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Best Famous Epode Poems

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Written by Ben Jonson | Create an image from this poem

Epode

  

XI.
— EPODE.
                  


                 And her black spite expel,
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
                 Or safe, but she'll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
                 Of thoughts to watch, and ward
At the eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,                 Give knowledge instantly,
To wakeful reason, our affections' king :
                 Who, in th' examining,
Will quickly taste the treason, and commit
                 Close, the close cause of it.

'Tis the securest policy we have,
                 To make our sense our slave.

But this true course is not embraced by many :                 Or else the sentinel,
That should ring larum to the heart, doth sleep ;
                 Or some great thought doth keep
Back the intelligence, and falsely swears,
                 They are base, and idle fears
Whereof the loyal conscience so complains,
                 Thus, by these subtile trains,
Do several passions invade the mind,                 The first ; as prone to move
Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,
                 In our enflamed breasts :
But this doth from the cloud of error grow,
                 Which thus we over-blow.

The thing they here call Love, is blind desire,
                 Arm'd with bow, shafts, and fire ;
Inconstant, like the sea, of whence 'tis born,                 And boils, as if he were
In a continual tempest.
  Now, true love
                 No such effects doth prove ;
That is an essence far more gentle, fine,
                 Pure, perfect, nay divine ;
It is a golden chain let down from heaven,
                 Whose links are bright and even,
That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines                 To murder different hearts,
But in a calm, and god-like unity,
                 Preserves community.

O, who is he, that, in this peace, enjoys
                 The elixir of all joys ?
A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,
                 And  lasting as her flowers :
Richer than Time, and as time's virtue rare                 Who, blest with such high chance
Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
                 Cast himself from the spire
Of all his happiness ?   But soft :  I hear
                 Some vicious fool draw near,
That cries, we dream, and swears there's no such thing, 
                 As this chaste love we sing.

Peace, Luxury, thou art like one of those                 No, Vice, we let thee know,
Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows' wings do flie,
                 Turtles can chastly die ;
And yet (in this t' express ourselves more clear)
                 We do not number here
Such spirits as are only continent,
                 Because lust's means are spent :
Or those, who doubt the common mouth of fame,                 Is mere necessity.

Nor mean we those, whom vows and conscience
                 Have fill'd with abstinence :
Though we acknowledge, who can so abstain,
                 Makes a most blessed gain.

He that for love of goodness hateth ill,
                 Is more crown-worthy still,
Than he, which for sin's penalty forbears ;                 Graced with a Phoenix' love ;
A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,
                 Would make a day of night,
And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys ;
                 Whose odorous breath destroys
All taste of bitterness, and makes the air
                 As sweet as she is fair.

A body so harmoniously composed,                 O, so divine a creature,
Who could be false to?  chiefly, when he knows
                 How only she bestows
The wealthy treasure of her love on him ;
                 Making his fortune swim
In the full flood of her admired perfection ?
                 What savage, brute affection,
Would not be fearful to offend a dame                 To virtuous moods inclined
That knows the weight of guilt ; he will refrain
                 From thoughts of such a strain,
And to his sense object this sentence ever,
                 "Man may securely sin, but safely never.
"


                 Is virtue and not fate :
Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,
                 And her black spite expel,
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
                 Or safe, but she'll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
                 Of thoughts to watch, and ward
At the eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,


Written by A E Housman | Create an image from this poem

Fragment of a Greek Tragedy

 CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb And do not understand a word I say, Then wave your hand, to signify as much.
ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars? ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus? ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that-- CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door? CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good, And do not, on the other hand, be bad; For that is much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.
CHORUS Strophe In speculation I would not willingly acquire a name For ill-digested thought; But after pondering much To this conclusion I at last have come: LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
This truth I have written deep In my reflective midriff On tablets not of wax, Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there, For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls This fact did I discover, Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out, Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingunuity sufficed My self-taught diaphragm.
Antistrophe Why should I mention The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus? Her whom of old the gods, More provident than kind, Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail, A gift not asked for, And sent her forth to learn The unfamiliar science Of how to chew the cud.
She therefore, all about the Argive fields, Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops, Nor did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts I do not hanker after: Never may Cypris for her seat select My dappled liver! Why should I mention Io? Why indeed? I have no notion why.
Epode But now does my boding heart, Unhired, unaccompanied, sing A strain not meet for the dance.
Yes even the palace appears To my yoke of circular eyes (The right, nor omit I the left) Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak, Garnished with woolly deaths And many sphipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament: And to the rapid Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest Resounds in concert The battering of my unlucky head.
ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw; And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way, Once more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor; But thine arithmetic is quite correct.
Written by Ben Jonson | Create an image from this poem

Præludium


X.
 ? PRÆLUDIUM.
     
For the more countenance to my active muse?

Hercules ?  Alas his bones are yet sore,
With his old earthly labors :  t' exact more,
Of his dull godhead, were sin.
  I'll implore

Phoebus.
  No, tend thy cart still.
  Envious day
Shall not give out that I have made thee stay,
And founder'd thy hot team, to tune my lay.

Nor will I beg of thee, Lord of the vine,
To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,
In the green circle of thy ivy twine.

Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
That at thy birth, mad'st the poor smith afraid,
Who with his axe, thy father's midwife plaid.

Go,  cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts,
Or, with thy tribade trine, invent new sports ;
Thou nor thy looseness with my making sorts.

Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task,
Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask ;
His absence in my verse, is all I ask.

Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us,
Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus,
And rifle him : or pawn his petasus.

                THE PHOENIX ANALYSED.

            Now, after all, let no man
                    Receive it for a fable,
                    If a bird so amiable
            Do turn into a woman.

            Or, by our Turtle's augure,
                    That nature's fairest creature
                    Prove of his mistress' feature
            But a bare type and figure.

Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,
(Though they were crushed into one form) could make
A beauty of that merit, that should take.

ODE.<br> Greek: enthusiastiki.<br>              
        Splendor !  O more than mortal
        For other forms come short all,
        Of her illustrious brightness
        As far as sin's from lightness.

        Her wit as quick and sprightful
        As fire, and more delightful
        Than the stolen sports of lovers,
        When night their meeting covers.

        Judgment, adorn'd with learning,
        Doth shine in her discerning,
        Clear as a naked vestal
        Closed in an orb of crystal.

        Her breath for sweet exceeding
        The phoenix' place of breeding,
        But mix'd with sound, transcending
        All nature of commending.

        Alas then whither wade I
        In thought to praise this lady,
        When seeking her renowning
        My self am so near drowning?
        Retire, and say her graces
        Are deeper than their faces,
        Yet she's not nice to show them,
        Nor takes she pride to know them.

My muse up by commission ;  no, I bring
My own true fire : now my thought takes wing,
And now an EPODE to deep ears I sing.

Written by Algernon Charles Swinburne | Create an image from this poem

Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

 STR.
1 I laid my laurel-leaf At the white feet of grief, Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings, With unreverted head Veiled, as who mourns his dead, Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings, A wearied lion without lair, And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.
STR.
2 Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth, Who lulled with craft or chant thy vigilant eyes, O light of all men, lamp to north and south, Eastward and westward, under all men's skies? For if thou sleep, we perish, and thy name Dies with the dying of our ephemeral breath; And if the dust of death o'ergrows thy flame, Heaven also is darkened with the dust of death.
If thou be mortal, if thou change or cease, If thine hand fail, or thine eyes turn from Greece, Thy firstborn, and the firstfruits of thy fame, God is no God, and man is moulded out of shame.
STR.
3 Is there change in the secret skies, In the sacred places that see The divine beginning of things, The weft of the web of the world? Is Freedom a worm that dies, And God no God of the free? Is heaven like as earth with her kings And time as a serpent curled Round life as a tree? From the steel-bound snows of the north, From the mystic mother, the east, From the sands of the fiery south, From the low-lit clouds of the west, A sound of a cry is gone forth; Arise, stand up from the feast, Let wine be far from the mouth, Let no man sleep or take rest, Till the plague hath ceased.
Let none rejoice or make mirth Till the evil thing be stayed, Nor grief be lulled in the lute, Nor hope be loud on the lyre; Let none be glad upon earth.
O music of young man and maid, O songs of the bride, be mute.
For the light of her eyes, her desire, Is the soul dismayed.
It is not a land new-born That is scourged of a stranger's hand, That is rent and consumed with flame.
We have known it of old, this face, With the cheeks and the tresses torn, With shame on the brow as a brand.
We have named it of old by name, The land of the royallest race, The most holy land.
STR.
4 Had I words of fire, Whose words are weak as snow; Were my heart a lyre Whence all its love might flow In the mighty modulations of desire, In the notes wherewith man's passion worships woe; Could my song release The thought weak words confine, And my grief, O Greece, Prove how it worships thine; It would move with pulse of war the limbs of peace, Till she flushed and trembled and became divine.
(Once she held for true This truth of sacred strain; Though blood drip like dew And life run down like rain, It is better that war spare but one or two Than that many live, and liberty be slain.
) Then with fierce increase And bitter mother's mirth, From the womb of peace, A womb that yearns for birth, As a man-child should deliverance come to Greece, As a saviour should the child be born on earth.
STR.
5 O that these my days had been Ere white peace and shame were wed Without torch or dancers' din Round the unsacred marriage-bed! For of old the sweet-tongued law, Freedom, clothed with all men's love, Girt about with all men's awe, With the wild war-eagle mated The white breast of peace the dove, And his ravenous heart abated And his windy wings were furled In an eyrie consecrated Where the snakes of strife uncurled, And her soul was soothed and sated With the welfare of the world.
ANT.
1 But now, close-clad with peace, While war lays hand on Greece, The kingdoms and their kings stand by to see; "Aha, we are strong," they say, "We are sure, we are well," even they; "And if we serve, what ails ye to be free? We are warm, clothed round with peace and shame; But ye lie dead and naked, dying for a name.
" ANT.
2 O kings and queens and nations miserable, O fools and blind, and full of sins and fears, With these it is, with you it is not well; Ye have one hour, but these the immortal years.
These for a pang, a breath, a pulse of pain, Have honour, while that honour on earth shall be: Ye for a little sleep and sloth shall gain Scorn, while one man of all men born is free.
Even as the depth more deep than night or day, The sovereign heaven that keeps its eldest way, So without chance or change, so without stain, The heaven of their high memories shall nor wax nor wane.
ANT.
3 As the soul on the lips of the dead Stands poising her wings for flight, A bird scarce quit of her prison, But fair without form or flesh, So stands over each man's head A splendour of imminent light, A glory of fame rearisen, Of day rearisen afresh From the hells of night.
In the hundred cities of Crete Such glory was not of old, Though her name was great upon earth And her face was fair on the sea.
The words of her lips were sweet, Her days were woven with gold, Her fruits came timely to birth; So fair she was, being free, Who is bought and sold.
So fair, who is fairer now With her children dead at her side, Unsceptred, unconsecrated, Unapparelled, unhelped, unpitied, With blood for gold on her brow, Where the towery tresses divide; The goodly, the golden-gated, Many-crowned, many-named, many-citied, Made like as a bride.
And these are the bridegroom's gifts; Anguish that straitens the breath, Shame, and the weeping of mothers, And the suckling dead at the breast, White breast that a long sob lifts; And the dumb dead mouth, which saith, How long, and how long, my brothers?" And wrath which endures not rest, And the pains of death.
ANT.
4 Ah, but would that men, With eyelids purged by tears, Saw, and heard again With consecrated ears, All the clamour, all the splendour, all the slain, All the lights and sounds of war, the fates and fears; Saw far off aspire, With crash of mine and gate, From a single pyre The myriad flames of fate, Soul by soul transfigured in funereal fire, Hate made weak by love, and love made strong by hate.
Children without speech, And many a nursing breast; Old men in the breach, Where death sat down a guest; With triumphant lamentation made for each, Let the world salute their ruin and their rest.
In one iron hour The crescent flared and waned, As from tower to tower, Fire-scathed and sanguine-stained, Death, with flame in hand, an open bloodred flower, Passed, and where it bloomed no bloom of life remained.
ANT.
5 Hear, thou earth, the heavy-hearted Weary nurse of waning races; From the dust of years departed, From obscure funereal places, Raise again thy sacred head, Lift the light up of thine eyes Where are they of all thy dead That did more than these men dying In their godlike Grecian wise? Not with garments rent and sighing, Neither gifts of myrrh and gold, Shall their sons lament them lying, Lest the fame of them wax cold; But with lives to lives replying, And a worship from of old.
EPODE O sombre heart of earth and swoln with grief, That in thy time wast as a bird for mirth, Dim womb of life and many a seed and sheaf, And full of changes, ancient heart of earth, From grain and flower, from grass and every leaf, Thy mysteries and thy multitudes of birth, From hollow and hill, from vales and all thy springs, From all shapes born and breath of all lips made, From thunders, and the sound of winds and wings, From light, and from the solemn sleep of shade, From the full fountains of all living things, Speak, that this plague be stayed.
Bear witness all the ways of death and life If thou be with us in the world's old strife, If thou be mother indeed, And from these wounds that bleed Gather in thy great breast the dews that fall, And on thy sacred knees Lull with mute melodies, Mother, thy sleeping sons in death's dim hall.
For these thy sons, behold, Sons of thy sons of old, Bear witness if these be not as they were; If that high name of Greece Depart, dissolve, decease From mouths of men and memories like as air.
By the last milk that drips Dead on the child's dead lips, By old men's white unviolated hair, By sweet unburied faces That fill those red high places Where death and freedom found one lion's lair, By all the bloodred tears That fill the chaliced years, The vessels of the sacrament of time, Wherewith, O thou most holy, O Freedom, sure and slowly Thy ministrant white hands cleanse earth of crime; Though we stand off afar Where slaves and slaveries are, Among the chains and crowns of poisonous peace; Though not the beams that shone From rent Arcadion Can melt her mists and bid her snows decrease; Do thou with sudden wings Darken the face of kings, But turn again the beauty of thy brows on Greece; Thy white and woundless brows, Whereto her great heart bows; Give her the glories of thine eyes to see; Turn thee, O holiest head, Toward all thy quick and dead, For love's sake of the souls that cry for thee; O love, O light, O flame, By thine own Grecian name, We call thee and we charge thee that all these be free.
Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

247. Ode Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive

 DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
 Hangman of creation! mark,
 Who in widow-weeds appears,
 Laden with unhonour’d years,
 Noosing with care a bursting purse,
 Baited with many a deadly curse?


STROPHE View the wither’d Beldam’s face;
 Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of Humanity’s sweet, melting grace?
 Note that eye, ’tis rheum o’erflows;
 Pity’s flood there never rose,
 See these hands ne’er stretched to save,
 Hands that took, but never gave:
 Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,
 Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest,
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!


ANTISTROPHEPlunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes,
 (A while forbear, ye torturing fiends;)
Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies;
 ’Tis thy trusty quondam Mate,
 Doom’d to share thy fiery fate;
 She, tardy, hell-ward plies.
EPODE And are they of no more avail, Ten thousand glittering pounds a-year? In other worlds can Mammon fail, Omnipotent as he is here! O, bitter mockery of the pompous bier, While down the wretched Vital Part is driven! The cave-lodged Beggar,with a conscience clear, Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heaven.



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