Written by
Isaac Watts |
Absurdity of infidelity.
1 Cor. 1:26-31.
Shall atheists dare insult the cross
Of our Redeemer, God?
Shall infidels reproach his laws,
Or trample on his blood?
What if he choose mysterious ways
To cleanse us from our faults?
May not the works of sovereign grace
Transcend our feeble thoughts?
What if his gospel bids us fight
With flesh, and self, and sin,
The prize is most divinely bright
That we are called to win.
What if the foolish and the poor
His glorious grace partake,
This but confirms his truth the more,
For so the prophets spake.
Do some that own his sacred name
Indulge their souls in sin?
Jesus should never bear the blame,
His laws are pure and clean.
Then let our faith grow firm and strong,
Our lips profess his word;
Nor blush nor fear to walk among
The men that love the Lord.
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Written by
Henry Vaughan |
1 They are all gone into the world of light!
2 And I alone sit ling'ring here;
3 Their very memory is fair and bright,
4 And my sad thoughts doth clear.
5 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
6 Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
7 Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
8 After the sun's remove.
9 I see them walking in an air of glory,
10 Whose light doth trample on my days:
11 My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
12 Mere glimmering and decays.
13 O holy Hope! and high Humility,
14 High as the heavens above!
15 These are your walks, and you have show'd them me
16 To kindle my cold love.
17 Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,
18 Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
19 What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust
20 Could man outlook that mark!
21 He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest, may know
22 At first sight, if the bird be flown;
23 But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
24 That is to him unknown.
25 And yet as angels in some brighter dreams
26 Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
27 So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes
28 And into glory peep.
29 If a star were confin'd into a tomb,
30 Her captive flames must needs burn there;
31 But when the hand that lock'd her up, gives room,
32 She'll shine through all the sphere.
33 O Father of eternal life, and all
34 Created glories under thee!
35 Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
36 Into true liberty.
37 Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
38 My perspective still as they pass,
39 Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
40 Where I shall need no glass.
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Written by
Philip Larkin |
Higher than the handsomest hotel
The lucent comb shows up for miles, but see,
All round it close-ribbed streets rise and fall
Like a great sigh out of the last century.
The porters are scruffy; what keep drawing up
At the entrance are not taxis; and in the hall
As well as creepers hangs a frightening smell.
There are paperbacks, and tea at so much a cup,
Like an airport lounge, but those who tamely sit
On rows of steel chairs turning the ripped mags
Haven't come far. More like a local bus.
These outdoor clothes and half-filled shopping-bags
And faces restless and resigned, although
Every few minutes comes a kind of nurse
To fetch someone away: the rest refit
Cups back to saucers, cough, or glance below
Seats for dropped gloves or cards. Humans, caught
On ground curiously neutral, homes and names
Suddenly in abeyance; some are young,
Some old, but most at that vague age that claims
The end of choice, the last of hope; and all
Here to confess that something has gone wrong.
It must be error of a serious sort,
For see how many floors it needs, how tall
It's grown by now, and how much money goes
In trying to correct it. See the time,
Half-past eleven on a working day,
And these picked out of it; see, as they c1imb
To their appointed levels, how their eyes
Go to each other, guessing; on the way
Someone's wheeled past, in washed-to-rags ward clothes:
They see him, too. They're quiet. To realise
This new thing held in common makes them quiet,
For past these doors are rooms, and rooms past those,
And more rooms yet, each one further off
And harder to return from; and who knows
Which he will see, and when? For the moment, wait,
Look down at the yard. Outside seems old enough:
Red brick, lagged pipes, and someone walking by it
Out to the car park, free. Then, past the gate,
Traffic; a locked church; short terraced streets
Where kids chalk games, and girls with hair-dos fetch
Their separates from the cleaners - O world,
Your loves, your chances, are beyond the stretch
Of any hand from here! And so, unreal
A touching dream to which we all are lulled
But wake from separately. In it, conceits
And self-protecting ignorance congeal
To carry life, collapsing only when
Called to these corridors (for now once more
The nurse beckons -). Each gets up and goes
At last. Some will be out by lunch, or four;
Others, not knowing it, have come to join
The unseen congregations whose white rows
Lie set apart above - women, men;
Old, young; crude facets of the only coin
This place accepts. All know they are going to die.
Not yet, perhaps not here, but in the end,
And somewhere like this. That is what it means,
This clean-sliced cliff; a struggle to transcend
The thought of dying, for unless its powers
Outbuild cathedrals nothing contravenes
The coming dark, though crowds each evening try
With wasteful, weak, propitiatory flowers.
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Written by
Henry Vaughan |
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit ling'ring here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days:
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy Hope! and high Humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have show'd them me,
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the Just,
Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know,
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet as Angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
If a star were confin'd into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that lock'd her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass:
Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.
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Written by
Duncan Campbell Scott |
Now the November skies,
And the clouds that are thin and gray,
That drop with the wind away;
A flood of sunlight rolls,
In a tide of shallow light,
Gold on the land and white
On the water, dim and warm in the wood;
Then it is gone, and the wan
Clear of the shade
Covers fields and barren and glade.
The peace of labor done,
Is wide in the gracious earth;
The harvest is won;
Past are the tears and the mirth;
And we feel in the tenuous air
How far beyond thought or prayer
Is the grace of silent things,
That work for the world alway,
Neither for fear nor for pay,
And when labor is over, rest.
The moil of our fretted life
Is borne anew to the soul,
Borne with its cark and strife,
Its burden of care and dread,
Its glories elusive and strange;
And the weight of the weary whole
Presses it down, till we cry:
Where is the fruit of our deeds?
Why should we struggle to build
Towers against death on the plain?
All things possess their lives
Save man, whose task and desire
Transcend his power and his will.
The question is over and still;
Nothing replies: but the earth
Takes on a lovelier hue
From a cloud that neighbored the sun,
That the sun burned down and through,
Till it glowed like a seraph's wing;
The fields that were gray and dun
Are warm in the flowing light;
Fair in the west the night
Strikes in with vibrant star.
Something has stirred afar
In the shadow that winter flings;
A message comes up to the soul
From the soul of inanimate things:
A message that widens and grows
Till it touches the deeds of man,
Till we see in the torturous throes
Some dawning glimmer of plan;
Till we feel in the deepening night
The hand of the angel Content,
That stranger of calmness and light,
With his brow over us bent,
Who moves with his eyes on the earth,
Whose robe of lambent green,
A tissue of herb and its sheen,
Tells the mother who gave him birth.
The message plays through his power,
Till it flames exultant in thought,
As the quince-tree triumphs in flower.
The fruit that is checked and marred
Goes under the sod:
The good lives here in the world;
It persists,-- it is God.
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Written by
Philip Freneau |
ALL that we see, about, abroad,
What is it all, but nature's God?
In meaner works discovered here
No less than in the starry sphere.
In seas, on earth, this God is seen;
All that exist, upon Him lean;
He lives in all, and never strayed
A moment from the works He made:
His system fixed on general laws
Bespeaks a wise creating cause;
Impartially He rules mankind
And all that on this globe we find.
Unchanged in all that seems to change,
Unbounded space is His great range;
To one vast purpose always true,
No time, with Him, is old or new.
In all the attributes divine
Unlimited perfectings shine;
In these enwrapt, in these complete,
All virtues in that centre meet.
This power doth all powers transcend,
To all intelligence a friend,
Exists, the greatest and the best
Throughout all the worlds, to make them blest.
All that He did He first approved,
He all things into being loved;
O'er all He made He still presides,
For them in life, or death provides.
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Written by
Andrew Marvell |
C.
Damon come drive thy flocks this way.
D.
No : 'tis too late they went astray.
C.
I have a grassy Scutcheon spy'd,
Where Flora blazons all her pride.
The grass I aim to feast thy Sheep :
The Flow'rs I for thy Temples keep.
D.
Grass withers; and the Flow'rs too fade.
C.
Seize the short Joyes then, ere they vade.
Seest thou that unfrequented Cave ?
D.
That den?
C.
Loves Shrine.
D.
But Virtue's Grave.
C.
In whose cool bosome we may lye
Safe from the Sun.
D.
Not Heaven's Eye.
C.
Near this, a Fountaines liquid Bell
Tinkles within the concave Shell.
D.
Might a Soul bath there and be clean,
Or slake its Drought?
C.
What is 't you mean?
D.
These once had been enticing things,
Clorinda, Pastures, Caves, and Springs.
C.
And what late change?
D.
The other day
Pan met me.
C.
What did great Pan say?
D.
Words that transcend poor Shepherds skill,
But he ere since my Songs does fill:
And his Name swells my slender Oate.
C.
Sweet must Pan sound in Damons Note.
D.
Clorinda's voice might make it sweet.
C.
Who would not in Pan's Praises meet ?
Chorus
Of Pan the flowry pastures sing,
Caves eccho and the Fountains ring.
Sing then while he doth us inspire;
For all the world is our Pan's Quire.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET XVIII. Vergognando talor ch' ancor si taccia. THE PRAISES OF LAURA TRANSCEND HIS POETIC POWERS. Ashamed sometimes thy beauties should remainAs yet unsung, sweet lady, in my rhyme;When first I saw thee I recall the time,Pleasing as none shall ever please again.But no fit polish can my verse attain,Not mine is strength to try the task sublime:My genius, measuring its power to climb,From such attempt doth prudently refrain.Full oft I oped my lips to chant thy name;Then in mid utterance the lay was lost:But say what muse can dare so bold a flight?Full oft I strove in measure to indite;But ah, the pen, the hand, the vein I boast,At once were vanquish'd by the mighty theme! Nott. [Pg 17] Ashamed at times that I am silent, yet,Lady, though your rare beauties prompt my rhyme,When first I saw thee I recall the timeSuch as again no other can be met.But, with such burthen on my shoulders set.My mind, its frailty feeling, cannot climb,And shrinks alike from polish'd and sublime,While my vain utterance frozen terrors let.Often already have I sought to sing,But midway in my breast the voice was stay'd,For ah! so high what praise may ever spring?And oft have I the tender verse essay'd,But still in vain; pen, hand, and intellectIn the first effort conquer'd are and check'd. Macgregor.
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Written by
Anne Kingsmill Finch |
WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder'd Veins,
Such lab'ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains;
With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure,
(So long unclos'd, they've watch'd thy doubtful Cure)
To his Hephaestion Alexander writes,
To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights,
I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart,
As well my vital Spirits to thy Heart!
That, when the fierce Distemper thine wou'd quell,
They might renew the Fight, and the cold Foe repel.
As on Arbela's Plains we turn'd the Day,
When Persians through our Troops had mow'd their way,
When the rough Scythians on the Plunder run,
And barb'rous Shouts proclaim'd the Conquest won,
'Till o'er my Head (to stop the swift Despair)
The Bird of Jove fans the supporting Air,
Above my Plume does his broad Wings display,
And follows wheresoe'er I force my way:
Whilst Aristander, in his Robe of White,
Shews to the wav'ring Host th' auspicious Sight;
New Courage it inspires in ev'ry Breast,
And wins at once the Empire of the East.
Cou'd He, but now, some kind Presage afford,
That Health might be again to Thee restor'd;
Thou to my Wishes, to my fond Embrace;
Thy Looks the same, the same Majestick Grace,
That round thee shone, when we together went
To chear the Royal Captives in their Tent,
Where Sysigambis, prostrate on the Floor,
Did Alexander in thy Form adore;
Above great Æsculapius shou'd he stand,
Or made immortal by Apelles Hand.
But no reviving Hope his Art allows,
And such cold Damps invade my anxious Brows,
As, when in Cydnus plung'd, I dar'd the Flood
T' o'er-match the Boilings of my youthful Blood.
But Philip to my Aid repair'd in haste;
And whilst the proffer'd Draught I boldly taste,
As boldly He the dangerous Paper views,
Which of hid Treasons does his Fame accuse.
More thy Physician's Life on Thine depends,
And what he gives, his Own preserves, or ends.
If thou expir'st beneath his fruitless Care,
To Rhadamanthus shall the Wretch repair,
And give strict Answer for his Errors there.
Near thy Pavilion list'ning Princes wait,
Seeking from thine to learn their Monarch's State.
Submitting Kings, that post from Day to Day,
To keep those Crowns, which at my Feet they lay,
Forget th' ambitious Subject of their Speed,
And here arriv'd, only Thy Dangers heed.
The Beauties of the Clime, now Thou'rt away,
Droop, and retire, as if their God of Day
No more upon their early Pray'rs would shine,
Or take their Incense, at his late Decline.
Thy Parisatis whom I fear to name,
Lest to thy Heat it add redoubl'd Flame;
Thy lovely Wife, thy Parisatis weeps,
And in her Grief a solemn Silence keeps.
Stretch'd in her Tent, upon the Floor she lies,
So pale her Looks, so motionless her Eyes,
As when they gave thee leave at first to gaze
Upon the Charms of her unguarded Face;
When the beauteous Sisters lowly knelt,
And su'd to those, who more than Pity felt.
To chear her now Statira vainly proves,
And at thy Name alone she sighs, and moves.
But why these single Griefs shou'd I expose?
The World no Mirth, no War, no Bus'ness knows,
But, hush'd with Sorrow stands, to favour thy Repose.
Ev'n I my boasted Title now resign,
Not Ammon's Son, nor born of Race Divine,
But Mortal all, oppress'd with restless Fears,
Wild with my Cares, and Womanish in Tears.
Tho' Tears, before, I for lost Clytus shed,
And wept more Drops, than the old Hero bled;
Ev'n now, methinks, I see him on the Ground,
Now my dire Arms the wretched Corpse surround,
Now the fled Soul I wooe, now rave upon the Wound.
Yet He, for whom this mighty Grief did spring,
Not Alexander valu'd, but the King.
Then think, how much that Passion must transcend,
Which not a Subject raises but a Friend:
An equal Partner in the vanquished Earth,
A Brother, not impos'd upon my Birth,
Too weak a Tye unequal Thoughts to bind,
But by the gen'rous Motions of the Mind.
My Love to thee for Empire was the Test,
Since him, who from Mankind cou'd chuse the best,
The Gods thought only fit for Monarch o'er the rest.
Live then, my Friend; but if that must not be,
Nor Fate will with my boundless Mind agree,
Affording, at one time, the World and Thee;
To the most Worthy I'll that Sway resign,
And in Elysium keep Hyphaestion mine.
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Written by
Duncan Campbell Scott |
Here in the inmost of the master's heart
This violet crisp with early dew
Has come to leave her beauty and to part
With all her vivid hue.
And while in hollow glades and dells of musk,
Her fellows will reflower in bands,
Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk,
With sweet inviolate hands,
She will lie here, a ghost of their delight,
Their lucent stems all ashen gray,
Their purples fallen into pulvil white,
Dull as the bluebird's alula.
But her where human passions pulse in power,
She will transcend our Shakespeare's art,
From Desdemona to a smothered flower,
Will leap the tragic heart.
And memory will recall in keener mood
The precinct fair where passion grew,
The stars within the water in the wood,
The moonlit grove, the odorous dew.
The voice that throbbed along the summer dark
Will float and pause and thrill,
In lonely cadence silvern as the lark,
To fail below the hill.
The reader will grow weary of the play,
Finding his hearts half understood,
And with the young moon in the early dusk will stray
Beside the starry water in the wood.
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