by Homer
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied — 10
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
But when the morn came dim and sad
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 15
Another morn than ours.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Past and Present
Thomas Hood (1798–1845)
I REMEMBER, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon 5
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white, 10
The violets, and the lily-cups —
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday, — 15
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing; 20
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.
I remember, I remember 25
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy 30
To know I’m farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Sir Aubrey De Vere
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Glengariff
Sir Aubrey De Vere (1788–1846)
I
GAZING from each low bulwark of this bridge,
How wonderful the contrast! Dark as night,
Here, amid cliffs and woods, with headlong might
The black stream whirls, through ferns and drooping sedge,
‘Neath twisted roots moss-brown, and weedy ledge, 5
Gushing; — aloft, from yonder birch-clad height
Leaps into air a cataract, snow-white;
Falling to gulfs obscure. The mountain ridge,
Like a grey Warder, guardian of the scene,
Above the cloven gorge gloomily towers: 10
O’er the dim woods a gathering tempest lours;
Save where athwart the moist leaves’ lucid green
A sunbeam, glancing through disparted showers,
Sparkles along the rill with diamond sheen!
II
A sun-burst on the Bay! Turn and behold! 15
The restless waves, resplendent in their glory,
Sweep glittering past yon purpled promontory,
Bright as Apollo’s breastplate. Bathed in gold,
Yon bastioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled,
Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoary 20
Veils those peaked hills shapely as e’er in story
Delphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old,
Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proud
The wild wood spreads its arms around the bay:
The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now bright, 25
Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light
To spectral shade; and each dissolving cloud
Reveals new mountains while it floats away.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Hartley Coleridge
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
She is Not Fair
Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)
SHE is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me.
O then I saw her eye was bright, 5
A well of love, a spring of light.
But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne’er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye: 10
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Joseph Blanco White
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Night
Joseph Blanco White (1775–1841)
MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet ‘neath a curtain of translucent dew, 5
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! Creation widened in man’s view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find, 10
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind!
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George Darley
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Loveliness of Love
George Darley (1795–1846)
IT is not Beauty I demand,
A crystal brow, the moon’s despair,
Nor the snow’s daughter, a white hand,
Nor mermaid’s yellow pride of hair:
Tell me not of your starry eyes, 5
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed: —
A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
Like Hebe’s in her ruddiest hours, 10
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,
These are but gauds; nay, what are lips:
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips 15
Full oft he perisheth on them.
And what are cheeks but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen’s breast, though ne’er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good? 20
Eyes can with baleful ardour burn;
Poison can breathe, than erst perfumed;
There’s many a white hand holds an urn
With lovers’ hearts to dust consumed.
For crystal brows there’s nought within; 25
They are but empty cells for pride;
He who the Syren’s hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.
Give me, instead of Beauty’s bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind 30
Which with temptation I would trust,
Yet never link’d with error find, —
One in whose gentle bosom I
Could pour my secret heart of woes,
Like the case-burthen’d honey-fly 35
/> That hides his murmurs in the rose —
My earthly Comforter! whose love
So indefeasible might be
That, when my spirit wonn’d above
Hers could not stay, for sympathy. 40
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Babington
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Armada
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay (1800–1859)
ATTEND, all ye who list to hear our noble England’s praise;
I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,
When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vain
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.
It was about the lovely close of a warm summer day, 5
There came a gallant merchant-ship full sail to Plymouth Bay;
Her crew had seen Castile’s black fleet beyond Aurigny’s isle,
At earliest twilight, on the waves lie heaving many a mile.
At sunrise she escaped their van, by God’s especial grace,
And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. 10
Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall;
The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe’s lofty hall;
Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the coast,
And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post,
With his white hair, unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes; 15
Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound the drums;
His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample space;
For there behoves him to set up the standard of Her Grace.
And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the bells,
As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon swells, 20
Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient crown,
And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies down.
So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that famed Picard field,
Bohemia’s plume, and Genoa’s bow, and Caesar’s eagle shield.
So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned to bay, 25
And crushed and torn beneath his claws the princely hunters lay.
Ho! strike the flagstaff deep, sir Knight: ho! scatter flowers, fair maids:
Ho! gunners, fire a loud salute: ho! gallants, draw your blades:
Thou sun, shine on her joyously; ye breezes, waft her wide;
Our glorious semper eadem, the banner of our pride. 30
The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner’s massy fold;
The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty scroll of gold:
Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the purple sea,
Such night in England ne’er had been, nor e’er again shall be.
From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay, 35
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day;
For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war-flame spread,
High on St. Michael’s Mount it shone: it shone on Beachy Head.
Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire,
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire. 40
The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar’s glittering waves:
The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip’s sunless caves:
O’er Longleat’s towers, o’er Cranbourne’s oaks, the fiery herald flew
And roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu.
Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol town, 45
And ere the day three hundred horse had met on Clifton down;
The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night,
And saw o’erhanging Richmond Hill that streak of blood-red light.
Then bugle’s note and cannon’s roar the death-like silence broke,
And with one start, and with one cry, the royal city woke. 50
At once on all her stately gates arose the answering fires;
At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling spires;
From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the voice of fear;
And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a louder cheer:
And from the farthest wards was heard the rush of hurrying feet, 55
And the broad streams of pikes and flags rushed down each roaring street;
And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din,
As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in;
And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the warlike errand went,
And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent. 60
Southward from Surrey’s pleasant hills flew those bright couriers forth;
High on bleak Hampstead’s swarthy moor they started for the north;
And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still:
All night from tower to tower they sprang; they sprang from hill to hill:
Till the proud Peak unfurled the flag o’er Darwin’s rocky dales 65
Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales,
Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern’s lonely height,
Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin’s crest of light,
Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely’s stately fane,
And tower and hamlet rose in arms o’er all the boundless plain; 70
Till Belvoir’s lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,
And Lincoln sped the message on o’er the wide vale of Trent;
Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt’s embattled pile,
And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Macaulay, Lord Macaulay
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Jacobite’s Epitaph
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay (1800–1859)
TO my true king I offered, free from stain,
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languished in a foreign clime, 5
Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood’s prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill’s whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep; 10
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting-place I asked, an early grave.
O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see, 15
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Sir William Edmondstoune Aytoun
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Refusal of Charon
Sir William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813–1865)
WHY look the distant mountains
So gloomy and so drear?
Are rain clouds passing o’er them,
Or is the tempest near?
No shadow of the tempest 5
Is there, nor wind nor rain —
’Tis Charon that is passing by,
With all his gloomy train.
The young men march before him,
In all their strength and pride; 10
The tender little infants,
They totter by his side;
The old men walk behind him,
And earnestly they pray —
Both old and young imploring him 15
To grant some brief delay.
‘O Charon! halt, we pray thee,
Beside some little town,
Or near some sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down! 20
The old will drink and be refreshed,
The young the disc will fling,
And the tender little children
Pluck flowers beside the spring.’
‘I will not stay my journey, 25
Nor halt by any town,
Near any sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down:
The mothers coming to the well
Would know the babes they bore, 30
The wives would clasp their husbands,
Nor could I part them more.’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Hugh Miller
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Babie