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Shrift.
I am not true, but you would pardon this If you could see the tortured spirit take Its place beside you in the dark, and break Your daily food of love and kindliness. You'd guess the bitter thing that treachery is, Furtive and on its guard, asleep, awake, Fearing to sin, yet fearing to forsake, And daily giving Christ the Judas kiss. But piteous amends I make each day To recompense the evil with the good; With double pang I play the double part Of all you trust and all that I betray. What long atonement makes my penitent blood, To what sad tryst goes my unfaithful heart!
Muriel Stuart
Cassandra
Of all the luckless women ever born, Or ever to be born here on our earth, Most pitied be Cassandra, from her birth Condemned to woes unearned by her. Forlorn, She early read great Ilium's doom, and tried, Clear-eyed, clear-voiced, her countrymen to warn. But - she Apollo's passion in high scorn Had once repelled, and of his injured pride The God for her had bred this punishment, - That good, or bad, all things she prophesied Though true as truth, should ever be decried And flouted by the people. As she went Far from old Priam's gates among the crowd, To save her country was her heart intent. Pure, fearless, on an holy errand bent, They called her "mad," who was a Prince...
Helen Leah Reed
Fare Thee Well, Thou Lovely One! (Sicilian Air.)
Fare thee well, thou lovely one! Lovely still, but dear no more;Once his soul of truth is gone, Love's sweet life is o'er.Thy words, what e'er their flattering spell, Could scarce have thus deceived;But eyes that acted truth so well Were sure to be believed.Then, fare thee well, thou lovely one! Lovely still, but dear no more;Once his soul of truth is gone, Love's sweet life is o'er.Yet those eyes look constant still, True as stars they keep their light;Still those cheeks their pledge fulfil Of blushing always bright.'Tis only on thy changeful heart The blame of falsehood lies;Love lives in every other part, But there, alas! he dies.Then, fare thee well, thou lovely one! Lovel...
Thomas Moore
Alma Sdegnosa
Not that dull spleen which serves i' the world for scorn,Is hers I watch from far off, worshippingAs in remote Chaldaea the ancient kingAdored the star that heralded the morn.Her proud content she bears as a flag is borneTincted the hue royal; or as a wingIt lifts her soaring, near the daylight spring,Whence, if she lift, our days must pass forlorn.The pure deriving of her spirit-stateIs so remote from men and their believing,They shrink when she is cold, and estimateThat hardness which is but a God's dismay:As when the Heaven-sent sprite thro' Hell sped cleaving,Only the gross air checkt him on his way.
Maurice Henry Hewlett
November
The world is tired, the year is old,The fading leaves are glad to die,The wind goes shivering with coldWhere the brown reeds are dry.Our love is dying like the grass,And we who kissed grow coldly kind,Half glad to see our old love passLike leaves along the wind.
Sara Teasdale
Subsidy
If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed,Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.Others will live in peace, and thou be fainTo bargain with despair, and in thy needTo make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.These palaces, for thee they stand in vain;Thine is a ruinous hut, and oft the rainShall drench thee in the midnight; yea, the speedOf earth outstrip thee, pilgrim, while thy feetMove slowly up the heights. Yet will there comeThrough the time-rents about thy moving cell,Shot from the Truth's own bow, and flaming sweet,An arrow for despair, and oft the humOf far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.
George MacDonald
A Poem Written In Time Of Trouble By An Irish Priest Who Had Taken Orders In France
My thoughts, my grief! are without strengthMy spirit is journeying towards deathMy eyes are as a frozen seaMy tears my daily food;There is nothing in life but only misery.My poor heart is tornAnd my thoughts are sharp wounds within me,Mourning the miserable state of Ireland.Misfortune has come upon us all togetherThe poor, the rich, the weak and the strongThe great lord by whom hundreds were maintainedThe powerful strong man, and the man that holds the plough;And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every man.Our feasts are without any voice of priestsAnd none at them but women lamentingTearing their hair with troubled mindsKeening miserably after the Fenians.The pipes of our organs are brokenOur harps have lost ...
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory
Intolerance, A Satire.
"This clamor which pretends to be raised for the safety of religion has almost worn put the very appearance of it, and rendered us not only the most divided but the most immoral people upon the face of the earth." ADDISON, Freeholder, No. 37.Start not, my friend, nor think the Muse will stainHer classic fingers with the dust profaneOf Bulls, Decrees and all those thundering scrollsWhich took such freedom once with royal souls,[1]When heaven was yet the pope's exclusive trade,And kings were damned as fast as now they're made,No, no--let Duigenan search the papal chairFor fragrant treasures long forgotten there;And, as the witch of sunless Lapland thinksThat little swarthy gnomes delight in stinks,Let sall...
The Treasure And The Two Men.
[1]A man whose credit fail'd, and what was worse,Who lodged the devil in his purse, -That is to say, lodged nothing there, -By self-suspension in the airConcluded his accounts to square,Since, should he not, he understood,From various tokens, famine would -A death for which no mortal wightHad ever any appetite.A ruin, crown'd with ivy green,Was of his tragedy the scene.His hangman's noose he duly tied,And then to drive a nail he tried; -But by his blows the wall gave way,Now tremulous and old,Disclosing to the light of dayA sum of hidden gold.He clutch'd it up, and left DespairTo struggle with his halter there.Nor did the much delighted manE'en stop to count it as he ran.But, while he went, t...
Jean de La Fontaine
Crepuscular
No creature stirs in the wide fields. The rifted western heaven yields The dying sun's illumination. This is the hour of tribulation When, with clear sight of eve engendered, Day's homage to delusion rendered, Mute at her window sits the soul. Clouds and skies and lakes and seas, Valleys and hills and grass and trees, Sun, moon, and stars, all stand to her Limbs of one lordless challenger, Who, without deigning taunt or frown. Throws a perennial gauntlet down: "Come conquer me and take thy toll." No cowardice or fear she knows, But, as once more she girds, there grows An unresignèd hopelessness From memory of former stress. Head bent, she muses whilst he waits:
John Collings Squire, Sir
In Utrumque Paratus
If, in the silent mind of One all-pure,At first imagind layThe sacred world; and by procession sureFrom those still deeps, in form and colour drest,Seasons alternating, and night and day,The long-musd thought to north south east and westTook then its all-seen way:O waking on a world which thus-wise springs!Whether it needs thee countBetwixt thy waking and the birth of thingsAges or hours: O waking on Lifes stream!By lonely pureness to the all-pure Fount(Only by this thou canst) the colourd dreamOf Life remount.Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow;And faint the city gleams;Rare the lone pastoral huts: marvel not thou!The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams:Alon...
Matthew Arnold
The Scholar-Gypsy
Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head.But when the fields are still,And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,And only the white sheep are sometimes seenCross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green.Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!Here, where the reaper was at work of lateIn this high field's dark corner, where he leavesHis coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to useHere will I sit and wait,While to my ear from uplands far awayThe bleating of the folded f...
At William Maclennan's Grave
Here where the cypress tallShadows the stucco wall,Bronze and deep,Where the chrysanthemums blow,And the roses - blood and snow -He lies asleep.Florence dreameth afar;Memories of foray and war,Murmur still;The Certosa crowns with a coldCloud of snow and goldThe olive hill.What has he now for the streamsBorn sweet and deep with dreamsFrom the cedar meres?Only the Arno's flow,Turbid, and weary, and slowWith wrath and tears.What has he now for the songOf the boatmen, joyous and long,Where the rapids shine?Only the sound of toil,Where the peasants press the soilFor the oil and wine.Spirit-fellow in soothWith bold La Salle and Duluth,And La Vérandrye, -Nothing ...
Duncan Campbell Scott
The Boy Convict's Story.
I'd rather sit here, Mr. Sheriff - up near to the end of the car; We won't do so much advertising if we stay in the seat where we are. That sweet little dude saw the bracelets that you on my wrists have bestowed, And tells the new passengers promptly you're "taking me over the road." I've had a well-patronized trial - the neighbors all know of my fall; But when I get out among strangers I'm sensitive-like, after all. For I was a lad of good prospects, some three or four summers ago - There wasn't any boy in our township who made a more promising show! I learned all of Solomon's proverbs, and took in their goodness and worth, Till I felt like a virtue-hooped barrel, chock-full of the salt of the earth. And this precious picnic of sorrow woul...
William McKendree Carleton
Next Morning
How have I wandered here to this vaulted roomIn the house of life? - the floor was ruffled with goldLast evening, and she who was softly in bloom,Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfoldFor the flush of the night; whereas now the gloomOf every dirty, must-besprinkled mould,And damp old web of misery's heirloomDeadens this day's grey-dropping arras-fold.And what is this that floats on the undermistOf the mirror towards the dusty grate, as if feelingUnsightly its way to the warmth? - this thing with a listTo the left? this ghost like a candle swealing?Pale-blurred, with two round black drops, as if it missedItself among everything else, here hungrily stealingUpon me! - my own reflection! - explicit gistOf my presence th...
David Herbert Richards Lawrence
Mutability.
1.The flower that smiles to-dayTo-morrow dies;All that we wish to stayTempts and then flies.What is this world's delight?Lightning that mocks the night,Brief even as bright.2.Virtue, how frail it is!Friendship how rare!Love, how it sells poor blissFor proud despair!But we, though soon they fall,Survive their joy, and allWhich ours we call.3.Whilst skies are blue and bright,Whilst flowers are gay,Whilst eyes that change ere nightMake glad the day;Whilst yet the calm hours creep,Dream thou - and from thy sleepThen wake to weep.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Psal. LXXXII.
God in the *1great *1assembly standsOf Kings and lordly States,Among the gods*2 on both his hands.He judges and debates.How long will ye *3pervert the rightWith *4judgment false and wrongFavouring the wicked by your might,Who thence grow bold and strong?*5Regard the *5weak and fatherless*5Dispatch the *5poor mans cause,And *6raise the man in deep distressBy *6just and equal Lawes.Defend the poor and desolate,And rescue from the handsOf wicked men the low estateOf him that help demands.They know not nor will understand,In darkness they walk on,The Earths foundations all are *7mov'dAnd *7...
John Milton
Lines On The Finding Of A Young Man's Body In Toronto Bay.
His identity was discovered by finding the maker's name on the suit he wore and by sending a strip of the cloth to the maker in Montreal. A young man's body long it lay In bottom of Toronto Bay, But at last the waters bore, And raised him up near to the shore. But no one knew his rank or station, No one knew his home or nation, But his form and dress were genteel, And sorrow many they did feel. Kind man took charge of the remains, And was well rewarded for his pains, So skilful he did him embalm, Restored the features sweet and calm. The father came and he did bless The man who did restore the face, And saved for him his so...
James McIntyre