by Homer
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ambrose Philips
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Charlotte Pulteney
Ambrose Philips (1675–1749)
TIMELY blossom, Infant fair,
Fondling of a happy pair,
Every morn and every night
Their solicitous delight,
Sleeping, waking, still at ease, 5
Pleasing, without skill to please;
Little gossip, blithe and hale,
Tattling many a broken tale,
Singing many a tuneless song,
Lavish of a heedless tongue; 10
Simple maiden, void of art,
Babbling out the very heart,
Yet abandon’d to thy will,
Yet imagining no ill,
Yet too innocent to blush; 15
Like the linnet in the bush
To the mother-linnet’s note
Moduling her slender throat;
Chirping forth thy pretty joys,
Wanton in the change of toys, 20
Like the linnet green, in May
Flitting to each bloomy spray;
Wearied then and glad of rest,
Like the linnet in the nest: —
This thy present happy lot 25
This, in time will be forgot:
Other pleasures, other cares,
Ever-busy Time prepares;
And thou shalt in thy daughter see,
This picture, once, resembled thee. 30
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Colley Cibber
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Blind Boy
Colley Cibber (1671–1757)
O SAY what is that thing call’d Light,
Which I must ne’er enjoy;
What are the blessings of the sight,
O tell your poor blind boy!
You talk of wondrous things you see, 5
You say the sun shines bright;
I feel him warm, but how can he
Or make it day or night?
My day or night myself I make
Whene’er I sleep or play; 10
And could I ever keep awake
With me ‘twere always day.
With heavy sighs I often hear
You mourn my hapless woe;
But sure with patience I can bear 15
A loss I ne’er can know.
Then let not what I cannot have
My cheer of mind destroy:
Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
Although a poor blind boy. 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
James Thomson
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Rule, Britannia
James Thomson (1700–1748)
WHEN Britain first at Heaven’s command
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves! 5
Britons never shall be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free
The dread and envy of them all. 10
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke:
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame; 15
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe and thy renown.
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine; 20
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine!
The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crown’d 25
And manly hearts to guard the fair: —
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Fortune
James Thomson (1700–1748)
FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to Love,
And when we meet a mutual heart
Come in between, and bid us part?
Bid us sigh on from day to day, 5
And wish and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?
But busy, busy, still art thou,
To bind the loveless, joyless vow, 10
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.
For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;
All other blessings I resign, 15
Make but the dear Amanda mine.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Gray
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
THE CURFEW tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 5
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain 10
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 15
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 20
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 25
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 30
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour: — 35
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the
note of praise. 40
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath,
Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 45
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll; 50
Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 55
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood. 60
Th’ applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation’s eyes
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone 65
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 70
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life 75
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 80
Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 85
This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 90
E’en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonour’d dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, 95
Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate, —
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
‘Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn; 100
‘There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
‘Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 105
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.
‘One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; 110
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
‘The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne, —
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115
Graved on the stone beneath yon agèd thorn:’
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth
And Melancholy mark’d him for her own. 120
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear,
He gain’d from Heaven, ’twas all he wish’d, a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose, 125
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
YE distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry’s holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow 5
Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way: 10
Ah happy hills! ah pleasing shade!
Ah fields beloved in vain!
When once my careless childhood stray’d,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow 15
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing
My weary soul they seem to soothe
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring. 20
Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace;
Who foremost now delight to cleave 25
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed
Or urge the flying ball? 30
While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply
‘Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain 35
The limits of their little reign
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy. 40
Gay Hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom Health, of rosy hue, 45
Wild Wit, Invention ever new,
And lively Cheer, of Vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light
That fly th’ approach of morn. 50
Alas! regardless of their doom
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around ’em wait 55
The ministers of human fate
And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah shew them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah, tell
them they are men! 60
These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And shame that sculks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth, 65
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow’s piercing dart. 70
Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try 75
And hard Unkindness’ alter’d eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe. 80
Lo, in the Vale of Years beneath
A griesly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 85
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age. 90
To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,