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On The Gunpowder Plot.[1]
Cum simul in regem nuper satrapasque Britannos Ausus es infandum perfide Fauxe nefas,Fallor? an & mitis voluisti ex parte videri, Et pensare mala cum pietate scelus;Scilicet hos alti missurus ad atria caeli, Sulphureo curru flammivolisque rotis.Qualiter ille feris caput inviolabile Parcis Liquit Jordanios turbine raptus agros. Another on the Same.Siccine tentasti caelo donasse Jacobum Quae septemgemino Bellua monte lates?Ni meliora tuum poterit dare munera numen, Parce precor donis insidiosa tuis.Ille quidem sine te consortia serus adivit Astra, nec inferni pulveris usus ope.Sic potius foedus in caelum pelle cucullos, Et quot habet brutos Roma profana Deos,Namque hac aut alia qu...
William Cowper
Persephone.
O Hades! O false gods! false to yourselves!O Hades, 'twas thy brother gave her theeWithout a mother's sanction or her knowledge!He bare her to the horrid gulfs below,And made her queen, a shadowy queen of shades,Queen of the fiery flood and mournful realmsOf grating iron and the clank of chains.On blossomed plains in far TrinacriaA maiden, the dark cascade of whose hairSeemed gleaming rays of midnight 'mid the stars,Rays slowly bright'ning 'neath a mellow moon,She 'mid the flowers with the OceanidsSought Echo's passion, loved Narcissus pale,'Ghast staring in the mirror of a lake,Whose smoothness brake his image, flickering seen,E'en with the fast tears of his dewy eyes.A shape there rose with iron wain and steeds'Mid sallow fume of ...
Madison Julius Cawein
Bequest.
You left me, sweet, two legacies, --A legacy of loveA Heavenly Father would content,Had He the offer of;You left me boundaries of painCapacious as the sea,Between eternity and time,Your consciousness and me.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Geoffrey Keating
O woman full of wiliness! Although for love of me you pine, Withhold your hand adventurous, It holdeth nothing holding mine. Look on my head, how it is grey! My body's weakness doth appear; My blood is chill and thin; my day Is done, and there is nothing here. Do not call me a foolish man, Nor lean your lovely cheek to mine O slender witch, our bodies can Not mingle now, nor any time. So take your mouth from mine, your hand From mine, ah, take your lips away! Lest heat to will should ripen, and All this be grave that had been gay. It is this curl, a silken nest, And this grey eye bright as the dew, And this round, lo...
James Stephens
Fastness
This is the end whereto men toiledBefore thy coachman guessed his fate,How thou shouldst leave thy, 'scutcheoned gateOn that new wheel which is the oiled.To see the England Shakespeare saw(Oh, Earth, 'tis long since Shallow died!Yet by yon farrowed sow may hideSome blue deep minion of the Law).To range from Ashby-de-la-ZouchBy Lyonnesse to Locksley Hall,Or haply, nearer home, appalThy father's sister's staid barouche.
Rudyard
To The Fringed Gentian.
Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,And coloured with the heaven's own blue,That openest when the quiet lightSucceeds the keen and frosty night.Thou comest not when violets leanO'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,Or columbines, in purple dressed,Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.Thou waitest late and com'st alone,When woods are bare and birds are flown,And frosts and shortening days portendThe aged year is near his end.Then doth thy sweet and quiet eyeLook through its fringes to the sky,Blue, blue, as if that sky let fallA flower from its cerulean wall.I would that thus, when I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart,May look to heaven as I depart.
William Cullen Bryant
On An Old Sepulchral Bas-Relief.
Where Is Seen A Young Maiden, Dead, In The Act Of Departing, Taking Leave Of Her Family. Where goest thou? Who calls Thee from my dear ones far away? Most lovely maiden, say! Alone, a wanderer, dost thou leave Thy father's roof so soon? Wilt thou unto its threshold e'er return? Wilt thou make glad one day, Those, who now round thee, weeping, mourn? Fearless thine eye, and spirited thy act; And yet thou, too, art sad. If pleasant or unpleasant be the road, If gay or gloomy be the new abode, To which thou journeyest, indeed, In that grave face, how difficult to read! Ah, hard to me the problem still hath seemed; Not hath the world, perhaps, yet understood, If thou beloved,...
Giacomo Leopardi
The Sonnets XLIX - Against that time, if ever that time come
Against that time, if ever that time come,When I shall see thee frown on my defects,When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,Calld to that audit by advisd respects;Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,When love, converted from the thing it was,Shall reasons find of settled gravity;Against that time do I ensconce me here,Within the knowledge of mine own desert,And this my hand, against my self uprear,To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,Since why to love I can allege no cause.
William Shakespeare
To Mrs. .......
To see thee every day that came,And find thee still each day the same;In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tearTo me still ever kind and dear;--To meet thee early, leave thee late,Has been so long my bliss, my fate,That life, without this cheering ray,Which came, like sunshine, every day,And all my pain, my sorrow chased,Is now a lone, a loveless waste.Where are the chords she used to touch?The airs, the songs she loved so much?Those songs are hushed, those chords are still,And so, perhaps, will every thrillOf feeling soon be lulled to rest,Which late I waked in Anna's breast.Yet, no--the simple notes I playedFrom memory's tablet soon may fade;The songs, which Anna loved to hear,May vanish from her heart and ear;But fri...
Thomas Moore
Old Heltberg
(See Note 50)I went to a school that was little and proper,Both for church and for state a conventional hopper,Feeding rollers that ground out their grist unwaiting;And though it was clear from the gears' frequent gratingThey rarely with oil of the spirit were smeared,Yet no other school in that region appeared.We had to go there till older; - though sorry,I went there also, - but reveled in Snorre.The self-same books, the same so-called education,That teacher after teacher, by decrees of power royal,Into class after class pounds with self-negation,And that only bring promotion to them that are loyal! -The self-same books, the same so-called education,Quickly molding to one type all the men in the land,An excellent fellow who on
Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
A Request.
When close by my bed the Death Angel shall stand And deliver his summons, at last;When my brow feels the chill of his cold, clammy hand, And mortality's struggles are past;When my pain throbbing temples, with death sweat are cold, And the spirit its strivings shall cease,As with muscular shrug, it relaxes its hold, And the suffering clay is at peace;E'er my spirit shall plunge through the shadowy vale, My lips shall this wish have expressed,That all which remains of mortality frail, In some fair enclosure may rest;Where disorganized, this pale form shall sustain The fragrant and beautiful flowers,And reproduce beauty, again and again, Through nature's grand organic powers.
Alfred Castner King
So Fair, So Sweet, Withal So Sensitive
So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive,Would that the little Flowers were born to live,Conscious of half the pleasure which they give;That to this mountain-daisy's self were knownThe beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrownOn the smooth surface of this naked stone!And what if hence a bold desire should mountHigh as the Sun, that he could take accountOf all that issues from his glorious fount!So might he ken how by his sovereign aidThese delicate companionships are made;And how he rules the pomp of light and shade;And were the Sister-power that shines by nightSo privileged, what a countenance of delightWould through the clouds break forth on human sight!Fond fancies! wheresoe'er shall turn thine eyeOn earth, air, oc...
William Wordsworth
Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha
Hist, but a word, fair and soft!Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!Answer the question Ive put you so oft:What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?See, were alone in the loft,I, the poor organist here,Hugues, the composer of note,Dead through, and done with, this many a year:Lets have a colloquy, something to quote,Make the world prick up its ear!See, the church empties apace:Fast they extinguish the lights.Hallo there, sacristan! Five minutes grace!Heres a crank pedal wants setting to rights,Baulks one of holding the base.See, our huge house of the sounds,Hushing its hundreds at once,Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds!O you may challenge them, not a responseGet the church-saints on their round...
Robert Browning
A Loving-Cup Song
Come, heap the fagots! Ere we goAgain the cheerful hearth shall glow;We 'll have another blaze, my boys!When clouds are black and snows are white,Then Christmas logs lend ruddy lightThey stole from summer days, my boys,They stole from summer days.And let the Loving-Cup go round,The Cup with blessed memories crowned,That flows whene'er we meet, my boys;No draught will hold a drop of sinIf love is only well stirred inTo keep it sound and sweet, my boys,To keep it sound and sweet.Give me, to pin upon my breast,The blossoms twain I love the best,A rosebud and a pink, my boys;Their leaves shall nestle next my heart,Their perfumed breath shall own its partIn every health we drink, my boys,In every health we drink.<...
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Faery Forest
The faery forest glimmeredBeneath an ivory moon,The silver grasses shimmeredAgainst a faery tune.Beneath the silken silenceThe crystal branches slept,And dreaming thro the dew-fallThe cold white blossoms wept.
Sara Teasdale
To Laura In Death. Sonnet V.
Che fai? che pensi? che pur dietro guardi.HE ENCOURAGES HIS SOUL TO LIFT ITSELF TO GOD, AND TO ABANDON THE VANITIES OF EARTH. What dost thou? think'st thou? wherefore bend thine eyeBack on the time that never shall return?The raging fire, where once 'twas thine to burn,Why with fresh fuel, wretched soul, supply?Those thrilling tones, those glances of the sky,Which one by one thy fond verse strove to adorn,Are fled; and--well thou knowest, poor forlorn!--To seek them here were bootless industry.Then toil not bliss so fleeting to renew;To chase a thought so fair, so faithless, cease:Thou rather that unwavering good pursue,Which guides to heaven; since nought below can please.Fatal for us that beauty's torturing view,Living o...
Francesco Petrarca
Southampton Castle.[1] - Inscribed To The Marquis Of Lansdowne.
The moonlight is without; and I could loseAn hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!Regardless of the lights that blaze within,I look upon the wide and silent sea,That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps: How still,Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,The eve of pleasant yesterdays! The cloudsHave all sunk westward, and the host of starsSeem in their watches set, as gazing on;While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavensSupreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,Of gazing worlds! How different is the sceneThat lies beneath this arched window's height!The town, that murmured throu...
William Lisle Bowles
The Cunning Woman
On all Arcadia's sunny plain,On all Arcadia's hill,None were so blithe as BILL and JANE,So blithe as JANE and BILL.No social earthquake e'er occurredTo rack their common mind:To them a Panic was a wordA Crisis, empty wind.No Stock Exchange disturbed the ladWith overwhelming shocksBILL ploughed with all the shares he had,JANE planted all her stocks.And learn in what a simple wayTheir pleasures they enhancedJANE danced like any lamb all day,BILL piped as well as danced.Surrounded by a twittling crew,Of linnet, lark, and thrush,BILL treated his young lady toThis sentimental gush:"Oh, JANE, how true I am to you!How true you are to me!And how we woo, and how we coo!So fond a pai...
William Schwenck Gilbert