Written by
Gwendolyn Brooks |
The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.
Watches our bogus roses, our rank wreath, our
love's unreliable cement, the gray
jubilees of our demondom.
Coherent
Counsel! Good man.
Require of us our terribly excluded blue.
Constrain, repair a ripped, revolted land.
Put hand in hand land over.
Reprove
the abler droughts and manias of the day
and a felicity entreat.
Love.
Complete
your pledges, reinforce your aides, renew
stance, testament.
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Written by
Edmund Spenser |
MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that on this day
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And having harrowd hell didst bring away
Captivity thence captive us to win:
This joyous day deare Lord with joy begin; 5
And grant that we for whom thou diddest dye
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin
May live for ever in felicity!
And that Thy love we weighing worthily
May likewise love Thee for the same againe; 10
And for Thy sake that all lyke deare didst buy
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love deare Love lyke as we ought
¡ªLove is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
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Written by
John Keats |
In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay --
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away --
The Snow and he are intimate --
I've often seem them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity --
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent Evergreens --
His Larder -- terse and Militant --
Unknown -- refreshing things --
His Character -- a Tonic --
His future -- a Dispute --
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out --
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Written by
John Keats |
IN a drear-nighted December
Too happy happy tree
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them 5
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December
Too happy happy brook 10
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting
They stay their crystal fretting
Never never petting 15
About the frozen time.
Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at pass¨¨d joy? 20
To know the change and feel it
When there is none to heal it
Nor numb¨¨d sense to steal it
Was never said in rhyme.
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Written by
Bliss Carman |
In Memory of John Keats
By the Aurelian Wall,
Where the long shadows of the centuries fall
From Caius Cestius' tomb,
A weary mortal seeking rest found room
For quiet burial,
Leaving among his friends
A book of lyrics.
Such untold amends
A traveller might make
In a strange country, bidden to partake
Before he farther wends;
Who slyly should bestow
The foreign reed-flute they had seen him blow
And finger cunningly,
On one of the dark children standing by,
Then lift his cloak and go.
The years pass.
And the child
Thoughtful beyond his fellows, grave and mild,
Treasures the rough-made toy,
Until one day he blows it for clear joy,
And wakes the music wild.
His fondness makes it seem
A thing first fashioned in delirious dream,
Some god had cut and tried,
And filled with yearning passion, and cast aside
On some far woodland stream,--
After long years to be
Found by the stranger and brought over sea,
A marvel and delight
To ease the noon and pierce the dark blue night,
For children such as he.
He learns the silver strain
Wherewith the ghostly houses of gray rain
And lonely valleys ring,
When the untroubled whitethroats make the spring
A world without a stain;
Then on his river reed,
With strange and unsuspected notes that plead
Of their own wild accord
For utterances no bird's throat could afford,
Lifts it to human need.
His comrades leave their play,
When calling and compelling far away
By river-slope and hill,
He pipes their wayward footsteps where he will,
All the long lovely day.
Even his elders come.
"Surely the child is elvish," murmur some,
And shake the knowing head;
"Give us the good old simple things instead,
Our fathers used to hum.
"
Others at open door
Smile when they hear what they have hearkened for
These many summers now,
Believing they should live to learn somehow
Things never known before.
But he can only tell
How the flute's whisper lures him with a spell,
Yet always just eludes
The lost perfection over which he broods;
And how he loves it well.
Till all the country-side,
Familiar with his piping far and wide,
Has taken for its own
That weird enchantment down the evening blown,--
Its glory and its pride.
And so his splendid name,
Who left the book of lyrics and small fame
Among his fellows then,
Spreads through the world like autumn--who knows when?--
Till all the hillsides flame.
Grand Pré and Margaree
Hear it upbruited from the unresting sea;
And the small Gaspereau,
Whose yellow leaves repeat it, seems to know
A new felicity.
Even the shadows tall,
Walking at sundown through the plain, recall
A mound the grasses keep,
Where once a mortal came and found long sleep
By the Aurelian Wall.
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Written by
John Milton |
This rich Marble doth enterr
The honour'd Wife of Winchester,
A Vicounts daughter, an Earls heir,
Besides what her vertues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More then she could own from Earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told, alas too soon,
After so short time of breath,
To house with darknes, and with death.
Yet had the number of her days
Bin as compleat as was her praise,
Nature and fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.
Her high birth, and her graces sweet,
Quickly found a lover meet;
The Virgin quire for her request
The God that sits at marriage feast;
He at their invoking came
But with a scarce-wel-lighted flame;
And in his Garland as he stood,
Ye might discern a Cipress bud.
Once had the early Matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throws;
But whether by mischance or blame
Atropos for Lucina came;
And with remorsles cruelty,
Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree:
The haples Babe before his birth
Had burial, yet not laid in earth,
And the languisht Mothers Womb
Was not long a living Tomb.
So have I seen som tender slip
Sav'd with care from Winters nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Pluck't up by som unheedy swain,
Who onely thought to crop the flowr
New shot up from vernall showr;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Side-ways as on a dying bed,
And those Pearls of dew she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears
Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hast'ning funerall.
Gentle Lady may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have;
After this thy travail sore
Sweet rest sease thee evermore,
That to give the world encrease,
Shortned hast thy own lives lease;
Here besides the sorrowing
That thy noble House doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Weept for thee in Helicon,
And som Flowers, and som Bays,
For thy Hears to strew the ways,
Sent thee from the banks of Came,
Devoted to thy vertuous name;
Whilst thou bright Saint high sit'st in glory,
Next her much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian Shepherdess,
Who after yeers of barrennes,
The highly favour'd Joseph bore
To him that serv'd for her before,
And at her next birth much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the boosom bright
of blazing Majesty and Light,
There with thee, new welcom Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchioness, but now a Queen.
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Written by
Anne Kingsmill Finch |
URANIA, whom the Town admires,
Whose Wit and Beauty share our Praise;
This fair URANIA who inspires
A thousand Joys a thousand ways,
She, who cou'd with a Glance convey
Favours, that had my Hopes outdone,
Has lent me Money on that Day,
Which our Acquaintance first begun.
Nor with the Happiness I taste,
Let any jealous Doubts contend:
Her Friendship is secure to last,
Beginning where all others end.
And thou, known Cheat! upheld by Law,
Thou Disappointer of the craving Mind,
BASSETTE, who thy Original dost draw
From Venice (by uncertain Seas confin'd);
Author of Murmurs, and of Care,
Of pleasing Hopes, concluding in Despair:
To thee my strange Felicity I owe,
From thy Oppression did this Succour flow.
Less had I gained, had'st thou propitious been,
Who better by my Loss hast taught me how to Win.
Yet tell me, my transported Brain!
(whose Pride this Benefit awakes)
Know'st thou, what on this Chance depends?
And are we not exalted thus in vain,
Whilst we observe the Money which she lends,
But not, alas! the Heart she takes,
The fond Engagements, and the Ties
Her fatal Bounty does impose,
Who makes Reprisals, with her Eyes,
For what her gen'rous Hand bestows?
And tho' I quickly can return
Those useful Pieces, which she gave;
Can I again, or wou'd I have
That which her Charms have from me borne?
Yet let us quit th' obliging Score;
And whilst we borrow'd Gold restore,
Whilst readily we own the Debt,
And Gratitude before her set
In its approved and fairest Light;
Let her effectually be taught
By that instructive, harmless Slight,
That also in her turn she ought
(Repaying ev'ry tender Thought)
Kindness with Kindness to requite.
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Written by
Katherine Philips |
I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.
But neither Chance nor Complement
Did element our Love ;
'Twas sacred Sympathy was lent
Us from the Quire above.
That Friendship Fortune did create,
Still fears a wound from Time or Fate.
Our chang'd and mingled Souls are grown
To such acquaintance now,
That if each would resume their own,
Alas ! we know not how.
We have each other so engrost,
That each is in the Union lost.
And thus we can no Absence know,
Nor shall we be confin'd ;
Our active Souls will daily go
To learn each others mind.
Nay, should we never meet to Sense,
Our Souls would hold Intelligence.
Inspired with a Flame Divine
I scorn to court a stay ;
For from that noble Soul of thine
I ne're can be away.
But I shall weep when thou dost grieve ;
Nor can I die whil'st thou dost live.
By my own temper I shall guess
At thy felicity,
And only like my happiness
Because it pleaseth thee.
Our hearts at any time will tell
If thou, or I, be sick, or well.
All Honour sure I must pretend,
All that is Good or Great ;
She that would be Rosania's Friend,
Must be at least compleat.
If I have any bravery,
'Tis cause I have so much of thee.
Thy Leiger Soul in me shall lie,
And all thy thoughts reveal ;
Then back again with mine shall flie,
And thence to me shall steal.
Thus still to one another tend ;
Such is the sacred name of Friend.
Thus our twin-Souls in one shall grow,
And teach the World new Love,
Redeem the Age and Sex, and shew
A Flame Fate dares not move :
And courting Death to be our friend,
Our Lives together too shall end.
A Dew shall dwell upon our Tomb
Of such a quality,
That fighting Armies, thither come,
Shall reconciled be.
We'll ask no Epitaph, but say
ORINDA and ROSANIA.
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Written by
Phillis Wheatley |
Through airy roads he wings his instant flight
To purer regions of celestial light;
Enlarg'd he sees unnumber'd systems roll,
Beneath him sees the universal whole,
Planets on planets run their destin'd round,
And circling wonders fill the vast profound.
Th' ethereal now, and now th' empyreal skies
With growing splendors strike his wond'ring eyes:
The angels view him with delight unknown,
Press his soft hand, and seat him on his throne;
Then smilling thus: "To this divine abode,
"The seat of saints, of seraphs, and of God,
"Thrice welcome thou.
" The raptur'd babe replies,
"Thanks to my God, who snatch'd me to the skies,
"E'er vice triumphant had possess'd my heart,
"E'er yet the tempter had beguil'd my heart,
"E'er yet on sin's base actions I was bent,
"E'er yet I knew temptation's dire intent;
"E'er yet the lash for horrid crimes I felt,
"E'er vanity had led my way to guilt,
"But, soon arriv'd at my celestial goal,
"Full glories rush on my expanding soul.
"
Joyful he spoke: exulting cherubs round
Clapt their glad wings, the heav'nly vaults resound.
Say, parents, why this unavailing moan?
Why heave your pensive bosoms with the groan?
To Charles, the happy subject of my song,
A brighter world, and nobler strains belong.
Say would you tear him from the realms above
By thoughtless wishes, and prepost'rous love?
Doth his felicity increase your pain?
Or could you welcome to this world again
The heir of bliss? with a superior air
Methinks he answers with a smile severe,
"Thrones and dominions cannot tempt me there.
"
But still you cry, "Can we the sigh forbear,
"And still and still must we not pour the tear?
"Our only hope, more dear than vital breath,
"Twelve moons revolv'd, becomes the prey of death;
"Delightful infant, nightly visions give
"Thee to our arms, and we with joy receive,
"We fain would clasp the Phantom to our breast,
"The Phantom flies, and leaves the soul unblest.
"
To yon bright regions let your faith ascend,
Prepare to join your dearest infant friend
In pleasures without measure, without end.
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