To the Body
by Coventry Patmore (1823-1896)

Creation’s and Creator’s crowning good;
Wall of infinitude;
Foundation of the sky,
In Heaven forecast
And long’d for from eternity,
Though laid the last;
Reverberating dome,
Of music cunningly built home
Against the void and indolent disgrace
Of unresponsive space;
Little, sequester’d pleasure-house
For God and for His Spouse;
Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair,
Since, from the graced decorum of the hair,
Ev’n to the tingling, sweet
Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet,
And from the inmost heart
Outwards unto the thin
Silk curtains of the skin,
Every least part
Astonish’d hears
And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres;
Form’d for a dignity prophets but darkly name,
Lest shameless men cry “Shame!”
So rich with wealth conceal’d
That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field;
Clinging to everything that pleases thee
With indefectible fidelity;
Alas, so true
To all thy friendships that no grace
Thee from thy sin can wholly disembrace;
Which thus ‘bides with thee as the Jebusite,
That, maugre all God’s promises could do,
The chosen People never conquer’d quite,
Who therefore lived with them,
And that by formal truce and as of right,
In metropolitan Jerusalem,
For which false fealty
Thou needs must, for a season, lie
In the grave’s arms, foul and unshriven,
Albeit, in Heaven,
Thy; crimson-throbbing Glow
Into its old abode aye pants to go,
And does with envy see
Enoch, Elijah, and the Lady, she
Who left the lilies in her body’s lieu.
O, if the pleasures I have known in thee
But my poor faith’s poor first-fruits be,
What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss
Then shall be his
Who has thy birth-time’s consecrating dew
For death’s sweet chrism retain’d,
Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned!

Views: 16

Upon a Spider Catching a Fly
by Edward Taylor (1642-1729)

Thou sorrow, venom Elfe:
      Is this thy play,
To spin a web out of thyselfe
      To Catch a Fly?
            For Why?

I saw a pettish wasp
      Fall foule therein:
Whom yet thy Whorle pins did not clasp
      Lest he should fling
            His sting.

But as affraid, remote
      Didst stand hereat,
And with thy little fingers stroke
      And gently tap
            His back.

Thus gently him didst treate
      Lest he should pet,
And in a froppish, aspish heate
      Should greatly fret
            Thy net.

Whereas the silly Fly,
      Caught by its leg
Thou by the throate tookst hastily
      And ‘hinde the head
            Bite Dead.

This goes to pot, that not
      Nature doth call.
Strive not above what strength hath got,
      Lest in the brawle
            Thou fall.

This Frey seems thus to us.
      Hells Spider gets
His intrails spun to whip Cords thus
      And wove to nets
            And sets.

To tangle Adams race
      In’s stratigems
To their Destructions, spoil’d, made base
      By venom things,
            Damn’d Sins.

But mighty, Gracious Lord
      Communicate
Thy Grace to breake the Cord, afford
      Us Glorys Gate
            And State.

We’l Nightingaile sing like
      When pearcht on high
In Glories Cage, thy glory, bright,
      And thankfully,
            For joy.

Views: 12

Les Oiseaux de neige
by Louis-Honoré Fréchette (1839-1908)

Quand le rude Équinoxe, avec son froid cortège,
Quitte nos horizons moins inhospitaliers,
Sur nos champs de frimas s’abattent par milliers
Ces visiteurs ailés qu’on nomme oiseaux de neige.

De graines nulle part, nul feuillage aux halliers.
Contre la giboulée et nos vents de Norvège,
Seul le regard d’en haut les abrite, et protège
Ces courriers du soleil en butte aux oiseliers.

Chers petits voyageurs, sous le givre et la grêle,
Vous voltigez gaîment, et l’on voit sur votre aile
Luire un premier rayon du printemps attardé.

Allez, tourbillonnez autour des avalanches ;
Sans peur, aux flocons blancs mêlez vos plumes blanches :
Le faible que Dieu garde est toujours bien gardé.

Views: 14

Silence
by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”
Inns are not residences.

Views: 11

Not I
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Some like drink
      In a pint pot,
Some like to think;
      Some not.

Strong Dutch cheese,
      Old Kentucky Rye,
Some like these;
      Not I.

Some like Poe,
      And others like Scott,
Some like Mrs. Stowe;
      Some not.

Some like to laugh,
      Some like to cry,
Some like chaff;
      Not I.

Views: 13

Detente sombra
by Juaa Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695)

Detente, sombra de mi bien esquivo,
imagen del hechizo que más quiero,
bella ilusión por quien alegre muero,
dulce ficción por quien penosa vivo.

Si al imán de tus gracias, atractivo,
sirve mi pecho de obediente acero,
¿para qué me enamoras lisonjero
si has de burlarme luego fugitivo?

Mas blasonar no puedes, satisfecho,
de que triunfa de mí tu tiranía:
que aunque dejas burlado el lazo estrecho

que tu forma fantástica ceñía,
poco importa burlar brazos y pecho
si te labra prisión mi fantasía.

Views: 13

Channel Fiting
by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening….

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

Views: 10

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
from The Vicar of Wakefield
by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)

Good people all, of every sort,
   Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wond’rous short,
   It cannot hold you long.

In Isling town there was a man,
   Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran
   Whene’er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had
   To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
   When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
   As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
   And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
   But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
   Went mad and bit the man.

Around, from all the neighb’ring streets,
   The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
   To bite so good a man.

The wound it seem’d both sore and sad
   To every christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
   They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
   That shew’d the rogues they lied;
The man recovered of his bite,
   The dog it was that dy’d.

Views: 9

When a Man Hath No Freedom
by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
because today is World Freedom Day

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock’d on the head for his labours.

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom whenever you can,
And, if not shot or hang’d, you’ll be knighted.

Views: 9

The Oath
by Allen Tate (1899-1979)

It was near evening, the room was cold
Half dark; Uncle Ben’s brass bullet-mould
And powder-horn and Major Bogan’s face
Above the fire in the half-light plainly said:
There’s naught to kill but the animated dead.
Horn nor mould nor major follows the chase.
Being cold I urged Lytle to the fire
In the blank twilight with not much left untold
By two old friends when neither’s a great liar.
We sat down evenly in the smoky chill.
There’s precious little to say between day and dark,
Perhaps a few words on the implacable will
Of time sailing like a magic barque
Or something as fine for the amenities,
Till dusk seals the window, the fire grows bright,
And the wind saws the hill with a swarm of bees.
Now meditating a little on the firelight
We heard the darkness grapple with the night
And give an old man’s valedictory wheeze
From his westward breast between his polar jaws;
Then Lytle asked: Who are the dead?
Who are the living and the dead?
And nothing more was said.
So I, leaving Lytle to that dream,
Decided what it is in time that gnaws
The ageing fury of a mountain stream
When suddenly as an ignorant mind will do
I thought I heard the dark pounding its head
On a rock, crying: Who are the dead?
Then Lytle turned with an oath—By God it’s true!

Views: 12