My Delight and Thy Delight
by Robert Bridges (1844-1930)

My delight and thy delight
Walking, like two angels white,
In the gardens of the night:

My desire and thy desire
Twining to a tongue of fire,
Leaping live, and laughing higher:

Thro’ the everlasting strife
In the mystery of life.

Love, from whom the world begun,
Hath the secret of the sun.

Love can tell, and love alone,
Whence the million stars were strewn,
Why each atom knows its own,
How, in spite of woe and death,
Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

This he taught us, this we knew,
Happy in his science true,
Hand in hand as we stood
’Neath the shadows of the wood,
Heart to heart as we lay
In the dawning of the day.

Views: 35

Guinevere
by John Reed (1887-1920)

A thousand years ago we two were young
And dwelt in that gray castle by the sea,
Whose sombre surges swayed eternally
The dreary rhythm of some forgotten song;
And nothing lived nor moved the whole day long
Save you and I; and through our ceaseless tears
We saw the vista of those tragic years,
And godlike Arthur’s soul with passion wrung.

List to the awful kingly dirge; the sea
Pours out his grieving heart with anguished wail
Against the gray deserted cliffs, the while
A dazzling presence shows its light to me;
I, blinded, whisper, “Art thou, then, the Grail?”
And “Nay” it answers, “but the sad queen’s smile.”

Views: 63

The Aolian Harp
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our cot o’ergrown
With white-flower’d Jasmin, and the broad-leav’d Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatch’d from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.

                           And that simplest Lute,
Plac’d length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where—
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

   And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

   And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

   But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O belovéd woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healéd me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this cot, and thee, heart-honour’d Maid!

Views: 30

Ma Bohème
by Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

Je m’en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées;
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal;
J’allais sous le ciel, Muse! et j’étais ton féal;
Oh! là là! que d’amours splendides j’ai rêvées!

Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
— Petit Poucet rêveur, j’égrenais dans ma course
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande-Ourse;
— Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou.

Et je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
Ces bons soirs de septembre où je sentais des gouttes
De rosée à mon front, comme un vin de vigueur;

Où, rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
De mes souliers blessés, un pied près de mon cœur!

Views: 27

Jenny Kissed Me
by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)<.p>

Jenny kissed me when we met,
   Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
   Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
   Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
         Jenny kissed me.

Views: 30

Rich and Poor, or Saint and Sinner
by Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)<.p>

The poor man’s sins are glaring;
In the face of ghostly warning
         He is caught in the fact
         Of an overt act—
Buying greens on a Sunday morning.

The rich man’s sins are hidden
In the pomp of wealth and station;
         And escape the sight
         Of the children of light,
Who are wise in their generation.

The rich man has a kitchen,
And cooks to dress his dinner;
         The poor who would roast
         To the baker’s must post,
And thus becomes a sinner.

The rich man has a cellar,
And a ready butler by him;
         The poor man must steer
         For his pint of beer
Where the saint can’t choose but to spy him.

The rich man’s painted windows
Hide the concerts of the quality;
         The poor can but share
         A crack’d fiddle in the air,
Which offends all sound morality.

The rich man is invisible
In the crowd of his gay society;
         But the poor man’s delight
         Is a sore in the sight,
And a stench in the nose of piety.

Views: 38

On the Death of Sir Philip Sdney
by Henry Constable (1562-1613)

Give pardon blessèd soul, to my bold cries,
If they, importune, interrupt thy song,
Which now with joyful notes thou sing’st among
The angel-quiristers of th’ heavenly skies.
Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow eyes,
That since I saw thee now it is so long,
And yet the tears that unto thee belong
To thee as yet they did not sacrifice.
I did not know that thou wert dead before,
I did not feel the grief I did sustain,
The greater stroke astonisheth the more,
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain,
   I stood amazed when others’ tears begun,
   And now begin to weep when they have done.

Views: 31

Rebecca, who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably
by Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)<.p>

A trick that everyone abhors
In little girls is slamming doors.
A wealthy banker’s little daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to this furious sport.

She would deliberately go
And slam the door like billy-o!
To make her uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild;
She was an aggravating child …

It happened that a marble bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the door this little lamb
Had carefully prepared to slam,
And down it came! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.

Her funeral sermon (which was long
And followed by a sacred song)
Mentioned her virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her vices too,
And showed the dreadful end of one
Who goes and slams the door for fun.

The children who were brought to hear
The awful tale from far and near
Were much impressed, and inly swore
They never more would slam the door,
— As often they had done before.

Views: 26