Dirge in Woods
by George Meredith (1828-1909)
A wind sways the pines,
And below
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses that glow
On the flooring and over the lines
Of the roots here and there.
The pine-tree drops its dead;
They are quiet, as under the sea.
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
Even we,
Even so.
Views: 47
Sweet and Low
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dropping moon and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west
Under the silver moon:
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
Views: 26
Music I Heard
by Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Now that I am without you, all is desolate,
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved:
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes.
And in my heart they will remember always:
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!
Views: 28
With a Guitar, to Jane
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Ariel to Miranda:—Take
This slave of Music, for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee,
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,
And, too intense, is turned to pain;
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who,
From life to life, must still pursue
Your happiness;—for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero’s enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples, he
Lit you o’er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.
When you die, the silent Moon,
In her interlunar swoon,
Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel.
When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen star of birth,
Ariel guides you o’er the sea
Of life from your nativity.
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun
Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has tracked your steps, and served your will;
Now, in humbler, happier lot,
This is all remembered not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned, for some fault of his,
In a body like a grave;—
From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile today, a song tomorrow.
The artist who this idol wrought,
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree,—
O that such our death may be!—
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully,
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
For it had learned all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound,
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way.—
All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The Spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,
By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day:
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest, holiest tone
For our beloved Jane alone.
Views: 22
The Dance
by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
As the Wind and as the Wind
In a corner of the way,
Goes stepping, stands twirling,
Invisibly, comes whirling,
Bows before and skips behind
In a grave, an endless play—
So my Heart and so my Heart
Following where your feet have gone,
Stirs dust of old dreams there;
He turns a toe; he gleams there,
Treading you a dance apart.
But you see not. You pass on.
Views: 22
Villanelle of his Lady’s Treasures
by Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)
I took her dainty eyes, as well
As silken tendrils of her hair :
And so I made a Villanelle!
I took her voice, a silver bell,
As clear as song, as soft as prayer;
I took her dainty eyes as well.
It may be, said I, who can tell,
These things shall be my less despair?
And so I made a Villanelle!
I took her whiteness virginal
And from her cheek two roses rare:
I took her dainty eyes as well.
I said: “It may be possible
Her image from my heart to tear!”
And so I made a Villanelle.
I stole her laugh, most musical:
I wrought it in with artful care;
I took her dainty eyes as well;
And so I made a Villanelle.
Views: 25
“Quando Ner Piccolin tornò di Francia”
by Cecco Angiolieri (c. 1260-c. 1312)
Quando Ner Piccolin tornò di Francia
Era si caldo de’ molti fiorini
Che gli uomin gli parevan topolini
E di ciascun si facia beffa e ciancia.
Ed usava di dir: ‘Mala mescianza
Possa venire a tutt’i miei vicini,
Quand’e’ sono appo me sì picciolini
Che mi fôra disnor la lora usanza.’
Or è per lo suo senno a tal condotto
Che non ha niun sì piccolo vicino
Che non si disdegnasse fargli motto.
Ond’io metterei il cuor per un fiorino
Che anzi che sien passati mesi otto,
S’egli avrà pur del pan, dirà: ‘buonino!’
Views: 52
Hope
by Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
Hope was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.
False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne’er returned again!
Views: 60
The Jesters
by Don Marquis (1878-1937)
A toast to the Fools!
Pierrot, Pantaloon,
Harlequin, Clown,
Merry-Andrew, Buffoon–
Touchstone and Triboulet–all of the tribe.–
Dancer and jester and singer and scribe.
We sigh over Yorick—(unfortunate fool,
Ten thousand Hamlets have fumbled his skull!)—
But where is the Hamlet to weep o’er the biers
Of his brothers?
And where is the poet solicits our tears
For the others?
They have passed from the world and left never a sign,
And few of us now have the courage to sing
That their whimsies made life a more livable thing–
We, that are left of the line,
Let us drink to the jesters—in gooseberry wine!
Then here’s to the Fools!
Flouting the sages
Through history’s pages
And driving the dreary old seers into rages—
The humbugging Magis
Who prate that the wages
Of Folly are Death–toast the Fools of all ages!
They have ridden like froth down the whirlpools of time,
They have jingled their caps in the councils of state,
They have snared half the wisdom of life in a rhyme,
And tripped into nothingness grinning at fate–
Ho, brothers mine,
Brim up the glasses with gooseberry wine!
Though the prince with his firman,
The judge in his ermine,
Affirm and determine
Bold words need the whip,
Let them spare us the rod and remit us the sermon,
For Death has a quip
Of the tomb and the vermin
That will silence at last the most impudent lip!
Is the world but a bubble, a bauble, a joke?
Heigho, Brother Fools, now your bubble is broke,
Do you ask for a tear?–or is it worth while?
Here’s a sigh for you, then–but it ends in a smile!
Ho, Brother Death,
We would laugh at you, too–if you spared us the breath!
Views: 39
The Starlight Night
by Gerard Manley Hopkins(1845-1889)
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
Views: 42