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Best Famous Unmatched Poems

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Written by Eavan Boland | Create an image from this poem

Witness

 Against the enormous rocks of a rough coast
The ocean rams itself in pitched assault
And spastic rage to which there is no halt;
Foam-white brigades collapse; but the huge host

Has infinite reserves; at each attack
The impassive cliffs look down in gray disdain
At scenes of sacrifice, unrelieved pain,
Figured in froth, aquamarine and black.

Something in the blood-chemistry of life,
Unspeakable, impressive, undeterred,
Expresses itself without needing a word
In this sea-crazed Empedoclean Strife.

It is a scene of unmatched melancholy,
Weather of misery, cloud cover of distress,
To which there are not witnesses, unless
One counts the briny, tough and thorned sea holly.


Written by Anne Sexton | Create an image from this poem

Angels Of The Love Affair

 "Angels of the love affair, do you know that other,
the dark one, that other me?"

1. ANGEL OF FIRE AND GENITALS

Angel of fire and genitals, do you know slime,
that green mama who first forced me to sing,
who put me first in the latrine, that pantomime
of brown where I was beggar and she was king?
I said, "The devil is down that festering hole."
Then he bit me in the buttocks and took over my soul.
Fire woman, you of the ancient flame, you
of the Bunsen burner, you of the candle,
you of the blast furnace, you of the barbecue,
you of the fierce solar energy, Mademoiselle,
take some ice, take come snow, take a month of rain
and you would gutter in the dark, cracking up your brain.

Mother of fire, let me stand at your devouring gate
as the sun dies in your arms and you loosen it's terrible weight.



2. ANGEL OF CLEAN SHEETS

Angel of clean sheets, do you know bedbugs?
Once in the madhouse they came like specks of cinnamon
as I lay in a choral cave of drugs,
as old as a dog, as quiet as a skeleton.
Little bits of dried blood. One hundred marks
upon the sheet. One hundred kisses in the dark.
White sheets smelling of soap and Clorox
have nothing to do with this night of soil,
nothing to do with barred windows and multiple locks
and all the webbing in the bed, the ultimate recoil.
I have slept in silk and in red and in black.
I have slept on sand and, on fall night, a haystack.

I have known a crib. I have known the tuck-in of a child
but inside my hair waits the night I was defiled.



3. ANGEL OF FLIGHT AND SLEIGH BELLS

Angel of flight and sleigh bells, do you know paralysis,
that ether house where your arms and legs are cement?
You are as still as a yardstick. You have a doll's kiss.
The brain whirls in a fit. The brain is not evident.
I have gone to that same place without a germ or a stroke.
A little solo act--that lady with the brain that broke.

In this fashion I have become a tree.
I have become a vase you can pick up or drop at will,
inanimate at last. What unusual luck! My body
passively resisting. Part of the leftovers. Part of the kill.
Angels of flight, you soarer, you flapper, you floater,
you gull that grows out of my back in the drreams I prefer,

stay near. But give me the totem. Give me the shut eye
where I stand in stone shoes as the world's bicycle goes by.



4. ANGEL OF HOPE AND CALENDARS

Angel of hope and calendars, do you know despair?
That hole I crawl into with a box of Kleenex,
that hole where the fire woman is tied to her chair,
that hole where leather men are wringing their necks,
where the sea has turned into a pond of urine.
There is no place to wash and no marine beings to stir in.

In this hole your mother is crying out each day.
Your father is eating cake and digging her grave.
In this hole your baby is strangling. Your mouth is clay.
Your eyes are made of glass. They break. You are not brave.
You are alone like a dog in a kennel. Your hands
break out in boils. Your arms are cut and bound by bands

of wire. Your voice is out there. Your voice is strange.
There are no prayers here. Here there is no change.



5. ANGEL OF BLIZZARDS AND BLACKOUTS

Angle of blizzards and blackouts, do you know raspberries,
those rubies that sat in the gree of my grandfather's garden?
You of the snow tires, you of the sugary wings, you freeze
me out. Leet me crawl through the patch. Let me be ten.
Let me pick those sweet kisses, thief that I was,
as the sea on my left slapped its applause.

Only my grandfather was allowed there. Or the maid
who came with a scullery pan to pick for breakfast.
She of the rols that floated in the air, she of the inlaid
woodwork all greasy with lemon, she of the feather and dust,
not I. Nonetheless I came sneaking across the salt lawn
in bare feet and jumping-jack pajamas in the spongy dawn.

Oh Angel of the blizzard and blackout, Madam white face,
take me back to that red mouth, that July 21st place.



6. ANGEL OF BEACH HOUSES AND PICNICS

Angel of beach houses and picnics, do you know solitaire?
Fifty-two reds and blacks and only myslef to blame.
My blood buzzes like a hornet's nest. I sit in a kitchen chair
at a table set for one. The silverware is the same
and the glass and the sugar bowl. I hear my lungs fill and expel
as in an operation. But I have no one left to tell.

Once I was a couple. I was my own king and queen
with cheese and bread and rosé on the rocks of Rockport.
Once I sunbathed in the buff, all brown and lean,
watching the toy sloops go by, holding court
for busloads of tourists. Once I called breakfast the sexiest
meal of the day. Once I invited arrest

at the peace march in Washington. Once I was young and bold
and left hundreds of unmatched people out in the cold.
Written by Robert Browning | Create an image from this poem

Pan and Luna

 Si credere dignum est.--Virgil, Georgics, III, 390


Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was, 
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! 
No question, that adventure came to pass 
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, 
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass 
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, 
The sky's embrace,--below, above, around, 
All hardened into black without a bound. 

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim 
With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice: 
See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim, 
Turns marble to the touch of who would loose 
The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim, 
By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse 
Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less, 
Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness. 

And thus it proved when--diving into space, 
Stript of all vapor, from each web of mist, 
Utterly film-free--entered on her race 
The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist 
Of night and dark, night's dowry: peak to base, 
Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed 
To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air 
Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare. 

Still as she fled, each depth,--where refuge seemed-- 
Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct 
Those limbs: mid still-retreating blue, she teemed 
Herself with whiteness,--virginal, uncinct 
By any halo save what finely gleamed 
To outline not disguise her: heavenwas linked 
In one accord with earth to quaff the joy, 
Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy. 

Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo, 
A succorable cloud with sleep lay dense: 
Some pinetree-top had caught it sailing slow, 
And tethered for a prize: in evidence 
Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow 
Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence, 
The structure of that succorable cloud, 
What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud. 

Orbed--so the woman-figure poets call 
Because of rounds on rounds--that apple-shaped 
Head which its hair binds close into a ball 
Each side the curving ears--that pure undraped 
Pout of the sister paps--that . . . once for all, 
Say--her consummate circle thus escaped 
With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed, 
Safe in the cloud--O naked Moon full-orbed! 

But what means this? The downy swathes combine, 
Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff 
Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine 
Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff 
Fitting as close as fits the dented spine 
Its flexible ivory outside-flesh: enough! 
The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe, 
Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe. 

As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam 
Churned on a sea-shore, and, o'er-frothed, conceits 
Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite's dome,-- 
If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets 
What most she loathes and leaps from,--elf from gnome 
No gladlier,--finds that safest of retreats 
Bubble about a treacherous hand wide ope 
To grasp her--(divers who pick pearls so grope)-- 

So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught 
By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract: 
He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought 
With simulated earth-breath,--wool-tufts packed 
Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought 
For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact 
As learned Virgil gives it,--how the breed 
Whitens itself forever: yes, indeed! 

If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk 
From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue 
Black 'neath the beast's moist palate, prompt men balk 
The propagating plague: he gets no young: 
They rather slay him,--sell his hide to calk 
Ships with, first steeped with pitch,--nor hands are wrung 
In sorrow for his fate: protected thus, 
The purity we loved is gained for us. So did girl-Moon, by just her attribute 
Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped, 
Bruised to the breast of Pan, half god half brute, 
Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped 
--Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute 
Love's language--which moreover proves unapt 
To tell how she recoiled--as who finds thorns 
Where she sought flowers--when, feeling, she touched--horns! 

Then--does the legend say?--first moon-eclipse 
Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore 
The early sages? Is that why she dips 
Into the dark, a minute and no more, 
Only so long as serves her while she rips 
The cloud's womb through and, faultless as before, 
Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid 
Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed? 

Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! "To the deep 
Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith 
Called her, and so she followed"--in her sleep, 
Surely?--"by no means spurning him." The myth 
Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep 
--As of a ruin just a monolith-- 
Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon: 
Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon.
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!
Written by George (Lord) Byron | Create an image from this poem

To Thyrza: And Thou Art Dead

 And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft and charm so rare
Too soon returned to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong or change or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lours,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have passed away
I might have watched through long decay.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatched,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watct it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it plucked today;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last— 
Extinguished, not decayed,
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed:
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head,
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.


Written by Sir Philip Sidney | Create an image from this poem

Ring Out Your Bells

 Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread;
For Love is dead--
All love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain;
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And Faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Weep, neighbours, weep; do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
His death-bed, peacock's folly;
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy;
His sole exec'tor, blame.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Let dirge be sung and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead;
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress' marble heart,
Which epitaph containeth,
"Her eyes were once his dart."
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Alas, I lie, rage hath this error bred;
Love is not dead;
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatched mind,
Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due desert she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a franzy,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes | Create an image from this poem

The Organ-Blower

 DEVOUTEST of my Sunday friends,
The patient Organ-blower bends;
I see his figure sink and rise,
(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!)
A moment lost, the next half seen,
His head above the scanty screen,
Still measuring out his deep salaams
Through quavering hymns and panting psalms.

No priest that prays in gilded stole,
To save a rich man's mortgaged soul;
No sister, fresh from holy vows,
So humbly stoops, so meekly bows;
His large obeisance puts to shame
The proudest genuflecting dame,
Whose Easter bonnet low descends
With all the grace devotion lends.

O brother with the supple spine,
How much we owe those bows of thine!
Without thine arm to lend the breeze,
How vain the finger on the keys!
Though all unmatched the player's skill,
Those thousand throats were dumb and still:
Another's art may shape the tone,
The breath that fills it is thine own.

Six days the silent Memnon waits
Behind his temple's folded gates;
But when the seventh day's sunshine falls
Through rainbowed windows on the walls,
He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills
The quivering air with rapturous thrills;
The roof resounds, the pillars shake,
And all the slumbering echoes wake!

The Preacher from the Bible-text
With weary words my soul has vexed
(Some stranger, fumbling far astray
To find the lesson for the day);
He tells us truths too plainly true,
And reads the service all askew,--
Why, why the-- mischief-- can't he look
Beforehand in the service-book?

But thou, with decent mien and face,
Art always ready in thy place;
Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune,
As steady as the strong monsoon;
Thy only dread a leathery creak,
Or small residual extra squeak,
To send along the shadowy aisles
A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles.

Not all the preaching, O my friend,
Comes from the church's pulpit end!
Not all that bend the knee and bow
Yield service half so true as thou!
One simple task performed aright,
With slender skill, but all thy might,
Where honest labor does its best,
And leaves the player all the rest.

This many-diapasoned maze,
Through which the breath of being strays,
Whose music makes our earth divine,
Has work for mortal hands like mine.
My duty lies before me. Lo,
The lever there! Take hold and blow!
And He whose hand is on the keys
Will play the tune as He shall please.
Written by Michael Drayton | Create an image from this poem

Sirena

 NEAR to the silver Trent 
 SIRENA dwelleth; 
She to whom Nature lent 
 All that excelleth; 
By which the Muses late 
 And the neat Graces 
Have for their greater state 
 Taken their places; 
Twisting an anadem 
 Wherewith to crown her, 
As it belong'd to them 
 Most to renown her. 
 On thy bank, 
 In a rank, 
 Let thy swans sing her, 
 And with their music 
 Along let them bring her. 

Tagus and Pactolus 
 Are to thee debtor, 
Nor for their gold to us 
 Are they the better: 
Henceforth of all the rest 
 Be thou the River 
Which, as the daintiest, 
 Puts them down ever. 
For as my precious one 
 O'er thee doth travel, 
She to pearl paragon 
 Turneth thy gravel. 
 On thy bank... 

Our mournful Philomel, 
 That rarest tuner, 
Henceforth in Aperil 
 Shall wake the sooner, 
And to her shall complain 
 From the thick cover, 
Redoubling every strain 
 Over and over: 
For when my Love too long 
 Her chamber keepeth, 
As though it suffer'd wrong, 
 The Morning weepeth. 
 On thy bank... 

Oft have I seen the Sun, 
 To do her honour, 
Fix himself at his noon 
 To look upon her; 
And hath gilt every grove, 
 Every hill near her, 
With his flames from above 
 Striving to cheer her: 
And when she from his sight 
 Hath herself turned, 
He, as it had been night, 
 In clouds hath mourned. 
 On thy bank... 

The verdant meads are seen, 
 When she doth view them, 
In fresh and gallant green 
 Straight to renew them; 
And every little grass 
 Broad itself spreadeth, 
Proud that this bonny lass 
 Upon it treadeth: 
Nor flower is so sweet 
 In this large cincture, 
But it upon her feet 
 Leaveth some tincture. 
 On thy bank... 

The fishes in the flood, 
 When she doth angle, 
For the hook strive a-good 
 Them to entangle; 
And leaping on the land, 
 From the clear water, 
Their scales upon the sand 
 Lavishly scatter; 
Therewith to pave the mould 
 Whereon she passes, 
So herself to behold 
 As in her glasses. 
 On thy bank... 

When she looks out by night, 
 The stars stand gazing, 
Like comets to our sight 
 Fearfully blazing; 
As wond'ring at her eyes 
 With their much brightness, 
Which so amaze the skies, 
 Dimming their lightness. 
The raging tempests are calm 
 When she speaketh, 
Such most delightsome balm 
 From her lips breaketh. 
 On thy bank... 

In all our Brittany 
 There 's not a fairer, 
Nor can you fit any 
 Should you compare her. 
Angels her eyelids keep, 
 All hearts surprising; 
Which look whilst she doth sleep 
 Like the sun's rising: 
She alone of her kind 
 Knoweth true measure, 
And her unmatched mind 
 Is heaven's treasure. 
 On thy bank... 

Fair Dove and Darwen clear, 
 Boast ye your beauties, 
To Trent your mistress here 
 Yet pay your duties: 
My Love was higher born 
 Tow'rds the full fountains, 
Yet she doth moorland scorn 
 And the Peak mountains; 
Nor would she none should dream 
 Where she abideth, 
Humble as is the stream 
 Which by her slideth. 
 On thy bank... 

Yet my pour rustic Muse 
 Nothing can move her, 
Nor the means I can use, 
 Though her true lover: 
Many a long winter's night 
 Have I waked for her, 
Yet this my piteous plight 
 Nothing can stir her. 
All thy sands, silver Trent, 
 Down to the Humber, 
The sighs that I have spent 
 Never can number. 
 On thy bank, 
 In a rank, 
 Let thy swans sing her, 
 And with their music 
 Along let them bring her.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things