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Best Famous Whoso Poems

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Written by Sir Thomas Wyatt | Create an image from this poem

Whoso List to Hunt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”


Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

The Twins

 [Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]


Have pity ! show no pity !
Those eyes that send such shivers
Into my brain and spine : oh let them
Flame like the ancient city
Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers
When men let angels fret them !

Yea ! let the south wind blow,
And the Turkish banner advance,
And the word go out : No quarter !
But I shall hod thee -so !
While the boys and maidens dance
About the shambles of slaughter !

I know thee who thou art,
The inmost fiend that curlest
Thy vampire tounge about
Earth's corybantic heart,
Hell's warrior that whirlest
The darts of horror and doubt !

Thou knowest me who I am
The inmost soul and saviour
Of man ; what hieroglyph
Of the dragon and the lamb
Shall thou and I engrave here
On Time's inscandescable cliff ?

Look ! in the plished granite,
Black as thy cartouche is with sins,
I read the searing sentence
That blasts the eyes that scan it :
"HOOR and SET be TWINS."
A fico for repentance !

Ay ! O Son of my mother
That snarled and clawed in her womb
As now we rave in our rapture,
I know thee, I love thee, brother !
Incestuous males that consumes
The light and the life that we capture.

Starve thou the soul of the world,
Brother, as I the body !
Shall we not glut our lust
On these wretches whom Fate hath hurled
To a hell of jesus and shoddy,
Dung and ethics and dust ?

Thou as I art Fate.
Coe then, conquer and kiss me !
Come ! what hinders? Believe me :
This is the thought we await.
The mark is fair ; can you miss me ?

See, how subtly I writhe !
Strange runes and unknown sigils
I trace in the trance that thrills us.
Death ! how lithe, how blithe
Are these male incestuous vigils !
Ah ! this is the spasm that kills us !

Wherefore I solemnly affirm
This twofold Oneness at the term.
Asar on Asi did beget
Horus twin brother unto Set.
Now Set and Horus kiss, to call
The Soul of the Unnatural
Forth from the dusk ; then nature slain
Lets the Beyond be born again.

This weird is of the tongue of Khem,
The Conjuration used of them.
Whoso shall speak it, let him die,
His bowels rotting inwardly,
Save he uncover and caress
The God that lighteth his liesse.
Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

The Wizard Way

 [Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]


Velvet soft the night-star glowed 
Over the untrodden road, 
Through the giant glades of yew 
Where its ray fell light as dew 
Lighting up the shimmering veil 
Maiden pure and aery frail 
That the spiders wove to hide 
Blushes of the sylvan bride 
Earth, that trembled with delight 
At the male caress of Night. 

Velvet soft the wizard trod 
To the Sabbath of his God. 
With his naked feet he made 
Starry blossoms in the glade, 
Softly, softly, as he went 
To the sombre sacrament, 
Stealthy stepping to the tryst 
In his gown of amethyst. 

Earlier yet his soul had come 
To the Hill of Martyrdom, 
Where the charred and crooked stake 
Like a black envenomed snake 
By the hangman's hands is thrust 
Through the wet and writhing dust, 
Never black and never dried 
Heart's blood of a suicide. 

He had plucked the hazel rod 
From the rude and goatish god, 
Even as the curved moon's waning ray 
Stolen from the King of Day. 
He had learnt the elvish sign; 
Given the Token of the Nine: 
Once to rave, and once to revel, 
Once to bow before the devil, 
Once to swing the thurible, 
Once to kiss the goat of hell, 
Once to dance the aspen spring, 
Once to croak, and once to sing, 
Once to oil the savoury thighs 
Of the witch with sea-green eyes 
With the unguents magical. 
Oh the honey and the gall 
Of that black enchanter's lips 
As he croons to the eclipse 
Mingling that most puissant spell 
Of the giant gods of hell 
With the four ingredients 
Of the evil elements; 
Ambergris from golden spar, 
Musk of ox from Mongol jar,
Civet from a box of jade, 
Mixed with fat of many a maid 
Slain by the inchauntments cold 
Of the witches wild and old. 

He had crucified a toad 
In the basilisk abode, 
Muttering the Runes averse 
Mad with many a mocking curse. 

He had traced the serpent sigil 
In his ghastly virgin vigil. 
Sursum cor! the elfin hill, 
Where the wind blows deadly chill 
From the world that wails beneath 
Death's black throat and lipless teeth. 
There he had stood - his bosom bare - 
Tracing Life upon the Air 
With the crook and with the flail 
Lashing forward on the gale, 
Till its blade that wavereth 
Like the flickering of Death 
Sank before his subtle fence 
To the starless sea of sense. 

Now at last the man is come 
Haply to his halidom. 
Surely as he waves his rod 
In a circle on the sod 
Springs the emerald chaste and clean 
From the duller paler green. 
Surely in the circle millions 
Of immaculate pavilions 
Flash upon the trembling turf 
Like the sea-stars in the surf -
Millions of bejewelled tents 
For the warrior sacraments. 
Vaster, vaster, vaster, vaster, 
Grows the stature of the master; 
All the ringed encampment vies 
With the infinite galaxies. 
In the midst a cubic stone 
With the Devil set thereon; 
Hath a lamb's virginal throat; 
Hath the body of a stoat; 
Hath the buttocks of a goat; 
Hath the sanguine face and rod 
Of a goddess and a god! 

Spell by spell and pace by pace! 
Mystic flashes swing and trace 
Velvet soft the sigils stepped 
By the silver-starred adept. 
Back and front, and to and fro, 
Soul and body sway and flow 
In vertiginous caresses 
To imponderable recesses, 
Till at last the spell is woven, 
And the faery veil is cloven 
That was Sequence, Space, and Stress 
Of the soul-sick consciousness. 

"Give thy body to the beasts! 
Give thy spirit to the priests! 
Break in twain the hazel rod 
On the virgin lips of God! 
Tear the Rosy Cross asunder! 
Shatter the black bolt of thunder! 
Suck the swart ensanguine kiss 
Of the resolute abyss!" 
Wonder-weft the wizard heard 
This intolerable word. 
Smote the blasting hazel rod 
On the scarlet lips of God; 
Trampled Cross and rosy core; 
Brake the thunder-tool of Thor; 
Meek and holy acolyte 
Of the priestly hells of spite,
Sleek and shameless catamite 
Of the beasts that prowl the night! 

Like a star that streams from heaven 
Through the virgin airs light-riven, 
From the lift there shot and fell 
An admirable miracle. 
Carved minute and clean, a key 
Of purest lapis-lazuli 
More blue than the blind sky that aches 
(Wreathed with the stars, her torturing snakes), 
For the dead god's kiss that never wakes; 
Shot with golden specks of fire 
Like a virgin with desire. 
Look, the levers! fern-frail fronds 
Of fantastic diamonds, 
Glimmering with ethereal azure 
In each exquisite embrasure. 
On the shaft the letters laced, 
As if dryads lunar-chaste 
With the satyrs were embraced, 
Spelled the secret of the key: 
Sic pervenias. And he 
Went his wizard way, inweaving 
Dreams of things beyond believing. 

When he will, the weary world 
Of the senses closely curled 
Like a serpent round his heart 
Shakes herself and stands apart. 
So the heart's blood flames, expanding, 
Strenuous, urgent, and commanding; 
And the key unlocks the door 
Where his love lives evermore. 

She is of the faery blood; 
All smaragdine flows its flood. 
Glowing in the amber sky 
To ensorcelled porphyry 
She hath eyes of glittering flake 
Like a cold grey water-snake. 
She hath naked breasts of amber 
Jetting wine in her bed-chamber, 
Whereof whoso stoops and drinks 
Rees the riddle of the Sphinx. 

She hath naked limbs of amber 
Whereupon her children clamber. 
She hath five navels rosy-red 
From the five wounds of God that bled; 
Each wound that mothered her still bleeding, 
And on that blood her babes are feeding. 
Oh! like a rose-winged pelican 
She hath bred blessed babes to Pan! 
Oh! like a lion-hued nightingale 
She hath torn her breast on thorns to avail 
The barren rose-tree to renew 
Her life with that disastrous dew, 
Building the rose o' the world alight 
With music out of the pale moonlight! 
O She is like the river of blood 
That broke from the lips of the bastard god, 
When he saw the sacred mother smile 
On the ibis that flew up the foam of Nile 
Bearing the limbs unblessed, unborn, 
That the lurking beast of Nile had torn! 

So (for the world is weary) I 
These dreadful souls of sense lay by. 
I sacrifice these impure shoon 
To the cold ray of the waning moon. 
I take the forked hazel staff, 
And the rose of no terrene graff, 
And the lamp of no olive oil 
With heart's blood that alone may boil. 
With naked breast and feet unshod 
I follow the wizard way to God. 

Wherever he leads my foot shall follow; 
Over the height, into the hollow, 
Up to the caves of pure cold breath, 
Down to the deeps of foul hot death, 
Across the seas, through the fires, 
Past the palace of desires; 
Where he will, whether he will or no, 
If I go, I care not whither I go. 

For in me is the taint of the faery blood. 
Fast, fast its emerald flood 
Leaps within me, violent rude 
Like a bestial faun's beatitude. 
In me the faery blood runs hard: 
My sires were a druid, a devil, a bard, 
A beast, a wizard, a snake and a satyr; 
For - as my mother said - what does it matter? 
She was a fay, pure of the faery; 
Queen Morgan's daughter by an aery 
Demon that came to Orkney once 
To pay the Beetle his orisons. 

So, it is I that writhe with the twitch 
Of the faery blood, and the wizard itch 
To attain a matter one may not utter 
Rather than sink in the greasy splutter 
Of Britons munching their bread and butter;
Ailing boys and coarse-grained girls 
Grown to sloppy women and brutal churls. 
So, I am off with staff in hand 
To the endless light of the nameless land. 

Darkness spreads its sombre streams, 
Blotting out the elfin dreams. 
I might haply be afraid, 
Were it not the Feather-maid 
Leads me softly by the hand, 
Whispers me to understand. 
Now (when through the world of weeping 
Light at last starrily creeping 
Steals upon my babe-new sight, 
Light - O light that is not light!) 
On my mouth the lips of her 
Like a stone on my sepulchre 
Seal my speech with ecstasy, 
Till a babe is born of me 
That is silent more than I; 
For its inarticulate cry 
Hushes as its mouth is pressed 
To the pearl, her honey breast; 
While its breath divinely ripples 
The rose-petals of her nipples, 
And the jetted milk he laps
From the soft delicious paps, 
Sweeter than the bee-sweet showers 
In the chalice of the flowers, 
More intoxicating than
All the purple grapes of Pan. 

Ah! my proper lips are stilled. 
Only, all the world is filled 
With the Echo, that drips over 
Like the honey from the clover. 
Passion, penitence, and pain 
Seek their mother's womb again, 
And are born the triple treasure, 
Peace and purity and pleasure. 

- Hush, my child, and come aloft 
Where the stars are velvet soft!
Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

Because that you are going

 Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute,
May overlook your Track --

Because that Death is final,
However first it be,
This instant be suspended
Above Mortality --

Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate

Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live --

The "Life that is" will then have been
A thing I never knew --
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you --

The "Life that is to be," to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer's Face
I recognize your own --

Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of everything but He --

Of Heaven and Hell I also yield
The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face
For his less priceless Friend.

If "God is Love" as he admits
We think that me must be
Because he is a "jealous God"
He tells us certainly

If "All is possible with" him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods --
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

Buddha at Kamakura

 1892
"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"

Oye who treated the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when "the heathen" pray
 To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat,
 The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
 His children at Kamakura,

Yet spare us still the Western joke
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
 That worship at Kamakura --

The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies
That flit beneath the Master's eyes.
He is beyond the Mysteries
 But loves them at Kamakura.

And whoso will, from Pride released,
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the Soul of all the East
 About him at Kamakura.

Yea, every tale Ananda heard,
Of birth as fish or beast or bird,
While yet in lives the Master stirred,
 The warm wind brings Kamakura.

Till drowsy eyelids seem to see
A-flower 'neath her golden htee
The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly
 From Burmah to Kamakura,

And down the loaded air there comes
The thunder of Thibetan drums,
And droned -- "Om mane padme hums" --
 A world's-width from Kamakura.

Yet Brahmans rule Benares still,
Buddh-Gaya's ruins pit the hill,
And beef-fed zealots threaten ill
 To Buddha and Kamakura.

A tourist-show, a legend told,
A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,
S o much, and scarce so much, ye hold
 The meaning of Kamakura?

But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
 No nearer than Kamakura?


Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley | Create an image from this poem

Hymn to the Spirit of Nature

LIFE of Life! thy lips enkindle 
With their love the breath between them; 
And thy smiles before they dwindle 
Make the cold air fire: then screen them 
In those locks where whoso gazes 5 
Faints entangled in their mazes. 

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning 
Through the veil which seems to hide them  
As the radiant lines of morning 
Through thin clouds ere they divide them; 10 
And this atmosphere divinest 
Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. 

Fair are others: none beholds thee; 
But thy voice sounds low and tender 
Like the fairest for it folds thee 15 
From the sight that liquid splendour; 
And all feel yet see thee never  
As I feel now lost for ever! 

Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest 
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness 20 
And the souls of whom thou lovest 
Walk upon the winds with lightness 
Till they fail as I am failing  
Dizzy lost yet unbewailing! 
Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

The Lotos-eaters

 "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land 
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops, 
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."CHORIC SONGI

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep."II

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?III

Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.IV

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.V

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!VI


Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.VII


But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill--
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine--
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.VIII


The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer--some, 'tis whisper'd--down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.Credits and CopyrightTogether with the editors, the Department ofEnglish (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press,the following individuals share copyright for the work that wentinto this edition:Screen Design (Electronic Edition): Sian Meikle (University ofToronto Library)Scanning: Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities) 





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Information about The Lotos-eaters 
Poet: Alfred Lord Tennyson 
Poem: The Lotos-eaters 





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The Lotos-eaters 

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Written by Algernon Charles Swinburne | Create an image from this poem

An Appeal

 Art thou indeed among these,
Thou of the tyrannous crew,
The kingdoms fed upon blood,
O queen from of old of the seas,
England, art thou of them too
That drink of the poisonous flood,
That hide under poisonous trees?



Nay, thy name from of old,
Mother, was pure, or we dreamed
Purer we held thee than this,
Purer fain would we hold;
So goodly a glory it seemed,
A fame so bounteous of bliss,
So more precious than gold.



A praise so sweet in our ears,
That thou in the tempest of things
As a rock for a refuge shouldst stand,
In the bloodred river of tears
Poured forth for the triumph of kings;
A safeguard, a sheltering land,
In the thunder and torrent of years.



Strangers came gladly to thee,
Exiles, chosen of men,
Safe for thy sake in thy shade,
Sat down at thy feet and were free.
So men spake of thee then;
Now shall their speaking be stayed?
Ah, so let it not be!


Not for revenge or affright,
Pride, or a tyrannous lust,
Cast from thee the crown of thy praise.
Mercy was thine in thy might;
Strong when thou wert, thou wert just;
Now, in the wrong-doing days,
Cleave thou, thou at least, to the right.



How should one charge thee, how sway,
Save by the memories that were?
Not thy gold nor the strength of thy ships,
Nor the might of thine armies at bay,
Made thee, mother, most fair;
But a word from republican lips
Said in thy name in thy day.



Hast thou said it, and hast thou forgot?
Is thy praise in thine ears as a scoff?
Blood of men guiltless was shed,
Children, and souls without spot,
Shed, but in places far off;
Let slaughter no more be, said
Milton; and slaughter was not.



Was it not said of thee too,
Now, but now, by thy foes,
By the slaves that had slain their France,
And thee would slay as they slew -
"Down with her walls that enclose
Freemen that eye us askance,
Fugitives, men that are true!"



This was thy praise or thy blame
From bondsman or freeman--to be
Pure from pollution of slaves,
Clean of their sins, and thy name
Bloodless, innocent, free;
Now if thou be not, thy waves
Wash not from off thee thy shame.



Freeman he is not, but slave,
Whoso in fear for the State
Cries for surety of blood,
Help of gibbet and grave;
Neither is any land great
Whom, in her fear-stricken mood,
These things only can save.



Lo, how fair from afar,
Taintless of tyranny, stands
Thy mighty daughter, for years
Who trod the winepress of war;
Shines with immaculate hands;
Slays not a foe, neither fears;
Stains not peace with a scar.



Be not as tyrant or slave,
England; be not as these,
Thou that wert other than they.
Stretch out thine hand, but to save;
Put forth thy strength, and release;
Lest there arise, if thou slay,
Thy shame as a ghost from the grave.
Written by Robert Browning | Create an image from this poem

Home Thoughts From The Sea

 Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;
"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"—say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
Written by William Cowper | Create an image from this poem

The Task: Book V The Winter Morning Walk (excerpts)

 'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires th' horizon: while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean shank. The shapeless pair,
As they design'd to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall,
Prepost'rous sight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and, in bright apparel clad
And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hung'ring man,
Fretful if unsupply'd; but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow-pac'd swain's delay.
He from the stack carves out th' accustom'd load,
Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the solid mass:
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away: no needless care,
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanc'd weight....


'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it. All constraint,
Except what wisdom lays on evil men,
Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes
Their progress in the road of science; blinds
The eyesight of discovery, and begets,
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind
Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit
To be the tenant of man's noble form.
Thee therefore, still, blameworthy as thou art,
With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd
By public exigence till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the state,
Thee I account still happy, and the chief
Among the nations, seeing thou art free,
My native nook of earth! . . ....


But there is yet a liberty unsung
By poets, and by senators unprais'd,
Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the pow'rs
Of earth and hell confederate take away;
A liberty which persecution, fraud,
Oppression, prisons, have no pow'r to bind;
Which whoso tastes can be enslav'd no more.
'Tis liberty of heart, deriv'd from Heav'n,
Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind,
And seal'd with the same token. It is held
By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure
By th' unimpeachable and awful oath
And promise of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his,
And are august, but this transcends them all.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry