Reflection

AND

Comment

 

Daffodils

I wander’d lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Alone

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then — in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life — was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. — Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The Night Has A Thousand Eyes

The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore

That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece,

To the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo, in yon brilliant window niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,

The agate lamp within thy hand,

Ah! Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

EDGAR ALLAN POE

I Sit And Look Out

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame,

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;

I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;

I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer of young women,

I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see these sights on the earth,

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners,

I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d to preserve the lives of the rest;

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;

All these — all the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,

See, hear, and am silent.

WALT WHITMAN

We Wear The Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, —

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

We wear the mask!

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

How Like A Winter Hath My Absence Been

How like a winter hath my absence been

From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt; what dark days seen,

What old December’s bareness everywhere!

And yet this time removed was summer’s time:

The teeming autumn big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime

Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease;

Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me

But hope of orphans, and unfather’d fruit;

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,

That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

And the river flows like a stream of glass;

When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,

And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—

I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing

Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

For he must fly back to his perch and cling

When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;

And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

And they pulse again with a keener sting—

I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, —

When he beats his bars and he would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—

I know why the caged bird sings!

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

The Owl

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof

Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest

Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,

Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.

All of the night was quite barred out except

An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,

No merry note, nor cause of merriment,

But one telling me plain what I escaped

And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,

Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice

Speaking for all who lay under the stars,

Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

EDWARD THOMAS

Worn Out

You bid me hold my peace

And dry my fruitless tears,

Forgetting that I bear

A pain beyond my years.

You say that I should smile

And drive the gloom away;

I would, but sun and smiles

Have left my life’s dark day.

All time seems cold and void,

And naught but tears remain;

Life’s music beats for me

A melancholy strain.

I used at first to hope,

But hope is past and gone;

And now without a ray

My cheerless life drags on.

Like to an ash-stained hearth

When all its fires are spent;

Like to an autumn wood

By storm winds rudely shent,

So sadly goes my heart,

Unclothed of hope and peace;

It asks not joy again,

But only seeks release.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

My Life Closed Twice

My life closed twice before its close;

It yet remains to see

If Immortality unveil

A third event to me,

w

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,

As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

EMILY DICKINSON

Sympathy

There should be no despair for you

While nightly stars are burning;

While evening pours its silent dew,

And sunshine gilds the morning.

There should be no despair — though tears

May flow down like a river:

Are not the best beloved of years

Around your heart for ever?

They weep, you weep, it must be so;

Winds sigh as you are sighing,

And winter sheds its grief in snow

Where Autumn’s leaves are lying:

Yet, these revive, and from their fate

Your fate cannot be parted:

Then, journey on, if not elate,

Still, never broken-hearted!

EMILY BRONTË

To An Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,

The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

And hold to the low lintel up

The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl’s.

A. E. HOUSMAN

Eros

The sense of the world is short, —

Long and various the report, —

To love and be beloved;

Men and gods have not outlearned it,

And, how oft soe’er they’ve turned it,

’Tis not to be improved.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

I Said, This Misery Must End

I Said, This misery must end:

Shall I, that am a man and know

that sky and wind are yet my friend,

sit huddled under any blow?

so speaking left the dismal room

and stept into the mother-night

all fill’d with sacred quickening gloom

where the few stars burn’d low and bright,

and darkling on my darkling hill

heard thro’ the beaches’ sullen boom

heroic note of living will

rung trumpet-clear against the fight;

so stood and heard, and rais’d my eyes

erect, that they might drink of space,

and took the night upon my face,

till time and trouble fell away

and all my soul sprang up to feel

as one among the stars that reel

in rhyme on their rejoicing way,

breaking the elder dark, nor stay

but speed beyond each trammelling gyre,

till time and sorrow fall away

and night be wither’d up, and fire

consume the sickness of desire.

CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN

Greater Love

Red lips are not so red

As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

Kindness of wooed and wooer

Seems shame to their love pure.

O Love, your eyes lose lure

When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude

Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,

Rolling and rolling there

Where God seems not to care;

Till the fierce love they bear

Cramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,-

Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft, —

Your dear voice is not dear,

Gentle, and evening clear,

As theirs whom none now hear,

Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot

Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;

And though your hand be pale,

Paler are all which trail

Your cross through flame and hail:

Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

WILFRED OWEN

The Day Is Done

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me

That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,

Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life’s endless toil and endeavor;

And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,

And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares, that infest the day,

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The Rose

The Rose was given to man for this:

He, sudden seeing it in later years,

Should swift remember Love’s first lingering kiss

And Grief’s last lingering tears;

Or, being blind, should feel its yearning soul

Knit all its piercing perfume round his own,

Till he should see on memory’s ample scroll

All roses he had known;

Or, being hard, perchance his finger-tips

Careless might touch the satin of its cup,

And he should feel a dead babe’s budding lips

To his lips lifted up;

Or, being deaf and smitten with its star,

Should, on a sudden, almost hear a lark

Rush singing up — the nightingale afar

Sing thro’ the dew-bright dark;

Or, sorrow-lost in paths that round and round

Circle old graves, its keen and vital breath

Should call to him within the yew’s bleak bound

Of Life, and not of Death.

ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD

Rest

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;

Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;

Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth

With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.

She hath no questions, she hath no replies,

Hushed in and curtained with a blessèd dearth

Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;

With stillness that is almost Paradise.

Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,

Silence more musical than any song;

Even her very heart has ceased to stir:

Until the morning of Eternity

Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;

And when she wakes she will not think it long.

CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,

And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Ode On A Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ — that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

JOHN KEATS

So We’ll Go No More A-Roving

So we’ll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul outwears the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we’ll go no more a-roving

By the light of the moon.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

My Heart Was Wandering In The Sands

My heart was wandering in the sands,

a restless thing, a scorn apart;

Love set his fire in my hands,

I clasp’d the flame unto my heart.

Surely, I said, my heart shall turn

one fierce delight of pointed flame;

and in that holocaust shall burn

its old unrest and scorn and shame:

Surely my heart the heavens at last

shall storm with fiery orisons,

and know, enthroned in the vast,

the fervid peace of molten suns.

The flame that feeds upon my heart

fades or flares, by wild winds controll’d;

my heart still walks a thing apart,

my heart is restless as of old.

CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN

With Rue My Heart Is Laden

With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping

The lightfoot boys are laid;

The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

In fields where roses fade.

A. E. HOUSMAN

Ode On Melancholy

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;

Ay, in the very temple of delight

Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

JOHN KEATS

No Worst, There Is None

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,

More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.

Comforter, where, where is your comforting?

Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?

My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief

Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing —

Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No lingering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief’.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small

Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,

Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all

Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Epistle To A Young Friend

I lang hae thought, my youthfu’ friend,

A something to have sent you,

Tho’ it should serve nae ither end

Than just a kind memento:

But how the subject-theme may gang,

Let time and change determine;

Perhaps it may turn out a sang:

Perhaps turn out a sermon.

Ye’ll try the world soon my lad;

And, Andrew dear, believe me,

Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad,

And muckle they may grieve ye.

For care and trouble set your thought,

Ev’n when your end’s attained;

And a’ your views may come to nought,

Where ev’ry nerve is strained.

I’ll no say, men are villains a’;

The real, harden’d wicked,

What hae nae check but human law,

Are to a few restricked;

But, och! mankind are unco weak,

An’ little to be trusted;

If self the wavering balance shake,

It’s rarely right adjusted!

Yet they wha fa’ in fortune’s strife,

Their fate we should na censure;

For still, th’important end of life

They equally may answer;

A man may hae in honest heart,

Tho’ poortith hourly stare him;

A man may tak a neibor’s part,

Yet hae nae cash to spare him.

Aye free, aff-han’, your story tell,

When wi’ a bosom crony;

But still keep something to yoursel’’

Ye scarcely tell to ony:

Conceal yoursel’ as weel’ ye can

Frae critical dissection;

But keek thro’ ev’ry other man,

Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.

The sacred lowe o’ well-plac’d love,

Luxuriantly indulge it;

But never tempt th’ illicit rove,

Tho’ naething should divulge it:

I waive the quantum o’ the sin,

The hazard of concealing;

But, och! it hardens a’ within,

And petrifies the feeling!

To catch dame Fortune’s golden smile,

Assiduous wait upon her;

And gather gear by ev’ry wile

That’s justified by honour;

Not for to hide it in a hedge,

Nor for a train attendant;

But for the glorious privilege

Of being independent.

The fear o’ hell’s a hangman’s whip,

To haud the wretch in order;

But where ye feel your honour grip,

Let that aye be your border;

Its slightest touches, instant pause —

Debar a’ side-pretences;

And resolutely keep its laws,

Uncaring consequences.

The great Creator to revere,

Must sure become the creature;

But still the preaching cant forbear,

And ev’n the rigid feature:

Yet ne’er with wits profane to range,

Be complaisance extended;

An atheist-laugh’s a poor exchange

For Deity offended!

When ranting round in pleasure’s ring,

Religion may be blinded;

Or if she gie a random sting,

It may be little minded;

But when on life we’re tempest-driv’n —

A conscience but a canker,

A correspondence fix’d wi’ Heav’n,

Is sure a noble anchor!

Adieu, dear, amiable youth!

Your heart can ne’er be wanting!

May prudence, fortitude, and truth,

Erect your brow undaunting!

In ploughman phrase, ‘God send you speed,’

Still daily to grow wiser;

And may ye better reck the rede,

Than ever did th’ adviser!

ROBERT BURNS

The Arrow And The Song

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The Revelation

An idle poet, here and there,

Looks round him, but, for all the rest,

The world, unfathomably fair,

Is duller than a witling’s jest.

Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;

They lift their heavy lids, and look;

And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,

They read with joy, then shut the book.

And give some thanks, and some blaspheme,

And most forget, but, either way,

That and the child’s unheeded dream

Is all the light of all their day.

COVENTRY PATMORE

Music, When Soft Voices Die

Music, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heap’d for the beloved’s bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,

Love itself shall slumber on.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Freedom And Love

How delicious is the winning

Of a kiss at love’s beginning,

When two mutual hearts are sighing

For the knot there’s no untying!

Yet remember, ’midst your wooing

Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;

Other smiles may make you fickle,

Tears for other charms may trickle.

Love he comes and Love he tarries

Just as fate or fancy carries;

Longest stays, when sorest chidden;

Laughs and flies, when press’d and bidden.

Bind the sea to slumber stilly,

Bind its odour to the lily,

Bind the aspen ne’er to quiver,

Then bind Love to last for ever.

Love’s a fire that needs renewal

Of fresh beauty for its fuel;

Love’s wing moults when caged and captured,

Only free, he soars enraptured.

Can you keep the bees from ranging,

Or the ringdove’s neck from changing?

No! nor fetter’d Love from dying

In the knot there’s no untying.

THOMAS CAMPBELL

The Torch Of Love

The torch of love dispels the gloom

Of life, and animates the tomb;

But never let it idly flare

On gazers in the open air,

Nor turn it quite away from one

To whom it serves for moon and sun,

And who alike in night or day

Without it could not find his way.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Give All To Love

Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;

Friends, kindred, days,

Estate, good-fame,

Plans, credit, and the Muse, —

Nothing refuse.

’Tis a brave master;

Let it have scope:

Follow it utterly,

Hope beyond hope:

High and more high

It dives into noon,

With wing unspent,

Untold intent;

But it is a God,

Knows its own path

And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;

It requireth courage stout.

Souls above doubt,

Valor unbending,

It will reward, —

They shall return

More than they were,

And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;

Yet, hear me, yet,

One word more thy heart behoved,

One pulse more of firm endeavor, —

Keep thee to-day,

To-morrow, forever,

Free as an Arab

Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;

But when the surprise,

First vague shadow of surmise

Flits across her bosom young,

Of a joy apart from thee,

Free be she, fancy-free;

Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,

Nor the palest rose she flung

From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,

As a self of purer clay,

Though her parting dims the day,

Stealing grace from all alive;

Heartily know,

When half-gods go,

The gods arrive.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Misgivings

When ocean-clouds over inland hills

Sweep storming in late autumn brown,

And horror the sodden valley fills,

And the spire falls crashing in the town,

I muse upon my country’s ills —

The tempest burning from the waste of Time

On the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime.

Nature’s dark side is heeded now —

(Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown) —

A child may read the moody brow

Of yon black mountain lone.

With shouts the torrents down the gorges go,

And storms are formed behind the storms we feel:

The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

HERMAN MELVILLE

Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,

On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,

Love and desire and hate:

I think they have no portion in us after

We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

ERNEST DOWSON

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

D. H. LAWRENCE

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? —

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o’er the sickle bending; —

listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The Poet

He sang of life, serenely sweet,

With, now and then, a deeper note.

From some high peak, nigh yet remote,

He voiced the world’s absorbing beat.

He sang of love when earth was young,

And Love, itself, was in his lays.

But, ah, the world, it turned to praise

A jingle in a broken tongue.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

We Outgrow Love, Like Other Things

We outgrow love, like other things

And put it in the drawer

Till it an antique fashion shows

Like costumes grandsires wore.

EMILY DICKINSON

Ode On Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Bless’d who can unconcern’dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease

Together mix’d; sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lye.

ALEXANDER POPE

Thanatopsis

To him who in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides

Into his darker musings, with a mild

And healing sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart —

Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To nature’s teachings, while from all around —

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air —

Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings,

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good,

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun — the vales

Stretching in pensive quietness between;

The venerable woods — rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste —

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,

Are shining on the sad abodes of death,

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,

Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there;

And millions in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw

In silence from the living, and no friend

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care

Plod on, and each one as before will chase

His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come

And make their bed with thee. As the long train

Of ages glides away, the sons of men,

The youth in life’s fresh spring, and he who goes

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,

The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man —

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,

By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Snake

A snake came to my water-trough

On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree

I came down the steps with my pitcher

And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom

And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough

And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,

And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,

He sipped with his straight mouth,

Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,

Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,

And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,

And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,

And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,

And stooped and drank a little more,

Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth

On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.

The voice of my education said to me

He must be killed,

For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man

You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,

How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough

And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,

Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?

Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?

Was it humility, to feel so honoured?

I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:

If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,

But even so, honoured still more

That he should seek my hospitality

From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough

And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,

And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,

Seeming to lick his lips,

And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,

And slowly turned his head,

And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,

Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round

And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,

And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered further,

A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,

Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,

Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,

I picked up a clumsy log

And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,

But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste,

Writhed like lightning, and was gone

Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wallfront,

At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.

I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!

I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross,

And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,

Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,

Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords

Of life.

And I have something to expiate:

A pettiness.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Darest Thou Now, O Soul

Darest thou now, O soul,

Walk out with me toward the unknown region,

Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,

Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes are in that land.

I know it not O soul,

Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,

All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.

Till when the ties loosen,

All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,

Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

Then we burst forth, we float,

In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,

Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfill O soul.

WALT WHITMAN

After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons recollect the Snow —

First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

EMILY DICKINSON

To Emily Dickinson

You who desired so much — in vain to ask —

Yet fed your hunger like an endless task,

Dared dignify the labor, bless the quest —

Achieved that stillness ultimately best,

Being, of all, least sought for: Emily, hear!

O sweet, dead Silencer, most suddenly clear

When singing that Eternity possessed

And plundered momently in every breast;

— Truly no flower yet withers in your hand.

The harvest you descried and understand

Needs more than wit to gather, love to bind.

Some reconcilement of remotest mind —

Leaves Ormus rubyless, and Ophir chill.

Else tears heap all within one clay-cold hill.

HART CRANE

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann’d:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

EDGAR ALLAN POE