10 Best Famous Comeliness Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Comeliness poems. This is a select list of the best famous Comeliness poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Comeliness poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of comeliness poems.

• All Famous Comeliness Poems

 I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.

At breakfast, then, it would befall that Sister Jane would say:
"Mother, if you have got the things, I'll make some cake to-day!"
Poor mother'd cast a timid glance at father, like as not--
For father hinted sister's cooking cost a frightful lot--
But neither she nor he presumed to signify dissent,
Accepting it for gospel truth that what she wanted went!

No matter what the rest of 'em might chance to have in hand,
The whole machinery of the house came to a sudden stand;
The pots were hustled off the stove, the fire built up anew,
With every damper set just so to heat the oven through;
The kitchen-table was relieved of everything, to make
That ample space which Jane required when she compounded cake.

And, oh! the bustling here and there, the flying to and fro;
The click of forks that whipped the eggs to lather white as snow--
And what a wealth of sugar melted swiftly out of sight--
And butter? Mother said such waste would ruin father, quite!
But Sister Jane preserved a mien no pleading could confound
As she utilized the raisins and the citron by the pound.

Oh, hours of chaos, tumult, heat, vexatious din, and whirl!
Of deep humiliation for the sullen hired-girl;
Of grief for mother, hating to see things wasted so,
And of fortune for that little boy who pined to taste that dough!
It looked so sweet and yellow--sure, to taste it were no sin--
But, oh! how sister scolded if he stuck his finger in!

The chances were as ten to one, before the job was through,
That sister'd think of something else she'd great deal rather do!
So, then, she'd softly steal away, as Arabs in the night,
Leaving the girl and ma to finish up as best they might;
These tactics (artful Sister Jane) enabled her to take
Or shift the credit or the blame of that too-treacherous cake!

And yet, unhappy is the man who has no Sister Jane--
For he who has no sister seems to me to live in vain.
I never had a sister--may be that is why today
I'm wizened and dyspeptic, instead of blithe and gay;
A boy who's only forty should be full of romp and mirth,
But I (because I'm sisterless) am the oldest man on earth!

Had I a little sister--oh, how happy I should be!
I'd never let her cast her eyes on any chap but me;
I'd love her and I'd cherish her for better and for worse--
I'd buy her gowns and bonnets, and sing her praise in verse;
And--yes, what's more and vastly more--I tell you what I'd do:
I'd let her make her wondrous cake, and I would eat it, too!

I have a high opinion of the sisters, as you see--
Another fellow's sister is so very dear to me!
I love to work anear her when she's making over frocks,
When she patches little trousers or darns prosaic socks;
But I draw the line at one thing--yes, I don my hat and take
A three hours' walk when she is moved to try her hand at cake!

 (For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
 Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and
 the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth,
 and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

 I
A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket--
The sea was still breaking violently and night
Had steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,
When the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net. Light
Flashed from his matted head and marble feet,
He grappled at the net
With the coiled, hurdling muscles of his thighs:
The corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,
Its open, staring eyes
Were lustreless dead-lights
Or cabin-windows on a stranded hulk
Heavy with sand. We weight the body, close
Its eyes and heave it seaward whence it came,
Where the heel-headed dogfish barks it nose
On Ahab's void and forehead; and the name
Is blocked in yellow chalk.
Sailors, who pitch this portent at the sea
Where dreadnaughts shall confess
Its heel-bent deity,
When you are powerless
To sand-bag this Atlantic bulwark, faced
By the earth-shaker, green, unwearied, chaste
In his steel scales: ask for no Orphean lute
To pluck life back. The guns of the steeled fleet
Recoil and then repeat
The hoarse salute.

 II

Whenever winds are moving and their breath
Heaves at the roped-in bulwarks of this pier,
The terns and sea-gulls tremble at your death
In these home waters. Sailor, can you hear
The Pequod's sea wings, beating landward, fall
Headlong and break on our Atlantic wall
Off 'Sconset, where the yawing S-boats splash
The bellbuoy, with ballooning spinnakers,
As the entangled, screeching mainsheet clears
The blocks: off Madaket, where lubbers lash
The heavy surf and throw their long lead squids
For blue-fish? Sea-gulls blink their heavy lids
Seaward. The winds' wings beat upon the stones,
Cousin, and scream for you and the claws rush
At the sea's throat and wring it in the slush
Of this old Quaker graveyard where the bones
Cry out in the long night for the hurt beast
Bobbing by Ahab's whaleboats in the East. 

 III

All you recovered from Poseidon died
With you, my cousin, and the harrowed brine
Is fruitless on the blue beard of the god,
Stretching beyond us to the castles in Spain,
Nantucket's westward haven. To Cape Cod
Guns, cradled on the tide,
Blast the eelgrass about a waterclock
Of bilge and backwash, roil the salt and sand
Lashing earth's scaffold, rock
Our warships in the hand
Of the great God, where time's contrition blues
Whatever it was these Quaker sailors lost
In the mad scramble of their lives. They died
When time was open-eyed,
Wooden and childish; only bones abide
There, in the nowhere, where their boats were tossed
Sky-high, where mariners had fabled news
Of IS, the whited monster. What it cost
Them is their secret. In the sperm-whale's slick
I see the Quakers drown and hear their cry:
"If God himself had not been on our side,
If God himself had not been on our side,
When the Atlantic rose against us, why,
Then it had swallowed us up quick." 

 IV

This is the end of the whaleroad and the whale
Who spewed Nantucket bones on the thrashed swell
And stirred the troubled waters to whirlpools
To send the Pequod packing off to hell:
This is the end of them, three-quarters fools,
Snatching at straws to sail
Seaward and seaward on the turntail whale,
Spouting out blood and water as it rolls,
Sick as a dog to these Atlantic shoals:
Clamavimus, O depths. Let the sea-gulls wail

For water, for the deep where the high tide
Mutters to its hurt self, mutters and ebbs.
Waves wallow in their wash, go out and out,
Leave only the death-rattle of the crabs,
The beach increasing, its enormous snout
Sucking the ocean's side.
This is the end of running on the waves;
We are poured out like water. Who will dance
The mast-lashed master of Leviathans
Up from this field of Quakers in their unstoned graves? 

 V

When the whale's viscera go and the roll
Of its corruption overruns this world
Beyond tree-swept Nantucket and Wood's Hole
And Martha's Vineyard, Sailor, will your sword
Whistle and fall and sink into the fat?
In the great ash-pit of Jehoshaphat
The bones cry for the blood of the white whale,
The fat flukes arch and whack about its ears,
The death-lance churns into the sanctuary, tears
The gun-blue swingle, heaving like a flail,
And hacks the coiling life out: it works and drags
And rips the sperm-whale's midriff into rags,
Gobbets of blubber spill to wind and weather,
Sailor, and gulls go round the stoven timbers
Where the morning stars sing out together
And thunder shakes the white surf and dismembers
The red flag hammered in the mast-head. Hide,
Our steel, Jonas Messias, in Thy side. 

 VI

 OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM

There once the penitents took off their shoes
And then walked barefoot the remaining mile;
And the small trees, a stream and hedgerows file
Slowly along the munching English lane,
Like cows to the old shrine, until you lose
Track of your dragging pain.
The stream flows down under the druid tree,
Shiloah's whirlpools gurgle and make glad
The castle of God. Sailor, you were glad
And whistled Sion by that stream. But see:

Our Lady, too small for her canopy,
Sits near the altar. There's no comeliness
at all or charm in that expressionless
Face with its heavy eyelids. As before,
This face, for centuries a memory,
Non est species, neque decor,
Expressionless, expresses God: it goes
Past castled Sion. She knows what God knows,
Not Calvary's Cross nor crib at Bethlehem
Now, and the world shall come to Walsingham. 

 VII

The empty winds are creaking and the oak
splatters and splatters on the cenotaph,
The boughs are trembling and a gaff
Bobs on the untimely stroke
Of the greased wash exploding on a shoal-bell
In the old mouth of the Atlantic. It's well;
Atlantic, you are fouled with the blue sailors,
sea-monsters, upward angel, downward fish:
Unmarried and corroding, spare of flesh
Mart once of supercilious, wing'd clippers,
Atlantic, where your bell-trap guts its spoil
You could cut the brackish winds with a knife
Here in Nantucket, and cast up the time
When the Lord God formed man from the sea's slime
And breathed into his face the breath of life,
And blue-lung'd combers lumbered to the kill.
The Lord survives the rainbow of His will.

 Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker 
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her, 
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker, 

From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses, 
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses 
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!) 

From some real care but more fancied vexation, 
From a life parti-colour'd half reason half passion, 
Here lies after all the best wench in the nation. 

From the Rhine to the Po, from the Thames to the Rhone, 
Joanna or Janneton, Jinny or Joan, 
'Twas all one to her by what name she was known. 

For the idiom of words very little she heeded, 
Provided the matter she drove at succeeded, 
She took and gave languages just as she needed. 

So for kitchen and market, for bargain and sale, 
She paid English or Dutch or French down on the nail, 
But in telling a story she sometimes did fail; 

Then begging excuse as she happen'd to stammer, 
With respect to her betters but none to her grammar, 
Her blush helped her out and her jargon became her. 

Her habit and mien she endeavor'd to frame 
To the different gout of the place where she came; 
Her outside still chang'd, but her inside the same: 

At the Hague in her slippers and hair as the mode is, 
At Paris all falbalow'd fine as a goddess, 
And at censuring London in smock sleeves and bodice. 

She order'd affairs that few people could tell 
In what part about her that mixture did dwell 
Of Frow, or Mistress, or Mademoiselle. 

For her surname and race let the herald's e'en answer; 
Her own proper worth was enough to advance her, 
And he who liked her, little value her grandsire. 

But from what house so ever her lineage may come 
I wish my own Jinny but out of her tomb, 
Tho' all her relations were there in her room. 

Of such terrible beauty she never could boast 
As with absolute sway o'er all hearts rules the roast 
When J___ bawls out to the chair for a toast; 

But of good household features her person was made, 
Nor by faction cried up nor of censure afraid, 
And her beauty was rather for use than parade. 

Her blood so well mix't and flesh so well pasted 
That, tho' her youth faded, her comeliness lasted; 
The blue was wore off, but the plum was well tasted. 

Less smooth than her skin and less white than her breast 
Was this polished stone beneath which she lies pressed: 
Stop, reader, and sigh while thou thinkst on the rest. 

With a just trim of virtue her soul was endued, 
Not affectedly pious nor secretly lewd 
She cut even between the coquette and the prude. 

Her will with her duty so equally stood 
That, seldom oppos'd, she was commonly good, 
And did pretty well, doing just what she would. 

Declining all power she found means to persuade, 
Was then most regarded when most she obey'd, 
The mistress in truth when she seem'd but the maid. 

Such care of her own proper actions she took 
That on other folk's lives she had not time to look, 
So censure and praise were struck out of her book. 

Her thought still confin'd to its own little sphere, 
She minded not who did excel or did err 
But just as the matter related to her. 

Then too when her private tribunal was rear'd 
Her mercy so mix'd with her judgment appear'd 
That her foes were condemn'd and her friends always clear'd. 

Her religion so well with her learning did suit 
That in practice sincere, and in controverse mute, 
She showed she knew better to live than dispute. 

Some parts of the Bible by heart she recited, 
And much in historical chapters delighted, 
But in points about Faith she was something short sighted; 

So notions and modes she refer'd to the schools, 
And in matters of conscience adher'd to two rules, 
To advise with no bigots, and jest with no fools. 

And scrupling but little, enough she believ'd, 
By charity ample small sins she retriev'd, 
And when she had new clothes she always receiv'd. 

Thus still whilst her morning unseen fled away 
In ord'ring the linen and making the tea 
That scarce could have time for the psalms of the day; 

And while after dinner the night came so soon 
That half she propos'd very seldom was done; 
With twenty God bless me's, how this day is gone! -- 

While she read and accounted and paid and abated, 
Eat and drank, play'd and work'd, laugh'd and cried, lov'd and hated, 
As answer'd the end of her being created: 

In the midst of her age came a cruel disease 
Which neither her juleps nor receipts could appease; 
So down dropp'd her clay -- may her Soul be at peace! 

Retire from this sepulchre all the profane, 
You that love for debauch, or that marry for gain, 
Retire lest ye trouble the Manes of J___. 

But thou that know'st love above int'rest or lust, 
Strew the myrle and rose on this once belov'd dust, 
And shed one pious tear upon Jinny the Just. 

Tread soft on her grave, and do right to her honor, 
Let neither rude hand nor ill tongue light upon her, 
Do all the small favors that now can be done her. 

And when what thou lik'd shall return to her clay, 
For so I'm persuaded she must do one day 
-- Whatever fantastic John Asgill may say -- 

When as I have done now, thou shalt set up a stone 
For something however distinguished or known, 
May some pious friend the misfortune bemoan, 
And make thy concern by reflexion his own.

 Till I shall come again, let this suffice,
I send my salt, my sacrifice
To thee, thy lady, younglings, and as far
As to thy Genius and thy Lar;
To the worn threshold, porch, hall, parlour, kitchen,
The fat-fed smoking temple, which in
The wholesome savour of thy mighty chines,
Invites to supper him who dines:
Where laden spits, warp'd with large ribs of beef,
Not represent, but give relief
To the lank stranger and the sour swain,
Where both may feed and come again;
For no black-bearded Vigil from thy door
Beats with a button'd-staff the poor;
But from thy warm love-hatching gates, each may
Take friendly morsels, and there stay
To sun his thin-clad members, if he likes;
For thou no porter keep'st who strikes.
No comer to thy roof his guest-rite wants;
Or, staying there, is scourged with taunts
Of some rough groom, who, yirk'd with corns, says, 'Sir,
'You've dipp'd too long i' th' vinegar;
'And with our broth and bread and bits, Sir friend,
'You've fared well; pray make an end;
'Two days you've larded here; a third, ye know,
'Makes guests and fish smell strong; pray go
'You to some other chimney, and there take
'Essay of other giblets; make
'Merry at another's hearth; you're here
'Welcome as thunder to our beer;
'Manners knows distance, and a man unrude
'Would soon recoil, and not intrude
'His stomach to a second meal.'--No, no,
Thy house, well fed and taught, can show
No such crabb'd vizard: Thou hast learnt thy train
With heart and hand to entertain;
And by the arms-full, with a breast unhid,
As the old race of mankind did,
When either's heart, and either's hand did strive
To be the nearer relative;
Thou dost redeem those times: and what was lost
Of ancient honesty, may boast
It keeps a growth in thee, and so will run
A course in thy fame's pledge, thy son.
Thus, like a Roman Tribune, thou thy gate
Early sets ope to feast, and late;
Keeping no currish waiter to affright,
With blasting eye, the appetite,
Which fain would waste upon thy cates, but that
The trencher creature marketh what
Best and more suppling piece he cuts, and by
Some private pinch tells dangers nigh,
A hand too desp'rate, or a knife that bites
Skin-deep into the pork, or lights
Upon some part of kid, as if mistook,
When checked by the butler's look.
No, no, thy bread, thy wine, thy jocund beer
Is not reserved for Trebius here,
But all who at thy table seated are,
Find equal freedom, equal fare;
And thou, like to that hospitable god,
Jove, joy'st when guests make their abode
To eat thy bullocks thighs, thy veals, thy fat
Wethers, and never grudged at.
The pheasant, partridge, gotwit, reeve, ruff, rail,
The cock, the curlew, and the quail,
These, and thy choicest viands, do extend
Their tastes unto the lower end
Of thy glad table; not a dish more known
To thee, than unto any one:
But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine
Makes the smirk face of each to shine,
And spring fresh rose-buds, while the salt, the wit,
Flows from the wine, and graces it;
While Reverence, waiting at the bashful board,
Honours my lady and my lord.
No scurril jest, no open scene is laid
Here, for to make the face afraid;
But temp'rate mirth dealt forth, and so discreet-
Ly, that it makes the meat more sweet,
And adds perfumes unto the wine, which thou
Dost rather pour forth, than allow
By cruse and measure; thus devoting wine,
As the Canary isles were thine;
But with that wisdom and that method, as
No one that's there his guilty glass
Drinks of distemper, or has cause to cry
Repentance to his liberty.
No, thou know'st orders, ethics, and hast read
All oeconomics, know'st to lead
A house-dance neatly, and canst truly show
How far a figure ought to go,
Forward or backward, side-ward, and what pace
Can give, and what retract a grace;
What gesture, courtship, comeliness agrees,
With those thy primitive decrees,
To give subsistence to thy house, and proof
What Genii support thy roof,
Goodness and greatness, not the oaken piles;
For these, and marbles have their whiles
To last, but not their ever; virtue's hand
It is which builds 'gainst fate to stand.
Such is thy house, whose firm foundations trust
Is more in thee than in her dust,
Or depth; these last may yield, and yearly shrink,
When what is strongly built, no chink
Or yawning rupture can the same devour,
But fix'd it stands, by her own power
And well-laid bottom, on the iron and rock,
Which tries, and counter-stands the shock
And ram of time, and by vexation grows
The stronger. Virtue dies when foes
Are wanting to her exercise, but, great
And large she spreads by dust and sweat.
Safe stand thy walls, and thee, and so both will,
Since neither's height was raised by th'ill
Of others; since no stud, no stone, no piece
Was rear'd up by the poor-man's fleece;
No widow's tenement was rack'd to gild
Or fret thy cieling, or to build
A sweating-closet, to anoint the silk-
Soft skin, or bath[e] in asses' milk;
No orphan's pittance, left him, served to set
The pillars up of lasting jet,
For which their cries might beat against thine ears,
Or in the damp jet read their tears.
No plank from hallow'd altar does appeal
To yond' Star-chamber, or does seal
A curse to thee, or thine; but all things even
Make for thy peace, and pace to heaven.
--Go on directly so, as just men may
A thousand times more swear, than say
This is that princely Pemberton, who can
Teach men to keep a God in man;
And when wise poets shall search out to see
Good men, they find them all in thee.

 Her smile ineffably is sweet,
 Devinely she is slim;
Yet oh how weary are her feet,
 How aches her every limb!
Thank God it's near to closing time,
 --Merciful midnight chime.

Then in her mackintosh she'll go
 Up seven flights of stairs,
And on her bed her body throw,
 Too tired to say her prayers;
Yet not too sleepy to forget
 Her cheap alarm to set.

She dreams . . . That lonely bank-clerk boy
 Who comes each day for tea,--
Oh how his eyes light up with joy
 Her comeliness to see!
And yet he is too shy to speak,
 Far less to touch her cheek.

He dreams . . . If only I were King
 I'd make of her my Queen.
If I were laureate I'd sing
 Her loveliness serene.
--How wistfully romance can haunt
 A city restaurant!

For as I watch that pensive pair
 There stirs within my heart
From Arcady an April air
 That shames the sordid mart:
A sense of Spring and singing rills,
 --Love mid the daffodils.

 I hang about the streets all day,
At night I hang about;
I sleep a little when I may,
But rise betimes the morning's scout;
For through the year I always hear
Afar, aloft, a ghostly shout.

My clothes are worn to threads and loops;
My skin shows here and there ;
About my face like seaweed droops
My tangled beard, my tangled hair;
From cavernous and shaggy brows
My stony eyes untroubled stare.

I move from eastern wretchedness
Through Fleet Street and the Strand;
And as the pleasant people press
I touch them softly with my hand,
Perhaps I know that still I go
Alive about a living land.

For far in front the clouds are riven
I hear the ghostly cry,
As if a still voice fell from heaven
To where sea-whelmed the drowned folk lie
In sepulchres no tempest stirs
And only eyeless things pass by.

In Piccadilly spirits pass:
Oh, eyes and cheeks that glow!
Oh, strength and comeliness! Alas,
The lustrous health is earth I know
From shrinking eyes that recognise
No brother in my rags and woe.

I know no handicraft, no art,
But I have conquered fate;
For I have chosen the better part,
And neither hope, nor fear, nor hate.
With placid breath on pain and death,
My certain alms, alone I wait.

And daily, nightly comes the call,
The pale unechoing note,
The faint "Aha!" sent from the wall
Of heaven, but from no ruddy throat
Of human breed or seraph's seed,
A phantom voice that cries by rote.

 When I behold a forest spread
With silken trees upon thy head;
And when I see that other dress
Of flowers set in comeliness;
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,
Which, like a pinnacle, doth shew
The top, and the top-gallant too;
Then, when I see thy tresses bound
Into an oval, square, or round,
And knit in knots far more than I.
Can tell by tongue, or True-love tie;
Next, when those lawny films I see
Play with a wild civility;
And all those airy silks to flow,
Alluring me, and tempting so--
I must confess, mine eye and heart
Dotes less on nature than on art.

 Calm, sad, secure; behind high convent walls,
 These watch the sacred lamp, these watch and pray:
And it is one with them when evening falls,
 And one with them the cold return of day.

These heed not time; their nights and days they make
 Into a long returning rosary,
Whereon their lives are threaded for Christ's sake;
 Meekness and vigilance and chastity.

A vowed patrol, in silent companies,
 Life-long they keep before the living Christ.
In the dim church, their prayers and penances
 Are fragrant incense to the Sacrificed.

Outside, the world is wild and passionate;
 Man's weary laughter and his sick despair
Entreat at their impenetrable gate:
 They heed no voices in their dream of prayer.

They saw the glory of the world displayed;
 They saw the bitter of it, and the sweet;
They knew the roses of the world should fade,
 And be trod under by the hurrying feet.

Therefore they rather put away desire,
 And crossed their hands and came to sanctuary
And veiled their heads and put on coarse attire:
 Because their comeliness was vanity.

And there they rest; they have serene insight
 Of the illuminating dawn to be:
Mary's sweet Star dispels for them the night,
 The proper darkness of humanity.

Calm, sad, secure; with faces worn and mild:
 Surely their choice of vigil is the best?
Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild;
 But there, beside the altar, there is rest.

 Anthea laugh'd, and, fearing lest excess
Might stretch the cords of civil comeliness
She with a dainty blush rebuked her face,
And call'd each line back to his rule and space.

 The church's beauty in the eyes of Christ.

SS 4:1-11. 

Kind is the speech of Christ our Lord,
Affection sounds in every word:
Lo! thou art fair, my love," he cries,
"Not the young doves have sweeter eyes."

["Sweet are thy lips, thy pleasing voice
Salutes mine ear with secret joys;
No spice so much delights the smell,
Nor milk nor honey tastes so well.]

"Thou art all fair, my bride, to me,
I will behold no spot in thee."
What mighty wonders love performs,
And puts a comeliness on worms!

Defiled and loathsome as we are,
He makes us white, and calls us fair;
Adorns us with that heav'nly dress,
His graces and his righteousness.

"My sister and my spouse," he cries,
"Bound to my heart by various ties,
Thy powerful love my heart detains
In strong delight and pleasing chains."

He calls me from the leopard's den,
From this wild world of beasts and men,
To Zion, where his glories are;
Not Lebanon is half so fair.

Nor dens of prey, nor flowery plains,
Nor earthly joys, nor earthly pains,
Shall hold my feet or force my stay,
When Christ invites my soul away.