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Best Famous Bribe Poems

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Written by Jonathan Swift | Create an image from this poem

To Stella Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems

 As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young, When first for thee my harp was strung, Without one word of Cupid's darts, Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts; With friendship and esteem possest, I ne'er admitted Love a guest.
In all the habitudes of life, The friend, the mistress, and the wife, Variety we still pursue, In pleasure seek for something new; Or else, comparing with the rest, Take comfort that our own is best; The best we value by the worst, As tradesmen show their trash at first; But his pursuits are at an end, Whom Stella chooses for a friend.
A poet starving in a garret, Invokes his mistress and his Muse, And stays at home for want of shoes: Should but his Muse descending drop A slice of bread and mutton-chop; Or kindly, when his credit's out, Surprise him with a pint of stout; Or patch his broken stocking soles; Or send him in a peck of coals; Exalted in his mighty mind, He flies and leaves the stars behind; Counts all his labours amply paid, Adores her for the timely aid.
Or, should a porter make inquiries For Chloe, Sylvia, Phillis, Iris; Be told the lodging, lane, and sign, The bowers that hold those nymphs divine; Fair Chloe would perhaps be found With footmen tippling under ground; The charming Sylvia beating flax, Her shoulders marked with bloody tracks; Bright Phyllis mending ragged smocks: And radiant Iris in the pox.
These are the goddesses enrolled In Curll's collection, new and old, Whose scoundrel fathers would not know 'em, If they should meet them in a poem.
True poets can depress and raise, Are lords of infamy and praise; They are not scurrilous in satire, Nor will in panegyric flatter.
Unjustly poets we asperse; Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.
Now, should my praises owe their truth To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth, What stoics call without our power, They could not be ensured an hour; 'Twere grafting on an annual stock, That must our expectation mock, And, making one luxuriant shoot, Die the next year for want of root: Before I could my verses bring, Perhaps you're quite another thing.
So Maevius, when he drained his skull To celebrate some suburb trull, His similes in order set, And every crambo he could get; Had gone through all the common-places Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces; Before he could his poem close, The lovely nymph had lost her nose.
Your virtues safely I commend; They on no accidents depend: Let malice look with all her eyes, She dare not say the poet lies.
Stella, when you these lines transcribe, Lest you should take them for a bribe, Resolved to mortify your pride, I'll here expose your weaker side.
Your spirits kindle to a flame, Moved by the lightest touch of blame; And when a friend in kindness tries To show you where your error lies, Conviction does but more incense; Perverseness is your whole defence; Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spite, Regardless both of wrong and right; Your virtues all suspended wait, Till time has opened reason's gate; And, what is worse, your passion bends Its force against your nearest friends, Which manners, decency, and pride, Have taught from you the world to hide; In vain; for see, your friend has brought To public light your only fault; And yet a fault we often find Mixed in a noble, generous mind: And may compare to Etna's fire, Which, though with trembling, all admire; The heat that makes the summit glow, Enriching all the vales below.
Those who, in warmer climes, complain From Phoebus' rays they suffer pain, Must own that pain is largely paid By generous wines beneath a shade.
Yet, when I find your passions rise, And anger sparkling in your eyes, I grieve those spirits should be spent, For nobler ends by nature meant.
One passion, with a different turn, Makes wit inflame, or anger burn: So the sun's heat, with different powers, Ripens the grape, the liquor sours: Thus Ajax, when with rage possest, By Pallas breathed into his breast, His valour would no more employ, Which might alone have conquered Troy; But, blinded be resentment, seeks For vengeance on his friends the Greeks.
You think this turbulence of blood From stagnating preserves the flood, Which, thus fermenting by degrees, Exalts the spirits, sinks the lees.
Stella, for once your reason wrong; For, should this ferment last too long, By time subsiding, you may find Nothing but acid left behind; From passion you may then be freed, When peevishness and spleen succeed.
Say, Stella, when you copy next, Will you keep strictly to the text? Dare you let these reproaches stand, And to your failing set your hand? Or, if these lines your anger fire, Shall they in baser flames expire? Whene'er they burn, if burn they must, They'll prove my accusation just.


Written by Edgar Allan Poe | Create an image from this poem

The Lake

 In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less-
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that spot, as upon all, And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody- Then- ah then I would awake To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight- A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define- Nor Love- although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining- Whose solitary soul could make An Eden of that dim lake.
Written by Geoffrey Chaucer | Create an image from this poem

The Cooks Tale

 THE PROLOGUE.
THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake, For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back: "Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion, This Miller had a sharp conclusion, Upon this argument of herbergage.
* *lodging Well saide Solomon in his language, Bring thou not every man into thine house, For harbouring by night is perilous.
*Well ought a man avised for to be* *a man should take good heed* Whom that he brought into his privity.
I pray to God to give me sorrow and care If ever, since I highte* Hodge of Ware, *was called Heard I a miller better *set a-work*; *handled He had a jape* of malice in the derk.
*trick But God forbid that we should stinte* here, *stop And therefore if ye will vouchsafe to hear A tale of me, that am a poore man, I will you tell as well as e'er I can A little jape that fell in our city.
" Our Host answer'd and said; "I grant it thee.
Roger, tell on; and look that it be good, For many a pasty hast thou letten blood, And many a Jack of Dover<1> hast thou sold, That had been twice hot and twice cold.
Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christe's curse, For of thy parsley yet fare they the worse.
That they have eaten in thy stubble goose: For in thy shop doth many a fly go loose.
Now tell on, gentle Roger, by thy name, But yet I pray thee be not *wroth for game*; *angry with my jesting* A man may say full sooth in game and play.
" "Thou sayst full sooth," quoth Roger, "by my fay; But sooth play quad play,<2> as the Fleming saith, And therefore, Harry Bailly, by thy faith, Be thou not wroth, else we departe* here, *part company Though that my tale be of an hostelere.
* *innkeeper But natheless, I will not tell it yet, But ere we part, y-wis* thou shalt be quit.
"<3> *assuredly And therewithal he laugh'd and made cheer,<4> And told his tale, as ye shall after hear.
Notes to the Prologue to the Cook's Tale 1.
Jack of Dover: an article of cookery.
(Transcriber's note: suggested by some commentators to be a kind of pie, and by others to be a fish) 2.
Sooth play quad play: true jest is no jest.
3.
It may be remembered that each pilgrim was bound to tell two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, the other returning.
4.
Made cheer: French, "fit bonne mine;" put on a pleasant countenance.
THE TALE.
A prentice whilom dwelt in our city, And of a craft of victuallers was he: Galliard* he was, as goldfinch in the shaw**, *lively **grove Brown as a berry, a proper short fellaw: With lockes black, combed full fetisly.
* *daintily And dance he could so well and jollily, That he was called Perkin Revellour.
He was as full of love and paramour, As is the honeycomb of honey sweet; Well was the wenche that with him might meet.
At every bridal would he sing and hop; He better lov'd the tavern than the shop.
For when there any riding was in Cheap,<1> Out of the shoppe thither would he leap, And, till that he had all the sight y-seen, And danced well, he would not come again; And gather'd him a meinie* of his sort, *company of fellows To hop and sing, and make such disport: And there they *sette steven* for to meet *made appointment* To playen at the dice in such a street.
For in the towne was there no prentice That fairer coulde cast a pair of dice Than Perkin could; and thereto *he was free *he spent money liberally Of his dispence, in place of privity.
* where he would not be seen* That found his master well in his chaffare,* *merchandise For oftentime he found his box full bare.
For, soothely, a prentice revellour, That haunteth dice, riot, and paramour, His master shall it in his shop abie*, *suffer for All* have he no part of the minstrelsy.
*although For theft and riot they be convertible, All can they play on *gitern or ribible.
* *guitar or rebeck* Revel and truth, as in a low degree, They be full wroth* all day, as men may see.
*at variance This jolly prentice with his master bode, Till he was nigh out of his prenticehood, All were he snubbed* both early and late, *rebuked And sometimes led with revel to Newgate.
But at the last his master him bethought, Upon a day when he his paper<2> sought, Of a proverb, that saith this same word; Better is rotten apple out of hoard, Than that it should rot all the remenant: So fares it by a riotous servant; It is well lesse harm to let him pace*, *pass, go Than he shend* all the servants in the place.
*corrupt Therefore his master gave him a quittance, And bade him go, with sorrow and mischance.
And thus this jolly prentice had his leve*: *desire Now let him riot all the night, or leave*.
*refrain And, for there is no thief without a louke,<3> That helpeth him to wasten and to souk* *spend Of that he bribe* can, or borrow may, *steal Anon he sent his bed and his array Unto a compere* of his owen sort, *comrade That loved dice, and riot, and disport; And had a wife, that held *for countenance* *for appearances* A shop, and swived* for her sustenance.
*prostituted herself .
.
.
.
.
.
.
<4> Notes to the Cook's Tale 1.
Cheapside, where jousts were sometimes held, and which was the great scene of city revels and processions.
2.
His paper: his certificate of completion of his apprenticeship.
3.
Louke: The precise meaning of the word is unknown, but it is doubtless included in the cant term "pal".
4.
The Cook's Tale is unfinished in all the manuscripts; but in some, of minor authority, the Cook is made to break off his tale, because "it is so foul," and to tell the story of Gamelyn, on which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is founded.
The story is not Chaucer's, and is different in metre, and inferior in composition to the Tales.
It is supposed that Chaucer expunged the Cook's Tale for the same reason that made him on his death- bed lament that he had written so much "ribaldry.
"
Written by William Butler Yeats | Create an image from this poem

Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen

 I

Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about.
There stood Amid the ornamental bronze and stone An ancient image made of olive wood - And gone are phidias' famous ivories And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young: A law indifferent to blame or praise, To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays; Public opinion ripening for so long We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned, And a great army but a showy thing; What matter that no cannon had been turned Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king Thought that unless a little powder burned The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting And yet it lack all glory; and perchance The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery Can leave the mother, murdered at her door, To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free; The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand, Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent On master-work of intellect or hand, No honour leave its mighty monument, Has but one comfort left: all triumph would But break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is there any comfort to be found? Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say? That country round None dared admit, if Such a thought were his, Incendiary or bigot could be found To burn that stump on the Acropolis, Or break in bits the famous ivories Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
Written by Anne Kingsmill Finch | Create an image from this poem

The Owl Describing her Young Ones

 Why was that baleful Creature made, 
Which seeks our Quiet to invade, 
And screams ill Omens through the Shade? 

'Twas, sure, for every Mortals good, 
When, by wrong painting of her Brood, 
She doom'd them for the Eagle's Food: 

Who proffer'd Safety to her Tribe, 
Wou'd she but shew them or describe, 
And serving him, his Favour bribe.
When thus she did his Highness tell; In Looks my Young do all excel, Nor Nightingales can sing so well.
You'd joy to see the pretty Souls, With wadling Steps and frowzy Poles, Come creeping from their secret Holes.
But I ne'er let them take the Air, The Fortune-hunters do so stare; And Heiresses indeed they are.
This ancient Yew three hundred Years, Has been possess'd by Lineal Heirs: The Males extinct, now All is Theirs.
I hope I've done their Beauties right, Whose Eyes outshine the Stars by Night; Their Muffs and Tippets too are White.
The King of Cedars wav'd his Power, And swore he'd fast ev'n from that Hour, Ere he'd such Lady Birds devour.
Th' Agreement seal'd, on either part, The Owl now promis'd, from her Heart, All his Night-Dangers to divert; As Centinel to stand and whoop, If single Fowl, or Shoal, or Troop Should at his Palace aim or stoop.
But home, one Evening without Meat, The Eagle comes, and takes his Seat, Where they did these Conditions treat.
The Mother-Owl was prol'd away, To seek abroad for needful Prey, And forth the Misses came to play.
What's here ! the hungry Monarch cry'd, When near him living Flesh he spy'd, With which he hop'd to be supply'd.
But recollecting, 'twas the Place, Where he'd so lately promis'd Grace To an enchanting, beauteous Race; He paus'd a while, and kept his Maw, With sober Temperance, in awe, Till all their Lineaments he saw.
What are these Things, and of what Sex, At length he cry'd, with Vultur's Becks, And Shoulders higher than their Necks? These wear no Palatines, nor Muffs, Italian Silks, or Doyley Stuffs, But motley Callicoes, and Ruffs.
Nor Brightness in their Eyes is seen, But through the Film a dusky Green, And like old Margery is their Mien.
Then for my Supper they're design'd, Nor can be of that lovely Kind, To whom my Pity was inclin'd.
No more Delays; as soon as spoke, The Plumes are stripped, the Grisles broke, And near the Feeder was to choak.
When now return'd the grizly Dame, (Whose Family was out of Frame) Against League-Breakers does exclaim.
How! quoth the Lord of soaring Fowls, (Whilst horribly she wails and howls) Were then your Progeny but Owls? I thought some Phoenix was their Sire, Who did those charming Looks inspire, That you'd prepar'd me to admire.
Upon your self the Blame be laid; My Talons you've to Blood betray'd, And ly'd in every Word you said.
Faces or Books, beyond their Worth extoll'd, Are censur'd most, and thus to pieces pulled.


Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

Grey Gull

 'Twas on an iron, icy day
I saw a pirate gull down-plane,
And hover in a wistful way
Nigh where my chickens picked their grain.
An outcast gull, so grey and old, Withered of leg I watched it hop, By hunger goaded and by cold, To where each fowl full-filled its crop.
They hospitably welcomed it, And at the food rack gave it place; It ate and ate, it preened a bit, By way way of gratitude and grace.
It parleyed with my barnyard cock, Then resolutely winged away; But I am fey in feather talk, And this is what I heard it say: "I know that you and all your tribe Are shielded warm and fenced from fear; With food and comfort you would bribe My weary wings to linger here.
An outlaw scarred and leather-lean, I battle with the winds of woe: You think me scaly and unclean.
.
.
And yet my soul you do not know, "I storm the golden gates of day, I wing the silver lanes of night; I plumb the deep for finny prey, On wave I sleep in tempest height.
Conceived was I by sea and sky, Their elements are fused in me; Of brigand birds that float and fly I am the freest of the free.
"From peak to plain, from palm to pine I coast creation at my will; The chartless solitudes are mine, And no one seeks to do me ill.
Until some cauldron of the sea Shall gulp for me and I shall cease.
.
.
Oh I have lived enormously And I shall have prodigious peace.
" With yellow bill and beady eye This spoke, I think, that old grey gull; And as I watched it Southward fly Life seemed to be a-sudden dull.
For I have often held this thought - If I could change this mouldy me, By heaven! I would choose the lot, Of all the gypsy birds, to be A gull that spans the spacious sea.
Written by Anne Killigrew | Create an image from this poem

The Discontent

 I.
HEre take no Care, take here no Care, my Muse, Nor ought of Art or Labour use: But let thy Lines rude and unpolisht go, Nor Equal be their Feet, nor Num'rous let them flow.
The ruggeder my Measures run when read, They'l livelier paint th'unequal Paths fond Mortals tread.
Who when th'are tempted by the smooth Ascents, Which flatt'ring Hope presents, Briskly they clime, and Great Things undertake; But Fatal Voyages, alas, they make: For 'tis not long before their Feet, Inextricable Mazes meet, Perplexing Doubts obstruct their Way, Mountains with-stand them of Dismay; Or to the Brink of black Dispaire them lead, Where's nought their Ruine to impede, In vain for Aide they then to Reason call, Their Senses dazle, and their Heads turn round, The sight does all their Pow'rs confound, And headlong down the horrid Precipice they fall: Where storms of Sighs for ever blow, Where raped streams of Tears do flow, Which drown them in a Briny Floud.
My Muse pronounce aloud, there's nothing Good, Nought that the World can show, Nought that it can bestow.
II.
Not boundless Heaps of its admired Clay, Ah, too successful to betray, When spread in our fraile Vertues way: For few do run with so Resolv'd a Pace, That for the Golden Apple will not loose the Race.
And yet not all the Gold the Vain would spend, Or greedy Avarice would wish to save; Which on the Earth refulgent Beams doth send, Or in the Sea has found a Grave, Joyn'd in one Mass, can Bribe sufficient be, The Body from a stern Disease to free, Or purchase for the Minds relief One Moments sweet Repose, when restless made by grief, But what may Laughter, more than Pity, move: When some the Price of what they Dear'st Love Are Masters of, and hold it in their Hand, To part with it their Hearts they can't command: But chose to miss, what miss't does them torment, And that to hug, affords them no Content.
Wise Fools, to do them Right, we these must hold, Who Love depose, and Homage pay to Gold.
III.
Nor yet, if rightly understood, Does Grandeur carry more of Good; To be o'th' Number of the Great enroll'd, A Scepter o're a Mighty Realm to hold.
For what is this? If I not judge amiss.
But all th'Afflicted of a Land to take, And of one single Family to make? The Wrong'd, the Poor, th'Opprest, the Sad, The Ruin'd, Malecontent, and Mad? Which a great Part of ev'ry Empire frame, And Interest in the common Father claime.
Again what is't, but always to abide A Gazing Crowd? upon a Stage to spend A Life that's vain, or Evil without End? And which is yet not safely held, nor laid aside? And then, if lesser Titles carry less of Care, Yet none but Fools ambitious are to share Such a Mock-Good, of which 'tis said, 'tis Best, When of the least of it Men are possest.
IV.
But, O, the Laurel'd Fool! that doats on Fame, Whose Hope's Applause, whose Fear's to want a Name; Who can accept for Pay Of what he does, what others say; Exposes now to hostile Arms his Breast, To toylsome Study then betrays his Rest; Now to his Soul denies a just Content, Then forces on it what it does resent; And all for Praise of Fools: for such are those, Which most of the Admiring Crowd compose.
O famisht Soul, which such Thin Food can feed! O Wretched Labour crown'd with such a Meed! Too loud, O Fame! thy Trumpet is, too shrill, To lull a Mind to Rest, Or calme a stormy Breast, Which asks a Musick soft and still.
'Twas not Amaleck's vanquisht Cry, Nor Israels shout of Victory, That could in Saul the rising Passion lay, 'Twas the soft strains of David's Lyre the Evil Spirit chace't away.
V.
But Friendship fain would yet it self defend, And Mighty Things it does pretend, To be of this Sad Journey, Life, the Baite, The Sweet Refection of our toylsome State.
But though True Friendship a Rich Cordial be, Alas, by most 'tis so alay'd, Its Good so mixt with Ill we see, That Dross for Gold is often paid.
And for one Grain of Friendship that is found, Falshood and Interest do the Mass compound, Or coldness, worse than Steel, the Loyal heart doth wound.
Love in no Two was ever yet the same, No Happy Two ere felt an Equal Flame.
VI.
Is there that Earth by Humane Foot ne're prest? That Aire which never yet by Humane Breast Respir'd, did Life supply? Oh, thither let me fly! Where from the World at such a distance set, All that's past, present, and to come I may forget: The Lovers Sighs, and the Afflicted Tears, What e're may wound my Eyes or Ears.
The grating Noise of Private Jars, The horrid sound of Publick Wars, Of babling Fame the Idle Stories, The short-liv'd Triumphs Noysy-Glories, The Curious Nets the subtile weave, The Word, the Look that may deceive.
No Mundan Care shall more affect my Breast, My profound Peace shake or molest: But Stupor, like to Death, my Senses bind, That so I may anticipate that Rest, Which only in my Grave I hope to find.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

Russia To The Pacifists

  1918
God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
 But--leave your sports a little while--the dead are borne
 this way!
Armies dead and Cities dead, past all count or care.
God rest you, merry gentlemen, what portent see you there? Singing:--Break ground for a wearied host That have no ground to keep.
Give them the rest that they covet most .
.
.
And who shall next to sleep, good sirs, In such a trench to sleep? God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, but give us leave to pass.
We go to dig a nation's grave as great as England was.
For this Kingdom and this Glory and this Power and this Pride Three hundred years it flourished--in three hundred days it died.
Singing:--Pour oil for a frozen throng, That lie about the ways.
Give them the warmth they have lacked so long .
.
.
And what shall be next to blaze, good sirs, On such a pyre to blaze? God rest you, thoughtful gentlemen, and send your sleep is light! Remains of this dominion no shadow, sound, or sight, Except the sound of weeping and the sight of burning fire, And the shadow of a people that is trampled into mire.
Singing:--Break bread for a starving folk That perish in the field.
Give them their food as they take the yoke .
.
.
And who shall be next to yield, good sirs, For such a bribe to yield? God rest you merry gentlemen, and keep you in your mirth! Was ever Kingdom turned so soon to ashes, blood and earth? 'Twixt the summer and the snow-seeding-time and frost-- Arms and victual, hope and counsel, name and country lost! Singing:--Let down by the foot and the head-- Shovel and smooth it all ! So do we bury a Nation dead .
.
.
And who shall be next to fall, good sirs, With your good help to fall?
Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

The Skies cant keep their secret!

 The Skies can't keep their secret!
They tell it to the Hills --
The Hills just tell the Orchards --
And they -- the Daffodils!

A Bird -- by chance -- that goes that way --
Soft overhears the whole --
If I should bribe the little Bird --
Who knows but she would tell?

I think I won't -- however --
It's finer -- not to know --
If Summer were an Axiom --
What sorcery had Snow?

So keep your secret -- Father!
I would not -- if I could,
Know what the Sapphire Fellows, do,
In your new-fashioned world!
Written by William Cowper | Create an image from this poem

Self-Acquaintance

 Dear Lord! accept a sinful heart,
Which of itself complains,
And mourns, with much and frequent smart,
The evil it contains.
There fiery seeds of anger lurk, Which often hurt my frame; And wait but for the tempter's work, To fan them to a flame.
Legality holds out a bribe To purchase life from Thee; And Discontent would fain prescribe How Thou shalt deal with me.
While Unbelief withstands Thy grace, And puts the mercy by, Presumption, with a brow of brass, Says, "Give me, or I die!" How eager are my thoughts to roam, In quest of what they love! But ah! when duty calls them home, How heavily they move! Oh, cleanse me in a Saviour's blood, Transform me by Thy power, And make me Thy beloved abode, And let me roam no more.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things