by Homer
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Never the Time and the Place
Robert Browning (1812–1889)
NEVER the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path — how soft to pace!
This May — what magic weather!
Where is the loved one’s face? 5
In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, 10
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast 15
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we — 20
Oh, close, safe, warm, sleep I and she, I and she.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Dedication of the Ring and the Book
Robert Browning (1812–1889)
O LYRIC Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire, —
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face, — 5
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart —
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory — to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die, — 10
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and harken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand — 15
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought,
Some benediction anciently thy smile:
— Never conclude, but raising hand and head 20
Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn
For all hope, all sustainment, all reward,
Their utmost up and on, — so blessing back
In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home,
Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, 25
Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Epilogue
Robert Browning (1812–1889)
AT the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, imprisoned —
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
— Pity me? 5
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
— Being — who? 10
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake. 15
No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
“Strive and thrive!” cry “Speed, — fight on, fare ever
There as here!” 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Emily Bronte
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Last Lines
Emily Bronte (1818–1848)
NO coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast, 5
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — undying Life — have power in Thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain; 10
Worthless as wither’d weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,
To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchor’d on 15
The steadfast rock of immortality.
With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. 20
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes cease to be,
And Thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death, 25
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou — Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Old Stoic
Emily Bronte (1818–1848)
RICHES I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanish’d with the morn:
And if I pray, the only prayer 5
That moves my lips for me
Is, ‘Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!’
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
’Tis all that I implore; 10
In life and death a chainless soul
With courage to endure.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Robert Stephen Hawker
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
And Shall Trelawny Die?
Robert Stephen Hawker (1804–1875)
A GOOD sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James’s men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do.
And have they fixed the where and when? 5
And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
Out spake their captain brave and bold,
A merry wight was he: 10
‘If London Tower were Michael’s hold,
We’ll set Trelawny free!
‘We’ll cross the Tamar, land to land,
The Severn is no stay,
With “one and all,” and hand in hand, 15
And who shall bid us nay?
‘And when we come to London Wall,
A pleasant sight to view,
Come forth! come forth, ye cowards all,
Here’s men as good as you. 20
‘Trelawny he’s in keep and hold,
Trelawny he may die;
But here’s twenty thousand Cornish bold
Will know the reason why!’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphab
etical Order
Coventry Patmore
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Departure
Coventry Patmore (1823–1896)
IT was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have naught other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
You went, 5
With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
Upon your journey of so many days
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; 10
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.
Well, it was well
To hear you such things speak, 15
And I could tell
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, 20
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
To let the laughter flash,
Whilst I drew near,
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
But all at once to leave me at the last, 25
More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
And go your journey of all days
With not one kiss, or a good-bye, 30
And the only loveless look the look with which you pass’d:
’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William (Johnson) Cory
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Heraclitus
William (Johnson) Cory (1823–1892)
THEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remember’d how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, 5
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Mimnermus in Church
William (Johnson) Cory (1823–1892)
YOU promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
But sweet, sweet is this human life,
So sweet, I fain would breathe it still:
Your chilly stars I can forego, 5
This warm kind world is all I know.
You say there is no substance here,
One great reality above:
Back from that void I shrink in fear,
And child-like hide myself in love: 10
Show me what angels feel. Till then,
I cling, a mere weak man, to men.
You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and fitful veins
To sexless souls, ideal quires, 15
Unwearied voices, wordless strains:
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend’s remembered tones.
Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away; 20
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Sydney Dobell
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Ballad of Keith of Ravelston
Sydney Dobell (1824–1874)
THE MURMUR of the mourning ghost
That keeps the shadowy kine,
‘O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!’
Ravelston, Ravelston, 5
The merry path that leads
Down the golden morning hill,
And thro’ the silver meads;
Ravelston, Ravelston,
The stile beneath the tree, 10
The maid that kept her mother’s kine,
The song that sang she!
She sang her song, she kept her kine,
She sat beneath the thorn,
When Andrew Keith of Ravelston 15
Rode thro’ the Monday morn.
His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring,
His belted jewels shine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line! 20
Year after year, where Andrew came,
Comes evening down the glade,
And still there sits a moonshine ghost
Where sat the sunshine maid.
Her misty hair is faint and fair, 25
She keeps the shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
I lay my hand upon the stile,
The stile is lone and cold, 30
The burnie that goes babbling by
Says naught that can be told.
Yet, stranger! here, from year to year,
She keeps her shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston, 35
The sorrows of thy line!
Step out three steps, where Andrew stood —
Why blanch thy cheeks for fear?
The ancient stile is not alone,
’Tis not the burn I bear! 40
She makes her immemorial moan,
She keeps her shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Allingham
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Fairies
William Allingham (1824–1889)
UP the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk, 5
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home, 10
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs, 15
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits. 20
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music 25
On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long; 30
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep, 35
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
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br /> On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake. 40
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
If any man so daring 45
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen, 50
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap, 55
And white owl’s feather!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George MacDonald
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
That Holy Thing
George MacDonald (1824–1905)
THEY all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high:
Thou cam’st, a little baby thing