Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (128 page)

Rule, Britannia

James Thomson (1700–1748)

 
WHEN Britain first at Heaven’s command
 
Arose from out the azure main,
 
This was the charter of her land,
 
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
  
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Britons never shall be slaves.

 
The nations not so blest as thee
 
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
 
Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free
 
The dread and envy of them all.
  
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Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
 
More dreadful from each foreign stroke:
 
As the loud blast that tears the skies
 
Serves but to root thy native oak.

 
Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
  
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All their attempts to bend thee down
 
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
 
And work their woe and thy renown.

 
To thee belongs the rural reign;
 
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
  
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All thine shall be the subject main,
 
And every shore it circles thine!

 
The Muses, still with Freedom found,
 
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
 
Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crown’d
  
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And manly hearts to guard the fair: —
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
  
Britons never shall be slaves!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

To Fortune

James Thomson (1700–1748)

FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to Love,
And when we meet a mutual heart
Come in between, and bid us part?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
  
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And wish and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?

But busy, busy, still art thou,
To bind the loveless, joyless vow,
  
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The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;
All other blessings I resign,
  
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Make but the dear Amanda mine.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Thomas Gray

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

THE CURFEW tolls the knell of parting day,
 
The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
  
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And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
 
The moping owl does to the moon complain
  
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Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
 
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade
 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
  
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The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
 
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
  
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For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn
 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
  
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Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
 
How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
  
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Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
 
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour: —
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The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
 
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
  
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Can storied urn or animated bust
 
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath,
Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
 
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
  
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Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
 
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
  
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Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,
 
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
 
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
  
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And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
 
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.
  
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Th’ applause of listening senates to command,
 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
 
And read their history in a nation’s eyes

Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
  
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Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
  
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Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
 
With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
 
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
  
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They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect
 
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,
 
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
  
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Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,
 
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
 
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
  
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This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
 
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
  
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E’en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
 
E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonour’d dead,
 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
  
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Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate, —

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
 
‘Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
 
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;
  
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‘There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,
 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

‘Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
  
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Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
 
Or crazed with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

‘One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,
 
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
  
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Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
 
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

‘The next with dirges due in sad array
 
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne, —
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
  
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Graved on the stone beneath yon agèd thorn:’

The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
 
A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth
 
And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.
  
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Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
 
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear,
 
He gain’d from Heaven, ’twas all he wish’d, a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
  
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Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(
There they alike in trembling hope repose,
)
 
The bosom of his Father and his God.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order