Famous Ape Poems by Famous Poets

 The First Voice 


HE trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea: 

It passed athwart the glooming flat -
It...Read More

 DEDICATION 

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie...Read More

 Before those cruel twins whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left...Read More

CANTO FIRST.

The Chase.

     Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
        On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's...Read More

 I.

You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!

II.

Ours is a...Read More

 THE PROLOGUE.

When that the Knight had thus his tale told
In all the rout was neither young nor old,
That he not said it was a noble story,
And worthy to be...Read More

 Thou hast committed—
Fornication: but that was in another country,
And besides, the wench is dead.

The Jew of Malta.


I

AMONG the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange...Read More

 (In memoriam
C. T. W.
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards
obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire
July 7, 1896)

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and...Read More

 To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents
When beasts could speak (the learned say, 
They still can do so ev'ry day),
It seems, they had religion...Read More

 I.

The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm...Read More

 The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear 
So charming left his voice, that he a while 
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear; 
Then, as new waked,...Read More

 THE PROLOGUE.


This worthy limitour, this noble Frere,
He made always a manner louring cheer* *countenance
Upon the Sompnour; but for honesty* *courtesy
No villain word as yet to him spake he:
But at...Read More

 Chapter I.

Once on a time, a Dawn, all red and bright
Leapt on the conquered ramparts of the Night,
And flamed, one brilliant instant, on the world,
Then back into the historic...Read More

 THE PROLOGUE.


WHEN folk had laughed all at this nice case
Of Absolon and Hendy Nicholas,
Diverse folk diversely they said,
But for the more part they laugh'd and play'd;* *were diverted
And at...Read More

 Morn in the wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care 
Descended to the court that...Read More

 That this should feel the need of Death
The same as those that lived
Is such a Feat of Irony
As never was -- achieved --

Not satisfied to ape the Great
In his...Read More

 Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck...Read More

 Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges --
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the...Read More

 Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb. 

Nations, and languages, and every Creature, in which is the breath of Life. 

Let...Read More

 "Man wants but little here below."



LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;
And...Read More

 When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade...Read More

 How this tart fable instructs
And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on...Read More

 (for Rona, Jeremy, Sam & Grace)

All the lizards are asleep--
perched pagodas with tiny triangular tiles,
each milky lid a steamed-up window.
Inside, the heart repeats itself like a sleepy gong,
summoning nothing...Read More

 'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound' 
Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and we 
Down from the lean...Read More

 'Twas in scientific circles 
That the great Professor Brown 
Had a world-wide reputation 
As a writer of renown. 
He had striven finer feelings 
In our natures to implant 
By...Read More