The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  Does not the worm erect a pillar in the mouldering church yard?

  And a palace of eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave

  Over his porch these words are written: Take thy bliss O Man!

  And sweet shall be thy taste & sweet thy infant joys renew!

  (… )

  PLATE 7

  The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin

  That pines for man; shall awaken her womb to enormous joys

  In the secret shadows of her chamber; the youth shut up from

  The lustful joy. shall forget to generate. & create an amorous image

  In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow.

  Are not these the places of religion? the rewards of continence?

  The self enjoyings of self denial? Why dost thou seek religion?

  Is it because acts are not lovely, that thou seekest solitude,

  Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire.

  Father of Jealousy, be thou accursed from the earth!

  Why hast thou taught my Theotormon this accursed thing?

  Till beauty fades from off my shoulders darken’d and cast out,

  A solitary shadow wailing on the margin of non-entity.

  I cry, Love! Love! Love! happy happy Love! free as the mountain wind!

  Can that be Love, that drinks another as a sponge drinks water?

  That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the day:

  To spin a web of age around him, grey and hoary! dark!

  Till his eyes sicken at the fruit that hangs before his sight.

  Such is self-love that envies all! a creeping skeleton

  With lamplike eyes watching around the frozen marriage bed.

  But silken nets and traps of adamant will Oothoon spread,

  And catch for thee girls of mild silver, or of furious gold;

  I’ll lie beside thee on a bank & view their wanton play

  In lovely copulation bliss on bliss with Theotormon:

  Red as the rosy morning, lustful as the first born beam,

  Oothoon shall view his dear delight, nor e’er with jealous cloud

  Come in the heaven of generous love; nor selfish blightings bring.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  Never seek to tell thy love

  Love that never told can be

  For the gentle wind does move

  Silently invisibly

  I told my love I told my love

  I told her all my heart

  Trembling cold in ghastly fears

  Ah she doth depart

  Soon as she was gone from me

  A traveller came by

  Silently invisibly

  He took her with a sigh

  (1863)

  1794 WILLIAM BLAKE from Songs of Innocence and of Experience

  Introduction

  Hear the voice of the Bard!

  Who Present, Past, & Future sees

  Whose ears have heard,

  The Holy Word,

  That walk’d among the ancient trees.

  Calling the lapsed Soul

  And weeping in the evening dew:

  That might controll,

  The starry pole;

  And fallen fallen light renew!

  O Earth O Earth return!

  Arise from out the dewy grass;

  Night is worn,

  And the morn

  Rises from the slumberous mass.

  Turn away no more:

  Why wilt thou turn away

  The starry floor

  The watry shore

  Is giv’n thee till the break of day.

  The Clod and the Pebble

  Love seeketh not Itself to please,

  Nor for itself hath any care;

  But for another gives its ease,

  And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

  So sang a little Clod of Clay,

  Trodden with the cattles feet:

  But a Pebble of the brook,

  Warbled out these metres meet.

  Love seeketh only Self to please,

  To bind another to its delight;

  Joys in anothers loss of ease,

  And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.

  The Sick Rose

  O Rose thou art sick.

  The invisible worm,

  That flies in the night

  In the howling storm:

  Has found out thy bed

  Of crimson joy:

  And his dark secret love

  Does thy life destroy.

  The Tyger

  Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

  In the forests of the night:

  What immortal hand or eye,

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  In what distant deeps or skies

  Burnt the fire of thine eyes!

  On what wings dare he aspire?

  What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

  And what shoulder, & what art,

  Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

  And when thy heart began to beat,

  What dread hand? & what dread feet?

  What the hammer? what the chain,

  In what furnace was thy brain?

  What the anvil? what dread grasp,

  Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

  When the stars threw down their spears

  And water’d heaven with their tears:

  Did he smile his work to see?

  Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

  Tyger, Tyger burning bright,

  In the forests of the night:

  What immortal hand or eye,

  Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

  Ah! Sun-Flower

  Ah Sun-flower! weary of time.

  Who countest the steps of the Sun:

  Seeking after that sweet golden clime

  Where the travellers journey is done.

  Where the Youth pined away with desire,

  And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:

  Arise from their graves and aspire,

  Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

  The Garden of Love

  I went to the Garden of Love.

  And saw what I never had seen:

  A Chapel was built in the midst,

  Where I used to play on the green.

  And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

  And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;

  So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,

  That so many sweet flowers bore.

  And I saw it was filled with graves,

  And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

  And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

  And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

  London

  I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

  Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

  And mark in every face I meet

  Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

  In every cry of every Man,

  In every Infants cry of fear,

  In every voice: in every ban,

  The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

  How the Chimney-sweepers cry

  Every blackning Church appalls,

  And the hapless Soldiers sigh,

  Runs in blood down Palace walls

  But most thro’ midnight streets I hear

  How the youthful Harlots curse

  Blasts the new-born Infants tear

  And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

  A Poison Tree

  I was angry with my friend:

  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

  I was angry with my foe:

  I told it not, my wrath did grow.

  And I watered it in fears.

  Night & morning with my tears:

  And I sunned it with smiles.

  And with soft deceitful wiles.

  And it grew both day and night.

  Till it bore an apple bright.
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br />   And my foe beheld it shine.

  And he knew that it was mine.

  And into my garden stole.

  When the night had veild the pole;

  In the morning glad I see;

  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

  1796 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE The Eolian Harp

  Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire

  My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined

  Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is

  To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown

  With white-flower’d Jasmin, and the broad-leav’d Myrtle,

  (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)

  And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,

  Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve

  Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)

  Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents

  Snatch’d from yon bean-field! and the world so hush’d!

  The stilly murmur of the distant Sea

  Tells us of silence.

  And that simplest Lute,

  Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!

  How by the desultory breeze caress’d,

  Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,

  It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs

  Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings

  Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes

  Over delicious surges sink and rise,

  Such a soft floating witchery of sound

  As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve

  Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,

  Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,

  Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,

  Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam’d wing!

  [O! the one Life within us and abroad,

  Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,

  A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,

  Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where –

  Methinks, it should have been impossible

  Not to love all things in a world so fill’d;

  Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air

  Is Music slumbering on her instrument.]1

  And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope

  Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,

  Whilst through my half-clos’d eye-lids I behold

  The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,

  And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;

  Full many a thought uncall’d and undetain’d,

  And many idle flitting phantasies,

  Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

  As wild and various as the random gales

  That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!

  And what if all of animated nature

  Be but organic Harps diversely fram’d,

  That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps

  Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

  At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

  But thy more serious eye a mild reproof

  Darts, O belovéd Woman! nor such thoughts

  Dim and unhallow’d dost thou not reject,

  And biddest me walk humbly with my God.

  Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!

  Well hast thou said and holily disprais’d

  These shapings of the unregenerate mind;

  Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break

  On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.

  For never guiltless may I speak of him,

  The Incomprehensible! save when with awe

  I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;

  Who with his saving mercies healéd me,

  A sinful and most miserable man,

  Wilder’d and dark, and gave me to possess

  Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour’d Maid!

  (1796, 1817)

  ROBERT BURNS A Red, Red Rose

  My luve is like a red, red rose,

  That’s newly sprung in June:

  My luve is like the melodie,

  That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

  As fair art thou, my bonie lass,

  So deep in luve am I,

  And I will luve thee still, my dear,

  Till a’ the seas gang dry.

  Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

  And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!

  And I will luve thee still, my dear,

  While the sands o’ life shall run.

  And fare-thee-weel, my only luve,

  And fare-thee-weel a while!

  And I will come again, my luve,

  Tho’ it were ten-thousand mile.

  GEORGE CANNING and JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE Sapphics 1797

  The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder

  FRIEND OF HUMANITY

  ‘Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going?

  Rough is the Road, your Wheel is out of order –

  Bleak blows the blast; – your hat has got a hole in’t,

  So have your breeches!

  ‘Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones,

  Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-

  -road, what hard work ’tis crying all day ‘Knives and

  ‘Scissars to grind O!’

  ‘Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?

  Did some rich man tyrannically use you?

  Was it the ’Squire? or Parson of the Parish?

  Or the Attorney?

  ‘Was it the ’Squire for killing of his Game? or

  Covetous Parson for his Tythes distraining?

  Or roguish Lawyer made you lose your little

  All in a law-suit?

  ‘(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by TOM PAINE?)

  Drops of compassion tremble on my eye-lids,

  Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your

  Pitiful story.’