Christina Georgina Rossetti.
1830–1894

 MARVEL of marvels, if I myself shall behold

With mine own eyes my King in His city of gold;

Where the least of lambs is spotless white in the fold,

Where the least and last of saints in spotless white is stoled,

Where the dimmest head beyond a moon is aureoled.

O saints, my belovèd, now mouldering to mould in the mould,

Shall I see you lift your heads, see your cerements unroll’d,

See with these very eyes? who now in darkness and cold

Tremble for the midnight cry, the rapture, the tale untold,—

The Bridegroom cometh, cometh, His Bride to enfold!

 

Cold it is, my belovèd, since your funeral bell was toll’d:

Cold it is, O my King, how cold alone on the wold!

Oliver Wendell Holmes
1809 – 1894

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

  Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see

  That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,

  And burst the cannon’s roar; –

The meteor of the ocean air

  Shall sweep the clouds no more.

 

Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,

  Where knelt the vanquished foe,

When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,

  And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor’s tread,

  Or know the conquered knee; –

The harpies of the shore shall pluck

  The eagle of the sea!

 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk

  Should sink beneath the wave;

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

  And there should be her grave;

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

  Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

  The lightning and the gale!

 

Ben Jonson.
1573–1637

FOLLOW a shadow, it still flies you;

  Seem to fly it, it will pursue:

So court a mistress, she denies you;

  Let her alone, she will court you.

    Say, are not women truly, then,

    Styled but the shadows of us men?

 

At morn and even, shades are longest;

  At noon they are or short or none:

So men at weakest, they are strongest,

  But grant us perfect, they’re not known.

    Say, are not women truly, then,

    Styled but the shadows of us men?

John Fletcher.
1579–1625

LAY a garland on my herse

  Of the dismal yew;

Maidens, willow branches bear;

  Say, I died true.

 

My love was false, but I was firm

  From my hour of birth.

Upon my buried body lie

  Lightly, gentle earth!

Francis Quarles.
1592–1644

E’EN like two little bank-dividing brooks,

  That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,

And having ranged and search’d a thousand nooks,

  Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,

    Where in a greater current they conjoin:

So I my Best-belovèd’s am; so He is mine.

 

E’en so we met; and after long pursuit,

  E’en so we joined; we both became entire;

No need for either to renew a suit,

  For I was flax, and He was flames of fire:

    Our firm-united souls did more than twine;

So I my Best-belovèd’s am; so He is mine.

 

If all those glittering Monarchs, that command

  The servile quarters of this earthly ball,

Should tender in exchange their shares of land,

  I would not change my fortunes for them all:

     Their wealth is but a counter to my coin:

The world ’s but theirs; but my Belovèd’s mine.

A PINDARIC ODE

Thomas Gray.
1716–1771

    AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings,

From Helicon’s harmonious springs

  A thousand rills their mazy progress take:

The laughing flowers, that round them blow,

Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of music winds along

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Thro’ verdant vales, and Ceres’ golden reign:

Now rolling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.

 

  O Sovereign of the willing soul,

Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,

Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares

  And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul.

On Thracia’s hills the Lord of War

Has curb’d the fury of his car,

And dropp’d his thirsty lance at thy command.

Perching on the sceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather’d king

With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:

Quench’d in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

 

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Temper’d to thy warbled lay.

  O’er Idalia’s velvet-green

  The rosy-crownéd Loves are seen

On Cytherea’s day

  With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,

  Frisking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating,

  Now in circling troops they meet:

To brisk notes in cadence beating,

  Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting strains their Queen’s approach declare:

  Where’er she turns the Graces homage pay.

With arms sublime, that float upon the air,

  In gliding state she wins her easy way:

O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move

The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

 

  Man’s feeble race what ills await,

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

  Disease, and Sorrow’s weeping train,

  And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!

The fond complaint, my song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv’n in vain the heav’nly Muse?

Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her sceptres wan, and birds of boding cry,

He gives to range the dreary sky:

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion’s march they spy, and glitt’ring shafts of war.

 

  In climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam,

The Muse has broke the twilight gloom

  To cheer the shiv’ring native’s dull abode,

And oft, beneath the od’rous shade

Of Chili’s boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat

In loose numbers wildly sweet

Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.

Her track, where’er the Goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

Th’ unconquerable Mind, and Freedom’s holy flame.

 

Woods, that wave o’er Delphi’s steep,

Isles, that crown th’ Ægean deep,

  Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

  Or where Mæander’s amber waves

In lingering lab’rinths creep,

  How do your tuneful echoes languish,

  Mute, but to the voice of anguish?

Where each old poetic mountain

  Inspiration breathed around:

Ev’ry shade and hallow’d fountain

  Murmur’d deep a solemn sound:

Till the sad Nine, in Greece’s evil hour,

  Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.

Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,

  And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.

When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, O Albion! next, thy sea-encircled coast.

William Butler Yeats.
1865 – 1935

ALL the words that I utter,

  And all the words that I write,

Must spread out their wings untiring,

  And never rest in their flight,

Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,

  And sing to you in the night,

Beyond where the waters are moving,

  Storm-darken’d or starry bright.

 

John Fletcher.
1579–1625

NOW the lusty spring is seen;

  Golden yellow, gaudy blue,

  Daintily invite the view:

Everywhere on every green

Roses blushing as they blow,

  And enticing men to pull,

Lilies whiter than the snow,

  Woodbines of sweet honey full:

    All love’s emblems, and all cry,

    ’Ladies, if not pluck’d, we die.’

 

Yet the lusty spring hath stay’d;

  Blushing red and purest white

  Daintily to love invite

Every woman, every maid:

Cherries kissing as they grow,

  And inviting men to taste,

Apples even ripe below,

  Winding gently to the waist:

    All love’s emblems, and all cry,

    ’Ladies, if not pluck’d, we die.’

Alexander Smith.
1829–1867

      ON the Sabbath-day,

      Through the churchyard old and gray,

Over the crisp and yellow leaves I held my rustling way;

And amid the words of mercy, falling on my soul like balms,

‘Mid the gorgeous storms of music—in the mellow organ-calms,

‘Mid the upward-streaming prayers, and the rich and solemn psalms,

      I stood careless, Barbara.

 

      My heart was otherwhere,

      While the organ shook the air,

And the priest, with outspread hands, bless’d the people with a prayer;

But when rising to go homeward, with a mild and saintlike shine

Gleam’d a face of airy beauty with its heavenly eyes on mine—

Gleam’d and vanish’d in a moment—O that face was surely thine

      Out of heaven, Barbara!

 

      O pallid, pallid face!

      O earnest eyes of grace!

When last I saw thee, dearest, it was in another place.

You came running forth to meet me with my love-gift on your wrist:

The flutter of a long white dress, then all was lost in mist—

A purple stain of agony was on the mouth I kiss’d,

      That wild morning, Barbara.

 

      I search’d, in my despair,

      Sunny noon and midnight air;

I could not drive away the thought that you were lingering there.

O many and many a winter night I sat when you were gone,

My worn face buried in my hands, beside the fire alone—

Within the dripping churchyard, the rain plashing on your stone,

      You were sleeping, Barbara.

 

      ‘Mong angels, do you think

      Of the precious golden link

I clasp’d around your happy arm while sitting by yon brink?

Or when that night of gliding dance, of laughter and guitars,

Was emptied of its music, and we watch’d, through lattice-bars,

The silent midnight heaven creeping o’er us with its stars,

      Till the day broke, Barbara?

 

      In the years I’ve changed;

      Wild and far my heart has ranged,

And many sins and errors now have been on me avenged;

But to you I have been faithful whatsoever good I lack’d:

I loved you, and above my life still hangs that love intact—

Your love the trembling rainbow, I the reckless cataract.

      Still I love you. Barbara.

 

      Yet, Love, I am unblest;

      With many doubts opprest,

I wander like the desert wind without a place of rest.

Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore,

The hunger of my soul were still’d; for Death hath told you more

Than the melancholy world doth know—things deeper than all lore

      You could teach me, Barbara.

 

      In vain, in vain, in vain!

      You will never come again.

There droops upon the dreary hills a mournful fringe of rain;

The gloaming closes slowly round, loud winds are in the tree,

Round selfish shores for ever moans the hurt and wounded sea;

There is no rest upon the earth, peace is with Death and thee—

      Barbara!