The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:
      That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
      In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
      Gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
      Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think this heart, all evil shed away,
      A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
            Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
      And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
            In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Views: 31

A Complaint of His Lady’s Cruelty
by Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

Since ye delight to know,
That my torment and woe
Should still increase
Without release,
I shall enforce me so,
That life and all shall go
For to content your cruelness.

And so this grievous train,
That I too long sustain,
Shall sometime cesse,
And have redress,
And you also remain,
Full pleased with my pain,
For to content your cruelness.

Unless that be too light,
And that ye would ye might
See the distress
And heaviness,
Of one slain outright,
Therewith to please your sight,
And to content your cruelness.

Then in your cruel mood
Would God forthwith ye would
With force express
My heart oppress,
To do your heart such good,
To see me bathe in blood,
For to content your cruelness.

Then could ye ask no more;
Then should ye ease my sore,
And the excess
Of my distress;
And you should evermore
Defamèd be therefor,
For to repent your cruelness.

Views: 31

Life
by Anne Brontë (1816-1855)

Life, believe, is not a dream
         So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
         Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
         But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
         O why lament its fall?
                  Rapidly, merrily,
         Life’s sunny hours flit by,
                  Gratefully, cheerily,
         Enjoy them as they fly!

What though Death at times steps in,
         And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
         O’er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
         Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
         Still strong to bear us well.
                  Manfully, fearlessly,
         The day of trial bear,
                  For gloriously, victoriously,
         Can courage quell despair!

Views: 26

To the God of Love
by E.V. Knox (1881-1971)

Come to me, Eros, if you needs must come
      This year, with milder twinges;
Aim not your arrow at the bull’s-eye plumb,
But let the outer pericardium
      Be where the point impinges.

Garishly beautiful I watch them wane
      Like sunsets in a pink west,
The passions of the past; but O their pain!
You recollect that nice affair with Jane?
      We nearly had an inquest.

I want some mellower romance than these,
      Something that shall not waken
The bosom of the bard from midnight ease,
Nor spoil his appetite for breakfast, please,
      (Porridge and eggs and bacon).

Something that shall not steep the soul in gall,
      Nor plant it in excelsis,
Nor quite prevent the bondman in its thrall
From biffing off the tee as good a ball
      As anybody else’s.

But rather, when the world is dull and gray
      And everything seems horrid,
And books are impotent to charm away
The leaden-footed hours, shall make me say,
      “My hat!” (and strike my forehead)

“I am in love, O circumstance how sweet!
      O n’er to-be-forgot know!”
And praise the damsel’s eyebrows, and repeat
Her name out loud, until it’s time to eat,
      Or go to bed, or what not.

This kind of desultory bolt,
      Eros, I bid you shoot me;
One with no barb to agitate and jolt,
One where the feathers have begun to moult —
      Any old sort will suit me.

Views: 36

Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
   Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
   And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
   Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
   Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
   We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
   When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
   To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
   The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Views: 24

Paul Revere’s Ride
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

Listen my children and you shall hear:
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Views: 38

Easter, 1916
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

            I

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

            II

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

            III

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashed within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.

            IV

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse –
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Views: 25

Man
by John Davies (1569-1626)

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet she is blind and ignorant in all:
I know I’m one of Nature’s little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life’s a pain and but a span;
I know my sense is mock’d in everything;
And, to conclude, I know myself a Man—
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

Views: 26