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Best Famous Reasoning(A) Poems

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Written by Robert Frost | Create an image from this poem

In the Home Stretch

 SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.
And now and then a smudged, infernal face
Looked in a door behind her and addressed
Her back. She always answered without turning.

“Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?”
“Put it on top of something that’s on top
Of something else,” she laughed. “Oh, put it where
You can to-night, and go. It’s almost dark;
You must be getting started back to town.”
Another blackened face thrust in and looked
And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently,
“What are you seeing out the window, lady?”

“Never was I beladied so before.
Would evidence of having been called lady
More than so many times make me a lady
In common law, I wonder.”

“But I ask,
What are you seeing out the window, lady?”

“What I’ll be seeing more of in the years
To come as here I stand and go the round
Of many plates with towels many times.”

“And what is that? You only put me off.”

“Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan
More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe;
A little stretch of mowing-field for you;
Not much of that until I come to woods
That end all. And it’s scarce enough to call
A view.”

“And yet you think you like it, dear?”

“That’s what you’re so concerned to know! You hope
I like it. Bang goes something big away
Off there upstairs. The very tread of men
As great as those is shattering to the frame
Of such a little house. Once left alone,
You and I, dear, will go with softer steps
Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none
But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands
Will ever slam the doors.”

“I think you see
More than you like to own to out that window.”

“No; for besides the things I tell you of,
I only see the years. They come and go
In alternation with the weeds, the field,
The wood.”

“What kind of years?”
“Why, latter years—
Different from early years.”
“I see them, too.
You didn’t count them?”
“No, the further off
So ran together that I didn’t try to.
It can scarce be that they would be in number
We’d care to know, for we are not young now.
And bang goes something else away off there.
It sounds as if it were the men went down,
And every crash meant one less to return
To lighted city streets we, too, have known,
But now are giving up for country darkness.”

“Come from that window where you see too much for me,
And take a livelier view of things from here.
They’re going. Watch this husky swarming up
Over the wheel into the sky-high seat,
Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose
At the flame burning downward as he sucks it.”

“See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof
How dark it’s getting. Can you tell what time
It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!
What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.
A wire she is of silver, as new as we
To everything. Her light won’t last us long.
It’s something, though, to know we’re going to have her
Night after night and stronger every night
To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,
The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;
Ask them to help you get it on its feet.
We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!”

“They’re not gone yet.”

“We’ve got to have the stove,
Whatever else we want for. And a light.
Have we a piece of candle if the lamp
And oil are buried out of reach?”
Again
The house was full of tramping, and the dark,
Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove.
A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,
To which they set it true by eye; and then
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much too light and airy for their strength
It almost seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.
“A fit!” said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.
“It’s good luck when you move in to begin
With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,
It’s not so bad in the country, settled down,
When people ’re getting on in life, You’ll like it.”
Joe said: “You big boys ought to find a farm,
And make good farmers, and leave other fellows
The city work to do. There’s not enough
For everybody as it is in there.”
“God!” one said wildly, and, when no one spoke:
“Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm.”
But Jimmy only made his jaw recede
Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say
He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy
Who said with seriousness that made them laugh,
“Ma friend, you ain’t know what it is you’re ask.”
He doffed his cap and held it with both hands
Across his chest to make as ’twere a bow:
“We’re giving you our chances on de farm.”
And then they all turned to with deafening boots
And put each other bodily out of the house.
“Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think—
I don’t know what they think we see in what
They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems
The back some farm presents us; and your woods
To northward from your window at the sink,
Waiting to steal a step on us whenever
We drop our eyes or turn to other things,
As in the game ‘Ten-step’ the children play.”

“Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city.
All they could say was ‘God!’ when you proposed
Their coming out and making useful farmers.”

“Did they make something lonesome go through you?
It would take more than them to sicken you—
Us of our bargain. But they left us so
As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.
They almost shook me.”

“It’s all so much
What we have always wanted, I confess
It’s seeming bad for a moment makes it seem
Even worse still, and so on down, down, down.
It’s nothing; it’s their leaving us at dusk.
I never bore it well when people went.
The first night after guests have gone, the house
Seems haunted or exposed. I always take
A personal interest in the locking up
At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.”
He fetched a dingy lantern from behind
A door. “There’s that we didn’t lose! And these!”—
Some matches he unpocketed. “For food—
The meals we’ve had no one can take from us.
I wish that everything on earth were just
As certain as the meals we’ve had. I wish
The meals we haven’t had were, anyway.
What have you you know where to lay your hands on?”

“The bread we bought in passing at the store.
There’s butter somewhere, too.”

“Let’s rend the bread.
I’ll light the fire for company for you;
You’ll not have any other company
Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday
To look us over and give us his idea
Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up.
He’ll know what he would do if he were we,
And all at once. He’ll plan for us and plan
To help us, but he’ll take it out in planning.
Well, you can set the table with the loaf.
Let’s see you find your loaf. I’ll light the fire.
I like chairs occupying other chairs
Not offering a lady—”

“There again, Joe!
You’re tired.”

“I’m drunk-nonsensical tired out;
Don’t mind a word I say. It’s a day’s work
To empty one house of all household goods
And fill another with ’em fifteen miles away,
Although you do no more than dump them down.”

“Dumped down in paradise we are and happy.”

“It’s all so much what I have always wanted,
I can’t believe it’s what you wanted, too.”

“Shouldn’t you like to know?”

“I’d like to know
If it is what you wanted, then how much
You wanted it for me.”

“A troubled conscience!
You don’t want me to tell if I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to find out what can’t be known.

But who first said the word to come?”

“My dear,
It’s who first thought the thought. You’re searching, Joe,
For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings—there are no such things.
There are only middles.”

“What is this?”
“This life?
Our sitting here by lantern-light together
Amid the wreckage of a former home?
You won’t deny the lantern isn’t new.
The stove is not, and you are not to me,
Nor I to you.”

“Perhaps you never were?”

“It would take me forever to recite
All that’s not new in where we find ourselves.
New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must get somewhere. I’ve heard you say as much.
No, this is no beginning.”

“Then an end?”

“End is a gloomy word.”
“Is it too late
To drag you out for just a good-night call
On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope
By starlight in the grass for a last peach
The neighbors may not have taken as their right
When the house wasn’t lived in? I’ve been looking:
I doubt if they have left us many grapes.
Before we set ourselves to right the house,
The first thing in the morning, out we go
To go the round of apple, cherry, peach,
Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.
All of a farm it is.”

“I know this much:
I’m going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make you build it. Come, the light.”

When there was no more lantern in the kitchen,
The fire got out through crannies in the stove
And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,
As much at home as if they’d always danced there.


Written by John Wilmot | Create an image from this poem

A Satyre Against Mankind

 Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other five;
And before certain instinct will prefer
Reason, which fifty times for one does err.
Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,
Which leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wand'ring ways it takes,
Through Error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes;
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimsey's, heaped in his own brain;
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down,
Into Doubt's boundless sea where, like to drown,
Books bear him up awhile, and make him try
To swim with bladders of Philosophy;
In hopes still to o'ertake the escaping light;
The vapour dances, in his dancing sight,
Till spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, make him to understand,
After a search so painful, and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong:

Huddled In dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.
Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch,
And made him venture; to be made a wretch.
His wisdom did has happiness destroy,
Aiming to know that world he should enjoy;
And Wit was his vain, frivolous pretence
Of pleasing others, at his own expense.
For wits are treated just like common whores,
First they're enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors;
The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains,
That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains:
Women and men of wit are dangerous tools,
And ever fatal to admiring fools.
Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape,
'Tis not that they're beloved, but fortunate,
And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate:

But now, methinks some formal band and beard
Takes me to task; come on sir, I'm prepared:

"Then by your Favour, anything that's writ
Against this jibing, jingling knack called Wit
Likes me abundantly: but you take care
Upon this point not to be too severe.
Perhaps my Muse were fitter for this part,
For I profess I can be very smart
On Wit, which I abhor with all my heart;
I long to lash it in some sharp essay,
But your grand indiscretion bids me stay,
And turns my tide of ink another way.
What rage Torments in your degenerate mind,
To make you rail at reason, and mankind
Blessed glorious man! To whom alone kind heaven
An everlasting soul hath freely given;
Whom his great maker took such care to make,
That from himself he did the image take;
And this fair frame in shining reason dressed,
To dignify his nature above beast.
Reason, by whose aspiring influence
We take a flight beyond material sense,
Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce
The flaming limits of the universe,
Search heaven and hell, Find out what's acted there,
And give the world true grounds of hope and fear."

Hold mighty man, I cry, all this we know,
From the pathetic pen of Ingelo;
From Patrlck's Pilgrim, Sibbes' Soliloquies,
And 'tis this very reason I despise,
This supernatural gift that makes a mite
Think he's an image of the infinite;
Comparing his short life, void of all rest,
To the eternal, and the ever-blessed.
This busy, pushing stirrer-up of doubt,
That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out;
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
The reverend bedlam's, colleges and schools;
Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly,
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis the exalted power whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities.
This made a whimsical philosopher
Before the spacious world his tub prefer,
And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, who
Retire to think 'cause they have nought to do.
But thoughts are given for action's government;
Where action ceases, thought's impertinent:
Our sphere of action is life's happiness,
And he that thinks beyond thinks like an ass.

Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh.
I own right reason, which I would obey:
That reason which distinguishes by sense,
And gives us rules of good and ill from thence;
That bounds desires. with a reforming will
To keep 'em more in vigour, not to kill. -
Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,
Renewing appetites yours would destroy.
My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat,
Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat;
Perversely. yours your appetite does mock:
This asks for food, that answers, 'what's o'clock'
This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures,
'Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.
Thus I think reason righted, but for man,
I'll ne'er recant, defend him if you can:
For all his pride, and his philosophy,
'Tis evident: beasts are in their own degree
As wise at least, and better far than he.

Those creatures are the wisest who attain. -
By surest means. the ends at which they aim.
If therefore Jowler finds and kills the hares,
Better than Meres supplies committee chairs;
Though one's a statesman, th' other but a hound,
Jowler in justice would be wiser found.
You see how far man's wisdom here extends.
Look next if human nature makes amends;
Whose principles are most generous and just,
- And to whose morals you would sooner trust:

Be judge yourself, I'll bring it to the test,
Which is the basest creature, man or beast
Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey,
But savage man alone does man betray:
Pressed by necessity; they kill for food,
Man undoes man, to do himself no good.
With teeth and claws, by nature armed, they hunt
Nature's allowance, to supply their want.
But man, with smiles, embraces. friendships. Praise,
Inhumanely his fellow's life betrays;
With voluntary pains works his distress,
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For hunger or for love they bite, or tear,
Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear.
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid:
From fear, to fear, successively betrayed.
Base fear, the source whence his best passions came.
His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame.
The lust of power, to whom he's such a slave,
And for the which alone he dares be brave;
To which his various projects are designed,
Which makes him generous, affable, and kind.
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions, in a forced disguise;
Leads a most tedious life in misery,
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join:
The good he acts. the ill he does endure.
'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure.
Merely for safety after fame they thirst,
For all men would be cowards if they durst.
And honesty's against all common sense,
Men must be knaves, 'tis in their own defence.
Mankind's dishonest: if you think it fair
Among known cheats to play upon the square,
You'll be undone.
Nor can weak truth your reputation save,
The knaves will all agree to call you knave.
Wronged shall he live, insulted o'er, oppressed,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest.

Thus sir, you see what human nature craves,
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves;
The difference lies, as far as I can see.
Not in the thing itself, but the degree;
And all the subject matter of debate
Is only, who's a knave of the first rate

All this with indignation have I hurled
At the pretending part of the proud world,
Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise,
False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies,
Over their fellow slaves to tyrannise.

But if in Court so just a man there be,
(In Court, a just man - yet unknown to me)
Who does his needful flattery direct
Not to oppress and ruin, but protect:
Since flattery, which way soever laid,
Is still a tax: on that unhappy trade.
If so upright a statesman you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind,
Who does his arts and policies apply
To raise his country, not his family;
Nor while his pride owned avarice withstands,
Receives close bribes, from friends corrupted hands.

Is there a churchman who on God relies
Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies
Not one blown up, with vain prelatic pride,
Who for reproofs of sins does man deride;
Whose envious heart makes preaching a pretence
With his obstreperous, saucy eloquence,
To chide at kings, and rail at men of sense;
Who from his pulpit vents more peevlsh lies,
More bitter railings, scandals, calumnies,
Than at a gossiping are thrown about
When the good wives get drunk, and then fall out.
None of that sensual tribe, whose talents lie
In avarice, pride, sloth, and gluttony.
Who hunt good livings; but abhor good lives,
Whose lust exalted, to that height arrives,
They act adultery with their own wives.
And ere a score of years completed be,
Can from the loftiest pulpit proudly see,
Half a large parish their own progeny.
Nor doting bishop, who would be adored
For domineering at the Council board;

A greater fop, in business at fourscore,
Fonder of serious toys, affected more,
Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves,
With all his noise, his tawdry clothes and loves.
But a meek, humble man, of honest sense,
Who preaching peace does practise continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths which no man can conceive.

If upon Earth there dwell such god-like men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them,
Adores those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
And with the rabble world their laws obey.

If such there are, yet grant me this at least,
Man differs more from man than man from beast.
Written by Dante Alighieri | Create an image from this poem

Love and the Gentle Heart

 Love and the gentle heart are one thing,
just as the poet says in his verse,
each from the other one as well divorced
as reason from the mind’s reasoning.

Nature craves love, and then creates love king,
and makes the heart a palace where he’ll stay,
perhaps a shorter or a longer day,
breathing quietly, gently slumbering.

Then beauty in a virtuous woman’s face
makes the eyes yearn, and strikes the heart,
so that the eyes’ desire’s reborn again,
and often, rooting there with longing, stays,

Till love, at last, out of its dreaming starts.
Woman’s moved likewise by a virtuous man.
Written by Dante Alighieri | Create an image from this poem

There is a Gentle Thought

 There is a gentle thought that often springs
to life in me, because it speaks of you.
Its reasoning about love’s so sweet and true,
the heart is conquered, and accepts these things.
‘Who is this’ the mind enquires of the heart,
‘who comes here to seduce our intellect?
Is his power so great we must reject
every other intellectual art?
The heart replies ‘O, meditative mind
this is love’s messenger and newly sent
to bring me all Love’s words and desires.
His life, and all the strength that he can find,
from her sweet eyes are mercifully lent,
who feels compassion for our inner fires.’
Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

Carol of Words

 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in the air—they are in you. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those delicious sounds out of your
 friends’
 mouths? 
No, the real words are more delicious than they. 

Human bodies are words, myriads of words; 
In the best poems re-appears the body, man’s or woman’s, well-shaped, natural,
 gay,
Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame. 

2
Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; 
I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs—my name is
 nothing to
 them; 
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire,
 know of
 my
 name? 

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings;
The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings
 also. 

3
The workmanship of souls is by the inaudible words of the earth; 
The great masters know the earth’s words, and use them more than the audible words. 

Amelioration is one of the earth’s words; 
The earth neither lags nor hastens;
It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump; 
It is not half beautiful only—defects and excrescences show just as much as
 perfections
 show. 

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough; 
The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal’d either; 
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print;
They are imbued through all things, conveying themselves willingly, 
Conveying a sentiment and invitation of the earth—I utter and utter, 
I speak not, yet if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? 
To bear—to better—lacking these, of what avail am I? 

4
Accouche! Accouchez!
Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? 
Will you squat and stifle there? 

The earth does not argue, 
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, 
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, 
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out, 
Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. 

5
The earth does not exhibit itself, nor refuse to exhibit itself—possesses still
 underneath; 
Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves,
Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of
 bargainers, 
Underneath these, possessing the words that never fail. 

To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail; 
The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail, and reflection does not fail; 
Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.

6
Of the interminable sisters, 
Of the ceaseless cotillions of sisters, 
Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, 
The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. 
With her ample back towards every beholder,
With the fascinations of youth, and the equal fascinations of age, 
Sits she whom I too love like the rest—sits undisturb’d, 
Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from
 it, 
Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, 
Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.

7
Seen at hand, or seen at a distance, 
Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, 
Duly approach and pass with their companions, or a companion, 
Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with
 them, 
From the countenances of children or women, or the manly countenance,
From the open countenances of animals, or from inanimate things, 
From the landscape or waters, or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, 
From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, 
Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same companions. 

8
Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round
 the
 sun;
Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of
 the
 first,
 sure and necessary as they. 

9
Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, 
Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying, 
The Soul’s realization and determination still inheriting, 
The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,
No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, 
Swift, glad, content, unbereav’d, nothing losing, 
Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea. 

10
Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you;
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. 

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, 
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, 
For none more than you are the present and the past, 
For none more than you is immortality.

11
Each man to himself, and each woman to herself, such is the word of the past and present,
 and
 the
 word of immortality; 
No one can acquire for another—not one! 
Not one can grow for another—not one! 

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him; 
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him;
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him; 
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him; 
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him; 
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail; 
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience;
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his
 own. 

12
I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete! 
I swear the earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and
 broken! 
I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth! 
I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate the theory of the
 earth!
No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with
 the
 amplitude of the earth, 
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth. 

13
I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love! 
It is that which contains itself—which never invites, and never refuses. 

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words!
I swear I think all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth! 
Toward him who sings the songs of the Body, and of the truths of the earth; 
Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch. 

14
I swear I see what is better than to tell the best; 
It is always to leave the best untold.

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, 
My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, 
My breath will not be obedient to its organs, 
I become a dumb man. 

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow—all or any is best;
It is not what you anticipated—it is cheaper, easier, nearer; 
Things are not dismiss’d from the places they held before; 
The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before; 
Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before; 
But the Soul is also real,—it too is positive and direct;
No reasoning, no proof has establish’d it, 
Undeniable growth has establish’d it. 

15
This is a poem—a carol of words—these are hints of meanings, 
These are to echo the tones of Souls, and the phrases of Souls; 
If they did not echo the phrases of Souls, what were they then?
If they had not reference to you in especial, what were they then? 

I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best! 
I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold. 

16
Say on, sayers! 
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
Work on—(it is materials you must bring, not breaths;) 
Work on, age after age! nothing is to be lost; 
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; 
When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear. 

I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them and lead them;
I swear to you they will understand you, and justify you; 
I swear to you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all,
 and is
 faithful to all; 
I swear to you, he and the rest shall not forget you—they shall perceive that you are
 not
 an
 iota less than they; 
I swear to you, you shall be glorified in them.


Written by Thomas Hardy | Create an image from this poem

A Meeting With Despair

 AS evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun--
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,
"There's solace everywhere!"

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood
I dealt me silently
As one perverse--misrepresenting Good
In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-descern?d wheel
A form rose, strange of mould:
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel
Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent
To darkness!" croaked the Thing.
"Not if you look aloft!" said I, intent
On my new reasoning.

"Yea--but await awhile!" he cried. "Ho-ho!--
Look now aloft and see!"
I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven's radiant show
Had gone. Then chuckled he.
Written by James Henry Leigh Hunt | Create an image from this poem

A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfrets

 I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring, 
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing, 
Not much a verse, and poem none at all, 
Yet, as they say, extremely natural. 
And yet I know not. There's an art in pies, 
In raising crusts as well as galleries; 
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows 
The charm that hallows the least truth from prose, 
And dresses it in its mild singing clothes. 
Not oaks alone are trees, nor roses flowers; 
Much humble wealth makes rich this world of ours. 
Nature from some sweet energy throws up 
Alike the pine-mount and the buttercup; 
And truth she makes so precious, that to paint 
Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint, 
And bring him in his turn the crowds that press 
Round Guido's saints or Titian's goddesses. 

Our trivial poet hit upon a theme 
Which all men love, an old, sweet household dream:-- 
Pray, reader, what is yours?--I know full well 
What sort of home should grace my garden-bell,-- 
No tall, half-furnish'd, gloomy, shivering house, 
That worst of mountains labouring with a mouse; 
Nor should I choose to fill a tawdry niche in 
A Grecian temple, opening to a kitchen. 
The frogs in Homer should have had such boxes, 
Or Aesop's frog, whose heart was like the ox's. 
Such puff about high roads, so grand, so small, 
With wings and what not, portico and all, 
And poor drench'd pillars, which it seems a sin 
Not to mat up at night-time, or take in. 
I'd live in none of those. Nor would I have 
Veranda'd windows to forestall my grave; 
Veranda'd truly, from the northern heat! 
And cut down to the floor to comfort one's cold feet! 
My house should be of brick, more wide than high, 
With sward up to the path, and elm-trees nigh; 
A good old country lodge, half hid with blooms 
Of honied green, and quaint with straggling rooms, 
A few of which, white-bedded and well swept, 
For friends, whose name endear'd them, should be kept. 
The tip-toe traveller, peeping through the boughs 
O'er my low wall, should bless the pleasant house: 
And that my luck might not seem ill-bestow'd, 
A bench and spring should greet him on the road. 

My grounds should not be large. I like to go 
To Nature for a range, and prospect too, 
And cannot fancy she'd comprise for me, 
Even in a park, her all-sufficiency. 
Besides, my thoughts fly far, and when at rest 
Love not a watch-tow'r but a lulling nest. 
A Chiswick or a Chatsworth might, I grant, 
Visit my dreams with an ambitious want; 
But then I should be forc'd to know the weight 
Of splendid cares, new to my former state; 
And these 'twould far more fit me to admire, 
Borne by the graceful ease of noblest Devonshire. 
Such grounds, however, as I had should look 
Like "something" still; have seats, and walks, and brook; 
One spot for flowers, the rest all turf and trees; 
For I'd not grow my own bad lettuces. 
I'd build a cover'd path too against rain, 
Long, peradventure, as my whole domain, 
And so be sure of generous exercise, 
The youth of age and med'cine of the wise. 
And this reminds me, that behind some screen 
About my grounds, I'd have a bowling-green; 
Such as in wits' and merry women's days 
Suckling preferr'd before his walk of bays. 
You may still see them, dead as haunts of fairies, 
By the old seats of Killigrews and Careys, 
Where all, alas! is vanish'd from the ring, 
Wits and black eyes, the skittles and the king! 
Fishing I hate, because I think about it, 
Which makes it right that I should do without it. 
A dinner, or a death, might not be much, 
But cruelty's a rod I dare not touch. 
I own I cannot see my right to feel 
For my own jaws, and tear a trout's with steel; 
To troll him here and there, and spike, and strain, 
And let him loose to jerk him back again. 
Fancy a preacher at this sort of work, 
Not with his trout or gudgeon, but his clerk: 
The clerk leaps gaping at a tempting bit, 
And, hah! an ear-ache with a knife in it! 
That there is pain and evil is no rule 
That I should make it greater, like a fool; 
Or rid me of my rust so vile a way, 
As long as there's a single manly play. 
Nay, "fool"'s a word my pen unjustly writes, 
Knowing what hearts and brains have dozed o'er "bites"; 
But the next inference to be drawn might be, 
That higher beings made a trout of me; 
Which I would rather should not be the case, 
Though Isaak were the saint to tear my face, 
And, stooping from his heaven with rod and line, 
Made the fell sport, with his old dreams divine, 
As pleasant to his taste, as rough to mine. 
Such sophistry, no doubt, saves half the hell, 
But fish would have preferr'd his reasoning well, 
And, if my gills concern'd him, so should I. 
The dog, I grant, is in that "equal sky," 
But, heaven be prais'd, he's not my deity. 
All manly games I'd play at,--golf and quoits, 
And cricket, to set lungs and limbs to rights, 
And make me conscious, with a due respect, 
Of muscles one forgets by long neglect. 
With these, or bowls aforesaid, and a ride, 
Books, music, friends, the day I would divide, 
Most with my family, but when alone, 
Absorb'd in some new poem of my own, 
A task which makes my time so richly pass, 
So like a sunshine cast through painted glass 
(Save where poor Captain Sword crashes the panes), 
That cold my friends live too, and were the gains 
Of toiling men but freed from sordid fears, 
Well could I walk this earth a thousand years.
Written by Sir Walter Scott | Create an image from this poem

Patriotism 02 Nelson Pitt Fox

 TO mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine
Where glory weeps o'er NELSON'S shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow'd tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!
Say to your sons,--Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave!
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Where'er his country's foes were found
Was heard the fated thunder's sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Roll'd, blazed, destroy'd--and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perish'd worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launch'd that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprise,
For Britain's weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's sins, an early grave!
--His worth, who in his mightiest hour
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Strain'd at subjection's bursting rein,
O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd,
The pride he would not crush, restrain'd,
Show'd their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws.

Hadst thou but lived, though stripp'd of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
The trumpet's silver voice is still,
The warder silent on the hill!

O think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claim'd his prey,
With Palinure's unalter'd mood
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repell'd,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till in his fall with fateful sway
The steerage of the realm gave way.
Then--while on Britain's thousand plains
One polluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still upon the hallow'd day
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear:--
He who preserved them, PITT, lies here!

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy Requiescat dumb
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employ'd, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow--
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mourn'st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppress'd,
And sacred be the last long rest.
Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
Here, where the fretted vaults prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke agen,
'All peace on earth, good-will to men';
If ever from an English heart,
O, here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouch'd to France's yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian's purpose brave
Was barter'd by a timorous slave--
Even then dishonour's peace he spurn'd,
The sullied olive-branch return'd,
Stood for his country's glory fast,
And nail'd her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honour'd grave;
And ne'er held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.

With more than mortal powers endow'd,
How high they soar'd above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Look'd up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of PITT and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.
These spells are spent, and, spent with these,
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tomb'd beneath the stone,
Where--taming thought to human pride!--
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier;
O'er PITT'S the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,
'Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom
Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen?'
Written by Edgar Bowers | Create an image from this poem

Variations on an Elizabethan Theme

 Long days, short nights, this Southern summer 
Fixes the mind within its timeless place. 
 Athwart pale limbs the brazen hummer 
Hangs and is gone, warm sound its quickened space. 

 Butterfly weed and cardinal flower, 
Orange and red, with indigo the band, 
 Perfect themselves unto the hour. 
And blood suffused within the sunlit hand, 

 Within the glistening eye the dew, 
Are slow with their slow moving. Watch their passing, 
 As lightly the shade covers you: 
All colors and all shapes enrich its massing. 

 Once I endured such gentle season. 
Blood-root, trillium, sweet flag, and swamp aster— 
 In their mild urgency, the reason 
Knew each and kept each chosen from disaster. 

 Now even dusk destroys; the bright 
Leucotho? dissolves before the eyes 
 And poised upon the reach of light 
Leaves only what no reasoning dare surmise. 

 Dim isolation holds the sense 
Of being, intimate as breathing; around, 
 Voices, unmeasured and intense, 
Throb with the heart below the edge of sound.
Written by Jean Ingelow | Create an image from this poem

Honors - Part I

A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)

To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
  I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
      With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
  I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among the winged—I set these feet that halt
      To run against the swift.
And yet this man, that loved me so, can write—
  That loves me, I would say, can let me see;
Or fain would have me think he counts but light
      These Honors lost to me.
         (The letter of his friend.)
"What are they? that old house of yours which gave
  Such welcome oft to me, the sunbeams fall
Yet, down the squares of blue and white which pave
      Its hospitable hall.
"A brave old house! a garden full of bees,
  Large dropping poppies, and Queen hollyhocks,
With butterflies for crowns—tree peonies
      And pinks and goldilocks.
"Go, when the shadow of your house is long
  Upon the garden—when some new-waked bird.
Pecking and fluttering, chirps a sudden song,
      And not a leaf is stirred;
"But every one drops dew from either edge
  Upon its fellow, while an amber ray
Slants up among the tree-tops like a wedge
      Of liquid gold—to play
"Over and under them, and so to fall
  Upon that lane of water lying below—
That piece of sky let in, that you do call
      A pond, but which I know
"To be a deep and wondrous world; for I
  Have seen the trees within it—marvellous things
So thick no bird betwixt their leaves could fly
      But she would smite her wings;—
"Go there, I say; stand at the water's brink,
  And shoals of spotted barbel you shall see
Basking between the shadows—look, and think
      'This beauty is for me;
"'For me this freshness in the morning hours,
  For me the water's clear tranquillity;
For me the soft descent of chestnut flowers;
      The cushat's cry for me.
"'The lovely laughter of the wind-swayed wheat
  The easy slope of yonder pastoral hill;
The sedgy brook whereby the red kine meet
      And wade and drink their fill.'
"Then saunter down that terrace whence the sea
  All fair with wing-like sails you may discern;
Be glad, and say 'This beauty is for me—
      A thing to love and learn.
"'For me the bounding in of tides; for me
  The laying bare of sands when they retreat;
The purple flush of calms, the sparkling glee
      When waves and sunshine meet.'
"So, after gazing, homeward turn, and mount
  To that long chamber in the roof; there tell
Your heart the laid-up lore it holds to count
      And prize and ponder well.
"The lookings onward of the race before
  It had a past to make it look behind;
Its reverent wonder, and its doubting sore,
      Its adoration blind.
"The thunder of its war-songs, and the glow
  Of chants to freedom by the old world sung;
The sweet love cadences that long ago
      Dropped from the old-world tongue.
"And then this new-world lore that takes account
  Of tangled star-dust; maps the triple whirl
Of blue and red and argent worlds that mount
      And greet the IRISH EARL;
"Or float across the tube that HERSCHEL sways,
  Like pale-rose chaplets, or like sapphire mist;
Or hang or droop along the heavenly ways,
      Like scarves of amethyst.
"O strange it is and wide the new-world lore,
  For next it treateth of our native dust!
Must dig out buried monsters, and explore
      The green earth's fruitful crust;
"Must write the story of her seething youth—
  How lizards paddled in her lukewarm seas;
Must show the cones she ripened, and forsooth
      Count seasons on her trees;
"Must know her weight, and pry into her age,
  Count her old beach lines by their tidal swell;
Her sunken mountains name, her craters gauge,
      Her cold volcanoes tell;
"And treat her as a ball, that one might pass
  From this hand to the other—such a ball
As he could measure with a blade of grass,
      And say it was but small!
"Honors! O friend, I pray you bear with me:
  The grass hath time to grow in meadow lands,
And leisurely the opal murmuring sea
      Breaks on her yellow sands;
"And leisurely the ring-dove on her nest
  Broods till her tender chick will peck the shell
And leisurely down fall from ferny crest
      The dew-drops on the well;
"And leisurely your life and spirit grew,
  With yet the time to grow and ripen free:
No judgment past withdraws that boon from you,
      Nor granteth it to me.
"Still must I plod, and still in cities moil;
  From precious leisure, learned leisure far,
Dull my best self with handling common soil;
      Yet mine those honors are.
"Mine they are called; they are a name which means,
  'This man had steady pulses, tranquil nerves:
Here, as in other fields, the most he gleans
      Who works and never swerves.
"We measure not his mind; we cannot tell
  What lieth under, over, or beside
The test we put him to; he doth excel,
    We know, where he is tried;
"But, if he boast some farther excellence—
  Mind to create as well as to attain;
To sway his peers by golden eloquence,
    As wind doth shift a fane;
"'To sing among the poets—we are nought:
  We cannot drop a line into that sea
And read its fathoms off, nor gauge a thought,
    Nor map a simile.
"'It may be of all voices sublunar
  The only one he echoes we did try;
We may have come upon the only star
    That twinkles in his sky,'
"And so it was with me."
                         O false my friend!
  False, false, a random charge, a blame undue;
Wrest not fair reasoning to a crooked end:
    False, false, as you are true!
But I read on: "And so it was with me;
  Your golden constellations lying apart
They neither hailed nor greeted heartily,
    Nor noted on their chart.
"And yet to you and not to me belong
  Those finer instincts that, like second sight
And hearing, catch creation's undersong,
      And see by inner light.
"You are a well, whereon I, gazing, see
  Reflections of the upper heavens—a well
From whence come deep, deep echoes up to me—
      Some underwave's low swell.
"I cannot soar into the heights you show,
  Nor dive among the deeps that you reveal;
But it is much that high things ARE to know,
      That deep things ARE to feel.
"'Tis yours, not mine, to pluck out of your breast
  Some human truth, whose workings recondite
Were unattired in words, and manifest
      And hold it forth to light
"And cry, 'Behold this thing that I have found,'
  And though they knew not of it till that day,
Nor should have done with no man to expound
      Its meaning, yet they say,
"'We do accept it: lower than the shoals
  We skim, this diver went, nor did create,
But find it for us deeper in our souls
      Than we can penetrate.'
"You were to me the world's interpreter,
  The man that taught me Nature's unknown tongue,
And to the notes of her wild dulcimer
      First set sweet words, and sung.
"And what am I to you? A steady hand
  To hold, a steadfast heart to trust withal;
Merely a man that loves you, and will stand
      By you, whatever befall.
"But need we praise his tendance tutelar
  Who feeds a flame that warms him? Yet 'tis true
I love you for the sake of what you are,
      And not of what you do:—
"As heaven's high twins, whereof in Tyrian blue
  The one revolveth: through his course immense
Might love his fellow of the damask hue,
      For like, and difference.
"For different pathways evermore decreed
  To intersect, but not to interfere;
For common goal, two aspects, and one speed,
      One centre and one year;
"For deep affinities, for drawings strong,
  That by their nature each must needs exert;
For loved alliance, and for union long,
      That stands before desert.
"And yet desert makes brighter not the less,
  For nearest his own star he shall not fail
To think those rays unmatched for nobleness,
      That distance counts but pale.
"Be pale afar, since still to me you shine,
  And must while Nature's eldest law shall hold;"—
Ah, there's the thought which makes his random line
      Dear as refinèd gold!
Then shall I drink this draft of oxymel,
  Part sweet, part sharp? Myself o'erprized to know
Is sharp; the cause is sweet, and truth to tell
      Few would that cause forego,
Which is, that this of all the men on earth
  Doth love me well enough to count me great—
To think my soul and his of equal girth—
      O liberal estimate!
And yet it is so; he is bound to me,
  For human love makes aliens near of kin;
By it I rise, there is equality:
      I rise to thee, my twin.
"Take courage"—courage! ay, my purple peer
  I will take courage; for thy Tyrian rays
Refresh me to the heart, and strangely dear
      And healing is thy praise.
"Take courage," quoth he, "and respect the mind
  Your Maker gave, for good your fate fulfil;
The fate round many hearts your own to wind."
      Twin soul, I will! I will!

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry