Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu’d, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead.
The dog-star rages! nay ’tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;
By land, by water, they renew the charge;
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free;
Ev’n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the Man of Ryme,
Happy! to catch me just at Dinner-time.

Continue reading …

Views: 64

A Lament for Flodden
by Jane Elliot (1727-1805)

I’ve heard them lilting at our ewe-milking,
      Lasses a’ lilting before dawn o’ day;
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning-
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

At bughts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning,
      Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but sighing and sabbing,
      Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.

In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
      Bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray:
At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching-
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

At e’en, in the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming
      ’Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play;
But ilk ane sits eerie, lamenting her dearie-
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
      The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;
The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
      The prime of our land, lie cauld in the clay.

We’ll hear nae mair lilting at our ewe-milking;
      Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning-
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

Views: 45

“Sometimes I walk where the deep water dips”
by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821-1873)

Sometimes I walk where the deep water dips
Against the land. Or on where fancy drives
I walk and muse aloud, like one who strives
To tell his half-shaped thought with stumbling lips,
And view the ocean sea, the ocean ships,
With joyless heart: still but myself I find
And restless phantoms of my restless mind:
Only the moaning of my wandering words,
Only the wailing of the wheeling plover,
And this high rock beneath whose base the sea
Has wormed long caverns, like my tears in me:
And hard like this I stand, and beaten and blind,
This desolate rock with lichens rusted over,
Hoar with salt-sleet and chalkings of the birds.

Views: 45

When ’Omer Smote ’Is Bloomin’ Lyre
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
I always seem to post this poem on World Intellectual Property Day

When ’Omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre
   He’d ’eard men sing by land an’ sea;
An’ what he thought ’e might require,
   ’E went an’ took—the same as me!

The market-girls an’ fishermen,
   The shepherds an’ the sailors, too,
They ’eard old songs turn up again,
   But kep’ it quiet—same as you!

They knew ’e stole; ’e knew they knowed.
   They didn’t tell, nor make a fuss,
But winked at ’Omer down the road,
   An’ ’e winked back—the same as us!

Views: 46

The Listeners
by Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller,
      Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
      Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
      Above the Traveller’s head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
      “Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
      No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
      Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
      That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
      To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
      That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
      By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
      Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
      ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
      Louder, and lifted his head:-
“Tell them I came, and no one answered,
      That I kept my word,” he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
      Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
      From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
      And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
      When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Views: 49

The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:
⁠      That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
⁠      In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
⁠      Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
⁠      Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
⁠      A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
⁠⁠               Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
⁠      And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
⁠               ⁠In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Views: 45

To Celia
by Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

I hate the town and all its ways;
Ridottos, operas, and plays;
The ball, the ring, the mall, the court;
Wherever the beau-monde resort;
Where beauties lie in ambush for folks,
Earl Straffords, and the Duke of Norfolks;
All coffee-houses, and their praters;
All courts of justice, and debaters;
All taverns, and the sots within ’em;
All bubbles and the rogues that skin ’em.
I hate all critics; may they burn all,
From Bentley to the Grub Street Journal.
All bards, as Dennis hates a pun:
Those who have wit, and who have none.
All nobles, of whatever station;
And all the parsons in the nation.
All quacks and doctors read in physic,
Who kill or cure a man that is sick.
All authors that were ever heard on,
From Bavius up to Tommy Gordon;
Tradesmen with cringes ever stealing,
And merchants, whatsoe’er they deal in.
I hate the blades professing slaughter,
More than the devil holy water.
I hate all scholars, beaus, and squires;
Pimps, puppies, parasites, and liars.
All courtiers, with their looks so smooth;
And players, from Boheme to Booth.
I hate the world, cramm’d all together,
From beggars, up the Lord knows whither.

   Ask you then, Celia, if there be
The thing I love? my charmer, thee.
Thee more than light, than life adore,
Thou dearest, sweetest creature more
Than wildest raptures can express;
Than I can tell, — or thou canst guess.

   Then tho’ I bear a gentle mind,
Let not my hatred of mankind
Wonder within my Celia move,
Since she possesses all my love.

Views: 35

Life
by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

Life, believe, is not a dream
⁠         So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
⁠         Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
⁠         But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
⁠         O why lament its fall?
⁠⁠               Rapidly, merrily,
⁠         Life’s sunny hours flit by,
⁠⁠⁠               Gratefully, cheerily,
⁠         Enjoy them as they fly!

What though Death at times steps in,
⁠         And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
⁠         O’er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
⁠         Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
⁠         Still strong to bear us well.
⁠⁠⁠               Manfully, fearlessly,
⁠         The day of trial bear,
⁠⁠⁠               For gloriously, victoriously,
⁠         Can courage quell despair!

Views: 38

Deep in the Valley
by Dinah Craik (1826-1877)

Deep in the valley, afar from every beholder,
⁠         In the May morning my true love came to me:
Silent we sate, her head upon my shoulder;
⁠         Fondly we dreamed of the days about to be:
⁠         Fondly we dreamed of the days so soon to be.

Deep in the valley, the rain falls colder and colder:
⁠         Safely she sleeps beneath the churchyard tree:
Yet still I feel her head upon my shoulder,
⁠         Yet still I dream of the days that could not be:
⁠         Yet still I weep o’er the days that will not be.Views: 32

Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
⁠      Their flag to April’ s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
⁠      And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
⁠      Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
⁠      Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
⁠      We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
⁠      When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
⁠      To die, or leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
⁠      The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Views: 41