​To the River Lodon
by Thomas Warton (1728-1790)

Ah! what a weary race my feet have run
   Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
   And thought my way was all thro’ fairy ground,
   Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun;
Where first my muse to lisp her notes begun!
   While pensive Memory traces back the round,
   Which fills the varied interval between;
   Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
   No more return, to cheer my evening road!
   Yet still one joy remains, that, not obscure,
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed,
   From youth’s gay dawn to manhood’s prime mature;
   Nor with the muse’s laurel unbestowed.

Views: 36

​

King Death
by Bryan Proctor (“Barry Cornwall”) (1787-1874)

King Death was a rare old fellow!
He sate where no sun could shine;
And he lifted his hand so yellow,
And poured out his coal-black wine.
Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

There came to him many a Maiden,
Whose eyes had forgot to shine;
And Widows, with grief o’erladen,
For a draught of his sleepy wine.
Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

The Scholar left all his learning;
The Poet his fancied woes;
And the Beauty her bloom returning,
Like life to the fading rose.
Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

All came to the royal old fellow,
Who laugh’d till his eyes dropped brine,
As he gave them his hand so yellow,
And pledged them in Death’s black wine.
Hurrah! ­Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

Views: 32

Symphonie en Blanc Majeur
by Théophile Gautier (1811-1872)

De leur col blanc courbant les lignes,
On voit dans les contes du Nord,
Sur le vieux Rhin, des femmes-cygnes
Nager en chantant près du bord,

Ou, suspendant à quelque branche
Le plumage qui les revêt,
Faire luire leur peau plus blanche
Que la neige de leur duvet.

De ces femmes il en est une,
Qui chez nous descend quelquefois,
Blanche comme le clair de lune
Sur les glaciers dans les cieux froids;

Conviant la vue enivrée
De sa boréale fraîcheur
A des régals de chair nacrée,
A des débauches de blancheur!

Son sein, neige moulée en globe,
Contre les camélias blancs
Et le blanc satin de sa robe
Soutient des combats insolents.

Dans ces grandes batailles blanches,
Satins et fleurs ont le dessous,
Et, sans demander leurs revanches,
Jaunissent comme des jaloux.

Sur les blancheurs de son épaule,
Paros au grain éblouissant,
Comme dans une nuit du pôle,
Un givre invisible descend.

De quel mica de neige vierge,
De quelle moelle de roseau,
De quelle hostie et de quel cierge
A-t-on fait le blanc de sa peau?

A-t-on pris la goutte lactée
Tachant l’azur du ciel d’hiver,
Le lis à la pulpe argentée,
La blanche écume de la mer;

Le marbre blanc, chair froide et pâle,
Où vivent les divinités;
L’argent mat, la laiteuse opale
Qu’irisent de vagues clartés;

L’ivoire, où ses mains ont des ailes,
Et, comme des papillons blancs,
Sur la pointe des notes frêles
Suspendent leurs baisers tremblants;

L’hermine vierge de souillure,
Qui pour abriter leurs frissons,
Ouate de sa blanche fourrure
Les épaules et les blasons;

Le vif-argent aux fleurs fantasques
Dont les vitraux sont ramagés;
Les blanches dentelles des vasques,
Pleurs de l’ondine en l’air figés;

L’aubépine de mai qui plie
Sous les blancs frimas de ses fleurs;
L’albâtre où la mélancolie
Aime à retrouver ses pâleurs;

Le duvet blanc de la colombe,
Neigeant sur les toits du manoir,
Et la stalactite qui tombe,
Larme blanche de l’antre noir?

Des Groenlands et des Norvèges
Vient-elle avec Séraphita?
Est-ce la Madone des neiges,
Un sphinx blanc que l’hiver sculpta,

Sphinx enterré par l’avalanche,
Gardien des glaciers étoilés,
Et qui, sous sa poitrine blanche,
Cache de blancs secrets gelés?

Sous la glace où calme il repose,
Oh! qui pourra fondre ce coeur!
Oh! qui pourra mettre un ton rose
Dans cette implacable blancheur!

Views: 47

Blizzard Notes
by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

I don’t blame the kettle drums—they are hungry.
And the snare drums—I know what they want—they are empty too.
And the harring booming bass drums—they are hungriest of all.

The howling spears of the Northwest die down.
The lullabies of the Southwest get a chance, a mother song.
A cradle moon rides out of a torn hole in the ragbag top of the sky.

Views: 47

The British Journalist
by Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940)

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there’s no occasion to.

Views: 39

Simple Day
by A.E. Coppard (1878-1957)

In this wind’s following there is an unknown richness,
A breathing mysterious bloom,
Nor gorse nor may nor hyacinth nor herb;
No man could name that perfume.

The white flowers living in this field
Stare at the sky; in the field beyond
There are yellow flowers that nod wisely to the turf:
And that is all.

But yes, there are clouds in the sky, soft rocks,
The sunlight pounds them like an axe,
The wind through its couch of blue
Divides, diminishes and harries them,
And innocence, perceiving this, rejoices:
For though the wind has no colour,
The sky no smell,
The earth no speech,
They survive and accomplish justice.

Views: 46

Goblin Feet
by J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

I am off down the road
Where the fairy lanterns glowed
And the little pretty flitter-mice are flying;
A slender band of gray
It runs creepily away
And the hedges and the grasses are a-sighing.
The air is full of wings,
And of blundery beetle-things
That warn you with their whirring and their humming.
O! I hear the tiny horns
Of enchanted leprechauns
And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming!
O! the lights! O! the gleams! O! the little twinkly sounds!
O! the rustle of their noiseless little robes!
O! the echo of their feet — of their happy little feet!
O! the swinging lamps in the starlit globes.

I must follow in their train
Down the crooked fairy lane
Where the coney-rabbits long ago have gone.
And where silvery they sing
In a moving moonlit ring
All a twinkle with the jewels they have on.
They are fading round the turn
Where the glow worms palely burn
And the echo of their padding feet is dying!
O! it’s knocking at my heart—

Let me go! let me start!
For the little magic hours are all a-flying.

O! the warmth! O! the hum! O! the colors in the dark!
O! the gauzy wings of golden honey-flies!
O! the music of their feet — of their dancing goblin feet!
O! the magic! O! the sorrow when it dies.

Views: 57

Dora versus Rose
by Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

From the tragic-est novels at Mudie’s—
   At least, on a practical plan—
To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys,
   One love is enough for a man.
But no case that I ever yet met is
   Like mine: I am equally fond
Of Rose, who a charming brunette is,
            And Dora, a blonde.

Each rivals the other in powers—
   Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints—
Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers;
   Miss Do., perpendicular saints.
In short, to distinguish is folly;
   ’Twixt the pair I am come to the pass
Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly,—
            Or Buridan’s ass.

If it happens that Rosa I’ve singled
   For a soft celebration in rhyme,
Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled
   Somehow with the tune and the time;
Or I painfully pen me a sonnet
   To an eyebrow intended for Do.’s,
And behold I am writing upon it
            The legend “To Rose.”

Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter
   Is all overscrawled with her head),
If I fancy at last that I’ve got her,
   It turns to her rival instead;
Or I find myself placidly adding
   To the rapturous tresses of Rose
Miss Dora’s bud-mouth, and her madding,
            Ineffable nose.

Was there ever so sad a dilemma?
   For Rose I would perish (pro tem.);
For Dora I’d willingly stem a—
   (Whatever might offer to stem);
But to make the invidious election,—
   To declare that on either one’s side
I’ve a scruple,—a grain, more affection,
            I cannot decide.

And, as either so hopelessly nice is,
   My sole and my final resource
Is to wait some indefinite crisis,—
   Some feat of molecular force,
To solve me this riddle conducive
   By no means to peace or repose,
Since the issue can scarce be inclusive
            Of Dora and Rose.

                        (Afterthought)

But, perhaps, if a third (say a Norah),
   Not quite so delightful as Rose,—
Not wholly so charming as Dora,—
   Should appear, is it wrong to suppose,—
As the claims of the others are equal,—
   And flight—in the main—is the best,—
That I might … But no matter,—the sequel
            Is easily guessed.

Views: 44

Ring Out, Wild Bells
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
      The flying cloud, the frosty light;
      The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
      Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
      The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
      For those that here we see no more,
      Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
      And ancient forms of party strife;
      Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
      The civic slander and the spite;
      Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
      Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
      Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
      The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
      Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Views: 34

To Amy
by J. Gordon Coogler (1865-1901)

To Amy I will drink to your health, sweet Amy,
      For there’s nothing in this cup, I fear,
That would be suggestive of sorrow
      For my own sweet Amy, dear.

May your heart be pure and noble,
      And your arm be firm and strong,
And your hope be like the rainbow,
      Beautiful, bright and long.

May your life, like the rose of summer,
      Be fresh, and remain in its bud,
As I never was partial to whiskey, Amy,
      I’ll toast you in Congaree mud.

Views: 60