by Homer
Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand still.
And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her knees, 70
Crying: ‘Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please
For to spare him!’ and Hamish still dangles the child, with a wavering will.
On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream, and a gibe, and a song,
Cries: ‘So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all,
Ten blows on Maclean’s bare back shall fall, 75
And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of the thong!”
Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his tooth was red,
Breathed short for a space, said: ‘Nay, but it never shall be!
Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea!’
But the wife: ‘Can Hamish go fish us the child from the sea, if dead? 80
‘Say yea! — Let them lash me, Hamish?’— ‘Nay!’— ‘Husband, the lashing will heal;
But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his grave?
Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave?
Quick! Love! I will bare thee — so — kneel!’ Then Maclean ‘gan slowly to kneel
With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the earth. 85
Then the henchman — he that smote Hamish — would tremble and lag;
‘Strike, hard!’ quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag;
Then he struck him, and ‘One!’ sang Hamish, and danced with the child in his mirth.
And no man spake beside Hamish; he counted each stroke with a song.
When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace down the height, 90
And he held forth the child in the heart-aching sight
Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting a wrong.
And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the thanksgiving prayer —
And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace,
Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie’s face — 95
In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in the air,
And sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible height in the sea,
Shrill screeching, ‘Revenge!’ in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean,
Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain,
Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots of a tree, 100
And gazed hungrily o’er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped in the brine,
And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew,
And the mother stared white on the waste of blue,
And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began to shine.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
How Love Looked for Hell
Sidney Lanier (1842–1881)
TO heal his heart of long-time pain
One day Prince Love for to travel was fain
With Ministers Mind and Sense.
‘Now what to thee most strange may be?’
Quoth Mind and Sense. ‘All things above, 5
One curious thing I first would see —
Hell,’ quoth Love.
Then Mind rode in and Sense rode out:
They searched the ways of man about.
First frightfully groaneth Sense. 10
‘’Tis here, ’tis here,’ and spurreth in fear
To the top of the hill that hangeth above
And plucketh the Prince: ‘Come, come, ’tis here—’
‘Where?’ quoth Love —
‘Not far, not far,’ said shivering Sense 15
As they rode on. ‘A short way hence,
— But seventy paces hence:
Look, King, dost see where suddenly
This road doth dip from the height above?
Cold blew a mouldy wind by me’ 20
(‘Cold?’ quoth Love)
‘As I rode down, and the River was black,
And yon-side, lo! an endless wrack
And rabble of souls,’ sighed Sense,
‘Their eyes upturned and begged and burned 25
In brimstone lakes, and a Hand above
Beat back the hands that upward yearned—’
‘Nay!’ quoth Love —
‘Yea, yea, sweet Prince; thyself shalt see,
Wilt thou but down this slope with me; 30
’Tis palpable,’ whispered Sense.
At the foot of the hill a living rill
Shone, and the lilies shone white above;
‘But now ’twas black, ’twas a river, this rill,’
(‘Black?’ quoth Love) 35
‘Ay, black, but lo! the lilies grow,
And yon-side where was woe, was woe, —
Where the rabble of souls,’ cried Sense,
‘Did shrivel and turn and beg and burn,
Thrust back in the brimstone from above — 40
Is banked of violet, rose, and fern:’
‘How?’ quoth Love:
‘For lakes of pain, yon pleasant plain
Of woods and grass and yellow grain
Doth ravish the soul and sense: 45
And never a sigh beneath the sky,
And folk that smile and gaze above—’
‘But saw’st thou here, with thine own eye,
Hell?’ quoth Love.
‘I saw true hell with mine own eye, 50
True hell, or light hath told a lie,
True, verily,’ quoth stout Sense.
Then Love rode round and searched the ground,
The caves below, the hills above;
‘But I cannot find where thou hast found 55
Hell,’ quoth Love.
There, while they stood in a green wood
And marvelled still on Ill and Good,
Came suddenly Minister Mind.
‘In the heart of sin doth hell begin: 60
’Tis not below, ’tis not above,
It lieth within, it lieth within:’
(‘Where?’ quoth Love)
‘I saw a man sit by a corse;
Hell’s in the murderer’s breast: remorse! 65
Thus clamored his mind to his mind:
Not fleshly dole is the sinner’s goal,
Hell’s not below, nor yet above,
’Tis fixed in the ever-damned soul—’
‘Fixed?’ quoth Love — 70
‘Fixed: follow me, would’st thou but see:
He weepeth under yon willow tree,
Fast chained to his corse,’ quoth Mind.
Full soon they passed, for they rode fast,
Where the piteous willow bent above. 75
‘Now shall I see at last, at last,
Hell,’ quoth Love.
There when they came Mind suffered shame:
‘These be the same and not the same,’
A-wondering whispered Mind. 80
Lo, face by face two spirits pace
Where the blissful willow waves above:
One saith: ‘Do me a friendly grace—’
(‘Grace!’ quoth Love)
‘Read me two Dreams that linger long, 85
Dim as returns of old-time song
That flicker about the mind.
I dreamed (how deep in mortal sleep!)
I struck thee dead, then stood above,
With tears that none but dreamers weep;’ 90
‘Dreams,’ quoth Love;
‘In dreams, again, I plucked a flower
That clung with pain and stung with power,
Yea, nettled me, body and mind.’
‘’Twas the nettle of sin, ’twas medicine; 95
No need nor seed of it here Above;
In dreams of hate true loves begin.’
‘True,’ quoth Love.
‘Now strange,’ quoth Sense, and ‘Strange,’ quoth Mind,
‘We saw i
t, and yet ’tis hard to find, 100
— But we saw it,’ quoth Sense and Mind.
Stretched on the ground, beautiful-crowned
Of the piteous willow that wreathed above,
‘But I cannot find where ye have found
Hell,’ quoth Love. 105
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Bret Harte
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Reveille
Bret Harte (1839–1902)
HARK! I hear the tramp of thousands,
And of armèd men the hum;
Lo! a nation’s hosts have gathered
Round the quick alarming drum, —
Saying, ‘Come, 5
Freemen, come!
Ere your heritage be wasted,’ said the quick alarming drum.
Let me of my heart take counsel:
War is not of life the sum;
Who shall stay and reap the harvest 10
When the autumn days shall come?
But the drum
Echoed, ‘Come!
Death shall reap the braver harvest,’ said the solemn-sounding drum.
‘But when won the coming battle, 15
What of profit springs therefrom?
What if conquest, subjugation,
Even greater ills become?’
But the drum
Answered, ‘Come! 20
You must do the sum to prove it,’ said the Yankee-answering drum.
‘What if, ‘mid cannons’ thunder,
Whistling shot and bursting bomb,
When my brothers fall around me,
Should my heart grow cold and numb?’ 25
But the drum
Answered, ‘Come!
Better there in death united, than in life a recreant, — Come!’
Thus they answered, — hoping, fearing,
Some in faith, and doubting some, 30
Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,
Said, ‘My chosen people, come!’
Then the drum,
Lo! was dumb.
For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, answered, ‘Lord, we come!’ 35
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Modern Poets
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Hardy
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Oxen
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,
“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
When I Set Out for Lyonnesse
When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
When I set out for Lyonnesse
A hundred miles away.
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there
No prophet durst declare,
Nor did the wisest wizard guess
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there.
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes,
All marked with mute surmise
My radiance rare and fathomless,
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes!
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Darkling Thrush
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fevourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
At Castle Boterel
As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Distinctly yet
Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony’s load
When he sighed and slowed.
What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led, —
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
And feeling fled.
It filled but a minute. But was there ever
A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill’s story? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
By thousands more.
Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;
But what they record in colour and cast
Is — that we two passed.
And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
Saw us alight.
I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old love’s domain
Never again.
March 1913
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Drummer Hodge
They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined — just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That brea
ks the veldt around:
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.
Young Hodge the drummer never knew —
Fresh from his Wessex home —
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’
Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.
Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.
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List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Hap
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,