The Giant Book of Poetry
Page 8
and find lanthe’s name again.
Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852)
An Argument1
I’ve oft been told by learned friars,
that wishing and the crime are one,
and Heaven punishes desires
as much as if the deed were done.
If wishing damns us, you and I
are damned to all our heart’s content;
come, then, at least we may enjoy
some pleasure for our punishment!
‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer2
‘Tis the last rose of Summer,
left blooming alone;
all her lovely companions
are faded and gone;
no flower of her kindred,
no rosebud is nigh,
to reflect back her blushes,
or give sigh for sigh!
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
to pine on the stem;
since the lovely are sleeping,
go sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
thy leaves o’er the bed
where thy mates of the garden
lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
when friendships decay,
and from Love’s shining circle
the gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
and fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
this bleak world alone?
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 – 1824)
She Walks in Beauty1
She walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
and all that’s best of dark and bright
meet in her aspect and her eyes:
thus mellowed to that tender light
which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
had half impaired the nameless grace
which waves in every raven tress,
or softly lightens o’er her face;
where thoughts serenely sweet express
how pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
so soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
the smiles that win, the tints that glow,
but tell of days in goodness spent,
a mind at peace with all below,
a heart whose love is innocent!
So, we’ll go no more a-roving1
So we’ll go no more a-roving
so late into the night,
though the heart still be as loving,
and the moon still be as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
and the soul outwears the breast,
and the heart must pause to breathe,
and love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
and the day returns too soon,
yet we’ll go no more a-roving
by the light of the moon.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
Music2
Music, when soft voices die,
vibrates in the memory;
odors, when sweet violets sicken,
live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
are heaped for the beloved’s bed;
and so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
love itself shall slumber on.
Mutability1
The flower that smiles today
tomorrow dies;
all that we wish to stay
tempts and then flies.
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
brief even as bright.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
for proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
survive their joy, and all
which ours we call.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
whilst flowers are gay,
whilst eyes that change ere night
make glad the day;
whilst yet the calm hours creep,
dream thou—and from thy sleep
then wake to weep.
Song from Charles the First1
A widow bird sate mourning for her love
upon a wintry bough;
the frozen wind crept on above,
the freezing stream below.
There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
no flower upon the ground,
and little motion in the air
except the mill-wheel’s sound.
Ozymandias1
I met a traveler from an antique land
who said: ‘Two vast and trunk-less legs of stone
stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
tell that its sculptor well those passions read
which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear—
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
the lone and level sands stretch far away.
John Clare (1793 – 1864)
Badger2
When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
go out and track the badger to his den,
and put a sack within the hole, and lie
till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes an hears—they let the strongest loose.
The old fox hears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
and the old hare half wounded buzzes by.
They get a forkëd stick to bear him down
and clap the dogs and take him to the town,
and bait him all the day with many dogs,
and laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
they shout and hollo down the noisy streets.
He turns about to face the loud uproar
and drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where’er they go;
when badgers fight, then everyone’s a foe.
The dogs are clapped and urged to join the fray’
the badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
he fights with dogs for hours and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
the badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
and bites them through—the drunkard swears and reels
the frighted women take the boys away,
the blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
but sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd
and beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
and then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
then starts and grins and drives the crowd again;
till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
and leaves his hold and crackles, groans, and dies.
William Cullen Bryant (1794 – 1878)
&nb
sp; A Presentiment1
“Oh father, let us hence—for hark,
a fearful murmur shakes the air;
the clouds are coming swift and dark;—
what horrid shapes they wear!
A wingëd giant sails the sky;
oh father, father, let us fly!”—
“Hush, child; it is a grateful sound,
that beating of the summer shower;
here, where the boughs hang close around,
we’ll pass a pleasant hour,
till the fresh wind, that brings the rain,
has swept the broad heaven clear again.”—
“Nay, father, let us haste—for see,
that horrid thing with hornëd brow—
his wings o’erhang this very tree,
he scowls upon us now;
his huge black arm is lifted high;
oh father, father, let us fly!”—
“Hush, child”; but, as the father spoke,
downward the livid firebolt came,
close to his ear the thunder broke,
and, blasted by the flame,
the child lay dead; while dark and still
swept the grim cloud along the hill.
Mutation1
They talk of short-lived pleasure—be it so—
pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
and after dreams of horror, comes again
the welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease.
Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase
are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
thus joy, o’erborne and bound, doth still release
his young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes—did it keep
a stable changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.
Thanatopsis1
To him who in the love of nature holds
communion with her visible forms, she speaks
a various language; for his gayer hours
she has a voice of gladness, and a smile
and eloquence of beauty; and she glides
into his darker musings, with a mild
and healing sympathy that steals away
their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
of the last bitter hour come like a blight
over thy spirit, and sad images
of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
and breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
go forth, under the open sky, and list
to Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee
the all-beholding sun shall see no more
in all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
and, lost each human trace, surrendering up
thine individual being, shalt thou go
to mix forever with the elements,
to be a brother to the insensible rock
and to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
with patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
the powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
all in one mighty sepulcher. The hills
rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
stretching in pensive quietness between;
the venerable woods—rivers that move
in majesty, and the complaining brooks
that make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
are but the solemn decorations all
of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
the planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
are shining on the sad abodes of death
through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
the globe are but a handful to the tribes
that slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
or lose thyself in the continuous woods
where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
and millions in those solitudes, since first
the flight of years began, have laid them down
in their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest—and what if thou withdraw
in silence from the living, and no friend
take note of thy departure? All that breathe
will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
when thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
plod on, and each one as before will chase
his favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
their mirth and their employments, and shall come
and make their bed with thee. As the long train
of ages glides away, the sons of men—
the youth in life’s fresh spring, and he who goes
in the full strength of years, matron and maid,
the speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
by those, who in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
the innumerable caravan, which moves
to that mysterious realm, where each shall take
his chamber in the silent halls of death,
thou go not, like the Quarry-slave at night,
scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
The Hurricane1
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
for the coming of the hurricane!
And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
through the boundless arch of heaven he sails.
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
the mighty shadow is borne along,
like the dark eternity to come;
while the world below, dismayed and dumb,
through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast; and the golden blaze
of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
and he sends through the shade a funeral ray—
a glare that is neither night nor day,
a beam that touches, with hues of death,
the cloud above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
while the hurricane’s distant voice is heard
uplifted among the mountains round,
and the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
his ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!—
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
how his huge and writhing arms are bent
to clasp the zone of the firmament,
and fold at length, in their dark embrace,
from mountain to mountain the visible space!
Darker,—still darker! the whirlwinds bear
the dust of the plains to the middle air;
and hark to the crashing, long and loud,
of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
from the rapid wheels where’er they dart,
as the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
and flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that?—’t is the rain that breaks
in torrents away from the airy lakes,
heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
and shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
with the very clouds!—ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
the shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
a whirling ocean that fills the wall
of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
alone with the terrible hurricane.
The Murdered Traveler1
When spring, to woods and wastes around,
brought bloom and joy again,
the murdered traveler’s bones were found,
far down a narrow glen.
The fragrant birch, above him, hung
her tassels in the sky;
and many a vernal blossom sprung,
and nodded careless by.
The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
his hanging nest o’erhead,
and fearless, near the fatal spot,
her young the partridge led.
But there was weeping far away,
and gentle eyes, for him,
with watching many an anxious day,
were sorrowful and dim.
They little knew, who loved him so,
the fearful death he met,
when shouting o’er the desert snow,
unarmed, and hard beset;—
nor how, when round the frosty pole
the northern dawn was red,
the mountain wolf and wild-cat stole