The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  And Bahrám, that great Hunter – the Wild Ass

  Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.

  I sometimes think that never blows so red

  The Rose as where some buried Cæesar bled;

  That every Hyacinth the Garden wears

  Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

  And this delightful Herb whose tender Green

  Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean –

  Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows

  From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

  Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears

  TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears –

  To-morrow? – Why, To-morrow I may be

  Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.

  Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best

  That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,

  Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,

  And one by one crept silently to Rest.

  And we, that now make merry in the Room

  They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,

  Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth

  Descend, ourselves to make a Couch – for whom?

  Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

  Before we too into the Dust descend;

  Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

  Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!

  Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,

  And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,

  A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries

  ‘Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!’

  Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d

  Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust

  Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn

  Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

  Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise

  To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;

  One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;

  The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

  Myself when young did eagerly frequent

  Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument

  About it and about: but evermore

  Came out by the same Door as in I went.

  With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,

  And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:

  And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d –

  ‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’

  WILLIAM BARNES My Orcha’d in Linden Lea

  ‘Ithin the woodlands, flow’ry gleäded,

  By the woak tree’s mossy moot,

  The sheenèn grass-bleädes, timber-sheäded,

  Now do quiver under voot;

  An’ birds do whissle over head,

  An’ water’s bubblèn in its bed,

  An’ there vor me the apple tree

  Do leän down low in Linden Lea.

  When leaves that leätely wer a-springèn

  Now do feäde ’ithin the copse,

  An’ païnted birds do hush their zingèn

  Up upon the timber’s tops;

  An’ brown-leav’d fruit’s a turnèn red,

  In cloudless zunsheen, over head,

  Wi’ fruit vor me, the apple tree

  Do leän down low in Linden Lea.

  Let other vo’k meäke money vaster

  In the aïr o’ dark-room’d towns,

  I don’t dread a peevish meäster;

  Though noo man do heed my frowns,

  I be free to goo abrode,

  Or teäke ageän my hwomeward road

  To where, vor me, the apple tree

  Do leän down low in Linden Lea.

  WILLIAM BARNES False Friends-like

  When I wer still a bwoy, an’ mother’s pride,

  A bigger bwoy spoke up to me so kind-like,

  ‘If you do like, I’ll treat ye wi’ a ride

  In theäse wheel-barrow here.’ Zoo I wer blind-like

  To what he had a-workèn in his mind-like,

  An’ mounted vor a passenger inside;

  An’ comèn to a puddle, perty wide,

  He tipp’d me in, a-grinnèn back behind-like.

  Zoo when a man do come to me so thick-like,

  An’ sheäke my hand, where woonce he pass’d me by,

  An’ tell me he would do me this or that,

  I can’t help thinkèn o’ the big bwoy’s trick-like.

  An’ then, vor all I can but wag my hat

  An’ thank en, I do veel a little shy.

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON Tithonus1860

  The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

  The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,

  Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

  And after many a summer dies the swan.

  Me only cruel immortality

  Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,

  Here at the quiet limit of the world,

  A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream

  The ever-silent spaces of the East,

  Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

  Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man –

  So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,

  Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d

  To his great heart none other than a God!

  I ask’d thee, ‘Give me immortality.’

  Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,

  Like wealthy men, who care not how they give.

  But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,

  And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,

  And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d

  To dwell in presence of immortal youth,

  Immortal age beside immortal youth,

  And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,

  Thy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now,

  Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,

  Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears

  To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:

  Why should a man desire in any way

  To vary from the kindly race of men

  Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance

  Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?

  A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes

  A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.

  Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals

  From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,

  And bosom beating with a heart renew’d.

  Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,

  Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,

  Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team

  Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,

  And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,

  And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.

  Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful

  In silence, then before thine answer given

  Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.

  Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,

  And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,

  In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?

  ‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.’

  Ay me! ay me! with what another heart

  In days far-off, and with what other eyes

  I used to watch – if I be he that watch’d –

  The lucid outline forming round thee; saw

  The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;

  Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood

  Glow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all

  Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,

  Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm

  With kisses balmier than half-opening buds

 
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d

  Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,

  Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,

  While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

  Yet hold me not for ever in thine East:

  How can my nature longer mix with thine?

  Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold

  Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet

  Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam

  Floats up from those dim fields about the homes

  Of happy men that have the power to die,

  And grassy barrows of the happier dead.

  Release me, and restore me to the ground;

  Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave:

  Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;

  I earth in earth forget these empty courts,

  And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

  (written 1833)

  DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI from the Italian of Dante 1861 Sestina: of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni

  To the dim light and the large circle of shade

  I have clomb, and to the whitening of the hills,

  There where we see no colour in the grass.

  Natheless my longing loses not its green,

  It has so taken root in the hard stone

  Which talks and hears as though it were a lady.

  Utterly frozen is this youthful lady,

  Even as the snow that lies within the shade;

  For she is no more moved than is the stone

  By the sweet season which makes warm the hills

  And alters them afresh from white to green,

  Covering their sides again with flowers and grass.

  When on her hair she sets a crown of grass

  The thought has no more room for other lady;

  Because she weaves the yellow with the green

  So well that Love sits down there in the shade, –

  Love who has shut me in among low hills

  Faster than between walls of granite-stone.

  She is more bright than is a precious stone;

  The wound she gives may not be healed with grass:

  I therefore have fled far o’er plains and hills

  For refuge from so dangerous a lady;

  But from her sunshine nothing can give shade, –

  Not any hill, nor wall, nor summer-green.

  A while ago, I saw her dressed in green, –

  So fair, she might have wakened in a stone

  This love which I do feel even for her shade;

  And therefore, as one woos a graceful lady,

  I wooed her in a field that was all grass

  Girdled about with very lofty hills.

  Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the hills

  Before Love’s flame in this damp wood and green

  Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady,

  For my sake, who would sleep away in stone

  My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass,

  Only to see her garments cast a shade.

  How dark soe’er the hills throw out their shade,

  Under her summer-green the beautiful lady

  Covers it, like a stone cover’d in grass.

  ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER Envy

  He was the first always: Fortune

  Shone bright in his face.

  I fought for years; with no effort

  He conquered the place:

  We ran; my feet were all bleeding,

  But he won the race.

  Spite of his many successes

  Men loved him the same;

  My one pale ray of good fortune

  Met scoffing and blame.

  When we erred, they gave him pity,

  But me – only shame.

  My home was still in the shadow,

  His lay in the sun:

  I longed in vain: what he asked for

  It straightway was done.

  Once I staked all my heart’s treasure,

  We played – and he won.

  Yes; and just now I have seen him,

  Cold, smiling, and blest,

  Laid in his coffin. God help me!

  While he is at rest,

  I am cursed still to live: – even

  Death loved him the best.

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI May 1862

  I cannot tell you how it was;

  But this I know: it came to pass

  Upon a bright and breezy day

  When May was young; ah pleasant May!

  As yet the poppies were not born

  Between the blades of tender corn;

  The last eggs had not hatched as yet,

  Nor any bird foregone its mate.

  I cannot tell you what it was;

  But this I know: it did but pass.

  It passed away with sunny May,

  With all sweet things it passed away,

  And left me old, and cold, and grey.

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Song

  When I am dead, my dearest,

  Sing no sad songs for me;

  Plant thou no roses at my head,

  Nor shady cypress tree:

  Be the green grass above me

  With showers and dewdrops wet;

  And if thou wilt, remember,

  And if thou wilt, forget.

  I shall not see the shadows,

  I shall not feel the rain;

  I shall not hear the nightingale

  Sing on, as if in pain:

  And dreaming through the twilight

  That doth not rise nor set,

  Haply I may remember,

  And haply may forget.

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Winter: My Secret

  I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:

  Perhaps some day, who knows?

  But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows,

  And you’re too curious: fie!

  You want to hear it? well:

  Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.

  Or, after all, perhaps there’s none:

  Suppose there is no secret after all,

  But only just my fun.

  Today’s a nipping day, a biting day;

  In which one wants a shawl,

  A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:

  I cannot ope to every one who taps,