Written by
Oscar Wilde |
Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
From antique reeds to common folk unknown:
And often launched our bark upon that sea
Which the nine Muses hold in empery,
And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,
Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
Till we had freighted well our argosy.
Of which despoiled treasures these remain,
Sordello's passion, and the honeyed line
Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,
The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonies.
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Written by
Eugene Field |
Though care and strife
Elsewhere be rife,
Upon my word I do not heed 'em;
In bed I lie
With books hard by,
And with increasing zest I read 'em.
Propped up in bed,
So much I've read
Of musty tomes that I've a headful
Of tales and rhymes
Of ancient times,
Which, wife declares, are "simply dreadful!"
They give me joy
Without alloy;
And isn't that what books are made for?
And yet--and yet--
(Ah, vain regret!)
I would to God they all were paid for!
No festooned cup
Filled foaming up
Can lure me elsewhere to confound me;
Sweeter than wine
This love of mine
For these old books I see around me!
A plague, I say,
On maidens gay;
I'll weave no compliments to tell 'em!
Vain fool I were,
Did I prefer
Those dolls to these old friends in vellum!
At dead of night
My chamber's bright
Not only with the gas that's burning,
But with the glow
Of long ago,--
Of beauty back from eld returning.
Fair women's looks
I see in books,
I see them, and I hear their laughter,--
Proud, high-born maids,
Unlike the jades
Which men-folk now go chasing after!
Herein again
Speak valiant men
Of all nativities and ages;
I hear and smile
With rapture while
I turn these musty, magic pages.
The sword, the lance,
The morris dance,
The highland song, the greenwood ditty,
Of these I read,
Or, when the need,
My Miller grinds me grist that's gritty!
When of such stuff
We've had enough,
Why, there be other friends to greet us;
We'll moralize
In solemn wise
With Plato or with Epictetus.
Sneer as you may,
I'm proud to say
That I, for one, am very grateful
To Heaven, that sends
These genial friends
To banish other friendships hateful!
And when I'm done,
I'd have no son
Pounce on these treasures like a vulture;
Nay, give them half
My epitaph,
And let them share in my sepulture.
Then, when the crack
Of doom rolls back
The marble and the earth that hide me,
I'll smuggle home
Each precious tome,
Without a fear my wife shall chide me!
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Written by
Robert William Service |
A Wintertide we had been wed
When Jan went off to sea;
And now the laurel rose is red
And I wait on the quay.
His berthing boat I watch with dread,
For where, oh where is he?
"Weep not, brave lass," the Skipper said;
"Return to you he will;
In hospital he lies abed
In Rio in Brazil;
But though I know he is not dead,
I do not know his ill."
The Seaman's Hospital I wrote,
And soon there came reply.
The nurse's very words I quote:
"Your husband will not die;
But you must wait a weary boat -
I cannot tell you why."
The months of sun went snailing by.
I wrote by every mail,
Yet ever came the same reply:
"Your patience must not fail.
But though your good lad will not die,
We cannot tell his ail."
* * * * * * * * *
Ten months have gone - he's back again,
But aged by years a score,
And tells me with a look of pain
He'll never voyage more;
And at the tide, with longing vain,
He stares from out the door.
And in his sleep he turns from me
And moans with bitter blame
Of Spanish jades beyond the sea
Who wrought him evil shame,
So ever in him bleak will be
The Ill That Has No Name.
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Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Avez-vous oui dire?")
{LES BURGRAVES, Part I., March, 1843.}
JOB. Hast thou ne'er heard men say
That, in the Black Wood, 'twixt Cologne and Spire,
Upon a rock flanked by the towering mountains,
A castle stands, renowned among all castles?
And in this fort, on piles of lava built,
A burgrave dwells, among all burgraves famed?
Hast heard of this wild man who laughs at laws—
Charged with a thousand crimes—for warlike deeds
Renowned—and placed under the Empire's ban
By the Diet of Frankfort; by the Council
Of Pisa banished from the Holy Church;
Reprobate, isolated, cursed—yet still
Unconquered 'mid his mountains and in will;
The bitter foe of the Count Palatine
And Treves' proud archbishop; who has spurned
For sixty years the ladder which the Empire
Upreared to scale his walls? Hast heard that he
Shelters the brave—the flaunting rich man strips—
Of master makes a slave? That here, above
All dukes, aye, kings, eke emperors—in the eyes
Of Germany to their fierce strife a prey,
He rears upon his tower, in stern defiance,
A signal of appeal to the crushed people,
A banner vast, of Sorrow's sable hue,
Snapped by the tempest in its whirlwind wrath,
So that kings quiver as the jades at whips?
Hast heard, he touches now his hundredth year—
And that, defying fate, in face of heaven,
On his invincible peak, no force of war
Uprooting other holds—nor powerful Cæsar—
Nor Rome—nor age, that bows the pride of man—
Nor aught on earth—hath vanquished, or subdued,
Or bent this ancient Titan of the Rhine,
The excommunicated Job?
Democratic Review.
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