Highland Mary
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
⁠   The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flow’rs,
⁠   Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
⁠   And there the langest tarry!
For there I took the last fareweel
⁠   O’ my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk,
⁠   How rich the hawthorn’s blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade,
⁠   I clasp’d her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
⁠   Flew o’er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
⁠   Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Wi’ monie a vow, and lock’d embrace,
⁠   Our parting was fu’ tender;
And pledging aft to meet again,
⁠   We tore ourselves asunder:
But, oh! fell death’s untimely frost,
⁠   That nipt my flower so early!
Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,
⁠   That wraps my Highland Mary!

O pale, pale now those rosy lips
⁠   I aft ha’e kiss’d sae fondly!
And clos’d for aye the sparkling glance
⁠   That dwelt on me sae kindly;
And mouldering now in silent dust,
⁠   That heart that lo’ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom’s core
⁠   Shall live my Highland Mary.

Views: 29

False Though She Be
by William Congreve (1670-1729)

False though she be to me and love,
   I’ll ne’er pursue revenge;
For still the charmer I approve,
   Though I deplore her change.

In hours of bliss we oft have met:
   They could not always last;
And though the present I regret,
   I’m grateful for the past.

Views: 26

A powerful poem that’s an even more powerful song recorded by, among others, Joan Baez, Richard Dyer-Bennet, and Stan Rogers.

Three Fishers
by Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

Three fishers went sailing out into the West,
   Out into the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who lov’d him the best;
   And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep,
   Though the harbour bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the light-house tower,
   And they trimm’d the lamps as the sun went down;
They look’d at the squall, and they look’d at the shower,
   And the night wrack came rolling up ragged and brown!
But men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
   And the harbour bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
   In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
   For those who will never come back to the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep—
   And good-by to the bar and its moaning.

Views: 47

The Destruction of Sennacherib
by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

                                    I

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

                                    II

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

                                    III

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

                                    IV

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

                                    V

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

                                    VI

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Views: 37

Ternissa
by Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

      Ternissa! you are fled!
      I say not to the dead,
But to the happy ones who rest below:
      For, surely, surely, where
      Your voice and graces are,
Nothing of death can any feel or know.
      Girls who delight to dwell
      Where grows most asphodel,
Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak:
      The mild Persephone
      Places you on her knee,
And your cool palm smooths down stern Pluto’s cheek.

Views: 31