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The Good-Morrow She's all states, and all princes, I,

JOHN DONNE Nothing else is.
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Princes do but play us; compared to this,
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? In that the world's contracted thus.
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
If ever any beauty I did see, To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
Song: Go and catch a falling star
For love, all love of other sights controls,
JOHN DONNE
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Go and catch a falling star,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,     Get with child a mandrake root,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. Tell me where all past years are,
    Or who cleft the devil's foot,
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
            And find
Without sharp north, without declining west?
            What wind
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. If thou be'st born to strange sights,
    Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
The Sun Rising     Till age snow white hairs on thee,
JOHN DONNE Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
Busy old fool, unruly sun,             And swear,
Why dost thou thus,             No where
Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Lives a woman true, and fair.
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide If thou find'st one, let me know,
Late school boys and sour prentices,     Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Yet do not, I would not go,
Call country ants to harvest offices,     Though at next door we might meet;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Though she were true, when you met her,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. And last, till you write your letter,
            Yet she
Thy beams, so reverend and strong             Will be
Why shouldst thou think? False, ere I come, to two, or three.
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long; Holy Sonnets: This is my play's last scene
If her eyes have not blinded thine, JOHN DONNE
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;
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And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint To His Coy Mistress
My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space; ANDREW MARVELL
But my'ever-waking part shall see that face
Had we but world enough and time,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint. This coyness, lady, were no crime.
Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight, We would sit down, and think which way
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell, To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
So fall my sins, that all may have their right, Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell. Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil, Of Humber would complain. I would
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil. Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud Till the conversion of the Jews.
J OHN DONNE My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee An hundred years should go to praise
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Two hundred to adore each breast,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. But thirty thousand to the rest;
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, An age at least to every part,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And the last age should show your heart.
And soonest our best men with thee do go, For, lady, you deserve this state,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Nor would I love at lower rate.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,        But at my back I always hear
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And yonder all before us lie
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? Deserts of vast eternity.
One short sleep past, we wake eternally Thy beauty shall no more be found;
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
Holy Sonnets: I am a little world made cunningly And your quaint honour turn to dust,
JOHN DONNE And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
I am a little world made cunningly But none, I think, do there embrace.
Of elements and an angelic sprite,        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
But black sin hath betray'd to endless night Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
My world's both parts, and oh both parts must die. And while thy willing soul transpires
You which beyond that heaven which was most high At every pore with instant fires,
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write, Now let us sport us while we may,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly, Rather at once our time devour
Or wash it, if it must be drown'd no more. Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire Let us roll all our strength and all
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore, Our sweetness up into one ball,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire, And tear our pleasures with rough strife
And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal Through the iron gates of life:
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal…… Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
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Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? O fearful meditation! where, alack,
WILLI AM SHAKESPEARE Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
   O, none, unless this miracle have might,
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, How like a winter hath my absence been
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: What old December's bareness everywhere!
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, And yet this time remov'd was summer's time,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
minds But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
WILLI AM SHAKESPEARE For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
Admit impediments. Love is not love
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. When in the chronicle of wasted time
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
Within his bending sickle's compass come; And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
If this be error and upon me prov'd, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
boundless sea And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
But sad mortality 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,
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
of Early Childhood
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
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WILLI AM W ORDSWORTH And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:—
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
The child is father of the man; —But there's a Tree, of many, one,
And I could wish my days to be A single field which I have looked upon,
Bound each to each by natural piety. Both of them speak of something that is gone;
(Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up") The Pansy at my feet
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, Doth the same tale repeat:
The earth, and every common sight, Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
To me did seem Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
It is not now as it hath been of yore;— The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Turn wheresoe'er I may, Hath had elsewhere its setting,
By night or day. And cometh from afar:
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
The Rainbow comes and goes, But trailing clouds of glory do we come
And lovely is the Rose, From God, who is our home:
The Moon doth with delight Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Look round her when the heavens are bare, Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Waters on a starry night Upon the growing Boy,
Are beautiful and fair; But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
The sunshine is a glorious birth; He sees it in his joy;
But yet I know, where'er I go, The Youth, who daily farther from the east
That there hath past away a glory from the earth. Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And by the vision splendid
And while the young lambs bound Is on his way attended;
As to the tabor's sound, At length the Man perceives it die away,
To me alone there came a thought of grief: And fade into the light of common day.
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
And I again am strong: Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; And no unworthy aim,
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, The homely Nurse doth all she can
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
And all the earth is gay; Forget the glories he hath known,
Land and sea And that imperial palace whence he came.
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
Doth every Beast keep holiday;— A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
Thou Child of Joy, See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
Shepherd-boy. With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Ye to each other make; I see
Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
A wedding or a festival,
My heart is at your festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
My head hath its coronal,
And this hath now his heart,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.
And unto this he frames his song:
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
Then will he fit his tongue
While Earth herself is adorning,
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
This sweet May-morning,
But it will not be long
And the Children are culling
Ere this be thrown aside,
On every side,
And with new joy and pride
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
The little Actor cons another part;
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
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Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, Nor Man nor Boy,
That Life brings with her in her equipage; Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
As if his whole vocation Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Were endless imitation. Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Thy Soul's immensity; Which brought us hither,
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Can in a moment travel thither,
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, And see the Children sport upon the shore,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
On whom those truths do rest, And let the young Lambs bound
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, As to the tabor's sound!
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; We in thought will join your throng,
Thou, over whom thy Immortality Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, Ye that through your hearts to-day
A Presence which is not to be put by; Feel the gladness of the May!
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might What though the radiance which was once so bright
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke Though nothing can bring back the hour
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? We will grieve not, rather find
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, Strength in what remains behind;
And custom lie upon thee with a weight, In the primal sympathy
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
O joy! that in our embers Out of human suffering;
Is something that doth live, In the faith that looks through death,
That Nature yet remembers In years that bring the philosophic mind.
What was so fugitive! And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
The thought of our past years in me doth breed Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Perpetual benediction: not indeed Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
For that which is most worthy to be blest; I only have relinquished one delight
Delight and liberty, the simple creed To live beneath your more habitual sway.
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:— Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
Not for these I raise The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
The song of thanks and praise Is lovely yet;
But for those obstinate questionings The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Of sense and outward things, Do take a sober colouring from an eye
Fallings from us, vanishings; That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Blank misgivings of a Creature Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Moving about in worlds not realised, Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: To me the meanest flower that blows can give
But for those first affections, Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, WI LLIAM WORDSW ORTH
To perish never;
I wandered lonely as a cloud
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That floats on high o'er vales and hills, And battles long ago:
When all at once I saw a crowd, Or is it some more humble lay,
A host, of golden daffodils; Familiar matter of to-day?
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. That has been, and may be again?

Continuous as the stars that shine Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
And twinkle on the milky way, As if her song could have no ending;
They stretched in never-ending line I saw her singing at her work,
Along the margin of a bay: And o'er the sickle bending;—
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, I listened, motionless and still;
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
The waves beside them danced; but they
Long after it was heard no more.
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
What wealth the show to me had brought:
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
For oft, when on my couch I lie The holy time is quiet as a Nun
In vacant or in pensive mood, Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
They flash upon that inward eye Is sinking down in its tranquility;
Which is the bliss of solitude; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
And then my heart with pleasure fills, Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And dances with the daffodils. And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
The Solitary Reaper If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Behold her, single in the field, Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
Yon solitary Highland Lass! And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
Reaping and singing by herself; God being with thee when we know it not.
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain; The World Is Too Much With Us
O listen! for the Vale profound WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Is overflowing with the sound. The world is too much with us; late and soon,
No Nightingale did ever chaunt Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
More welcome notes to weary bands Little we see in Nature that is ours;
Of travellers in some shady haunt, We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Among Arabian sands: This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard The winds that will be howling at all hours,
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
Breaking the silence of the seas For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
Among the farthest Hebrides. It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
Will no one tell me what she sings?— So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
For old, unhappy, far-off things, Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
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Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
London, 1802 Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
England hath need of thee: she is a fen Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,    The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,    Floated midway on the waves;
Have forfeited their ancient English dower    Where was heard the mingled measure
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;    From the fountain and the caves.
Oh! raise us up, return to us again; It was a miracle of rare device,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
   A damsel with a dulcimer
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
   In a vision once I saw:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
   It was an Abyssinian maid
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
   And on her dulcimer she played,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
   Singing of Mount Abora.
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
   Could I revive within me
   Her symphony and song,
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
Kubla Khan That with music loud and long,
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERI DGE I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. And all who heard should see them there,
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
A stately pleasure-dome decree: His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Weave a circle round him thrice,
Through caverns measureless to man And close your eyes with holy dread
   Down to a sunless sea. For he on honey-dew hath fed,
So twice five miles of fertile ground And drunk the milk of Paradise.
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834)
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Argument
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole;
A savage place! as holy and enchanted and how from thence she made her course to the
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of
By woman wailing for her demon-lover! the strange things that befell; and in what manner
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, Country.
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
PART I
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, It is an ancient Mariner,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And he stoppeth one of three.
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'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Still treads the shadow of his foe,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And southward aye we fled.
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set: And now there came both mist and snow,
May'st hear the merry din.' And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
He holds him with his skinny hand,
As green as emerald.
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The ice was all between.
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child: The ice was here, the ice was there,
The Mariner hath his will. The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
Like noises in a swound!
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man, At length did cross an Albatross,
The bright-eyed Mariner. Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
We hailed it in God's name.
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill, It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
Below the lighthouse top. And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The Sun came up upon the left,
The helmsman steered us through!
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right And a good south wind sprung up behind;
Went down into the sea. The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Higher and higher every day,
Came to the mariner's hollo!
Till over the mast at noon—'
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
For he heard the loud bassoon. It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
The bride hath paced into the hall,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes 'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
The merry minstrelsy. From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
I shot the ALBATROSS.
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man, PART II
The bright-eyed Mariner.
The Sun now rose upon the right:
And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he Out of the sea came he,
Was tyrannous and strong: Still hid in mist, and on the left
He struck with his o'ertaking wings, Went down into the sea.
And chased us south along.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
With sloping masts and dipping prow, But no sweet bird did follow,
As who pursued with yell and blow Nor any day for food or play
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Came to the mariner's hollo! And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
And I had done a hellish thing,
We could not speak, no more than if
And it would work 'em woe:
We had been choked with soot.
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow. Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, Had I from old and young!
That made the breeze to blow! Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist: PART III
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
There passed a weary time. Each throat
That brought the fog and mist.
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
A weary time! a weary time!
That bring the fog and mist.
How glazed each weary eye,
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
When looking westward, I beheld
The furrow followed free;
A something in the sky.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea. At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
It moved and moved, and took at last
'Twas sad as sad could be;
A certain shape, I wist.
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea! A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
All in a hot and copper sky,
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
It plunged and tacked and veered.
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Day after day, day after day,
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
As idle as a painted ship
And cried, A sail! a sail!
Upon a painted ocean.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Water, water, every where,
Agape they heard me call:
And all the boards did shrink;
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
Water, water, every where,
And all at once their breath drew in.
Nor any drop to drink.
As they were drinking all.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
That ever this should be!
Hither to work us weal;
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Without a breeze, without a tide,
Upon the slimy sea.
She steadies with upright keel!
About, about, in reel and rout
The western wave was all a-flame.
The death-fires danced at night;
The day was well nigh done!
The water, like a witch's oils,
Almost upon the western wave
Burnt green, and blue and white.
Rested the broad bright Sun;
And some in dreams assurèd were When that strange shape drove suddenly
Of the Spirit that plagued us so; Betwixt us and the Sun.
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
From the land of mist and snow.
 10
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!) Like the whizz of my cross-bow!
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
PART IV
With broad and burning face.
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
I fear thy skinny hand!
How fast she nears and nears!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.
Like restless gossameres?
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
Are those her ribs through which the Sun
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'—
Did peer, as through a grate?
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
And is that Woman all her crew?
This body dropt not down.
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate? Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
And never a saint took pity on
Her locks were yellow as gold:
My soul in agony.
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she, The many men, so beautiful!
Who thicks man's blood with cold. And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
The naked hulk alongside came,
Lived on; and so did I.
And the twain were casting dice;
'The game is done! I've won! I've won!' I looked upon the rotting sea,
Quoth she, and whistles thrice. And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;
And there the dead men lay.
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
Off shot the spectre-bark. But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
We listened and looked sideways up!
My heart as dry as dust.
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip! I closed my lids, and kept them close,
The stars were dim, and thick the night, And the balls like pulses beat;
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
From the sails the dew did drip— Lay dead like a load on my weary eye,
Till clomb above the eastern bar And the dead were at my feet.
The hornèd Moon, with one bright star The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Within the nether tip. Nor rot nor reek did they:
One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, The look with which they looked on me
Too quick for groan or sigh, Had never passed away.
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, An orphan's curse would drag to hell
And cursed me with his eye. A spirit from on high;
Four times fifty living men, But oh! more horrible than that
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan) Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
They dropped down one by one. And yet I could not die.

The souls did from their bodies fly,— The moving Moon went up the sky,
They fled to bliss or woe! And no where did abide:
And every soul, it passed me by, Softly she was going up,
 11
And a star or two beside— And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
But with its sound it shook the sails,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
That were so thin and sere.
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmèd water burnt alway The upper air burst into life!
A still and awful red. And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
And to and fro, and in and out,
I watched the water-snakes:
The wan stars danced between.
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light And the coming wind did roar more loud,
Fell off in hoary flakes. And the sails did sigh like sedge,
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
Within the shadow of the ship
The Moon was at its edge.
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
They coiled and swam; and every track The Moon was at its side:
Was a flash of golden fire. Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
O happy living things! no tongue
A river steep and wide.
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart, The loud wind never reached the ship,
And I blessed them unaware: Yet now the ship moved on!
Sure my kind saint took pity on me, Beneath the lightning and the Moon
And I blessed them unaware. The dead men gave a groan.
The self-same moment I could pray; They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
And from my neck so free Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
The Albatross fell off, and sank It had been strange, even in a dream,
Like lead into the sea. To have seen those dead men rise.
PART V The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Beloved from pole to pole!
Where they were wont to do;
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
We were a ghastly crew.
That slid into my soul.
The body of my brother's son
The silly buckets on the deck,
Stood by me, knee to knee:
That had so long remained,
The body and I pulled at one rope,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
But he said nought to me.
And when I awoke, it rained.
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
My garments all were dank;
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
Which to their corses came again,
And still my body drank.
But a troop of spirits blest:
I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
I was so light—almost
And clustered round the mast;
I thought that I had died in sleep,
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And was a blessed ghost.
And from their bodies passed.
 12
Around, around, flew each sweet sound, With his cruel bow he laid full low
Then darted to the Sun; The harmless Albatross.
Slowly the sounds came back again,
The spirit who bideth by himself
Now mixed, now one by one.
In the land of mist and snow,
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky He loved the bird that loved the man
I heard the sky-lark sing; Who shot him with his bow.'
Sometimes all little birds that are,
The other was a softer voice,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
As soft as honey-dew:
With their sweet jargoning!
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And now 'twas like all instruments, And penance more will do.'
Now like a lonely flute;
PART VI
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute. First Voice
'But tell me, tell me! speak again,
It ceased; yet still the sails made on
Thy soft response renewing—
A pleasant noise till noon,
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
A noise like of a hidden brook
What is the ocean doing?'
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night Second Voice
Singeth a quiet tune. Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
His great bright eye most silently
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Up to the Moon is cast—
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath. If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
Under the keel nine fathom deep,
See, brother, see! how graciously
From the land of mist and snow,
She looketh down on him.'
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go. First Voice
The sails at noon left off their tune, 'But why drives on that ship so fast,
And the ship stood still also. Without or wave or wind?'
The Sun, right up above the mast, Second Voice
Had fixed her to the ocean: 'The air is cut away before,
But in a minute she 'gan stir, And closes from behind.
With a short uneasy motion— Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Backwards and forwards half her length
Or we shall be belated:
With a short uneasy motion.
For slow and slow that ship will go,
Then like a pawing horse let go, When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
She made a sudden bound:
I woke, and we were sailing on
It flung the blood into my head,
As in a gentle weather:
And I fell down in a swound.
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
How long in that same fit I lay, The dead men stood together.
I have not to declare;
All stood together on the deck,
But ere my living life returned,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
I heard and in my soul discerned
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
Two voices in the air.
That in the Moon did glitter.
'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
By him who died on cross,
 13
Had never passed away: A little distance from the prow
I could not draw my eyes from theirs, Those crimson shadows were:
Nor turn them up to pray. I turned my eyes upon the deck—
And now this spell was snapt: once more Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
I viewed the ocean green, Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And looked far forth, yet little saw And, by the holy rood!
Of what had else been seen— A man all light, a seraph-man,
Like one, that on a lonesome road On every corse there stood.
Doth walk in fear and dread, This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
And having once turned round walks on, It was a heavenly sight!
And turns no more his head; They stood as signals to the land,
Because he knows, a frightful fiend Each one a lovely light;
Doth close behind him tread.
This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
But soon there breathed a wind on me, No voice did they impart—
Nor sound nor motion made: No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Its path was not upon the sea,
Like music on my heart.
In ripple or in shade.
But soon I heard the dash of oars,
It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
I heard the Pilot's cheer;
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
My head was turned perforce away
It mingled strangely with my fears,
And I saw a boat appear.
Yet it felt like a welcoming.
The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
I heard them coming fast:
Yet she sailed softly too:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
The dead men could not blast.
On me alone it blew.
I saw a third—I heard his voice:
Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
It is the Hermit good!
The light-house top I see?
He singeth loud his godly hymns
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
That he makes in the wood.
Is this mine own countree?
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, The Albatross's blood.
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God! PART VII
Or let me sleep alway. This Hermit good lives in that wood
The harbour-bay was clear as glass, Which slopes down to the sea.
So smoothly it was strewn! How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
And on the bay the moonlight lay, He loves to talk with marineres
And the shadow of the Moon. That come from a far countree.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
That stands above the rock: He hath a cushion plump:
The moonlight steeped in silentness It is the moss that wholly hides
The steady weathercock. The rotted old oak-stump.

And the bay was white with silent light, The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
Till rising from the same, 'Why, this is strange, I trow!
Full many shapes, that shadows were, Where are those lights so many and fair,
In crimson colours came. That signal made but now?'
 14
'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said— The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
'And they answered not our cheer! And scarcely he could stand.
The planks looked warped! and see those sails,
'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
How thin they are and sere!
The Hermit crossed his brow.
I never saw aught like to them,
'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say—
Unless perchance it were What manner of man art thou?'
Brown skeletons of leaves that lag Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
My forest-brook along; With a woful agony,
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, Which forced me to begin my tale;
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, And then it left me free.
That eats the she-wolf's young.'
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look— That agony returns:
(The Pilot made reply) And till my ghastly tale is told,
I am a-feared'—'Push on, push on!' This heart within me burns.
Said the Hermit cheerily.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
The boat came closer to the ship, I have strange power of speech;
But I nor spake nor stirred; That moment that his face I see,
The boat came close beneath the ship, I know the man that must hear me:
And straight a sound was heard. To him my tale I teach.
Under the water it rumbled on, What loud uproar bursts from that door!
Still louder and more dread: The wedding-guests are there:
It reached the ship, it split the bay; But in the garden-bower the bride
The ship went down like lead. And bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which biddeth me to prayer!
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
My body lay afloat; Alone on a wide wide sea:
But swift as dreams, myself I found So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Within the Pilot's boat. Scarce seemèd there to be.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
The boat spun round and round; 'Tis sweeter far to me,
And all was still, save that the hill To walk together to the kirk
Was telling of the sound. With a goodly company!—

I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked To walk together to the kirk,

And fell down in a fit; And all together pray,
The holy Hermit raised his eyes, While each to his great Father bends,
And prayed where he did sit. Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!
I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
Who now doth crazy go,
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
He prayeth well, who loveth well
His eyes went to and fro.
Both man and bird and beast.
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.' He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
And now, all in my own countree,
For the dear God who loveth us,
I stood on the firm land!
He made and loveth all.
 15
The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Already with thee! tender is the night,
Whose beard with age is hoar,       And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest              Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
Turned from the bridegroom's door.                       But here there is no light,
      Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
He went like one that hath been stunned,
  Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man, I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
He rose the morrow morn.          Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
         Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
Ode to a Nightingale
         White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
JOHN KEATS
                Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains                         And mid-May's eldest child,
         My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,      The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains            The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
         One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
         I have been half in love with easeful Death,
         But being too happy in thine happiness,—
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
                That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
         To take into the air my quiet breath;
                        In some melodious plot
                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
         Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
         To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
                Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been                         In such an ecstasy!
         Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,          Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
Tasting of Flora and the country green,                    To thy high requiem become a sod.
         Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
         No hungry generations tread thee down;
         Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
                With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
         In ancient days by emperor and clown:
                        And purple-stained mouth;
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
         That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
   Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
                And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
                She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget                         The same that oft-times hath
       What thou among the leaves hast never known,          Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
The weariness, the fever, and the fret                 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
       Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
         To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
      Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
             Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
         As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
                        And leaden-eyed despairs,
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
      Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
         Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
             Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
                Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,                         In the next valley-glades:
         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,          Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,                 Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
      Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
 16
Ode on a Grecian Urn          When old age shall this generation waste,
JOHN KEATS                 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
       Of deities or mortals, or of both, Ode To Autumn
               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? JOHN KEATS
       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:       To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; And still more, later flowers for the bees,
               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Until they think warm days will never cease,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;       For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
And, happy melodist, unwearied, Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
         For ever piping songs for ever new;    Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
More happy love! more happy, happy love!       Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
                For ever panting, and for ever young;    Steady thy laden head across a brook;
All breathing human passion far above,    Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,       Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
         To what green altar, O mysterious priest, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
What little town by river or sea shore,    Among the river sallows, borne aloft
         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
And, little town, thy streets for evermore    Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.       And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
 17
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
JOHN KEATS Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Round many western islands have I been Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
Ode to the West Wind If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, I were as in my boyhood, and could be

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Each like a corpse within its grave, until Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
With living hues and odours plain and hill: V
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge, Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head And, by the incantation of this verse,
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Of the horizon to the zenith's height, Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
 18
Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The awful shadow of some unseen Power
         The waves are dancing fast and bright,          Floats though unseen among us; visiting
      Blue isles and snowy mountains wear          This various world with as inconstant wing
      The purple noon's transparent might, As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;
         The breath of the moist earth is light, Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
      Around its unexpanded buds;                 It visits with inconstant glance
         Like many a voice of one delight,                 Each human heart and countenance;
      The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, Like hues and harmonies of evening,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.                 Like clouds in starlight widely spread,
                Like memory of music fled,
         I see the Deep's untrampled floor
                Like aught that for its grace may be
         With green and purple seaweeds strown;
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
      I see the waves upon the shore,
      Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
         I sit upon the sands alone,—          With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
      The lightning of the noontide ocean          Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?
         Is flashing round me, and a tone Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
      Arises from its measured motion, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.                 Ask why the sunlight not for ever
                Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
         Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
         Nor peace within nor calm around,
                Why fear and dream and death and birth
      Nor that content surpassing wealth
                Cast on the daylight of this earth
      The sage in meditation found,
                Such gloom, why man has such a scope
         And walked with inward glory crowned—
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
      Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
         Others I see whom these surround— No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
      Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;      To sage or poet these responses given:
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.      Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour:
         Yet now despair itself is mild,
Frail spells whose utter'd charm might not avail to sever,
         Even as the winds and waters are;
                From all we hear and all we see,
      I could lie down like a tired child,
                Doubt, chance and mutability.
      And weep away the life of care
Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven,
         Which I have borne and yet must bear,
                Or music by the night-wind sent
      Till death like sleep might steal on me,
                Through strings of some still instrument,
         And I might feel in the warm air
                Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
      My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart
         Some might lament that I were cold,
         And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
         As I, when this sweet day is gone,
         Man were immortal and omnipotent,
      Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
      Insults with this untimely moan;
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
         They might lament—for I am one
                Thou messenger of sympathies,
      Whom men love not,—and yet regret,
                That wax and wane in lovers' eyes;
         Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,
      Shall on its stainless glory set,
                Like darkness to a dying flame!
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.
 19
                Depart not as thy shadow came, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
                Depart not—lest the grave should be, I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Like life and fear, a dark reality. Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
       Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
       And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
For always roaming with a hungry heart
I call'd on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
                I was not heard; I saw them not; And manners, climates, councils, governments,
                When musing deeply on the lot Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
                All vital things that wake to bring Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
                News of birds and blossoming, I am a part of all that I have met;
                Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
   I shriek'd, and clasp'd my hands in ecstasy! Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers For ever and forever when I move.
         To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
         With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers Were all too little, and of one to me
                Of studious zeal or love's delight Little remains: but every hour is saved
                Outwatch'd with me the envious night: From that eternal silence, something more,
They know that never joy illum'd my brow A bringer of new things; and vile it were
                Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
                This world from its dark slavery, And this gray spirit yearning in desire
                That thou, O awful LOVELINESS, To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

The day becomes more solemn and serene          This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
         When noon is past; there is a harmony To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
         In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
Which through the summer is not heard or seen, This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
As if it could not be, as if it had not been! A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
                Thus let thy power, which like the truth Subdue them to the useful and the good.
                Of nature on my passive youth Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Descended, to my onward life supply Of common duties, decent not to fail
                Its calm, to one who worships thee, In offices of tenderness, and pay
                And every form containing thee, Meet adoration to my household gods,
                Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
To fear himself, and love all human kind.          There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
Ulysses That ever with a frolic welcome took
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
It little profits that an idle king,
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
 20
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep To each, but whoso did receive of them,
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
Push off, and sitting well in order smite On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
Of all the western stars, until I die. And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
We are not now that strength which in old days
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."
The Lotos-eaters CHORIC SONG
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON I
There is sweet music here that softer falls
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
In the afternoon they came unto a land
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
In which it seemed always afternoon.
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Here are cool mosses deep,
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep."
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, II
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, While all things else have rest from weariness?
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops, We only toil, who are the first of things,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. And make perpetual moan,
The charmed sunset linger'd low adown Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale Nor ever fold our wings,
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down And cease from wanderings,
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
And meadow, set with slender galingale; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
A land where all things always seem'd the same! "There is no joy but calm!"
And round about the keel with faces pale, Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
 21
III Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
Lo! in the middle of the wood, And dear the last embraces of our wives
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
With winds upon the branch, and there For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow Or else the island princes over-bold
Falls, and floats adown the air. Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Drops in a silent autumn night. Is there confusion in the little isle?
All its allotted length of days Let what is broken so remain.
The flower ripens in its place, The Gods are hard to reconcile:
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 'Tis hard to settle order once again.
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
IV
Long labour unto aged breath,
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be? VII
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
And in a little while our lips are dumb. How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
Let us alone. What is it that will last? With half-dropt eyelid still,
All things are taken from us, and become Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have His waters from the purple hill—
To war with evil? Is there any peace To hear the dewy echoes calling
In ever climbing up the climbing wave? From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine—
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.
V
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, VIII
With half-shut eyes ever to seem The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
Falling asleep in a half-dream! The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
To hear each other's whisper'd speech; Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-
Eating the Lotos day by day, dust is blown.
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray; Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly was seething free,
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-
To muse and brood and live again in memory, fountains in the sea.
With those old faces of our infancy Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
Heap'd over with a mound of grass, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
VI
 22
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are ROBERT BROWNING
lightly curl'd FERRARA
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
world:
Looking as if she were alive. I call
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
deeps and fiery sands,
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships,
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
and praying hands.
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
song
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
wrong,
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
down in hell
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
shore
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
Crossing the Bar
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Sunset and evening star, Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
      And one clear call for me! She rode with round the terrace—all and each
And may there be no moaning of the bar, Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
      When I put out to sea, Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but
thanked
   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
      Too full for sound and foam,
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
      Turns again home.
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
   Twilight and evening bell, In speech—which I have not—to make your will
      And after that the dark! Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
And may there be no sadness of farewell, Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
      When I embark; Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
      The flood may bear me far, Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
I hope to see my Pilot face to face E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
      When I have crost the bar. Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
My Last Duchess Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
 23
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands Me?’ - God might question; now instead,
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet 'Tis God shall repay! I am safer so.
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Dover Beach
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed MATTHEW ARNOLD
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
The sea is calm tonight.
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
The Patriot
Only, from the long line of spray
ROBERT BROWNING
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
I
Listen! you hear the grating roar
It was roses, roses, all the way,
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
At their return, up the high strand,
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
A year ago on this very day.
II The eternal note of sadness in.
The air broke into a mist with bells, Sophocles long ago
The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Had I said, ‘Good folks, mere noise repels - Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
But give me your sun from yonder skies!’ Of human misery; we
They had answered, ‘And afterward, what else?’ Find also in the sound a thought,
III Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,
To give it my loving friends to keep! The Sea of Faith
Nought man could do have I left undone: Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
And you see my harvest, what I reap Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
This very day, now a year is run. But now I only hear
IV Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
There's nobody on the house-tops now - Retreating, to the breath
Just a palsied few at the windows set - Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
For the best of the sight is, all allow, And naked shingles of the world.
At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet,
Ah, love, let us be true
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
To one another! for the world, which seems
V
I go in the rain, and, more than needs, To lie before us like a land of dreams,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind; So various, so beautiful, so new,
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
For they fling, whoever has a mind, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. And we are here as on a darkling plain
VI Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Thus I entered, and thus I go! Where ignorant armies clash by night.
In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
‘Paid by the World, what dost thou owe