Lines Written During a Period of Insanity
by William Cowper (1731-1800)

Hatred and vengence, my eternal portion
Scarce can endure delay of execution,
Wait with impatient readiness to seize my
      Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!
Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent,
      Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
      Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I’m called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence
      Worse than Abiram’s.

Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;
I, fed with judgment, in a fleshy tomb am
      Buried above ground.

Views: 31

Peggy
by Allan Ramsay (1686-1758)

      My Peggy is a young thing,
            Just enter’d in her teens
Fair as the day, and sweet as May,
Fair as the day, and always gay;
      My Peggy is a young thing,
            And I’m not very auld,
      Yet well I like to meet her at
            The wawking of the fauld.

      My Peggy speaks sae sweetly
            Whene’er we meet alane,
I wish nae mair to lay my care,
I wish nae mair of a’ that’s rare;
      My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
            To a’ the lave I’m cauld,
      But she gars a’ my spirits glow
            At wawking of the fauld.

      My Peggy smiles sae kindly
            Whene’er I whisper love,
That I look down on a’ the town,
That I look down upon a crown;
      My Peggy smiles sae kindly,
            It makes me blyth and bauld,
      And naething gi’es me sic delight
            As wawking of the fauld.

      My Peggy sings sae saftly
            When on my pipe I play,
By a’ the rest it is confest,
By a’ the rest, that she sings best;
      My Peggy sings sae saftly,
            And in her sangs are tauld
      With innocence the wale of sense,
            At wawking of the fauld.

Views: 22

Mnemosyne
by Trumbull Stickney (1874-1904)

It’s autumn in the country I remember.

How warm a wind blew here about the ways!
And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber
During the long sun-sweetened summer-days.

It’s cold abroad the country I remember.

The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain
At midday with a wing aslant and limber;
And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain.

It’s empty down the country I remember.

I had a sister lovely in my sight:
Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre;
We sang together in the woods at night.

It’s lonely in the country I remember.

The babble of our children fills my ears,
And on our hearth I stare the perished ember
To flames that show all starry thro’ my tears.

It’s dark about the country I remember.

There are the mountains where I lived. The path
Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber,
The stumps are twisted by the tempests’ wrath.

But that I knew these places are my own,
I’d ask how came such wretchedness to cumber
The earth, and I to people it alone.

It rains across the country I remember.

Views: 35

The Raggedy Man
by James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

O The Raggedy Man! He works fer Pa;
An’ he’s the Goodest man ever you saw!
He comes to our house every day,
An’ waters the horses, an’ feeds ’em hay;
An’ he opens the shed—an’ we all ist laugh
When he drives out our little old wobble-ly calf;
An’ nen—ef our hired girl says he can—
He milks the cow fer ’Lizabuth Ann.—
   Ain’t he a’ awful good Raggedy Man?
      Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

W’y, The Raggedy Man—He’s ist so good
He splits the kindlin’ an’ chops the wood;
An’ nen he spades in our garden, too,
An’ does most things ’at boys can’t do.—
He clumbed clean up in our big tree—
An’ shooked a’ apple down fer me—
An’ nother’n too, fer ’Lizabuth Ann—
An’ nother’n, too, fer The Raggedy Man.—
   Ain’t he a’ awful kind Raggedy Man?
      Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

An’ The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes
An’n tells ’em ef I be good, sometime;
Knows ’bout Giunts, an’ Griffuns, an’ Elves,
An’ the Squidgicum-Squees ’at swallers therselves!
An’, wite by the pump in our pasture-lot,
He showed me the hole ’at the Wunks is got,
’At live ’way deep in the ground, an’ can
Turn into me, er ’Lizabuth Ann!
   Ain’t he a funny old Raggedy Man?
      Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

The Raggedy Man—one time when he
Was makin’ a little bow-’n-’orry fer me,
Says, “When you’re big like your Pa is,
Air you go’ to keep a fine store like his—
An’ be a rich merchunt—an’ wear fine clothes?—
Er what air you go’ to be goodness knows!”
An’nen he laughed at ’Lizabuth Ann,
An’ I says, “’M go’ to be a Raggedy Man!
   I’m ist go’ to be a nice Raggedy Man!”
      Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

Views: 36