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Best Famous Inmate Poems

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Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

201. Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787

 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams,
 Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;
 An inmate in the casual shed,
 On transient pity’s bounty fed,
 Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!
 Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,
 But He, who should imperial purple wear,
Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!
 His wretched refuge, dark despair,
 While ravening wrongs and woes pursue,
 And distant far the faithful few
 Who would his sorrows share.
False flatterer, Hope, away! Nor think to lure us as in days of yore: We solemnize this sorrowing natal day, To prove our loyal truth-we can no more, And owning Heaven’s mysterious sway, Submissive, low adore.
Ye honored, mighty Dead, Who nobly perished in the glorious cause, Your King, your Country, and her laws, From great DUNDEE, who smiling Victory led, And fell a Martyr in her arms, (What breast of northern ice but warms!) To bold BALMERINO’S undying name, Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven’s high flame, Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim: Nor unrevenged your fate shall lie, It only lags, the fatal hour, Your blood shall, with incessant cry, Awake at last, th’ unsparing Power; As from the cliff, with thundering course, The snowy ruin smokes along With doubling speed and gathering force, Till deep it, crushing, whelms the cottage in the vale; So Vengeance’ arm, ensanguin’d, strong, Shall with resistless might assail, Usurping Brunswick’s pride shall lay, And STEWART’S wrongs and yours, with tenfold weight repay.
PERDITION, baleful child of night! Rise and revenge the injured right Of STEWART’S royal race: Lead on the unmuzzled hounds of hell, Till all the frighted echoes tell The blood-notes of the chase! Full on the quarry point their view, Full on the base usurping crew, The tools of faction, and the nation’s curse! Hark how the cry grows on the wind; They leave the lagging gale behind, Their savage fury, pitiless, they pour; With murdering eyes already they devour; See Brunswick spent, a wretched prey, His life one poor despairing day, Where each avenging hour still ushers in a worse! Such havock, howling all abroad, Their utter ruin bring, The base apostates to their God, Or rebels to their King.
Note 1.
The last birthday of Prince Charles Edward.
[back]


Written by John Dryden | Create an image from this poem

Ode

 To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs Anne Killigrew,
Excellent in the Two Sister-arts of Poesy and Painting

Thou youngest Virgin Daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green, above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us in thy wand'ring race,
Or, in procession fixed and regular
Moved with the heavens' majestic pace;
Or, called to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region be thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
(Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
) Hear then a mortal muse thy praise rehearse In no ignoble verse; But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesie were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there; While yet a young probationer And candidate of Heaven.
If by traduction came thy mind, Our wonder is the less to find A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfused into thy blood: So wert thou born into the tuneful strain, (An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
) But if thy pre-existing soul Was formed, at first, with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before; If so, then cease thy flight, O Heav'n-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return, to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.
May we presume to say that at thy birth New joy was sprung in Heav'n as well as here on earth? For sure the milder planets did combine On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And ev'n the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres! And if no clust'ring swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew, 'Twas that such vulgar miracles Heav'n had not leisure to renew: For all the blest fraternity of love Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holyday above.
O gracious God! how far have we Profaned thy Heav'nly gift of poesy! Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debased to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordained above, For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adult'rate age (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own) T' increase the steaming ordures of the stage? What can we say t' excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, Heav'n, atone for all: Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled, Unmixed with foreign filth and undefiled; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
Art she had none, yet wanted none, For nature did that want supply: So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boasted stores defy: Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born.
Her morals too were in her bosom bred By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.
And to be read herself she need not fear; Each test and ev'ry light her muse will bear, Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
Ev'n love (for love sometimes her muse expressed) Was but a lambent-flame which played about her breast, Light as the vapours of a morning dream; So cold herself, while she such warmth expressed, 'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, One would have thought she should have been content To manage well that mighty government; But what can young ambitious souls confine? To the next realm she stretched her sway, For painture near adjoining lay, A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
A chamber of dependences was framed, (As conquerers will never want pretence, When armed, to justify th' offence), And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed.
The country open lay without defence; For poets frequent inroads there had made, And perfectly could represent The shape, the face, with ev'ry lineament; And all the large domains which the dumb-sister swayed, All bowed beneath her government, Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, And fruitful plains and barren rocks; Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear, The bottom did the top appear; Of deeper too and ampler floods Which as in mirrors showed the woods; Of lofty trees, with sacred shades, And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And shaggy satyrs standing near, Which them at once admire and fear.
The ruins too of some majestic piece, Boasting the pow'r of ancient Rome or Greece, Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie, And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye; What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.
The scene then changed; with bold erected look Our martial king the sight with rev'rence strook: For, not content t' express his outward part, Her hand called out the image of his heart, His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, His high-designing thoughts were figured there, As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.
Our phoenix Queen was portrayed too so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands, As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands: Before a train of heroines was seen, In beauty foremost, as in rank, the Queen! Thus nothing to her genius was denied, But like a ball of fire, the farther thrown, Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on ev'ry side.
What next she had designed, Heaven only knows: To such immod'rate growth her conquest rose, That Fate alone its progress could oppose.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace, That well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face, Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes; In earth the much-lamented virgin lies! Not wit nor piety could Fate prevent; Nor was the cruel destiny content To finish all the murder at a blow, To sweep at once her life and beauty too; But, like a hardened felon, took a pride To work more mischievously slow, And plundered first, and then destroyed.
O double sacrilege on things divine, To rob the relic, and deface the shrine! But thus Orinda died: Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate; As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas His waving streamers to the winds displays, And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, gen'rous youth! that wish forbear, The winds too soon will waft thee here! Slack all thy sails, and fear to come, Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wrecked at home! No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face, Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star, If any sparkles than the rest more bright, 'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations underground; When in the valley of Jehosaphat The judging God shall close the book of Fate; And there the last assizes keep For those who wake and those who sleep; When rattling bones together fly From the four corners of the sky, When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead; The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, And foremost from the tomb shall bound: For they are covered with the lightest ground; And straight with in-born vigour, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the New Morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, As harbinger of Heav'n, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learned below.
Written by Robert Southey | Create an image from this poem

Botany Bay Eclogues 05 - Frederic

 (Time Night.
Scene the woods.
) Where shall I turn me? whither shall I bend My weary way? thus worn with toil and faint How thro' the thorny mazes of this wood Attain my distant dwelling? that deep cry That rings along the forest seems to sound My parting knell: it is the midnight howl Of hungry monsters prowling for their prey! Again! oh save me--save me gracious Heaven! I am not fit to die! Thou coward wretch Why heaves thy trembling heart? why shake thy limbs Beneath their palsied burden? is there ought So lovely in existence? would'st thou drain Even to its dregs the bitter draught of life? Dash down the loathly bowl! poor outcast slave Stamp'd with the brand of Vice and Infamy Why should the villain Frederic shrink from Death? Death! where the magic in that empty name That chills my inmost heart? why at the thought Starts the cold dew of fear on every limb? There are no terrors to surround the Grave, When the calm Mind collected in itself Surveys that narrow house: the ghastly train That haunt the midnight of delirious Guilt Then vanish; in that home of endless rest All sorrows cease.
--Would I might slumber there! Why then this panting of the fearful heart? This miser love of Life that dreads to lose Its cherish'd torment? shall the diseased man Yield up his members to the surgeon's knife, Doubtful of succour, but to ease his frame Of fleshly anguish, and the coward wretch, Whose ulcered soul can know no human help Shrink from the best Physician's certain aid? Oh it were better far to lay me down Here on this cold damp earth, till some wild beast Seize on his willing victim! If to die Were all, it were most sweet to rest my head On the cold clod, and sleep the sleep of Death.
But if the Archangel's trump at the last hour Startle the ear of Death and wake the soul To frenzy!--dreams of infancy! fit tales For garrulous beldames to affrighten babes! I have been guilty, yet my mind can bear The retrospect of guilt, yet in the hour Of deep contrition to THE ETERNAL look For mercy! for the child of Poverty, And "disinherited of happiness," What if I warr'd upon the world? the world Had wrong'd me first: I had endur'd the ills Of hard injustice; all this goodly earth Was but to me one wild waste wilderness; I had no share in Nature's patrimony, Blasted were all my morning hopes of Youth, Dark DISAPPOINTMENT follow'd on my ways, CARE was my bosom inmate, and keen WANT Gnaw'd at my heart.
ETERNAL ONE thou know'st How that poor heart even in the bitter hour Of lewdest revelry has inly yearn'd For peace! My FATHER! I will call on thee, Pour to thy mercy seat my earnest prayer, And wait thy peace in bowedness of soul.
Oh thoughts of comfort! how the afflicted heart, Tired with the tempest of its passions, rests On you with holy hope! the hollow howl Of yonder harmless tenant of the woods Bursts not with terror on the sober'd sense.
If I have sinn'd against mankind, on them Be that past sin; they made me what I was.
In these extremest climes can Want no more Urge to the deeds of darkness, and at length Here shall I rest.
What tho' my hut be poor-- The rains descend not thro' its humble roof: Would I were there again! the night is cold; And what if in my wanderings I should rouse The savage from his thicket! Hark! the gun! And lo--the fire of safety! I shall reach My little hut again! again by toil Force from the stubborn earth my sustenance, And quick-ear'd guilt will never start alarm'd Amid the well-earn'd meal.
This felon's garb-- Will it not shield me from the winds of Heaven? And what could purple more? Oh strengthen me Eternal One in this serener state! Cleanse thou mine heart, so PENITENCE and FAITH Shall heal my soul and my last days be peace.
Written by John Dryden | Create an image from this poem

To The Pious Memory Of The Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew

 Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
 Made in the last promotion of the Blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,
 Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
 Mov'd with the Heavens' majestic pace:
 Or, call'd to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss.
What ever happy region is thy place, Cease thy celestial song a little space; (Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Since Heav'n's eternal year is thine.
) Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse, In no ignoble verse; But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesy were giv'n; To make thyself a welcome inmate there: While yet a young probationer, And Candidate of Heav'n.
If by traduction came thy mind, Our wonder is the less to find A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood: So wert thou born into the tuneful strain, (An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
) But if thy preexisting soul Was form'd, at first, with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll, Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O Heav'n-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return, to fill or mend the choir, of thy celestial kind.
May we presume to say, that at thy birth, New joy was sprung in Heav'n as well as here on earth.
For sure the milder planets did combine On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And ev'n the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres! And if no clust'ring swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, 'Twas that, such vulgar miracles, Heav'n had not leisure to renew: For all the blest fraternity of love Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy Holyday above.
O Gracious God! How far have we Profan'd thy Heav'nly gift of poesy? Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas'd to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adult'rate age, (Nay added fat pollutions of our own) T'increase the steaming ordures of the stage? What can we say t'excuse our Second Fall? Let this thy vestal, Heav'n, atone for all! Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd, Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd, Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child! Art she had none, yet wanted none: For Nature did that want supply, So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boasted stores defy: Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, That it seem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born.
Her morals too were in her bosom bred By great examples daily fed, What in the best of Books, her Father's Life, she read.
And to be read her self she need not fear, Each test, and ev'ry light, her Muse will bear, Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
Ev'n love (for love sometimes her Muse express'd) Was but a lambent-flame which play'd about her breast: Light as the vapours of a morning dream, So cold herself, whilst she such warmth express'd, 'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, One would have thought, she should have been content To manage well that mighty government; But what can young ambitious souls confine? To the next realm she stretch'd her sway, For painture near adjoining lay, A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
A chamber of dependences was fram'd, (As conquerors will never want pretence, When arm'd, to justify th'offence) And the whole fief, in right of poetry she claim'd.
The country open lay without defence: For poets frequent inroads there had made, And perfectly could represent The shape, the face, with ev'ry lineament: And all the large domains which the Dumb-sister sway'd, All bow'd beneath her government, Receiv'd in triumph wheresoe'er she went, Her pencil drew, what e'er her soul design'd, And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, And fruitful plains and barren rocks, Of shallow brooks that flow'd so clear, The bottom did the top appear; Of deeper too and ampler floods, Which as in mirrors, show'd the woods; Of lofty trees, with sacred shades, And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And shaggy satyrs standing near, Which them at once admire and fear.
The ruins too of some majestic piece, Boasting the pow'r of ancient Rome or Greece, Whose statues, friezes, columns broken lie, And tho' defac'd, the wonder of the eye, What Nature, art, bold fiction e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopl'd Ark the whole creation bore.
The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look Our martial king the sight with reverence strook: For not content t'express his outward part, Her hand call'd out the image of his heart, His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, His high-designing thoughts, were figur'd there, As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.
Our phoenix queen was portray'd too so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observ'd, as well as heav'nly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands, As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands: Before a train of heroines was seen, In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen! Thus nothing to her genius was deny'd, But like a ball of fire the further thrown, Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on ev'ry side.
What next she had design'd, Heaven only knows, To such immod'rate growth her conquest rose, That fate alone its progress could oppose.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace, The well-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face, Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes; In earth the much lamented virgin lies! Not wit, not piety could fate prevent; Nor was the cruel destiny content To finish all the murder at a blow, To sweep at once her life, and beauty too; But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride To work more mischievously slow, And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.
O double sacrilege on things divine, To rob the relique, and deface the shrine! But thus Orinda died: Heav'n, by the same disease, did both translate, As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
Meantime her warlike brother on the seas His waving streamers to the winds displays, And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth, that wish forbear, The winds too soon will waft thee here! Slack all thy sails, and fear to come, Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wreck'd at home! No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face, Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far, Among the Pleiad's, a new-kindl'd star, If any sparkles, than the rest, more bright, 'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
When in mid-air, the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground; When in the valley of Jehosophat, The Judging God shall close the book of fate; And there the last Assizes keep, For those who wake, and those who sleep; When rattling bones together fly, From the four corners of the sky, When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead; The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, And foremost from the tomb shall bound: For they are cover'd with the lightest ground, And straight, with in-born vigour, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, As harbinger of Heav'n, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learn'd below.
Written by Gerard Manley Hopkins | Create an image from this poem

In The Valley Of The Elwy

 I remember a house where all were good
 To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
 Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring: Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.
Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales, All the air things wear that build this world of Wales; Only the inmate does not correspond: God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales, Complete thy creature dear O where it fails, Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.


Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

249. Sappho Redivivus: A Fragment

 BY all I lov’d, neglected and forgot,
No friendly face e’er lights my squalid cot;
Shunn’d, hated, wrong’d, unpitied, unredrest,
The mock’d quotation of the scorner’s jest!
Ev’n the poor súpport of my wretched life,
Snatched by the violence of legal strife.
Oft grateful for my very daily bread To those my family’s once large bounty fed; A welcome inmate at their homely fare, My griefs, my woes, my sighs, my tears they share: (Their vulgar souls unlike the souls refin’d, The fashioned marble of the polished mind).
In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer, Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear; Above the world, on wings of Love, I rise— I know its worst, and can that worst despise; Let Prudence’ direst bodements on me fall, M[ontgomer]y, rich reward, o’erpays them all! Mild zephyrs waft thee to life’s farthest shore, Nor think of me and my distress more,— Falsehood accurst! No! still I beg a place, Still near thy heart some little, little trace: For that dear trace the world I would resign: O let me live, and die, and think it mine! “I burn, I burn, as when thro’ ripen’d corn By driving winds the crackling flames are borne;” Now raving-wild, I curse that fatal night, Then bless the hour that charm’d my guilty sight: In vain the laws their feeble force oppose, Chain’d at Love’s feet, they groan, his vanquish’d foes.
In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye, I dare not combat, but I turn and fly: Conscience in vain upbraids th’ unhallow’d fire, Love grasps her scorpions—stifled they expire! Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne, Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone; Each thought intoxicated homage yields, And riots wanton in forbidden fields.
By all on high adoring mortals know! By all the conscious villain fears below! By your dear self!—the last great oath I swear, Not life, nor soul, were ever half so dear!
Written by Francesco Petrarch | Create an image from this poem

SONNET LXXI

SONNET LXXI.

Piangete, donne, e con voi pianga Amore.

ON THE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA.

Weep, beauteous damsels, and let Cupid weep,
Of every region weep, ye lover train;
He, who so skilfully attuned his strain
To your fond cause, is sunk in death's cold sleep!
Such limits let not my affliction keep,
As may the solace of soft tears restrain;
And, to relieve my bosom of its pain,
Be all my sighs tumultuous, utter'd deep!
Let song itself, and votaries of verse,
Breathe mournful accents o'er our Cino's bier,
[Pg 91]Who late is gone to number with the blest!
Oh! weep, Pistoia, weep your sons perverse;
Its choicest habitant has fled our sphere,
And heaven may glory in its welcome guest!
Nott.
Ye damsels, pour your tears! weep with you.
Love!
Weep, all ye lovers, through the peopled sphere!
Since he is dead who, while he linger'd here,
With all his might to do you honour strove.
For me, this tyrant grief my prayers shall move
Not to contest the comfort of a tear,
Nor check those sighs, that to my heart are dear,
Since ease from them alone it hopes to prove.
Ye verses, weep!—ye rhymes, your woes renew!
For Cino, master of the love-fraught lay,
E'en now is from our fond embraces torn!
Pistoia, weep, and all your thankless crew!
Your sweetest inmate now is reft away—
But, heaven, rejoice, and hail your son new-born!
Charlemont.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things