Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to God
I may not follow them.
Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.
Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee.
Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee
To gild his dross thereby,
And knowledge sure that he endure
A child until he die --
For to make plain that man's disdain
Is but new Beauty's birth --
For to possess in loneliness
The joy of all the earth.
As Thou didst teach all lovers speech
And Life all mystery,
So shalt Thou rule by every school
Till love and longing die,
Who wast or yet the Lights were set,
A whisper in the Void,
Who shalt be sung through planets young
When this is clean destroyed.
Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,
Across the pressing dark,
The children wise of outer skies
Look hitherward and mark
A light that shifts, a glare that drifts,
Rekindling thus and thus,
Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne
Strange tales to them of us.
Time hath no tide but must abide
The servant of Thy will;
Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme
The ranging stars stand still --
Regent of spheres that lock our fears,
Our hopes invisible,
Oh 'twas certes at Thy decrees
We fashioned Heaven and Hell!
Pure Wisdom hath no certain path
That lacks thy morning-eyne,
And captains bold by Thee controlled
Most like to Gods design;
Thou art the Voice to kingly boys
To lift them through the fight,
And Comfortress of Unsuccess,
To give the dead good-night --
A veil to draw 'twixt God His Law
And Man's infirmity,
A shadow kind to dumb and blind
The shambles where we die;
A rule to trick th' arithmetic
Too base of leaguing odds --
The spur of trust, the curb of lust,
Thou handmaid of the Gods!
O Charity, all patiently
Abiding wrack and scaith!
O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats
Yet drops no jot of faith!
Devil and brute Thou dost transmute
To higher, lordlier show,
Who art in sooth that lovely Truth
The careless angels know!
Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I may not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die.
Yet may I look with heart unshook
On blow brought home or missed --
Yet may I hear with equal ear
The clarions down the List;
Yet set my lance above mischance
And ride the barriere --
Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis,
My Lady is not there!
|
Written by
Barry Tebb |
It was like chucking-out time
In a rough Victorian pub
Cherubic Dylan was first to go
Lachrymose but with a show
Of strength, yelling "Buggerall,
Buggerall, this is my boat-house
In Laugherne, these are my books,
My prizes, I ride every wave-crest,
My loves are legion. What’s this
You’re saying about fashion?
Others follow where I lead,
Schoolchildren copy my verse,
No anthology omits me
Put me down! Put me down!
George Barker was too far gone
To take them on
And moaned about a list
In a crystal cave of making beneath
The basement of the Regent Street
Polytechnic.
Edith Sitwell was rigid in a carved
High-backed chair, regally aloof,
Her ringed fingers gripping the arms,
Her eyes flashing diamonds of contempt.
"A la lampe! A la lampe!"
A serious fight broke out in the saloon bar
When they tried to turf Redgrove out:
His image of the poet as violent man
Broke loose and in his turtle-necked
Seaman’s jersey he shouted,
"Man the barricades!"
A tirade of nature-paths and voters
For a poetry of love mixed it with
The chuckers-out; Kennedy, Morley
And Hulse suffered a sharp repulse.
Heath-Stubbs was making death stabs
With his blindman’s stick at the ankles
Of detractors from his position under
The high table of chivalry, intoning
A prayer to raise the spirit
Of Sidney Keyes.
Geoffrey Hill had Merlin and Arthur
Beside him and was whirling an axe
To great effect, headless New Gen poets
Running amok.
Andrew Crozier was leading a counter-attack
With Caddy and Hinton neck and neck
And Silkin was quietly garrotting
While he kept on smiling.
Price Turner was so happy at the slaughter
He hanged himself in a corner
And Hughes brought the Great White Boar
To wallow in all the gore
While I rode centaur
Charles Tomlinson had sent for.
|
Written by
Phillis Wheatley |
MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine,
Your vent'rous Afric in her great design.
Mneme, immortal pow'r, I trace thy spring:
Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing:
The acts of long departed years, by thee
Recover'd, in due order rang'd we see:
Thy pow'r the long-forgotten calls from night,
That sweetly plays before the fancy's sight.
Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours
The ample treasure of her secret stores;
Swift from above the wings her silent flight
Through Phoebe's realms, fair regent of the night;
And, in her pomp of images display'd,
To the high-raptur'd poet gives her aid,
Through the unbounded regions of the mind,
Diffusing light celestial and refin'd.
The heav'nly phantom paints the actions done
By ev'ry tribe beneath the rolling sun.
Mneme, enthron'd within the human breast,
Has vice condemn'd, and ev'ry virtue blest.
How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear?
Sweeter than music to the ravish'd ear,
Sweeter than Maro's entertaining strains
Resounding through the groves, and hills, and plains.
But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,
Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace?
By her unveil'd each horrid crime appears,
Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe!
Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.
Now eighteen years their destin'd course have run,
In fast succession round the central sun.
How did the follies of that period pass
Unnotic'd, but behold them writ in brass!
In Recollection see them fresh return,
And sure 'tis mine to be asham'd, and mourn.
O Virtue, smiling in immortal green,
Do thou exert thy pow'r, and change the scene;
Be thine employ to guide my future days,
And mine to pay the tribute of my praise.
Of Recollection such the pow'r enthron'd
In ev'ry breast, and thus her pow'r is own'd.
The wretch, who dar'd the vengeance of the skies,
At last awakes in horror and surprise,
By her alarm'd, he sees impending fate,
He howls in anguish, and repents too late.
But O! what peace, what joys are hers t' impart
To ev'ry holy, ev'ry upright heart!
Thrice blest the man, who, in her sacred shrine,
Feels himself shelter'd from the wrath divine!
|
Written by
Hilaire Belloc |
I
Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold
And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold
And heard a woodland music passing by:
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.
II
Steep are the seas and savaging and cold
In broken waters terrible to try;
And vast against the winter night the wold,
And harbourless for any sail to lie.
But you shall lead me to the lights, and I
Shall hymn you in a harbour story told.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.
III
Help of the half-defeated, House of gold,
Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory;
Splendour apart, supreme and aureoled,
The Battler's vision and the World's reply.
You shall restore me, O my last Ally,
To vengence and the glories of the bold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.
Envoi
Prince of the degradations, bought and sold,
These verses, written in your crumbling sty,
Proclaim the faith that I have held and hold
And publish that in which I mean to die.
|
Written by
Thomas Campbell |
When Scotland's great Regent, our warrior most dear,
The debt of his nature did pay,
T' was Edward, the cruel, had reason to fear,
And cause to be struck with dismay.
At the window of Edward the raven did croak,
Though Scotland a widow became;
Each tie of true honor to Wallace he broke-
The raven croaked "Sorrow and shame!"
At Eldersie Castle no raven was heard,
But soothings of honor and truth;
His spirit inspired the soul of the bard
To comfort the Love of his youth!
They lighted the tapers at dead of night,
And chanted their holiest hymn;
But her brow and her bosom were all damp with affright,
Her eye was all sleepless and dim!
And the lady of Eldersie wept for her lord,
With a death-watch beat in her lonely room,
When her curtain shook of its own accord,
And the raven flapped at her window board
To tell of her warrior's doom.
Now sing ye the death-song, and loudly pray
For the soul of my knight so dear!
And call me a widow, this wretched day,
Since the warning of God is here.
For a nightmare rests on my strangled sleep;
The lord of my bosom is doomed to die!
His valorous heart they have wounded deep,
And the blood-red tears his country shall weep
For Wallace of Elderslie.
Yet knew not his country, that ominous hour,
Ere the loud matin-bell was rung,
That the trumpet of death on an English tower,
The dirge of her champion sung.
When his dungeon light looked dim and red
On the high-born blood of a martyr slain,
No anthem was sung at his lowly death-bed,-
No weeping was there when his bosom bled,
And his heart was rent in twain.
When he strode o'er the wreck of each well-fought field,
With the yellow-haired chiefs of his native land;
For his lace was not shivered on helmet or shield,
And the sword that was fit for archangel to wield
Was light in his terrible hand.
Yet, bleeding and bound, though the "Wallacewight"
For his long-loved country die,,
The bugle ne'er sung to a braver night
Than William of Elderslie.
But the day of his triumphs shall never depart;
His head, unemtombed, shall with glory be palmed:
From its blood streaming altar his spirit shall start;
Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart,
A nobler was never embalmed!
|
Written by
Algernon Charles Swinburne |
O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire,
Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;
O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom
The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;
O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire
Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,
And with him risen and regent in death's room
All day thy choral pulses rang full choir;
O heart whose beating blood was running song,
O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,
Help us for thy free love's sake to be free,
True for thy truth's sake, for thy strength's sake strong,
Till very liberty make clean and fair
The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E’en let them die-for that they’re born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec’!
A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space,
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!
The Spanish empire’s tint a head,
And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead:
The tulyie’s teugh ’tween Pitt and Fox,
And ’tween our Maggie’s twa wee cocks;
The tane is game, a bluidy devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither’s something dour o’ treadin,
But better stuff ne’er claw’d a middin.
Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,
An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupit,
For Eighty-eight, he wished you weel,
An’ gied ye a’ baith gear an’ meal;
E’en monc a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!
Ye bonie lasses, dight your e’en,
For some o’ you hae tint a frien’;
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was taen,
What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again.
Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,
How dowff an’ daviely they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry,
For E’nburgh wells are grutten dry.
O Eighty-nine, thou’s but a bairn,
An’ no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,
Thou now hast got thy Daddy’s chair;
Nae handcuff’d, mizl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent,
But, like himsel, a full free agent,
Be sure ye follow out the plan
Nae waur than he did, honest man!
As muckle better as you can.January, 1, 1789.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
DAUGHTER of Chaos’ doting years,
Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears,
Whether thy airy, insubstantial shade
(The rights of sepulture now duly paid)
Spread abroad its hideous form
On the roaring civil storm,
Deafening din and warring rage
Factions wild with factions wage;
Or under-ground, deep-sunk, profound,
Among the demons of the earth,
With groans that make the mountains shake,
Thou mourn thy ill-starr’d, blighted birth;
Or in the uncreated Void,
Where seeds of future being fight,
With lessen’d step thou wander wide,
To greet thy Mother—Ancient Night.
And as each jarring, monster-mass is past,
Fond recollect what once thou wast:
In manner due, beneath this sacred oak,
Hear, Spirit, hear! thy presence I invoke!
By a Monarch’s heaven-struck fate,
By a disunited State,
By a generous Prince’s wrongs.
By a Senate’s strife of tongues,
By a Premier’s sullen pride,
Louring on the changing tide;
By dread Thurlow’s powers to awe
Rhetoric, blasphemy and law;
By the turbulent ocean—
A Nation’s commotion,
By the harlot-caresses
Of borough addresses,
By days few and evil,
(Thy portion, poor devil!)
By Power, Wealth, and Show,
(The Gods by men adored,)
By nameless Poverty,
(Their hell abhorred,)
By all they hope, by all they fear,
Hear! and appear!
Stare not on me, thou ghastly Power!
Nor, grim with chained defiance, lour:
No Babel-structure would I build
Where, order exil’d from his native sway,
Confusion may the REGENT-sceptre wield,
While all would rule and none obey:
Go, to the world of man relate
The story of thy sad, eventful fate;
And call presumptuous Hope to hear
And bid him check his blind career;
And tell the sore-prest sons of Care,
Never, never to despair!
Paint Charles’ speed on wings of fire,
The object of his fond desire,
Beyond his boldest hopes, at hand:
Paint all the triumph of the Portland Band;
Mark how they lift the joy-exulting voice,
And how their num’rous creditors rejoice;
But just as hopes to warm enjoyment rise,
Cry CONVALESCENCE! and the vision flies.
Then next pourtray a dark’ning twilight gloom,
Eclipsing sad a gay, rejoicing morn,
While proud Ambition to th’ untimely tomb
By gnashing, grim, despairing fiends is borne:
Paint ruin, in the shape of high D[undas]
Gaping with giddy terror o’er the brow;
In vain he struggles, the fates behind him press,
And clam’rous hell yawns for her prey below:
How fallen That, whose pride late scaled the skies!
And This, like Lucifer, no more to rise!
Again pronounce the powerful word;
See Day, triumphant from the night, restored.
Then know this truth, ye Sons of Men!
(Thus ends thy moral tale,)
Your darkest terrors may be vain,
Your brightest hopes may fail.
|
Written by
Christopher Smart |
'Tis Nancy's birth-day--raise your strains,
Ye nymphs of the Parnassian plains,
And sing with more than usual glee
To Nancy, who was born for me.
Tell the blythe Graces as they bound,
Luxuriant in the buxom round;
They're not more elegantly free,
Than Nancy, who was born for me.
Tell royal Venus, tho' she rove,
The queen of the immortal grove,
That she must share her golden fee
With Nancy, who was born for me.
Tell Pallas, tho' th'Athenian school,
And ev'ry trite pedantic fool,
On her to place the palm agree,
'Tis Nancy's, who was born for me.
Tell spotless Dian, tho' she range,
The regent of the up-land grange,
In chastity she yields to thee,
O Nancy, who was born for me.
Tell Cupid, Hymen, and tell Jove,
With all the pow'rs of life and love,
That I'd disdain to breathe or be,
If Nancy was not born for me.
|
Written by
Isaac Watts |
Divine wrath and mercy.
Nah. 1:1-3; Heb. 12:29.
Adore and tremble, for our God
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes his wrath inflame,
And raise his vengeance higher.
Almighty vengeance, how it burns!
How bright his fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for his foes.
Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
Are forced into a flame;
But kindled, oh! how fierce they blaze!
And rend all nature's frame.
At his approach the mountains flee,
And seek a wat'ry grave;
The frighted sea makes haste away,
And shrinks up every wave.
Through the wide air the weighty rocks
Are swift as hailstones hurled;
Who dares engage his fiery rage
That shakes the solid world?
Yet, mighty God, thy sovereign grace
Sits regent on the throne;
The refuge of thy chosen race
When wrath comes rushing down.
Thy hand shall on rebellious kings
A fiery tempest pour,
While we beneath thy shelt'ring wings
Thy just revenge adore.
|