Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tithonus
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
(76 lines long)
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Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Rondeau
by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
[...]
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To ___ [probably Coleridge]
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And [...]
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Satia Te Sanguine
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)
This is somewhat long (72 lines) so I?ve put it behind excerpt cut. It’s one of the sickest poems I?ve ever read but the three stanzas beginning with “Where, when the gods would be cruel,” are among the truest I’ve ever read.
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When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly
by Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774)
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can sooth her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to [...]
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Saturday, August 26, 2006
Epitaph
by Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (1852-1923)
Once I learnt in wilful hour
How to vex him; still I keep,
Now unwilfully, my power:
Every day he comes to weep.
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Outlook
by Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)
Not to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood
On life’s deep meaning, nature’s altitude
Of loveliness, and time’s mysterious ways;
At every thought and deed to clear the haze
Out of our eyes, considering only this,
[...]
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Thursday, August 24, 2006
Song: Love Still Has Something of the Sea
by Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701)
Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his mother rose;
No time his slaves from Doubt can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose:
They are becalmed in clearest days,
And in rough weather tost;
They wither under cold delays,
[...]
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Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Hound of Heaven
by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
Another long one but well worth it. It’s worthwhile to compare Thompson’s difficult and pained sense of divinity with the easy and gratifying ones being marketed today.
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I Have a Rendezvous with Death
by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air
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