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Sketch From Bowden Hill After Sickness
How cheering are thy prospects, airy hill,To him who, pale and languid, on thy browPauses, respiring, and bids hail againThe upland breeze, the comfortable sun,And all the landscape's hues! Upon the pointOf the descending steep I stand. How rich,How mantling in the gay and gorgeous tintsOf summer! far beneath me, sweeping on,From field to field, from vale to cultured vale,The prospect spreads its crowded beauties wide!Long lines of sunshine, and of shadow, streakThe farthest distance; where the passing lightAlternate falls, 'mid undistinguished trees,White dots of gleamy domes, and peeping towers,As from the painter's instant touch, appear.As thus the eye ranges from hill to hill,Here white with passing sunshine, there with trees...
William Lisle Bowles
The Little Old Poem That Nobody Reads
The little old poem that nobody reads Blooms in a crowded space,Like a ground-vine blossom, so low in the weeds That nobody sees its face - Unless, perchance, the reader's eye Stares through a yawn, and hurries by, For no one wants, or loves, or heeds, The little old poem that nobody reads.The little old poem that nobody reads Was written - where? - and when?Maybe a hand of goodly deeds Thrilled as it held the pen: Maybe the fountain whence it came Was a heart brimmed o'er with tears of shame, And maybe its creed is the worst of creeds - The little old poem that nobody reads.But, little old poem that nobody reads, Holding you here aboveThe wound of a heart that warmly bleeds ...
James Whitcomb Riley
Evening Star
Twas noontide of summer,And midtime of night,And stars, in their orbits,Shone pale, through the lightOf the brighter, cold moon.Mid planets her slaves,Herself in the Heavens,Her beam on the waves.I gazed awhileOn her cold smile;Too cold, too cold for me,There passed, as a shroud,A fleecy cloud,And I turned away to thee,Proud Evening Star,In thy glory afarAnd dearer thy beam shall be;For joy to my heartIs the proud partThou bearest in Heaven at night,And more I admireThy distant fire,Than that colder, lowly light.
Edgar Allan Poe
The Forlorn Shepherd's Complaint.[1] - An Unpublished Poem, From Sydney.
"Vell! Here I am - no Matter how it suitsA-keeping Company vith them dumb Brutes;Old Park vos no bad Judge - confound his vig!Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!"The Like of Me, to come to New Sow WalesTo go a-tagging arter Vethers' TailsAnd valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!"To go to set this solitary JobTo Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!It's out of all our Lines, for sure I amJack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!"I arn't ashamed to say I sit and veepTo think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep,The spooniest Beast in Nater, all to Sticks,And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!"If I'd fore-seed how Transports vould turn outTo only Baa! and Botanize about,
Thomas Hood
Mule Song
Silver will lie where she liessun-out, whatever turning the world does,longeared in her ashen, earless,floating world:indifferent to sores and greengage colic,where oats need notcome to,bleached by crystals of her trembling time:beyond all brunt of seasons, blindforever to all blinds,inhabited bybrooks still she may wraith over brokenfields after winteror roll in the rye-green fields:old mule, no defense but a mules againstdisease, large-ribbed,flat-toothed, sold to a stranger, shot by astrangers hand,not my hand she nuzzled the seasoning-salt from.
A. R. Ammons
Everything Comes
"The house is bleak and coldBuilt so new for me!All the winds upon the woldSearch it through for me;No screening trees abound,And the curious eyes aroundKeep on view for me.""My Love, I am planting treesAs a screen for youBoth from winds, and eyes that teaseAnd peer in for you.Only wait till they have grown,No such bower will be knownAs I mean for you.""Then I will bear it, Love,And will wait," she said.- So, with years, there grew a grove."Skill how great!" she said."As you wished, Dear?" - "Yes, I see!But - I'm dying; and for me'Tis too late," she said.
Thomas Hardy
The March Nosegay
The bonny March morning is beamingIn mingled crimson and grey,White clouds are streaking and creamingThe sky till the noon of the day;The fir deal looks darker and greener,And grass hills below look the same;The air all about is serener,The birds less familiar and tame.Here's two or three flowers for my fair one,Wood primroses and celandine too;I oft look about for a rare oneTo put in a posy for you.The birds look so clean and so neat,Though there's scarcely a leaf on the grove;The sun shines about me so sweet,I cannot help thinking of love.So where the blue violets are peeping,By the warm sunny sides of the woods,And the primrose, 'neath early morn weeping,Amid a large cluster of buds,(The morning it was suc...
John Clare
Left Behind.
We started in the morning, a morning full of glee,All in the early morning, a goodly company;And some were full of merriment, and all were kind and dear:But the others have pursued their way, and left me sitting here.My feet were not so fleet as theirs, my courage soon was gone,And so I lagged and fell behind, although they cried "Come on!"They cheered me and they pitied me, but one by one went by,For the stronger must outstrip the weak; there is no remedy.Some never looked behind, but smiled, and swiftly, hand in hand,Departed with, a strange sweet joy I could not understand;I know not by what silver streams their roses bud and blow,Rut I am glad--O very glad--they should be happy so.And some they went companionless, yet not alone, it seemed;F...
Susan Coolidge
In The Dark
A blotch of pallor stirs beneath the highSquare picture-dusk, the window of dark sky.A sound subdued in the darkness: tears!As if a bird in difficulty up the valley steers."Why have you gone to the window? Why don't you sleep?How you have wakened me! But why, why do you weep?""I am afraid of you, I am afraid, afraid!There is something in you destroys me - !""You have dreamed and are not awake, come here to me.""No, I have wakened. It is you, you are cruel to me!""My dear!" - "Yes, yes, you are cruel to me. You castA shadow over my breasts that will kill me at last.""Come!" - "No, I'm a thing of life. I giveYou armfuls of sunshine, and you won't let me live.""Nay, I'm too sleepy!" - "A...
David Herbert Richards Lawrence
The Alchemy of Sadness
One man lights you with his ardourone decks you in mourning, Nature!What says to the first: A Sepulchre!To the other cries: Life and splendour!Unknown Hermes, who assists,yet intimidates me as well,you make me Midas equal,the saddest of alchemists:You help me change gold to iron,paradise to hells kingdom:in the shrouded atmosphereI find a dear corpse, and onthe celestial shores, its there,I build a mighty sepulcher.
Charles Baudelaire
Farewell And Defiance To Love
Love and thy vain employs, awayFrom this too oft deluded breast!No longer will I court thy stay,To be my bosom's teazing guest.Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure,Thou quackery of the harassed heart,That kills what it pretends to cure,Life's mountebank thou art.With nostrums vain of boasted powers,That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave;An asp hid in a group of flowers,That bites and stings when few perceive;Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind,Leading it more in sorrow's way,Freedom, that leaves us more confined,I bid thee hence away.Dost taunt, and deem thy power beyondThe resolution reason gave?Tut! Falsity hath snapt each bond,That kept me once thy quiet slave,And made thy snare a spider's thread,W...
Another To God.
Though Thou be'st all that active loveWhich heats those ravished souls above;And though all joys spring from the glanceOf Thy most winning countenance;Yet sour and grim Thou'dst seem to meIf through my Christ I saw not Thee.
Robert Herrick
A Night-Storm.
Let this rough fragment lend its mossy seat;Let Contemplation hail this lone retreat:Come, meek-eyed goddess, through the midnight gloom,Born of the silent awe which robes the tomb!This gothic front, this antiquated pile,The bleak wind howling through each mazy aisle;Its high gray towers, faint peeping through the shade,Shall hail thy presence, consecrated maid!Whether beneath some vaulted abbey's dome,Where ev'ry footstep sounds in every tomb;Where Superstition, from the marble stone,Gives every sound, a pilgrim-spirit's groan:Pensive thou readest by the moon's full glareThe sculptured children of Affection's tear;Or in the church-yard lone thou sitt'st to weepO'er some sad wreck, beneath the tufty heap--Perchance some victim to Seduction's sp...
Thomas Gent
A New Song To An Old Tune--From Victor Hugo
If a pleasant lawn there grow By the showers caressed,Where in all the seasons blow Flowers gaily dressed,Where by handfuls one may winLilies, woodbine, jessamine,I will make a path therein For thy feet to rest.If there live in honour's sway An all-loving breastWhose devotion cannot stray, Never gloom-oppressed--If this noble breast still wakeFor a worthy motive's sake,There a pillow I will make For thy head to rest.If there be a dream of love, Dream that God has blest,Yielding daily treasure-trove Of delightful zest,With the scent of roses filled,With the soul's communion thrilled,There, oh! there a nest I'll build For thy heart to rest.
Robert Fuller Murray
Midsummer
IThe mellow smell of hollyhocksAnd marigolds and pinks and phloxBlends with the homely garden scentsOf onions, silvering into rods;Of peppers, scarlet with their pods;And (rose of all the esculents)Of broad plebeian cabbages,Breathing content and corpulent ease.IIThe buzz of wasp and fly makes hotThe spaces of the garden-plot;And from the orchard, - where the fruitRipens and rounds, or, loosed with heat,Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet, -One hears the veery's golden flute,That mixes with the sleepy humOf bees that drowsily go and come.IIIThe podded musk of gourd and vineEmbower a gate of roughest pine,That leads into a wood where daySits, leaning o'er a forest pool,Watc...
Madison Julius Cawein
The Miser
Withered and gray as winter; gnarled and old,With bony hands he crouches by the coals;His beggar's coat is patched and worn in holes;Rags are his shoes: clutched in his claw-like holdA chest he hugs wherein he hoards his gold.Far-heard a bell of midnight slowly tolls:The bleak blasts shake his hut like wailing souls,And door and window chatter with the cold.Nor sleet nor snow he heeds, nor storm nor night.Let the wind howl! and let the palsy twitchHis rheum-racked limbs! here 's that will make them glowAnd warm his heart! here 's comfort joy and light!How the gold glistens! Rich he is; how richOnly the death that knocks outside shall know.
Sonnets - II. - Roman Antiquities Discovered At Bishopstone, Herefordshire
While poring Antiquarians search the groundUpturned with curious pains, the Bard, a Seer,Takes fire: The men that have been reappear;Romans for travel girt, for business gowned;And some recline on couches, myrtle-crowned,In festal glee: why not? For fresh and clear,As if its hues were of the passing year,Dawns this time-buried pavement. From that moundHoards may come forth of Trajans, Maximins,Shrunk into coins with all their warlike toil:Or a fierce impress issues with its foilOf tenderness the Wolf, whose suckling TwinsThe unlettered ploughboy pities when he winsThe casual treasure from the furrowed soil.
William Wordsworth
A March Snow.
Let the old snow be covered with the new: The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.Let it be hidden wholly from our view By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden.When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring's feet,Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet.Let the old life be covered by the new: The old past life so full of sad mistakes,Let it be wholly hidden from the view By deeds as white and silent as snow-flakes.Ere this earth life melts in the eternal SpringLet the white mantle of repentance, flingSoft drapery about it, fold on fold,Even as the new snow covers up the old.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox