Penguin's Poems for Life

by Laura Barber

Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,

  Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist

  Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,

  That when you vomit forth into the air,

  My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,

  So that my soul may but ascend to heaven.

  The watch strikes.

  Ah, half the hour is past!

  ’Twill all be past anon.

  O God,

  If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,

  Yet for Christ’s sake, whose blood hath ransomed me,

  Impose some end to my incessant pain.

  Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,

  A hundred thousand, and at last be saved.

  O, no end is limited to damnèd souls.

  Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?

  Or why is this immortal that thou hast?

  Ah, Pythagoras’ metempsychosis, were that true,

  This soul should fly from me and I be changed

  Unto some brutish beast.

  All beasts are happy, for, when they die,

  Their souls are soon dissolved in elements,

  But mine must live still to be plagued in hell.

  Curst be the parents that engendered me!

  No, Faustus, curse thyself. Curse Lucifer,

  That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.

  The clock striketh twelve.

  O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,

  Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell.

  Thunder and lightning.

  O soul, be changed into little waterdrops,

  And fall into the ocean, ne’er be found!

  My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!

  Enter [LUCIFER, MEPHISTOPHELES, and other]

  DEVILS.

  Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!

  Ugly hell, gape not. Come not, Lucifer!

  I’ll burn my books. Ah, Mephistopheles!

  [The DEVILS] exeunt with him.

  WILFRED OWEN

  Futility

  Move him into the sun –

  Gently its touch awoke him once,

  At home, whispering of fields half-sown.

  Always it woke him, even in France,

  Until this morning and this snow.

  If anything might rouse him now

  The kind old sun will know.

  Think how it wakes the seeds –

  Woke once the clays of a cold star.

  Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides

  Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?

  Was it for this the clay grew tall?

  – O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

  To break earth’s sleep at all?

  HENRY VAUGHAN

  They are all gone into the world of light!

  And I alone sit lingring here;

  Their very memory is fair and bright,

  And my sad thoughts doth clear.

  It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast

  Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

  Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,

  After the Sun’s remove.

  I see them walking in an Air of glory,

  Whose light doth trample on my days:

  My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,

  Mere glimering and decays.

  O holy hope! and high humility,

  High as the Heavens above!

  These are your walks, and you have shew’d them me

  To kindle my cold love,

  Dear, beauteous death! the Jewel of the Just,

  Shining nowhere, but in the dark;

  What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust;

  Could man outlook that mark!

  He that hath found some fledg’d birds nest, may know

  At first sight, if the bird be flown;

  But what fair Well, or Grove he sings in now,

  That is to him unknown.

  And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams

  Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:

  So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted

  theams,

  And into glory peep.

  If a star were confin’d into a Tomb

  Her captive flames must needs burn there;

  But when the hand that lockt her up, gives room,

  She’ll shine through all the sphære.

  O Father of eternal life, and all

  Created glories under thee!

  Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall

  Into true liberty.

  Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill

  My perspective (still) as they pass,

  Or else remove me hence unto that hill,

  Where I shall need no glass.

  WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

  Age

  Death, tho I see him not, is near

  And grudges me my eightieth year.

  Now, I would give him all these last

  For one that fifty have run past.

  Ah! he strikes all things, all alike,

  But bargains: those he will not strike.

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

  Tithonus

  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

&n
bsp; 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.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  Because I could not stop for Death –

  He kindly stopped for me –

  The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

  And Immortality.

  We slowly drove – He knew no haste

  And I had put away

  My labor and my leisure too,

  For His Civility –

  We passed the School, where Children strove

  At Recess – in the Ring –

  We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

  We passed the Setting Sun –

  Or rather – He passed Us –

  The Dews drew quivering and chill –

  For only Gossamer, my Gown –

  My Tippet – only Tulle –

  We paused before a House that seemed

  A Swelling of the Ground –

  The Roof was scarcely visible –

  The Cornice – in the Ground –

  Since then –’tis Centuries – and yet

  Feels shorter than the Day

  I first surmised the Horses’ Heads

  Were toward Eternity –

  SIR WALTER RALEGH

  A Farewell to Court

  Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expired,

  And past return are all my dandled days,

  My love misled, and fancy quite retired;

  Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.

  My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,

  Have left me all alone in unknown ways,

  My mind to woe, my life in fortune’s hand;

  Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.

  As in a country strange without companion,

  I only wail the wrong of death’s delays,

  Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well nigh

  done;

  Of all which past, the sorrow only stays;

  Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold,

  To haste me hence to find my fortune’s fold.

  THOMAS CAMPION

  Never weather-beaten Sail more willing bent to shore,

  Never tired Pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,

  Than my wearied spright now longs to fly out of my troubled

  breast.

  O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.

  Ever-blooming are the joys of Heav’n’s high paradise,

  Cold age deafs not there our ears, nor vapour dims our eyes:

  Glory there the Sun outshines, whose beams the blessed only see;

  O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my spright to thee.

  ALEXANDER POPE

  The Dying Christian to His Soul

  Vital spark of heav’nly flame!

  Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:

  Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,

  Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

  Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,

  And let me languish into life.

  Hark! they whisper; Angels say,

  ‘Sister Spirit, come away!’

  What is this absorbs me quite?

  Steals my senses, shuts my sight,

  Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?

  Tell me, my Soul, can this be Death?

  The world recedes; it disappears!

  Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears

  With sounds seraphic ring:

  Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

  O Grave! where is thy Victory?

  O Death! where is thy Sting?

  JOHN DONNE

  Death be not proud, though some have called thee

  Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,

  For, those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,

  Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

  From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

  Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

  And soonest our best men with thee do go,

  Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

  Thou art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

  And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

  And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

  And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

  One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

  And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from Cymbeline, IV, ii

  GUIDERIUS:

  Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

  Nor the furious winter’s rages.

  Thou thy worldly task hast done,

  Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

  Golden lads and girls all must,

  As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  ARVIRAGUS:

  Fear no more the frown o’ the great,

  Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.

  Care no more to clothe and eat,

  To thee the reed is as the oak.

  The sceptre, learning, physic, must

  All follow this and come to dust.

  GUIDERIUS:

  Fear no more the lightning flash,

  ARVIRAGUS:

  Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone.

  GUIDERIUS:

  Fear not slander, censure rash.

  ARVIRAGUS:

  Thou hast finished joy and moan.

  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS:

  All lovers young, all lovers must

  Consign to thee and come to dust.

  GUIDERIUS:

  No exorciser harm thee,

  ARVIRAGUS:

  Nor no witchcraft charm thee.

  GUIDERIUS:

  Ghost unlaid forbear thee.

  ARVIRAGUS:

  Nothing ill come near thee.

  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS:

  Quiet consummation have,

  And renownèd be thy grave.

  EMILY BRONTË

  No coward soul is mine

  No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere

  I see Heaven’s glories shine

  And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

  O God within my breast

  Almighty ever-present Deity

  Life, that in me hast rest

  As I Undying Life, have power in thee

  Vain are the thousand creeds

  That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,

  Worthless as withered weeds

  Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

  To waken doubt in one

  Holding so fast
by thy infinity

  So surely anchored on

  The steadfast rock of Immortality

  With wide-embracing love

  Thy spirit animates eternal years

  Pervades and broods above,

  Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

  Though Earth and moon were gone

  And suns and universes ceased to be

  And thou wert left alone

  Every Existence would exist in thee

  There is not room for Death

  Nor atom that his might could render void

  Since thou art Being and Breath

  And what thou art may never be destroyed

  GEORGE ELIOT

  O may I join the choir invisible

  Of those immortal dead who live again

  In minds made better by their presence: live

  In pulses stirred to generosity,

  In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

  For miserable aims that end with self,

  In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

  And with their mild persistence urge man’s search

  To vaster issues.

  So to live is heaven:

  To make undying music in the world,

  Breathing as beauteous order that controls

  With growing sway the growing life of man.

  So we inherit that sweet purity

  For which we struggled, failed, and agonised

  With widening retrospect that bred despair.

  Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,

  A vicious parent shaming still its child

  Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;

  Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,

  Die in the large and charitable air.

  And all our rarer, better, truer self,

  That sobbed religiously in yearning song,

  That watched to ease the burthen of the world,

  Laboriously tracing what must be,

  And what may yet be better – saw within

  A worthier image for the sanctuary,