Eng103-selected poems
Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Follow Thy Fair Sun
Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow;
Though thou be black as night,
And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow.
*
Follow her whose light thy light depriveth;
Though here thou liv´st desgraced,
And she in heaven is placed,
Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!
*
Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth,
That so have scorchèd thee,
As thou still black must be,
Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.
*
Follow her while yet her glory shineth;
There comes a luckless night,
That will dim all her light;
And this the black unhappy shade divineth.
*
Follow still since so thy fate ordained;
The sun must have his shade,
Till both at once do fade;
The sun still proved, the shadow still disdained.
Now Winter Nights Enlarge
Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o´erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sighs
Sleep´s leaden spells remove.
*
This time doth well dispense
With lovers´long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measure comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys.
They shorten tediuos nights.
Ben Johnson(1572-1637)
To the Reader
Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,
To read it well: that is, to understand.
To Doctor Empirick
When men a dangerous disease dos 'scape
Of old, they gave a cock to Aesculape;
Let me give two, that doubly am got free
From my disease's danger, and from thee.
On Spies
Spies, you are light in state, but of base stuff,
Who, when you've burned yourselves down to the snuff,
Stink and are thrown away. End fair enough.
To Fool or Knave
Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike:
One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.
On Gut
Gut eats all day and lechers all the night;
So all his meat he tasteth over twice;
And, striving so to double his delight,
He makes himself a thoroughfare of vice.
Thus in his belly can he change a sin:
Lust it comes out, that gluttony went in.
Though I Am Young and Cannot Tell
Though I am young, and cannot tell
Either what Death or Love is well,
Yet I have heard they both bear darts,
And both do aim at human hearts.
And then again, I have been told
Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold;
So I fear they do but bring
Extremes to touch, and mean one thing.
*
As in a ruin we it call
One thing to be blown up, or fall;
Or our end like the way may have
By a flash of lightning, or a wave;
So Love's inflaméd shaft or brand
May kill as soon as Death's cold hand;
Except Love's fires the virtue have
To fright the frost out of the grave.
William Blake(1757-1827)
A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
*
And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunnéd it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
*
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
*
And into my garden stole,
When night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstreched beneath the tree.
Eternity
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingéd life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
To the Sour Reader
If thou silik'st the piece thou light'st on first,
Think that of all that I have writ the worst;
But if thou read'st my book unto the end,
And still dost this and that verse reprehend,
O perverse man! If all disgustful be,
The extreme scab take thee and thine, for me.
Delight in Disorder
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distractiòn;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is to precise in every part.
To His Conscience
Can I not sin, but thou wilt be
My private protonary?
Can I not woo thee to pass by
A short and sweet iniquity?
I'll cast a mist and cloud upon
My delicate transgression,
So utter dark, as that no eye
SHall see the hugged impiety.
Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please,
And wind all other witnesses;
And wilt not thou, with gold, be tied
To lay thy pen and ink aside?
That in the murk and tongueless night,
Wanton I may, and thou not write?
It will not be; and therefore now,
For times to come, I'll make this vow:
From aberrations to live free;
So I'll not fear the judge or thee.
John Keats (1795-1821)
La Belle Dame sans Merci
O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the Lake
And no birds sing!
*
O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
So haggard, and so woebegone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest's don.
*
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
*
"I met a Lady in the Meads,
Full beautiful, a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild.
*
"I made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;
She looked at me as she did love
And made sweet moan.
*
"I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery's song.
*
"She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said
'I love thee true.'
*
"She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
*
"And there she lulléd me asleep,
And there I dreamed, Ah Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
*
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried, 'La belle dame snas merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
*
"I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapéd wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hiöö's side.
*
"And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing."
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
As I Walked Out One Evening
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
*
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under the arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.
*
"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
*
"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
*
"The years shall run like rabbits.
For in my arm I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."
*
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
*
"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches form the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
*
"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
Tomorrow or today.
*
"Into many a green valley
Drifts tha appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brillian bow.
*
"O pluge you hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
*
"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
*
"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
An the Giant is enchating to Jack,
An the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
*
"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life reamins a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
*
"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crocked neighbour
With your crooked heart."
*
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers were all gone;
The clocks had ceased their chimin,
And the deep river ran on.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless 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 readh
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.
William Shakespeare
1564-1616
From Sonnets
65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless
sea
But sad mortatlity o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where alack,
Shall time's best jewel from time's chest
lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot
back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine
bright.
73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the
cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds
sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight oh such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in
rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished
by.
This thou perciev'st, which makes thy love
more strong,
To love that weel which thou must leave ere
long.
138
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple is suppresed.
But wherefore says she not the is unjust?
And wherefore says not I that I am old?
Oh, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
George Herbert
1593-1633
Virtue
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.
*
Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
*
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
An all must die.
*
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
Discipline
Throw away thy rod,
Throw away thy wrath:
O my God,
Take the gentle path.
*
For my heart's desire
Unto thine is bent:
I aspire
To a full consent.
*
Not a word or look
I affect to own,
But by book,
And thy book alone.
*
Though I fail, I weep:
Though I halt in pace,
Yet I creep
To the throne of grace.
*
Then let wrath remove;
Love will do the deed:
For with love
Stony hearts will bleed.
*
Love is swift of foot;
love's a man of war,
And can shoot,
And can hit from far.
*
Who can 'scape his bow?
That which wrought on thee,
Brought thee low,
Needs must work on me.
*
Throw away thy rod;
Though man frailties hath,
Thou art God:
Throw away thy wrath.
John Donne
1572-1631
Elegy XIX. To His Mistress Going
to Bed
Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
until labor, I in labor lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you
wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped
there.
Unlace yourself for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so
nigh.
Your gown going off, such beauteous state
reveals,
As when from flowry meads th'hill's shadow
steals.
Off with that wiry coronet and show
The hairy diadem which on you doth grow;
Now off with those shoes, and then safely
tread
In this love's hallowed temple, this soft
bed.
In such white robes, heaven's angels used
to be
Received by men; thou, Angel, bring'st with
thee
A heaven like Mahomet's Paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from our evil sprite:
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Livcence my rowing hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,
My mine of precious stones, my empery,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!<