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

by Homer

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Journey Onwards

  Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

  AS slow our ship her foamy track

  Against the wind was cleaving,

  Her trembling pennant still look’d back

  To that dear isle ’twas leaving.

  So loth we part from all we love, 5

  From all the links that bind us;

  So turn our hearts, as on we rove,

  To those we’ve left behind us!

  When, round the bowl, of vanish’d years

  We talk with joyous seeming — 10

  With smiles that might as well be tears,

  So faint, so sad their beaming;

  While memory brings us back again

  Each early tie that twined us,

  O, sweet’s the cup that circles then 15

  To those we’ve left behind us!

  And when, in other climes, we meet

  Some isle or vale enchanting,

  Where all looks flowery, wild and sweet,

  And nought but love is wanting; 20

  We think how great had been our bliss

  If Heaven had but assign’d us

  To live and die in scenes like this,

  With some we’ve left behind us!

  As travellers oft look back at eve 25

  When eastward darkly going,

  To gaze upon that light they leave

  Still faint behind them glowing, —

  So, when the close of pleasure’s day

  To gloom hath near consign’d us, 30

  We turn to catch one fading ray

  Of joy that’s left behind us.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Young May Moon

  Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

  THE YOUNG May moon is beaming, love,

  The glow-worm’s lamp is gleaming, love;

  How sweet to rove

  Through Morna’s grove,

  When the drowsy world is dreaming, love! 5

  Then awake! — the heavens look bright, my dear,

  ’Tis never too late for delight, my dear;

  And the best of all ways

  To lengthen our days

  Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear! 10

  Now all the world is sleeping, love,

  But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love,

  And I, whose star

  More glorious far

  Is the eye from that casement peeping, love. 15

  Then awake! — till rise of sun, my dear,

  The Sage’s glass we’ll shun, my dear,

  Or in watching the flight

  Of bodies of light

  He might happen to take thee for one, my dear! 20

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Echo

  Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

  HOW sweet the answer Echo makes

  To Music at night

  When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,

  And far away o’er lawns and lakes

  Goes answering light! 5

  Yet Love hath echoes truer far

  And far more sweet

  Than e’er, beneath the moonlight’s star,

  Of horn or lute or soft guitar

  The songs repeat. 10

  ’Tis when the sigh, — in youth sincere

  And only then,

  The sigh that’s breathed for one to hear —

  Is by that one, that only dear

  Breathed back again. 15

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  At the Mid Hour of Night

  Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

  AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

  To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;

  And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air

  To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there

  And tell me our love is remember’d even in the sky! 5

  Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear

  When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on the ear;

  And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,

  I think, O my Love! ’tis thy voice, from the Kingdom of Souls

  Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear. 10

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Charles Wolfe

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Burial of Sir John Moore At Corunna

  Charles Wolfe (1791–1823)

  NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

  As his corse to the rampart we hurried;

  Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

  O’er the grave where our hero was buried.

  We buried him darkly at dead of night, 5

  The sods with our bayonets turning;

  By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light

  And the lantern dimly burning.

  No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

  Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; 10

  But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,

  With his martial cloak around him.

  Few and short were the prayers we said,

  And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

  But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, 15

  And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

  We thought, as we hollow’d his narrow bed

  And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

  That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,

  And we far away on the billow! 20

  Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone

  And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him, —

  But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on

  In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

  But half of our heavy task was done 25

  When the clock struck the hour for retiring:

  And we heard the distant and random gun

  That the foe was sullenly firing.

  Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

  From the field of his fame fresh and gory; 30

  We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,

  But we left him alone with his glory.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Hymn of Pan

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  FROM the forests and highlands

  We come, we come;

  From the river-girt islands,

  Where loud waves are dumb,

  Listening to my sweet pipings. 5

  The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

  The bees on the bells of thyme,

  The birds on the myrtle, bushes,

  The cicale above in the lime,

  And the lizards below in the grass, 10

  Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,

  Listening to my sweet pipings.

  Liquid Peneus was flowing,

  And all dark Tempe lay

  In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing 15

  The light of the dying day,

  Speeded by my sweet pipings.

  The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,

  And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,

  To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 20

  And the brink of the dewy caves,

  And all that did then attend and follow,

  Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

  With envy of my sweet pipings.

  I sang of the dancing stars, 25


  I sang of the dædal earth,

  And of heaven, and the giant wars,

  And love, and death, and birth.

  And then I changed my pipings —

  Singing how down the vale of Mænalus 30

  I pursued a maiden, and clasp’d a reed:

  Gods and men, we are all deluded thus;

  It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.

  All wept — as I think both ye now would,

  If envy or age had not frozen your blood — 35

  At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Hellas

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  THE WORLD’S great age begins anew,

  The golden years return,

  The earth doth like a snake renew

  Her winter weeds outworn:

  Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam 5

  Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

  A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

  From waves serener far;

  A new Peneus rolls his fountains

  Against the morning star; 10

  Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep

  Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

  A loftier Argo cleaves the main,

  Fraught with a later prize;

  Another Orpheus sings again, 15

  And loves, and weeps, and dies;

  A new Ulysses leaves once more

  Calypso for his native shore.

  O write no more the tale of Troy,

  If earth Death’s scroll must be — 20

  Nor mix with Laian rage the joy

  Which dawns upon the free,

  Although a subtler Sphinx renew

  Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

  Another Athens shall arise, 25

  And to remoter time

  Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

  The splendour of its prime;

  And leave, if naught so bright may live,

  All earth can take or Heaven can give. 30

  Saturn and Love their long repose

  Shall burst, more bright and good

  Than all who fell, than One who rose,

  Than many unsubdued:

  Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, 35

  But votive tears and symbol flowers.

  O cease! must hate and death return?

  Cease! must men kill and die?

  Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn

  Of bitter prophecy! 40

  The world is weary of the past —

  O might it die or rest at last!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Invocation

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  RARELY, rarely comest thou,

  Spirit of Delight!

  Wherefore hast thou left me now

  Many a day and night?

  Many a weary night and day 5

  ’Tis since thou art fled away.

  How shall ever one like me

  Win thee back again?

  With the joyous and the free

  Thou wilt scoff at pain. 10

  Spirit false! thou hast forgot

  All but those who need thee not.

  As a lizard with the shade

  Of a trembling leaf,

  Thou with sorrow art dismay’d; 15

  Even the sighs of grief

  Reproach thee, that thou art not near,

  And reproach thou wilt not hear.

  Let me set my mournful ditty

  To a merry measure; — 20

  Thou wilt never come for pity,

  Thou wilt come for pleasure; —

  Pity thou wilt cut away

  Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

  I love all that thou lovest, 25

  Spirit of Delight!

  The fresh Earth in new leaves drest

  And the starry night;

  Autumn evening, and the morn

  When the golden mists are born. 30

  I love snow and all the forms

  Of the radiant frost;

  I love waves, and winds, and storms,

  Everything almost

  Which is Nature’s, and may be 35

  Untainted by man’s misery.

  I love tranquil solitude,

  And such society

  As is quiet, wise, and good;

  Between thee and me 40

  What diff’rence? but thou dost possess

  The things I seek, nor love them less.

  I love Love — though he has wings,

  And like light can flee,

  But above all other things, 45

  Spirit, I love thee —

  Thou art love and life! O come!

  Make once more my heart thy home!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  THE SUN is warm, the sky is clear,

  The waves are dancing fast and bright,

  Blue isles and snowy mountains wear

  The purple noon’s transparent light:

  The breath of the moist earth is light 5

  Around its unexpanded buds;

  Like many a voice of one delight —

  The winds’, the birds’, the ocean-floods’ —

  The City’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s.

  I see the Deep’s untrampled floor 10

  With green and purple sea-weeds strown;

  I see the waves upon the shore

  Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown:

  I sit upon the sands alone;

  The lightning of the noon-tide ocean 15

  Is flashing round me, and a tone

  Arises from its measured motion —

  How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

  Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

  Nor peace within nor calm around, 20

  Nor that Content, surpassing wealth,

  The sage in meditation found,

  And walk’d with inward glory crown’d —

  Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;

  Others I see whom these surround — 25

  Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;

  To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

  Yet now despair itself is mild

  Even as the winds and waters are;

  I could lie down like a tired child, 30

  And weep away the life of care

  Which I have borne, and yet must bear,

  Till death like sleep might steal on me,

  And I might feel in the warm air

  My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 35

  Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  I Fear Thy Kisses

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden;

  Thou needest not fear mine;

  My spirit is too deeply laden

  Ever to burthen thine.

  I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion; 5

  Thou needest not fear mine;

  Innocent is the heart’s devotion

  With which I worship thine.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Lines to an Indian Air

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  I ARISE from dreams of thee

  In the first sweet sleep of night,

  When the winds are breathing low

  And the stars are shining bright:

  I arise from dreams of thee, 5

  And a spirit in my feet

  Hath led me — who knows how?

  To thy c
hamber-window, Sweet!

  The wandering airs they faint

  On the dark, the silent stream — 10

  The champak odours fail

  Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

  The nightingale’s complaint

  It dies upon her heart,

  As I must die on thine 15

  O belove´d as thou art!

  O lift me from the grass!

  I die, I faint, I fail!

  Let thy love in kisses rain

  On my lips and eyelids pale. 20

  My cheek is cold and white, alas!

  My heart beats loud and fast;

  O! press it close to thine again

  Where it will break at last.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  To a Skylark

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!

  Bird thou never wert,

  That from heaven, or near it,

  Pourest thy full heart

  In profuse strains of unpremeditated art 5

  Higher still and higher

  From the earth thou springest

  Like a cloud of fire;

  The blue deep thou wingest,

  And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 10

  In the golden lightning

  Of the sunken sun

  O’er which clouds are brightening,