Robert Herrick.
1591–1674

WHAT needs complaints,

When she a place

Has with the race

  Of saints?

 

In endless mirth

She thinks not on

What ’s said or done

  In Earth.

 

She sees no tears,

Or any tone

Of thy deep groan

  She hears:

 

Nor does she mind

Or think on ‘t now

That ever thou

  Wast kind;

 

But changed above,

She likes not there,

As she did here,

  Thy love.

 

Forbear therefore,

And lull asleep

Thy woes, and weep

  No more.

 

William Blake.
1757–1827

O THOU with dewy locks, who lookest down

Through the clear windows of the morning, turn

Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,

Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

 

The hills tell one another, and the listening

Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn’d

Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth

And let thy holy feet visit our clime!

 

Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds

Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste

Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls

Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

 

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour

Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put

Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head,

Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.

John Keats.
1795–1821

O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

  By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

  Even into thine own soft-conchèd ear:

Surely I dream’d to-day, or did I see

  The wingèd Psyche with awaken’d eyes?

I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,

  And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,

Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side

  In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof

  Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

        A brooklet, scarce espied:

‘Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

  Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian

They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;

  Their arms embracèd, and their pinions too;

  Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,

As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,

And ready still past kisses to outnumber

  At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:

        The wingèd boy I knew;

  But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?

        His Psyche true!

 

O latest-born and loveliest vision far

  Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy!

Fairer than Phoebe’s sapphire-region’d star,

  Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

        Nor altar heap’d with flowers;

Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan

        Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

  From chain-swung censer teeming;

No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

  Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

 

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,

  Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

  Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retired

  From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

  Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

          Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

  From swingèd censer teeming:

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

  Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

 

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane

  In some untrodden region of my mind,

Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,

  Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:

Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees

  Fledge the wild-ridgèd mountains steep by steep;

And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,

  The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep;

And in the midst of this wide quietness

A rosy sanctuary will I dress

With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,

  With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,

With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,

  Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same;

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

        That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at nigh

John Donne.
1573–1631

DEATH, be not proud, though some have callèd thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.

From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;

And soonest our best men with thee do go—

Rest of their bones and souls’ delivery!

Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?

  One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

  And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

 

Francis William Bourdillon
1852 – 1921

The night has a thousand eyes,

    And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

    With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

    And the heart but one:

Yet the light of a whole life dies

     When love is done.

Robert Herrick.
1591–1674

HERE a little child I stand

Heaving up my either hand;

Cold as paddocks though they be,

Here I lift them up to Thee,

For a benison to fall

On our meat and on us all. Amen.

 

 

Glossary:

Paddocks = frogs.

John Keats.
1795–1821

‘O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

  Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is wither’d from the lake,

      And no birds sing.

 

‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

  So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

      And the harvest ’s done.

 

‘I see a lily on thy brow

  With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

      Fast withereth too.’

 

‘I met a lady in the meads,

  Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

      And her eyes were wild.

 

‘I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look’d at me as she did love,

      And made sweet moan.

 

‘I set her on my pacing steed

  And nothing else saw all day long,

For sideways would she lean, and sing

      A faery’s song.

 

‘She found me roots of relish sweet,

  And honey wild and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said,

      "I love thee true!"

 

‘She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept and sigh’d fill sore;

And there I shut her wild, wild eyes

      With kisses four.

 

‘And there she lullèd me asleep,

  And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream’d

      On the cold hill’s side.

 

‘I saw pale kings and princes too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—"La belle Dame sans Merci

      Hath thee in thrall!"

 

‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam

  With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

      On the cold hill’s side.

 

‘And this is why I sojourn here

  Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,

      And no birds sing.’

Sir Walter Raleigh.
1552–1618

EVEN such is Time, that takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with earth and dust;

  Who in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wander’d all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days;

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

My God shall raise me up, I trust.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
1772–1834

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—

The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—

And Winter, slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

 

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,

Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.

Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,

For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!

With lips unbrighten’d, wreathless brow, I stroll:

And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And Hope without an object cannot live.