — a picture —
I'd rather be the One
It's bright impossibility
To dwell — delicious — on —
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare — celestial — stir —
Evokes so sweet a torment —
Such sumptuous — Despair —

I would not talk, like Cornets —
I'd rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings —
And out, and easy on —
Through Villages of Ether —
Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal —
The pier to my Pontoon —

Nor would I be a Poet —
It's finer — Own the Ear —
Enamored — impotent — content —
The License to revere,
A privilege so awful
What would the Dower be,
Had I the Art to stun myself
With Bolts — of Melody!

EMILY DICKINSON