On His Seventy-Fifth Birthday
by Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life—
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Views: 35
What Do I Care?
by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
I am an answer, they are only a call.
But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.
Views: 32
The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Views: 38
The Crocodile
by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
Views: 38
Forget Not Yet
by Thomas Wyatt (1503-15421)
Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since when
The suit, the service, none tell can;
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet the great essays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in denays,
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet, forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is,
The mind that never meant amiss–
Forget not yet!
Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved:
Forget not this!
Views: 34
Nine Inch Will Please a Lady
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)
“Come rede me, dame, come tell me, dame,
“My dame, come tell me truly,
“What length o’ graith, when weel ca’d hame,
“Will ser’e a woman duly?”
The carlin clew her wanton tail,
Her wanton tail sae ready—
I learn’t a sang in Annandale,
Nine inch will please a lady.—
But for a countrie cunt like mine,
In sooth we’re nae sae gentle;
We’ll tak’ twa thumb-bread to the nine,
And that’s a sonsie pintle.
O leeze me on my Charlie lad!
I’ll ne’er forget my Charlie!
Twa roarin’ handfu’ and a daud,
He nidg’t it in fu’ rarely.—
But weary fa’ the laithern doup,
And may it ne’er ken thrivin’!
It’s no the length that gars me loup,
But it’s the double drivin’.—
Come nidge me Tam, come nodge me Tam,
Come nidge me o’er the nyvle!
Come louse and lug your batterin’ ram,
And thrash him at my gyvel.
Views: 63
To a Hyacinth in January
by Constance Naden (1858-1889)
Sweet household hyacinth, whose dainty breath
Steals through my spirit like an April dream!
Each day I watch another snowy gleam,
That dawns and brightens through thine emerald sheath:
The encircling air, the water from beneath,
The fireside glow, the pallid noon‐day beam,
Arise transfigured in thy white raceme,
Safe from the New Year’s wind, whose touch were death.
The bells of Spring are not so sweet and fair,
For they with wind and rain and hail must cope,
That all too soon their tender life destroy;
But thou, warm sheltered from the frosty air,
Art like some delicate and hidden hope,
More full and fragrant than the promised joy.
Views: 35
“In the days of old”
by Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)
In the days of old,
Lovers felt true passion,
Deeming years of sorrow
By a smile repaid.
Now the charms of gold,
Spells of pride and fashion,
Bid them say good morrow
To the best-loved maid.
Through the forests wild,
O’er the mountains lonely,
There were never weary
Honour to pursue:
If the damsel smiled
Once in seven years only,
All their wanderings dreary
Ample guerdon knew.
Now one day’s caprice
Weighs down years of smiling,
Youthful hearts are rovers,
Love is bought and sold:
Fortune’s gifts may cease,
Love is less beguiling;
Wiser were the lovers,
In the days of old
Views: 35
Fragment written on the back of the manuscript to Don Juan
by Lord Byron (1788-1824)
I would to Heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling—
Because at least the past were passed away,
And for the future—(but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk exceedingly to-day,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say—the future is a serious matter—
And so—for God’s sake—hock and soda-water!
Views: 32
Consumption
by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men’s eyes—but not for thine—
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the final hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.
Views: 47