His Dream by W. B. Yeats I swayed upon the gaudy stern The butt end of a steering oar, And everywhere that I could turn Men ran upon the shore. And though I would have hushed the crowd There was no mother’s son but said, What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy […]
Sonnet VI by William Shakespeare
Sonnet VI by William Shakespeare Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface, In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That’s for thy self to breed […]
Kindliness by Rupert Brooke
Kindliness by Rupert Brooke When love has changed to kindliness Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press So tight that Time’s an old god’s dream Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff Seven million years were not enough To think on after, make it seem Less than the breath of children playing, A blasphemy scarce worth […]
Hap by Thomas Hardy
Hap by Thomas Hardy If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Half-eased in […]
The Figure-Head by Herman Melville
The Figure-Head by Herman Melville The Charles-and-Emma seaward sped, (Named from the carven pair at prow,) He so smart, and a curly head, She tricked forth as a bride knows how: Pretty stem for the port, I trow! But iron-rust and alum-spray And chafing gear, and sun and dew Vexed this lad and lassie gay, […]
Nightingales by Robert Bridges
Nightingales Robert Bridges Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long! Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: […]
To S. M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works by Phillis Wheatley
To S. M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works by Phillis Wheatley TO show the lab’ring bosom’s deep intent, And thought in living characters to paint, When first thy pencil did those beauties give, And breathing figures learnt from thee to live, How did those prospects give my soul delight, A new creation […]
The Poet and the Lily by A. B. S. Tennyson
The Poet and the Lily by A. B. S. Tennyson A poet was born in a modern time, ‘Neath Saturn and his Rings, He was a child of the world’s prime, Knew all beautiful things. He was a child of morning and mirth, Laughing for joy of the sun, His nostrils drank the scent of […]
Only A Woman’s Hair by Lewis Carroll
Only A Woman’s Hair by Lewis Carroll Only a woman’s hair! Fling it aside! A bubble on Life’s mighty stream: Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide Bright with the western beam. Nay! In those words there rings from other years The echo of a long low cry, Where a proud spirit wrestles […]
Wild Asters by Sara Teasdale
Wild Asters by Sara Teasdale In the spring I asked the daisies If his words were true, And the clever little daisies Always knew. Now the fields are brown and barren, Bitter autumn blows, And of all the stupid asters Not one knows. Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American lyric poet known for her intimate […]
Indifference by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Indifference by Edna St. Vincent Millay I said, for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come, “I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed; But I’ll never leave my pillow, though there be some As would let him in and take him in with tears!” I said. […]
Inspiration by Aldous Huxley
Inspiration by Aldous Huxley Noonday upon the Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows Translucent are and bright. It seems a glory that nought surpasses Passion of angels in form and hue? When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grasses Leaps a lightning of sudden blue. Dimming the […]
In a Library by Emily Dickinson
In a Library by Emily Dickinson A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to […]
The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats
The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats 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 […]
Revolutions by Matthew Arnold
Revolutions by Matthew Arnold Before man parted for this earthly strand, While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, God put a heap of letters in his hand, And bade him make with them what word he could. And man has turn’d them many times; made Greece, Rome, England, France; yes, nor in vain […]