To My Mother
by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
⁠The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
⁠None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
⁠You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
⁠In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
My mother—my own mother, who died early,
⁠Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
⁠And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
⁠Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

Views: 26

Apology for Having Loved Before
by Edmund Waller (1606-1687)

They that never had the use
Of the grape’s surprising juice,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up:
Neither do, nor care to, know,
Whether it be best or no.

So they that are to love inclined,
Swayed by chance, nor choice or art,
To the first that’s fair or kind,
Make a present of their heart:
’Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve.

To man, that was i’th’ evening made,
Stars gave the first delight;
Admiring in the gloomy shade
Those little drops of light.

Then, at Aurora, whose fair hand
Removed them from the skies,
He gazing toward the east did stand,
She entertained his eyes.

But when the bright sun did appear,
All those he ’gan despise;
His wonder was determined there,
And could no higher rise.

He neither might nor wished to know
A more refulgent light;
For that (as mine your beauties now),
Employed his utmost sight.

Views: 34

The Dropped Shield
by Archilochus (c. 680-c. 645 BCE)

Ἀσπίδι μὲν Σαΐων τις ἀγάλλεται, ἥν παρὰ θάμνῳ
      ἔντος ἀμώμητον κάλλιπον οὐκ ἐθέλων·
αὐτὸν δ’ ἔκ μ’ ἐσάωσα· τί μοι μέλει ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη;
      Ἐρρέτω· ἐξαῦτις κτήσομαι οὐ κακίω.

Views: 28

Death
by George Herbert (1593-1633)

Death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,
                  Nothing but bones,
         The sad effect of sadder groans:
Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.

For we considered thee as at some six
                  Or ten years hence,
         After the loss of life and sense,
Flesh being turned to dust, and bones to sticks.

We looked on this side of thee, shooting short;
                  Where we did find
         The shells of fledge souls left behind,
Dry dust, which sheds no tears, but may extort.

But since our Savior’s death did put some blood
                  Into thy face,
         Thou art grown fair and full of grace,
Much in request, much sought for as a good.

For we do now behold thee gay and glad,
                  As at Doomsday;
         When souls shall wear their new array,
And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad.

Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
                  Half that we have
         Unto an honest faithful grave;
Making our pillows either down, or dust.

Views: 31

Night
by Charles Heavysege (1816-1876)

’Tis solemn darkness; the sublime of shade;
Night, by no stars nor rising moon relieved;
The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,
O’er which my eye-balls roll in vain, deceived.
Upward, around, and downward I explore,
E’en to the frontiers of the ebon air,
But cannot, though I strive, discover more
Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.
Oh, Night, art thou so grim, when, black and bare
Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn,
Like a nude Ethiop ’twixt two houris fair,
Thou stand’st between the evening and the morn?
I took thee for an angel, but have wooed
A cacodaemon in mine ignorant mood.

Views: 33

Afternoon in February
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o’er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

Views: 35

Who Ever Loved, That Loved Not at First Sight
by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows, let it suffice,
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

Views: 33

Music
by Amy Lowell (1819-1925)

The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute.
From my bed I can hear him,
And the round notes flutter and tap about the room,
And hit against each other,
Blurring to unexpected chords.
It is very beautiful,
With the little flute-notes all about me,
In the darkness.

In the daytime,
The neighbour eats bread and onions with one hand
And copies music with the other.
He is fat and has a bald head,
So I do not look at him,
But run quickly past his window.
There is always the sky to look at,
Or the water in the well!

But when night comes and he plays his flute,
I think of him as a young man,
With gold seals hanging from his watch,
And a blue coat with silver buttons.
As I lie in my bed
The flute-notes push against my ears and lips,
And I go to sleep, dreaming.

Views: 39

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
by John Keats (1819-1891)

O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
         Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
         And no birds sing.

O What can ail thee, knight at arms,
         So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
         And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow
         With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
         Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
         Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
         And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
         And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
         And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
         And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
         A fairy’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
         And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
         I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
         And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
         With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,
         And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
         On the cold hill’s side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
         Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried—“La belle dame sans merci
         Hath thee in thrall!”

I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
         With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
         On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
         Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
         And no birds sing.

Views: 34

Auspex
by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

My heart, I cannot still it,
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet,
Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only,
Without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,—
Woe’s me, I shall be lonely
When I can feel no longer
The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion,
Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.

Views: 25