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Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

Page 137

by Homer


  The freeborn mind enthralling,

  We made a day of happy hours,

  Our happy days recalling.

  Brisk Youth appeared, the Morn of youth, 25

  With freaks of graceful folly —

  Life’s temperate Noon, her sober Eve,

  Her Night not melancholy;

  Past, present, future, all appeared

  In harmony united, 30

  Like guests that meet, and some from far,

  By cordial love invited.

  And if, as Yarrow, through the woods

  And down the meadow ranging,

  Did meet us with unaltered face, 35

  Though we were changed and changing;

  If, then, some natural shadows spread

  Our inward prospect over,

  The soul’s deep valley was not slow

  Its brightness to recover. 40

  Eternal blessings on the Muse,

  And her divine employment!

  The blameless Muse, who trains her Sons

  For hope and calm enjoyment;

  Albeit sickness, lingering yet, 45

  Has o’er their pillow brooded;

  And Care waylays their steps — a Sprite

  Not easily eluded.

  For thee, O SCOTT! compelled to change

  Green Eildon-hill and Cheviot 50

  For warm Vesuvio’s vine-clad slopes,

  And leave thy Tweed and Tiviot

  For mild Sorrento’s breezy waves;

  May classic Fancy, linking

  With native Fancy her fresh aid, 55

  Preserve thy heart from sinking!

  Oh! while they minister to thee,

  Each vying with the other,

  May Health return to mellow Age

  With Strength, her venturous brother; 60

  And Tiber, and each brook and rill

  Renowned in song and story,

  With unimagined beauty shine,

  Nor lose one ray of glory!

  For Thou, upon a hundred streams, 65

  By tales of love and sorrow,

  Of faithful love, undaunted truth,

  Hast shed the power of Yarrow;

  And streams unknown, hills yet unseen,

  Wherever they invite Thee, 70

  At parent Nature’s grateful call,

  With gladness must requite Thee.

  A gracious welcome shall be thine,

  Such looks of love and honour

  As thy own Yarrow gave to me 75

  When first I gazed upon her;

  Beheld what I had feared to see,

  Unwilling to surrender

  Dreams treasured up from early days,

  The holy and the tender. 80

  And what, for this frail world, were all

  That mortals do or suffer,

  Did no responsive harp, no pen,

  Memorial tribute offer?

  Yea, what were mighty Nature’s self? 85

  Her features, could they win us,

  Unhelped by the poetic voice

  That hourly speaks within us?

  Nor deem that localized Romance

  Plays false with our affections; 90

  Unsanctifies our tears — made sport

  For fanciful dejections;

  Ah, no! the visions of the past

  Sustain the heart in feeling

  Life as she is — our changeful Life, 95

  With friends and kindred dealing.

  Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day

  In Yarrow’s groves were centred;

  Who through the silent portal arch

  Of mouldering Newark enter’d; 100

  And clomb the winding stair that once

  Too timidly was mounted

  By the ‘last Minstrel,’ (not the last!)

  Ere he his Tale recounted.

  Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream! 105

  Fulfil thy pensive duty,

  Well pleased that future Bards should chant

  For simple hearts thy beauty;

  To dream-light dear while yet unseen

  Dear to the common sunshine, 110

  And dearer still, as now I feel,

  To memory’s shadowy moonshine!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Lines

  Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour July 13, 1798

  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

  FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length

  Of five long winters! and again I hear

  These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

  With a soft inland murmur. — Once again

  Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 5

  That on a wild secluded scene impress

  Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

  The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

  The day is come when I again repose

  Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10

  These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

  Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

  Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

  ‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

  These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 15

  Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

  Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

  Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

  With some uncertain notice, as might seem

  Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 20

  Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

  The Hermit sits alone.

  These beauteous forms,Through a long absence, have not been to me

  As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye: 25

  But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din

  Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

  In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

  Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

  And passing even into my purer mind, 30

  With tranquil restoration: — feelings too

  Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

  As have no slight or trivial influence

  On that best portion of a good man’s life,

  His little, nameless, unremembered, acts 35

  Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

  To them I may have owed another gift,

  Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

  In which the burthen of the mystery,

  In which the heavy and the weary weight 40

  Of all this unintelligible world,

  Is lightened: — that serene and blessed mood,

  In which the affections gently lead us on, —

  Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

  And even the motion of our human blood 45

  Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

  In body, and become a living soul:

  While with an eye made quiet by the power

  Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

  We see into the life of things. 50

  If thisBe but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,

  In darkness, and amid the many shapes

  Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

  Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 55

  Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,

  How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

  O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,

  How often has my spirit turned to thee!

  And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 60

  With many recognitions dim and faint,

  And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

  The picture of the mind revives again:

  While here I stand, not only with the sense

  Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 65

  That in this moment th
ere is life and food

  For future years. And so I dare to hope,

  Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

  I came among these hills; when like a roe

  I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides 70

  Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

  Wherever nature led: more like a man

  Flying from something that he dreads, than one

  Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

  (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, 75

  And their glad animal movements all gone by)

  To me was all in all. — I cannot paint

  What then I was. The sounding cataract

  Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

  The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 80

  Their colours and their forms, were then to me

  An appetite; a feeling and a love,

  That had no need of a remoter charm,

  By thought supplied, nor any interest

  Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past, 85

  And all its aching joys are now no more,

  And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

  Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

  Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

  Abundant recompence. For I have learned 90

  To look on nature, not as in the hour

  Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

  The still, sad music of humanity,

  Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

  To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 95

  A presence that disturbs me with the joy

  Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime

  Of something far more deeply interfused,

  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

  And the round ocean and the living air, 100

  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

  A motion and a spirit, that impels

  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

  And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

  A lover of the meadows and the woods, 105

  And mountains; and of all that we behold

  From this green earth; of all the mighty world

  Of eye and ear, — both what they half create,

  And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

  In nature and the language of the sense, 110

  The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

  The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

  Of all my moral being.

  Nor perchance,If I were not thus taught, should I the more

  Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

  For thou art with me here upon the banks

  Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,

  My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

  The language of my former heart, and read 120

  My former pleasures in the shooting lights

  Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

  May I behold in thee what I was once,

  My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make

  Knowing that Nature never did betray 125

  The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege

  Through all the years of this our life, to lead

  From joy to joy: for she can so inform

  The mind that is within us, so impress

  With quietness and beauty, and so feed 130

  With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

  Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

  Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

  The dreary intercourse of daily life,

  Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb 135

  Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

  Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

  Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

  And let the misty mountain winds be free

  To blow against thee: and, in after years, 140

  When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

  Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

  Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

  Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

  For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, 145

  If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

  Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

  Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

  And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance —

  If I should be where I no more can hear 150

  Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes those gleams

  Of past existence, — wilt thou then forget

  That on the banks of this delightful stream

  We stood together; and that I, so long

  A worshipper of Nature, hither came 155

  Unwearied in that service: rather say

  With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal

  Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

  That after many wanderings, many years

  Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 160

  And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

  More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Daffodils

  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

  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 5

  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

  Continuous as the stars that shine

  And twinkle on the milky way,

  They stretch’d in never-ending line

  Along the margin of a bay: 10

  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 15

  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, 20

  They flash upon that inward eye

  Which is the bliss of solitude;

  And then my heart with pleasure fills,

  And dances with the daffodils.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  To the Daisy

  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

  WITH little here to do or see

  Of things that in the great world be,

  Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee

  For thou art worthy,

  Thou unassuming commonplace 5

  Of Nature, with that homely face,

  And yet with something of a grace

  Which love makes for thee!

  Oft on the dappled turf at ease

  I sit and play with similes, 10

  Loose types of things through all degrees,

  Thoughts of thy raising;

  And many a fond and idle name

  I give to thee, for praise or blame

  As is the humour of the game, 15

  While I am gazing.

  A nun demure, of lowly port;

  Or sprightly maiden, of Love’s court,

  In thy simplicity the sport

  Of all temptations; 20

  A queen in crown of rubies drest;

  A starveling in a scanty vest;

  Are all, as seems to suit thee best,

  Thy appellations.

  A little Cyclops, with one eye 25

  Staring to threaten and defy,

  That thought comes next — and instantly

  The freak is over
,

  The shape will vanish, and behold!

  A silver shield with boss of gold 30

  That spreads itself, some fairy bold

  In fight to cover.

  I see thee glittering from afar —

  And then thou art a pretty star,

  Not quite so fair as many are 35

  In heaven above thee!

  Yet like a star, with glittering crest,

  Self-poised in air thou seem’st to rest; —

  May peace come never to his nest

  Who shall reprove thee! 40

  Sweet Flower! for by that name at last

  When all my reveries are past,

  I call thee, and to that cleave fast,

  Sweet silent Creature!

  That breath’st with me in sun and air, 45

  Do thou, as thou art wont, repair

  My heart with gladness, and a share

  Of thy meek nature!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  To the Cuckoo

  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

  O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,

  I hear thee and rejoice:

  O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,

  Or but a wandering Voice?

  While I am lying on the grass 5

  Thy twofold shout I hear;

  From hill to hill it seems to pass,

  At once far off and near.

  Though babbling only to the vale

  Of sunshine and of flowers, 10

  Thou bringest unto me a tale

  Of visionary hours.

  Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

  Even yet thou art to me

  No bird, but an invisible thing, 15

  A voice, a mystery;

  The same whom in my school-boy days

  I listen’d to; that Cry

  Which made me look a thousand ways

  In bush, and tree, and sky. 20

  To seek thee did I often rove

  Through woods and on the green;

  And thou wert still a hope, a love;

  Still long’d for, never seen!

  And I can listen to thee yet; 25

  Can lie upon the plain

  And listen, till I do beget

  That golden time again.

  O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace

 

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