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Page 584 of 1217

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Page 584 of 1217

Nursery Rhyme. CCCLXXV. Paradoxes.

    My true love lives far from me,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixie, Dominie.
Many a rich present he sends to me,
Petrum, Partrum, Paradise, Temporie,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixie, Dominie.

He sent me a goose, without a bone;
He sent me a cherry, without a stone.
Petrum, & c.

He sent me a Bible, no man could read;
He sent me a blanket, without a thread.
Petrum, & c.

How could there be a goose without a bone?
How could there be a cherry without a stone?
Petrum, & c.

How could there be a Bible no man could read?
How could there be a bla...

Unknown

The Argument.

    "As friend," she said, "I will be kind,
My sympathy will rarely fail,
My eyes to many faults be blind -
As wife, I'll lecture, scold, and rail,

"Be full of moods, a shrew one day,
A thing of tenderness the next,
Will kiss and wound - a woman's way
That long the soul of man has vext.

"You've been a true, unselfish man,
Have thought upon my good alway,
Been strong to shield, and wise to plan,
But ah! there is a change to-day.

"There's mastery in your 'Be my wife!'
For self stands up and eagerly
Claims all my love, and all my life,
The body and the soul of me.

"Come, call me friend, and own me such,
Nor count it such a wondrous thing
To hold me close, thr...

Jean Blewett

The Marble Tablet

There it stands, though alas, what a little of her
Shows in its cold white look!
Not her glance, glide, or smile; not a tittle of her
Voice like the purl of a brook;
Not her thoughts, that you read like a book.

It may stand for her once in November
When first she breathed, witless of all;
Or in heavy years she would remember
When circumstance held her in thrall;
Or at last, when she answered her call!

Nothing more. The still marble, date-graven,
Gives all that it can, tersely lined;
That one has at length found the haven
Which every one other will find;
With silence on what shone behind.

St. Juliot: September 8, 1916.

Thomas Hardy

Lines On Revisiting The Country.

I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains, to behold,
With deep affection, the pure ample sky,
And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melo...

William Cullen Bryant

Thomas The Rhymer

Part First

Ancient
True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi' his ee;
And there he saw a lady bright,
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

Her skirt was o the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o the velvet fyne,
At ilka tett of her horse's mane
Hang fifty siller bells and nine.

True Thomas he pulld aff his cap,
And louted low down to his knee:
"All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth I never did see."

"O no, O no, Thomas," she said,
"That name does not belang to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.

"Harp and carp, Thomas," she said,
"Harp and carp, along wi' me,
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be!"

Walter Scott

To Giovanni Battista Manso, Marquis of Villa.

[1]Giovanni Battista Manso, Marquis of Villa, is an Italian Nobleman of the highest estimation among his countrymen, for Genius, Literature,and military accomplishments. To Him Torquato Tasso addressed his "Dialogue on Friendship," for he was much the friend of Tasso, who has also celebrated him among the other princes of his country, in his poem entitled "Jerusalem Conquered" (Book XX).

Among cavaliers magnanimous and courteous
- Manso is resplendent.

During the Author's stay at Naples he received at the hands of the Marquis a thousand kind offices and civilities, and, desirous not to appear ungrateful, sent him this poem a short time before his departure from that city.


These verses also to thy praise the Nine[2]
Oh Manso! happy in tha...

William Cowper

My Polly.

My Polly's varry bonny,
Her een are black an breet;
They shine under her raven locks,
Like stars i'th' dark o'th' neet.

Her little cheeks are like a peach,
'At th' sun has woo'd an missed;
Her lips like cherries, red an sweet,
Seem moulded to be kissed.

Her breast is like a drift o' snow,
Her little waist's soa thin,
To clasp it wi' a careless arm
Wod ommost be a sin.

Her little hands an tiny feet,
Wod mak yo think shoo'd been
Browt up wi' little fairy fowk
To be a fairy queen.

An when shoo laffs, it saands as if
A little crystal spring,
Wor bubblin up throo silver rocks,
Screened by an angel's wing.

It saands soa sweet, an yet soa low,
One feels it forms a part
Ov what yo love, an yo can hear
It...

John Hartley

The Silent Messenger

I sat beside a bed of pain,
And all the muffled hours were still;
The breeze that bent the summer grain,
Scarce sighed along the pine-clad hill;
The pensive stars, the silvery moon
Seemed sleeping in a sea of calm.
And all the leafy bowers of June
Were steeped in midnight's dewy balm.

She seemed to sleep, for lull of pain
Had calmed the fevered pulse a while,
But, as I watched, she woke again,
With wondering glance and eager smile.
The pale lips moved as if to speak,
The thin hand trembled in my own,
Then, with a sigh for words too weak,
The eyelids closed, and she was gone.

Gone! gone! - but where, or how, or when?
I had not seen or form or face;
Unmarked God's messenger had been
Beside me in ...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

To His Lovely Mistresses

One night i'th' year, my dearest Beauties, come,
And bring those dew-drink-offerings to my tomb;
When thence ye see my reverend ghost to rise,
And there to lick th' effused sacrifice,
Though paleness be the livery that I wear,
Look ye not wan or colourless for fear.
Trust me, I will not hurt ye, or once show
The least grim look, or cast a frown on you;
Nor shall the tapers, when I'm there, burn blue.
This I may do, perhaps, as I glide by,
Cast on my girls a glance, and loving eye;
Or fold mine arms, and sigh, because I've lost
The world so soon, and in it, you the most:
Than these, no fears more on your fancies fall,
Though then I smile, and speak no words at all.

Robert Herrick

To Cole, The Painter, Departing For Europe. - A Sonnet.

Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, COLE! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand
A living image of thy native land,
Such as on thine own glorious canvas lies;
Lone lakes, savannas where the bison roves,
Rocks rich with summer garlands, solemn streams,
Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams,
Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.
Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest, fair,
But different, everywhere the trace of men,
Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen
To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air,
Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,
But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.

William Cullen Bryant

The Ark: A Poem For Music.

MICHAEL, ARCHANGEL.

High on Imaus' solitary van,
Which overlooked the kingdoms of the world,
With stature more majestic, his stern brow
In the clear light, the thunder at his feet;
In his right hand the flaming sword that waved
O'er Eden's gate; and in his left the trump,
That on the day of doom shall sound and wake
Earth's myriads, starting from the wormy grave,
The great archangel stood: and, hark, his voice!

AIR.

It comes, it comes, o'er cities, temples, towers;
O'er mountain heights I see the deluge sweep;
Heard ye from earth the cry at that last hour?
Heard ye the tossing of the desert deep?
How dismal is its roar!
I heard the sound of multitudes no more.
Great Lord of heaven and earth, thy voice is fate;
Thou canst destroy, as...

William Lisle Bowles

In The Park

    This dense hard ground I tread.
These iron bars that ripple past,
Will they unshaken stand when I am dead
And my deep thoughts outlast?

Is it my spirit slips,
Falls, like this leaf I kick aside;
This firmness that I feel about my lips,
Is it but empty pride?

Mute knowledge conquers me;
I contemplate them as they are,
Faint earth and shadowy bars that shake and flee,
Less hard, more transient far

Than those unbodied hues
The sunset flings on the calm river;
And, as I look, a swiftness thrills my shoes
And my hands with empire quiver.

Now light the ground I tread,
I walk not now but rather float;
Clear but unreal is the scene outspread,
Pitiful,...

John Collings Squire, Sir

To His Brother, Nicholas Herrick.

What others have with cheapness seen and ease
In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes and those books with all
Their large narrations incanonical,
Thou hast beheld those seas and countries far,
And tell'st to us what once they were, and are.
So that with bold truth thou can'st now relate
This kingdom's fortune, and that empire's fate:
Can'st talk to us of Sharon, where a spring
Of roses have an endless flourishing;
Of Sion, Sinai, Nebo, and with them
Make known to us the new Jerusalem;
The Mount of Olives, Calvary, and where
Is, and hast seen, thy Saviour's sepulchre.
So that the man that will but lay his ears
As inapostate to the thing he hears,
Shall by his hearing quickly come to see
The truth of travels less in books than thee....

Robert Herrick

To Laura In Death. Sonnet XXI.

L' alma mia fiamma oltra le belle bella.

HE ACKNOWLEDGES THE WISDOM OF HER PAST COLDNESS TO HIM.


My noble flame--more fair than fairest are
Whom kind Heaven here has e'er in favour shown--
Before her time, alas for me! has flown
To her celestial home and parent star.
I seem but now to wake; wherein a bar
She placed on passion 'twas for good alone,
As, with a gentle coldness all her own,
She waged with my hot wishes virtuous war.
My thanks on her for such wise care I press,
That with her lovely face and sweet disdain
She check'd my love and taught me peace to gain.
O graceful artifice! deserved success!
I with my fond verse, with her bright eyes she,
Glory in her, she virtue got in me.

MACGREGOR.

Francesco Petrarca

To My Book

It will be looked for, book, when some but see
Thy title, Epigrams, and named of me,
Thou should'st be bold, licentious, full of gall,
Wormwood and sulphur, sharp and toothed withal,
Become a petulant thing, hurl ink and wit
As madmen stones, not caring whom they hit.
Deceive their malice who could wish it so,
And by thy wiser temper let men know
Thou art not covetous of least self-fame
Made from the hazard of another's shame
Much less with lewd, profane, and beastly phrase
To catch the world's loose laughter or vain gaze.
He that departs with his own honesty
For vulgar praise, doth it too dearly buy.

Ben Jonson

In Hospital - VII - Vigil

Lived on one's back,
In the long hours of repose,
Life is a practical nightmare -
Hideous asleep or awake.

Shoulders and loins
Ache - - -!
Ache, and the mattress,
Run into boulders and hummocks,
Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes -
Tumbling, importunate, daft -
Ramble and roll, and the gas,
Screwed to its lowermost,
An inevitable atom of light,
Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper
Snores me to hate and despair.

All the old time
Surges malignant before me;
Old voices, old kisses, old songs
Blossom derisive about me;
While the new days
Pass me in endless procession:
A pageant of shadows
Silently, leeringly wending
On . . . and still on . . . still on!

Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly. ...

William Ernest Henley

The Beautiful City

The Beautiful City! Forever
Its rapturous praises resound;
We fain would behold it - but never
A glimpse of its dory is found:
We slacken our lips at the tender
White breasts of our mothers to hear
Of its marvellous beauty and splendor;
We see - but the gleam of a tear!

Yet never the story may tire us -
First graven in symbols of stone -
Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus
And parchment, and scattered and blown
By the winds of the tongues of all nations,
Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled
Down the rack of a hundred translations,
From the earliest lisp of the world.

We compass the earth and the ocean,
From the Orient's uttermost light,
To where the last ripple in motion
Lips hem of the skirt of the night,
But the Beautiful City e...

James Whitcomb Riley

The Sonnets XIX - Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws

Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

William Shakespeare

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Page 584 of 1217