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

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Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Page 214

by Homer


  There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;

  The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 70

  What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;

  On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

  All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;

  Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power

  Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 75

  When eternity affirms the conception of an hour,

  The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,

  The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,

  Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

  Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by. 80

  And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence

  For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?

  Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?

  Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?

  Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, 85

  Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe;

  But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;

  The rest may reason and welcome; ’tis we musicians know.

  Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:

  I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 90

  Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,

  Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor, — yes,

  And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,

  Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep;

  Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, 95

  The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Rabbi Ben Ezra

  Robert Browning (1812–1889)

  GROW old along with me!

  The best is yet to be,

  The last of life, for which the first was made:

  Our times are in his hand

  Who saith, “A whole I planned, 5

  Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

  Not that, amassing flowers,

  Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,

  Which lily leave and then as best recall?”

  Not that, admiring stars, 10

  It yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars;

  Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”

  Not for such hopes and fears

  Annulling youth’s brief years,

  Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! 15

  Rather I prize the doubt

  Low kinds exist without,

  Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

  Poor vaunt of life indeed,

  Were man but formed to feed 20

  On joy, to solely seek and find a feast:

  Such feasting ended, then

  As sure an end to men;

  Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

  Rejoice we are allied 25

  To that which doth provide

  And not partake, effect and not receive!

  A spark disturbs our clod;

  Nearer we hold of God

  Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. 30

  Then, welcome each rebuff

  That turns earth’s smoothness rough,

  Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

  Be our joys three-parts pain!

  Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 35

  Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

  For thence, — a paradox

  Which comforts while it mocks, —

  Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:

  What I aspired to be, 40

  And was not, comforts me:

  A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.

  What is he but a brute

  Whose flesh has soul to suit,

  Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? 45

  To man, propose this test —

  Thy body at its best,

  How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

  Yet gifts should prove their use:

  I own the Past profuse 50

  Of power each side, perfection every turn:

  Eyes, ears took in their dole,

  Brain treasured up the whole;

  Should not the heart beat once “How good to live and learn”?

  Not once beat “Praise be thine! 55

  I see the whole design,

  I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too:

  Perfect I call Thy plan:

  Thanks that I was a man!

  Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou shalt do!” 60

  For pleasant is this flesh;

  Our soul, in its rose-mesh

  Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:

  Would we some prize might hold

  To match those manifold 65

  Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did best!

  Let us not always say,

  “Spite of this flesh to-day

  I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”

  As the bird wings and sings, 70

  Let us cry, “All good things

  Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”

  Therefore I summon age

  To grant youth’s heritage,

  Life’s struggle having so far reached its term: 75

  Thence shall I pass, approved

  A man, for aye removed

  From the developed brute; a God though in the germ.

  And I shall thereupon

  Take rest, ere I be gone 80

  Once more on my adventure brave and new:

  Fearless and unperplexed,

  When I wage battle next,

  What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

  Youth ended, I shall try 85

  My gain or loss thereby;

  Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:

  And I shall weigh the same,

  Give life its praise or blame:

  Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. 90

  For note, when evening shuts,

  A certain moment cuts

  The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:

  A whisper from the west

  Shoots— “Add this to the rest, 95

  Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.”

  So, still within this life,

  Though lifted o’er its strife,

  Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,

  “This rage was right i’ the main, 100

  That acquiescence vain:

  The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.”

  For more is not reserved

  To man, with soul just nerved

  To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: 105

  Here, work enough to watch

  The Master work, and catch

  Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.

  As it was better, youth

  Should strive, through acts uncouth, 110

  Toward making, than repose on aught found made:

  So, better, age, exempt

  From strife, should know, than tempt

  Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

  Enough now, if the Right 115

  And Good and Infinite

  Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,

  With knowledge absolute,

  Subject to no dispute

  From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone
. 120

  Be there, for once and all,

  Severed great minds from small,

  Announced to each his station in the Past!

  Was I, the world arraigned,

  Were they, my soul disdained, 125

  Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

  Now, who shall arbitrate?

  Ten men love what I hate,

  Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;

  Ten, who in ears and eyes 130

  Match me; we all surmise,

  They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?

  Not on the vulgar mass

  Called “work,” must sentence pass,

  Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 135

  O’er which, from level stand,

  The low world laid its hand,

  Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

  But all, the world’s coarse thumb

  And finger failed to plumb, 140

  So passed in making up the main account;

  All instincts immature,

  All purposes unsure,

  That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:

  Thoughts hardly to be packed 145

  Into a narrow act,

  Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

  All I could never be,

  All, men ignored in me,

  This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 150

  Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,

  That metaphor! and feel

  Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, —

  Thou, to whom fools propound,

  When the wine makes its round, 155

  “Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”

  Fool! All that is, at all,

  Lasts ever, past recall;

  Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:

  What entered into thee, 160

  That was, is, and shall be:

  Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

  He fixed thee ‘mid this dance

  Of plastic circumstance,

  This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest: 165

  Machinery just meant

  To give thy soul its bent,

  Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

  What though the earlier grooves,

  Which ran the laughing loves 170

  Around thy base, no longer pause and press?

  What though, about thy rim,

  Skull-things in order grim

  Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

  Look not thou down but up! 175

  To uses of a cup,

  The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,

  The new wine’s foaming flow,

  The master’s lips aglow!

  Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel? 180

  But I need, now as then,

  Thee, God, who mouldest men;

  And since, not even while the whirl was worst,

  Did I — to the wheel of life

  With shapes and colors rife, 185

  Bound dizzily — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

  So, take and use Thy work:

  Amend what flaws may lurk,

  What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

  My times be in Thy hand! 190

  Perfect the cup as planned!

  Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Cristina

  I.

  SHE should never have looked at me

  If she meant I should not love her!

  There are plenty . . . men, you call such,

  I suppose . . . she may discover

  All her soul to, if she pleases,

  And yet leave much as she found them:

  But I’m not so, and she knew it

  When she fixed me, glancing round them,

  II.

  What? To fix me thus meant nothing?

  But I can’t tell . . . there’s my weakness . . .

  What her look said! — no vile cant, sure,

  About “need to strew the bleakness

  “Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.

  ”That the sea feels” — no “strange yearning

  “That such souls have, most to lavish

  ”Where there’s chance of least returning.”

  III.

  Oh, we’re sunk enough here, God knows!

  But not quite so sunk that moments,

  Sure tho’ seldom, are denied us,

  When the spirit’s true endowments

  Stand out plainly from its false ones,

  And apprise it if pursuing

  Or the right way or the wrong way,

  To its triumph or undoing.

  IV.

  There are flashes struck from midnights,

  There are fire-flames noondays kindle,

  Whereby piled-up honours perish,

  Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,

  While just this or that poor impulse,

  Which for once had play unstifled,

  Seems the sole work of a life-time

  That away the rest have trifled.

  V.

  Doubt you if, in some such moment,

  As she fixed me, she felt clearly,

  Ages past the soul existed,

  Here an age ’tis resting merely,

  And hence fleets again for ages,

  While the true end, sole and single,

  It stops here for is, this love-way,

  With some other soul to mingle?

  VI.

  Else it loses what it lived for,

  And eternally must lose it;

  Better ends may be in prospect,

  Deeper blisses (if you choose it),

  But this life’s end and this love-bliss

  Have been lost here. Doubt you whether

  This she felt as, looking at me,

  Mine and her souls rushed together?

  VII.

  Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,

  The world’s honours, in derision,

  Trampled out the light for ever:

  Never fear but there’s provision

  Of the devil’s to quench knowledge

  Lest we walk the earth in rapture!

  — Making those who catch God’s secret

  Just so much more prize their capture!

  VIII.

  Such am I: the secret’s mine now!

  She has lost me, I have gained her;

  Her soul’s mine: and thus, grown perfect,

  I shall pass my life’s remainder.

  Life will just hold out the proving

  Both our powers, alone and blended:

  And then, come next life quickly!

  This world’s use will have been ended.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Porphyria’s Lover

  THE RAIN set early in to-night,

  The sullen wind was soon awake,

  It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

  And did its worst to vex the lake,

  I listened with heart fit to break;

  When glided in Porphyria: straight

  She shut the cold out and the storm,

  And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

  Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

  Which done, she rose, and from her form

  Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

  And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

  Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

  And, last, she sate down by my side

  And called me. When no voice replied,

  She put my arm about her waist,

  And made her smooth white s
houlder bare,

  And all her yellow hair displaced,

  And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

  And spread o’er all her yellow hair,

  Murmuring how she loved me; she

  Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,

  To set its struggling passion free

  From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

  And give herself to me for ever:

  But passion sometimes would prevail,

  Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain

  A sudden thought of one so pale

  For love of her, and all in vain;

  So, she was come through wind and rain.

  Be sure I looked up at her eyes

  Proud, very proud; at last I knew

  Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

  Made my heart swell, and still it grew

  While I debated what to do.

  That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

  Perfectly pure and good: I found

  A thing to do, and all her hair

  In one long yellow string I wound

  Three times her little throat around,

  And strangled her. No pain felt she;

  I am quite sure she felt no pain.

  As a shut bud that holds a bee

  I warily oped her lids; again

  Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

  And I untightened next the tress

  About her neck; her cheek once more

  Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

  I propped her head up as before,

  Only, this time my shoulder bore

  Her head, which droops upon it still:

  The smiling rosy little head,

  So glad it has its utmost will,

  That all it scorned at once is fled,

  And I, its love, am gained instead!

  Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how

  Her darling one wish would be heard.

  And thus we sit together now,

  And all night long we have not stirred,

  And yet God has not said a word!

 

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