Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
Like a dry fish flung inland far from shore,
There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned,
Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned,
And out of mind a century before,
Where divers, on descending to explore
A legend that had lived its way around
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found
Anchors, which had been seized and seen no more.
Improving a dry leiure to invest
Their misadventure with a manifest
Analogy that he may read who runs,
The sailor made it old as ocean grass--
Telling of much that once had come to pass
With him, whose mother should have had no sons.
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!
Watch for a smooth! Give way!
If she feels the lop already
She'll stand on her head in the bay.
It's ebb--it's dusk--it's blowing--
The shoals are a mile of white,
But ( snatch her along! ) we're going
To find our master to-night.
For we hold that in all disaster
Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
A Man must stand by his Master
When once he has pledged his word.
Raging seas have we rowed in
But we seldom saw them thus,
Our master is angry with Odin--
Odin is angry with us!
Heavy odds have we taken,
But never before such odds.
The Gods know they are forsaken.
We must risk the wrath of the Gods!
Over the crest she flies from,
Into its hollow she drops,
Cringes and clears her eyes from
The wind-torn breaker-tops,
Ere out on the shrieking shoulder
Of a hill-high surge she drives.
Meet her! Meet her and hold her!
Pull for your scoundrel lives!
The thunder below and clamor
The harm that they mean to do!
There goes Thor's own Hammer
Cracking the dark in two!
Close! But the blow has missed her,
Here comes the wind of the blow!
Row or the squall'Il twist her
Broadside on to it!--Row!
Heark'ee, Thor of the Thunder!
We are not here for a jest--
For wager, warfare, or plunder,
Or to put your power to test.
This work is none of our wishing--
We would house at home if we might--
But our master is wrecked out fishing.
We go to find him to-night.
For we hold that in all disaster--
As the Gods Themselves have said--
A Man must stand by his Master
Till one of the two is dead.
That is our way of thinking,
Now you can do as you will,
While we try to save her from sinking
And hold her head to it still.
Bale her and keep her moving,
Or she'll break her back in the trough. . . .
Who said the weather's improving,
Or the swells are taking off?
Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and knees--
No matter--the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling--
In oar, and out with mead--
The rest will be two-reef sailing. . . .
That was a night indeed!
But we hold it in all disaster
(And faith, we have found it true!)
If only you stand by your Master,
The Gods will stand by you!
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"
II.
Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent. per anuum.
III.
Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vexed,
The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.
IV.
The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's tune --
Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June?
V.
Who are the rulers of Ind -- to whom shall we bow the knee?
Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.
VI.
Does the woodpecker flit round the young ferash?
Does grass clothe a new-built wall?
Is she under thirty, the woman who holds a boy in her thrall?
VII.
If She grow suddenly gracious -- reflect. Is it all for thee?
The black-buck is stalked through the bullock, and Man through jealousy.
VIII.
Seek not for favor of women. So shall you find it indeed.
Does not the boar break cover just when you're lighting a weed?
IX.
If He play, being young and unskilful, for shekels of silver and gold,
Take his money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was ordained to be sold.
X.
With a "weed" amoung men or horses verily this is the best,
That you work him in office or dog-cart lightly -- but give him no rest.
XI.
Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage;
But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn-bit of Marriage.
XII.
As the thriless gold of the babul, so is the gold that we spend
On a derby Sweep, or our neighbor's wife, or the horse that we buy from a friend.
XIII.
The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame
To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing that same.
XIV.
In public Her face turneth to thee, and pleasant Her smile when ye meet.
It is ill. The cold rocks of El-Gidar smile thus on the waves at their feet.
In public Her face is averted, with anger She nameth thy name.
It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of the game?
XV.
If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed,
And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed.
If She have written a letter, delay not an instant, but burn it.
Tear it to pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall return it!
If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,
Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear.
XVI.
My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er,
Yet lip meets with lip at the last word -- get out!
She has been there before.
They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore.
XVII.
If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoff-slide is scarred on the course.
Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse.
XVIII.
"By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid:
"Alas! I do not understand," my son, be thou nowise afraid.
In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed.
XIX.
My son, if I, Hafiz, the father, take hold of thy knees in my pain,
Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour -- refrain.
Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest another man's chain?
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Written by
Thomas Moore |
Dear Goddess of Corn, whom the ancients we know,
(Among other odd whims of those comical bodies,)
Adorn'd with somniferous poppies, to show,
Thou wert always a true Country-gentleman's Goddess.
Behold in his best, shooting-jacket, before thee,
An eloquent 'Squire, who most humbly beseeches,
Great Queen of the Mark-lane (if the thing doesn't bore thee),
Thou'lt read o'er the last of his -- never-last speeches.
Ah! Ceres, thou know'st not the slander and scorn
Now heap'd upon England's 'Squirearchy, so boasted;
Improving on Hunt, 'tis no longer the Corn,
'Tis the growers of Corn that are now, alas! roasted.
In speeches, in books, in all shapes they attack us --
Reviewers, economists - fellows, no doubt,
That you, my dear Ceres, and Venus, and Bacchus,
And Gods of high fashion know little about.
There's B-nth-m, whose English is all his own making --
Who thinks just as little of settling a nation
As he would of smoking his pipe, or of taking
(What he, himself, calls) his "post-prandial vibration."
There are two Mr. M---lls, too, whom those that love reading
Through all that's unreadable, call very clever; --
And whreas M---ll Senior makes war on good breeding,
M---ll Junio makes war on all breeding whatever!
In short, my dear Goddess, Old England's divided
Between ultra blockheads and superfine sages; --
With which of these classes we, landlords, have sided
Thou'lt find in my Speech, if thou'lt read a few pages.
For therein I've prov'd, to my own satisfaction,
And that of all 'Squires I've the honour of meeting,
That 'tis the most senseless and foul-mouth'd detraction
To say that poor people are fond of cheap eating.
On the contrary, such the "chaste notions" of food
that dwell in each pale manufacturer's heart,
They would scorn any law, be it every so good,
That would make thee, dear Goddess, less dear than thou art!
And, oh! for Monopoly what a blest day,
When the Land and the Silk shall, in fond combination,
(Like Sulky and Silky, that pair in the play)
Cry out, with one voice, High Rents and Starvation!
Long life to the Minister! -- no matter who,
Or how dull he may be, if, with dignified spirit, he
Keeps the ports shut -- and the people's mouth too, --
We shall all have a long run of Freddy's prosperity.
And, as for myself, who've like Hannibal, sworn
To hate the whole crew who would take our rents from us,
Had England but One to stand by thee, Dear Corn,
That last, honest Uni-Corn would be Sir Th-m-s!
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
These are the Nights that Beetles love --
From Eminence remote
Drives ponderous perpendicular
His figure intimate
The terror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again --
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing --
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing --
Too dear the Summer evening
Without discreet alarm --
Supplied by Entomology
With its remaining charm --
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Written by
Thomas Hardy |
The sun said, watching my watering-pot
"Some morn you'll pass away;
These flowers and plants I parch up hot -
Who'll water them that day?
"Those banks and beds whose shape your eye
Has planned in line so true,
New hands will change, unreasoning why
Such shape seemed best to you.
"Within your house will strangers sit,
And wonder how first it came;
They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,
And will not mention your name.
"They'll care not how, or when, or at what
You sighed, laughed, suffered here,
Though you feel more in an hour of the spot
Than they will feel in a year
"As I look on at you here, now,
Shall I look on at these;
But as to our old times, avow
No knowledge--hold my peace! . . .
"O friend, it matters not, I say;
Bethink ye, I have shined
On nobler ones than you, and they
Are dead men out of mind!"
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