Poem of the day

The Policeman’s Lot
by William Schwenck Gilbert(1836-1911)

When a felon’s not engaged in his employment,
      Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
      Is just as great as any honest man’s.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
      When constabulary duty’s to be done:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
      A policeman’s lot is not a happy one

When the enterprising burglar isn’t burgling,
      When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime,
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling,
      And listen to the merry village chime.
When the coster’s finished jumping on his mother,
      He loves to lie a-basking in the sun:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
      The policeman’s lot is not a happy one!

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Game of the week

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Poem of the day

Matin Song
byThomas Heywood (1575?-1650)

Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day!
      With night we banish sorrow.
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, 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 all I’ll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast!
      Sing, birds, in every furrow!
And from each bill let music shrill
      Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
      Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow,
You pretty elves, among yourselves
      Sing my fair Love good-morrow!
            To give my Love good-morrow!
            Sing, birds, in every furrow!

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Poem of the day

Les Noyades
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

Whatever a man of the sons of men
      Shall say to his heart of the lords above,
They have shown man verily, once and again,
      Marvellous mercies and infinite love.

In the wild fifth year of the change of things,
      When France was glorious and blood-red, fair
With dust of battle and deaths of kings,
      A queen of men, with helmeted hair,

Carrier came down to the Loire and slew,
      Till all the ways and the waves waxed red:
Bound and drowned, slaying two by two,
      Maidens and young men, naked and wed.

They brought on a day to his judgment-place
      One rough with labour and red with fight,
And a lady noble by name and face,
      Faultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.

She knew not, being for shame’s sake blind,
      If his eyes were hot on her face hard by.
And the judge bade strip and ship them, and bind
      Bosom to bosom, to drown and die.

The white girl winced and whitened; but he
      Caught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flame
Seen with thunder far out on the sea,
      Laughed hard as the glad blood went and came.

Twice his lips quailed with delight, then said,
      “I have but a word to you all, one word;
Bear with me; surely I am but dead;”
      And all they laughed and mocked him and heard.

“Judge, when they open the judgment-roll,
      I will stand upright before God and pray:
‘Lord God, have mercy on one man’s soul,
      For his mercy was great upon earth, I say.

“’Lord, if I loved thee—Lord, if I served—
      If these who darkened thy fair Son’s face
I fought with, sparing not one, nor swerved
      A hand’s-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place—

“’I pray thee say to this man, O Lord,
      Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne.
I will face thy wrath, though it bite as a sword,
      And my soul shall burn for his soul, and atone.

“’For, Lord, thou knowest, O God most wise,
      How gracious on earth were his deeds towards me.
Shall this be a small thing in thine eyes,
      That is greater in mine than the whole great sea?’

“I have loved this woman my whole life long,
      And even for love’s sake when have I said
‘I love you’? when have I done you wrong,
      Living? but now I shall have you dead.

“Yea, now, do I bid you love me, love?
      Love me or loathe, we are one not twain.
But God be praised in his heaven above
      For this my pleasure and that my pain!

“For never a man, being mean like me,
      Shall die like me till the whole world dies.
I shall drown with her, laughing for love; and she
      Mix with me, touching me, lips and eyes.

“Shall she not know me and see me all through,
      Me, on whose heart as a worm she trod?
You have given me, God requite it you,
      What man yet never was given of God.”

O sweet one love, O my life’s delight,
      Dear, though the days have divided us,
Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,
      Not twice in the world shall the gods do thus.

Had it been so hard for my love? but I,
      Though the gods gave all that a god can give,
I had chosen rather the gift to die,
      Cease, and be glad above all that live.

For the Loire would have driven us down to the sea,
      And the sea would have pitched us from shoal to shoal;
And I should have held you, and you held me,
      As flesh holds flesh, and the soul the soul.

Could I change you, help you to love me, sweet,
      Could I give you the love that would sweeten death,
We should yield, go down, locked hands and feet,
      Die, drown together, and breath catch breath;

But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,
      And known that once if I loved you well;
And I would have given my soul for this
      To burn for ever in burning hell.

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Poem of the day

Song (“When lovely woman stoops to folly”)
by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
      And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can sooth her melancholy,
      What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
      To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
      And wring his bosom—is to die.

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Poem of the day

An Autumn Reverie
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

Through all the weary, hot midsummer time,
My heart has struggled with its awful grief.
And I have waited for these autumn days,
Thinking the cooling winds would bring relief.
For I remembered how I loved them once,
When all my life was full of melody.
And I have looked and longed for their return,
Nor thought but they would seem the same, to me.

The fiery summer burned itself away,
And from the hills, the golden autumn time
Looks down and smiles. The fields are tinged with brown—
The birds are talking of another clime.
The forest trees are dyed in gorgeous hues,
And weary ones have sought an earthy tomb.
But still the pain tugs fiercely at my heart—
And still my life is wrapped in awful gloom.

The winds I thought would cool my fevered brow,
Are bleak, and dreary; and they bear no balm.
The sounds I thought would soothe my throbbing brain,
Are grating discords; and they can not calm
This inward tempest. Still it rages on.
My soul is tost upon a troubled sea,
I find no pleasure in the olden joys—
The autumn is not as it used to be.

I hear the children shouting at their play!
Their hearts are happy, and they know not pain.
To them the day brings sunlight, and no shade.
And yet I would not be a child again.
For surely as the night succeeds the day,
So surely will their mirth turn into tears.
And I would not return to happy hours,
If I must live again these weary years.

I would walk on, and leave it all behind:
will walk on; and when my feet grow sore,
The boatman waits—his sails are all unfurled—
He waits to row me to a fairer shore.
My tired limbs shall rest on beds of down,
My tears shall all be wiped by Jesus’ hand;
My soul shall know the peace it long hath sought —
A peace too wonderful to understand.

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