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

by Homer

  But things like that, you know, must be

  After a famous victory.

  ‘Great praise the Duke of Marlbro’ won 55

  And our good Prince Eugene;’

  ‘Why ’twas a very wicked thing!’

  Said little Wilhelmine;

  ‘Nay . . nay . . my little girl,’ quoth he,

  ‘It was a famous victory. 60

  ‘And every body praised the Duke

  Who this great fight did win.’

  ‘But what good came of it at last?’

  Quoth little Peterkin: —

  ‘Why that I cannot tell,’ said he, 65

  ‘But ’twas a famous victory.’

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Scholar

  Robert Southey (1774–1843)

  MY days among the Dead are past;

  Around me I behold,

  Where’er these casual eyes are cast,

  The mighty minds of old:

  My never-failing friends are they, 5

  With whom I converse day by day.

  With them I take delight in weal

  And seek relief in woe;

  And while I understand and feel

  How much to them I owe, 10

  My cheeks have often been bedew’d

  With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

  My thoughts are with the Dead; with them

  I live in long-past years,

  Their virtues love, their faults condemn, 15

  Partake their hopes and fears,

  And from their lessons seek and find

  Instruction with an humble mind.

  My hopes are with the Dead; anon

  My place with them will be, 20

  And I with them shall travel on

  Through all Futurity;

  Yet leaving here a name, I trust,

  That will not perish in the dust.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Devil’s Walk.

  Robert Southey (1774–1843)

  1.

  FROM his brimstone bed at break of day

  A walking the Devil is gone,

  To look at his little, snug farm of the World,

  And see how his stock went on.

  2.

  Over the hill and over the dale,

  And he went over the plain;

  And backward and forward he swish’d his tail,

  As a gentleman swishes a cane.

  3.

  How then was the Devil dress’d?

  Oh, he was in his Sunday’s best;

  His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,

  And there was a hole where his tail came through.

  4.

  A lady drove by in her pride,

  In whose face an expression he spied,

  For which he could have kiss’d her;

  Such a flourishing, fine, clever creature was she,

  With an eye as wicked as wicked can be:

  I should take her for my Aunt, thought he;

  If my dam had had a sister.

  5.

  He met a lord of high degree, —

  No matter what was his name, —

  Whose face with his own when he came to compare

  The expression, the look, and the air,

  And the character too, as it seem’d to a hair, —

  Such a twin-likeness there was in the pair,

  That it made the Devil start and stare;

  For he thought there was surely a looking-glass there

  But he could not see the frame.

  6.

  He saw a Lawyer killing a viper

  On a dunghill beside his stable;

  Ho! quoth he, thou put’st me in mind

  Of the story of Cain and Abel.

  7.

  An Apothecary on a white horse

  Rode by on his vocation;

  And the Devil thought of his old friend

  Death in the Revelation.

  8.

  He pass’d a cottage with a double coach-house,

  A cottage of gentility;

  And he own’d with a grin

  That his favorite sin

  Is pride that apes humility.

  9.

  He saw a pig rapidly

  Down a river float;

  The pig swam well, but every stroke

  Was cutting his own throat; —

  10.

  And Satan gave thereat his tail

  A twirl of admiration;

  For he thought of his daughter War

  And her suckling babe Taxation.

  11.

  Well enough, in sooth, he liked that truth,

  And nothing the worse for the jest;

  But this was only a first thought;

  And in this he did not rest:

  Another came presently into his head;

  And here it proved, as has often been said,

  That second thoughts are best

  12.

  For as Piggy plied, with wind and tide,

  His way with such celerity,

  And at every stroke the water dyed

  With his own red blood, the Devil cried

  Behold a swinish nation’s pride

  In cotton-spun prosperity

  13.

  He walk’d into London leisurely;

  The streets were dirty and dim;

  But there he saw Brothers the Prophet,

  And Brothers the Prophet saw him.

  14.

  He entered a thriving bookseller’s shop;

  Quoth he, We are both of one college,

  For I myself sate like a Cormorant once

  Upon the Tree of Knowledge.

  15.

  As he passed through Cold-Bath Fields, he look’d

  At a solitary cell;

  And he was well-pleased, for it gave him a hint

  For improving the prisons of Hell.

  16.

  He saw a turnkey tie a thief’s hands

  With a cordial tug and jerk;

  Nimbly, quoth he, a man’s fingers move

  When his heart is in his work.

  17.

  He saw the same turnkey unfettering a man

  With little expedition;

  And he chuckled to think of his dear slave trade,

  And the long debates and delays that were made

  Concerning its abolition.

  18.

  He met one of his favorite daughters

  By an Evangelical Meeting;

  And forgetting himself for joy at her sight,

  He would have accosted her outright,

  And given her a fatherly greeting.

  19.

  But she tipp’d him a wink, drew back, and cried,

  Avaunt! my name’s Religion!

  And then she turn’d to the preacher,

  And leer’d like a love-sick pigeon.

  20.

  A fine man and a famous Professor was he,

  As the great Alexander now may be,

  Whose fame not yet o’erpast is

  Or that new Scotch performer

  Who is fiercer and warmer,

  The great Sir Arch-Bombastes;

  21.

  With throbs and throes, and ahs and ohs,

  Far famed his flock for frightening;

  And thundering with his voice, the while

  His eyes zigzag like lightning.

  22.

  This Scotch phenomenon, I trow,

  Beats Alexander hollow;

  Even when most tame,

  He breathes more flame

  Than ten Fire-Kings could swallow

  23.

  Another daughter he presently met:

  With music of fife and drum,

  And a consecrated flag,

  And shout of tag and rag,

  And march of rank and file,

  Which had fill’d the cro
wded aisle

  Of the venerable pile,

  From church he saw her come.

  24.

  He call’d her aside, and began to chide,

  For what dost thou here? said he;

  My city of Rome is thy proper home,

  And there’s work enough there for thee.

  25.

  Thou hast confessions to listen,

  And bells to christen,

  And altars and dolls to dress;

  And fools to coax,

  And sinners to hoax,

  And beads and bones to bless;

  And great pardons to sell

  For those who pay well,

  And small ones for those who pay less.

  26.

  Nay, Father, I boast, that this is my post,

  She answered; and thou wilt allow,

  That the great Harlot,

  Who is clothed in scarlet,

  Can very well spare me now.

  27.

  Upon her business I am come here,

  That we may extend her powers;

  Whatever lets down this church that we hate,

  Is something in favor of ours.

  28.

  You will not think, great Cosmocrat!

  That I spend my time in fooling;

  Many irons, my Sire, have we in the fire,

  And I must leave none of them cooling;

  For you must know state-councils here

  Are held which I bear rule in.

  When my liberal notions

  Produce mischievous motions,

  There’s many a man of good intent,

  In either house of Parliament,

  Whom I shall find a tool in;

  And I have hopeful pupils too

  Who all this while are schooling.

  29.

  Fine progress they make in our liberal opinions,

  My Utilitarians,

  My all sorts of — inians

  And all sorts of — arians;

  My all sorts of — ists,

  And my Prigs and my Whigs,

  Who have all sorts of twists,

  Train’d in the very way, I know,

  Father, you would have them go;

  High and low,

  Wise and foolish, great and small,

  March-of-Intellect-Boys all.

  30.

  Well pleased wilt thou be at no very far day,

  When the caldron of mischief boils,

  And I bring them forth in battle array,

  And bid them suspend their broils,

  That they may unite and fall on the prey,

  For which we are spreading our toils.

  How the nice boys all will give mouth at the call,

  Hark away! hark away to the spoils!

  My Macs and my Quacks and my lawless-Jacks,

  My Shields and O’Connells, my pious Mac-Donnells,

  My joke-smith Sidney, and all of his kidney,

  My Humes and my Broughams,

  My merry old Jerry,

  My Lord Kings, and my Doctor Doyles!

  31.

  At this good news, so great

  The Devil’s pleasure grew,

  That with a joyful swish he rent

  The hole where his tail came through.

  32.

  His countenance fell for a moment

  When he felt the stitches go;

  Ah! thought he, there’s a job now

  That I’ve made for my tailor below.

  33.

  Great news! bloody news! cried a newsman;

  The Devil said, Stop, let me see!

  Great news? bloody news? thought the Devil,

  The bloodier the better for me.

  34.

  So he bought the newspaper, and no news

  At all for his money he had.

  Lying varlet, thought he, thus to take in old Nick!

  But it’s some satisfaction, my lad,

  To know thou art paid beforehand for the trick,

  For the sixpence I gave thee is bad.

  35.

  And then it came into his head,

  By oracular inspiration,

  That what he had seen and what he had said,

  In the course of this visitation,

  Would be published in the Morning Post

  For all this reading nation.

  36.

  Therewith in second-sight he saw

  The place, and the manner and time,

  In which this mortal story

  Would be put in immortal rhyme.

  37.

  That it would happen when two poets

  Should on a time be met

  In the town of Nether Stowey,

  In the shire of Somerset.

  38.

  There, while the one was shaving,

  Would he the song begin;

  And the other, when he heard it at breakfast,

  In ready accord join in.

  39.

  So each would help the other,

  Two heads being better than one;

  And the phrase and conceit

  Would in unison meet,

  And so with glee the verse flow free

  In ding-dong chime of sing-song rhyme,

  Till the whole were merrily done.

  40.

  And because it was set to the razor,

  Not to the lute or harp,

  Therefore it was that the fancy

  Should be bright, and the wit be sharp.

  41.

  But their, said Satan to himself,

  As for that said beginner,

  Against my infernal Majesty

  There is no greater sinner.

  42.

  He hath put me in ugly ballads

  With libellous pictures for sale;

  He hath scoff’d at my hoofs and my horns,

  And has made very free with my tail.

  43.

  But this Mister Poet shall find

  I am not a safe subject for whim;

  For I’ll set up a School of my own,

  And my Poets shall set upon him.

  44.

  He went to a coffee-house to dine,

  And there he had soy in his dish;

  Having ordered some soles for his dinner.

  Because he was fond of flat fish.

  45.

  They are much to my palate, thought he,

  And now guess the reason who can,

  Why no bait should be better than place,

  When I fish for a Parliament-man.

  46.

  But the soles in the bill were ten shillings,

  Tell your master, quoth he, what I say;

  If he charges at this rate for all things,

  He must be in a pretty good way.

  47.

  But mark ye, said he to the waiter,

  I’m a dealer myself in this line,

  And his business, between you and me,

  Nothing like so extensive as mine.

  48.

  Now soles are exceedingly cheap;

  Which he will not attempt to deny,

  When I see him at my fish-market,

  I warrant him, by and by.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Curse of Kehama: I. The Funeral

  1

  Midnight, and yet no eye

  Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep!

  Behold her streets a-blaze

  With light that seems to kindle the red sky,

  Her myriads swarming through the crowded ways!

  Master and slave, old age and infancy,

  All, all abroad to gaze;

  House-top and balcony

  Clustered with women, who throw back their veils

  With unimpeded and insatiate sight

  To view the funeral pomp which passes by,

  As if the mournful rite

  Were but to them a scene of joyance and delight.


  2

  Vainly, ye blessed twinklers of the night,

  Your feeble beams ye shed,

  Quench’d in the unnatural light which might out-stare

  Even the broad eye of day;

  And thou from thy celestial way

  Pourest, O Moon, an ineffectual ray!

  For lo! ten thousand torches flame and flare

  Upon the midnight air,

  Blotting the lights of heaven

  With one portentous glare.

  Behold the fragrant smoke in many a fold

  Ascending, floats along the fiery sky,

  And hangeth visible on high,

  A dark and waving canopy.

  3

  Hark! ’tis the funeral trumpet’s breath!

  ’Tis the dirge of death!

  At once ten thousand drums begin,

  With one long thunder-peal the ear assailing;

  Ten thousand voices then join in,

  And with one deep and general din

  Pour their wild wailing.

  The song of praise is drown’d

  Amid the deafening sound;

  You hear no more the trumpet’s tone,

  You hear no more the mourner’s moan,

  Though the trumpet’s breath, and the dirge of death,

  Swell with commingled force the funeral yell.

  But rising over all in one acclaim

  Is heard the echoed and re-echoed name,