Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (136 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
An elm, uprooted by the storm,
The trunk with mosses gray and green,
Shall make for us a rustic form,
Where lighter grows the forest scene;
And far among the bowery shades,
Are ferny lawns and grassy glades.
Retiring May to lovely June
Her latest garland now resigns;
The banks with cuckoo-flowers are strewn,
The woodwalks blue with columbines,
And with its reeds, the wandering stream
Reflects the flag-flower’s golden gleam.
There, feathering down the turf to meet,
Their shadowy arms the beeches spread,
While high above our sylvan seat,
Lifts the light ash its airy head;
And later leaved, the oaks between
Extend their bows of vernal green.
The slender birch its paper rind
Seems offering to divided love,
And shuddering even without a wind
Aspins, their paler foliage move,
As if some spirit of the air
Breath’d a low sigh in passing there.
The Squirrel in his frolic mood,
Will fearless bound among the boughs;
Yaffils laugh loudly thro’ the wood,
And murmuring ring-doves tell their vows;
While we, as sweetest woodscents rise,
Listen to woodland melodies.
And I’ll contrive a sylvan room
Against the time of summer heat,
Where leaves, inwoven in Nature’s loom,
Shall canopy our green retreat;
And gales that “close the eye of day”
Shall linger, e’er they die away.
And when a sear and sallow hue
From early frost the bower receives,
I’ll dress the sand rock cave for you,
And strew the floor with heath and leaves,
That you, against the autumnal air
May find securer shelter there.
The Nightingale will then have ceas’d
To sing her moonlight serenade;
But the gay bird with blushing breast,
And Woodlarks still will haunt the shade,
And by the borders of the spring
Reed-wrens will yet be carolling.
The forest hermit’s lonely cave
None but such soothing sounds shall reach,
Or hardly heard, the distant wave
Slow breaking on the stony beach;
Or winds, that now sigh soft and low,
Now make wild music as they blow.
And then, before the chilling North
The tawny foliage falling light,
Seems, as it flits along the earth,
The footfall of the busy Sprite,
Who wrapt in pale autumnal gloom,
Calls up the mist-born Mushroom.
Oh! could I hear your soft voice there,
And see you in the forest green
All beauteous as you are, more fair
You’ld look, amid the sylvan scene,
And in a wood-girl’s simple guise,
Be still more lovely in mine eyes.
Ye phantoms of unreal delight,
Visions of fond delirium born!
Rise not on my deluded sight,
Then leave me drooping and forlorn
To know, such bliss can never be,
Unless
loved like me.
The visionary, nursing dreams like these,
Is not indeed unhappy.
Summer woods
Wave over him, and whisper as they wave,
Some future blessings he may yet enjoy.
And as above him sail the silver clouds,
He follows them in thought to distant climes,
Where, far from the cold policy of this,
Dividing him from her he fondly loves,
He, in some island of the southern sea,
May haply build his cane-constructed bower
Beneath the bread-fruit, or aspiring palm,
With long green foliage rippling in the gale.
Oh! let him cherish his ideal bliss —
For what is life, when Hope has ceas’d to strew
Her fragile flowers along its thorny way?
And sad and gloomy are his days, who lives
Of Hope abandon’d!
Just beneath the rock
Where Beachy overpeers the channel wave,
Within a cavern mined by wintry tides
Dwelt one, who long disgusted with the world
And all its ways, appear’d to suffer life
Rather than live; the soul-reviving gale,
Fanning the bean-field, or the thymy heath,
Had not for many summers breathed on him;
And nothing mark’d to him the season’s change,
Save that more gently rose the placid sea,
And that the birds which winter on the coast
Gave place to other migrants; save that the fog,
Hovering no more above the beetling cliffs
Betray’d not then the little careless sheep
On the brink grazing, while their headlong fall
Near the lone Hermit’s flint-surrounded home,
Claim’d unavailing pity; for his heart
Was feelingly alive to all that breath’d;
And outraged as he was, in sanguine youth,
By human crimes, he still acutely felt
For human misery.
Wandering on the beach,
He learn’d to augur from the clouds of heaven,
And from the changing colours of the sea,
And sullen murmurs of the hollow cliffs,
Or the dark porpoises, that near the shore
Gambol’d and sported on the level brine
When tempests were approaching: then at night
He listen’d to the wind; and as it drove
The billows with o’erwhelming vehemence
He, starting from his rugged couch, went forth
And hazarding a life, too valueless,
He waded thro’ the waves, with plank or pole
Towards where the mariner in conflict dread
Was buffeting for life the roaring surge;
And now just seen, now lost in foaming gulphs,
The dismal gleaming of the clouded moon
Shew’d the dire peril.
Often he had snatch’d
From the wild billows, some unhappy man
Who liv’d to bless the hermit of the rocks.
But if his generous cares were all in vain,
And with slow swell the tide of morning bore
Some blue swol’n cor’se to land; the pale recluse
Dug in the chalk a sepulchre — above
Where the dank sea-wrack mark’d the utmost tide,
And with his prayers perform’d the obsequies
For the poor helpless stranger.
One dark night
The equinoctial wind blew south by west,
Fierce on the shore; — the bellowing cliffs were shook
Even to their stony base, and fragments fell
Flashing and thundering on the angry flood.
At day-break, anxious for the lonely man,
His cave the mountain shepherds visited,
Tho’ sand and banks of weeds had choak’d their way —
He was not in it; but his drowned cor’se
By the waves wafted, near his former home
Receiv’d the rites of burial.
Those who read
Chisel’d within the rock, these mournful lines,
Memorials of his sufferings, did not grieve,
That dying in the cause of charity
His spirit, from its earthly bondage freed,
Had to some better region fled for ever.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Henry Fielding (1707–1754)
THE DUSKY night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn;
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn,
And a-hunting we will go.
5
The wife around her husband throws
Her arms, and begs his stay;
‘My dear, it rains, and hails, and snows,
You will not hunt to-day?’
But a-hunting we will go.
10
‘A brushing fox in yonder wood
Secure to find we seek:
For why? I carried, sound and good,
A cartload there last week,
And a-hunting we will go.’
15
Away he goes, he flies the rout,
Their steeds all spur and switch,
Some are thrown in, and some thrown out,
And some thrown in the ditch;
But a-hunting we will go.
20
At length his strength to faintness worn,
Poor Reynard ceases flight;
Then, hungry, homeward we return,
To feast away the night.
Then a-drinking we will go.
25
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Charles Dibdin (1745–1814)
HERE, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he’ll hear the tempest howling,
For Death has broached him to.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
5
His heart was kind and soft;
Faithful below he did his duty,
And now he’s gone aloft.
Tom never from his word departed,
His virtues were so rare;
10
His friends were many and true-hearted,
His Poll was kind and fair:
And then he’d sing so blithe and jolly,
Ah, many’s the time and oft!
But mirth is turned to melancholy,
15
For Tom is gone aloft.
Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,
When He, who all commands,
Shall give, to call Life’s crew together,
The word to ‘pipe all hands.’
20
Thus Death, who kings and tars dispatches,
In vain Tom’s life has doffed;
For though his body’s under hatches,
His soul is gone aloft.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
CONDEMN’D to Hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year,
5
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills affection’s eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
10
Nor, letter’d Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting nature called for aid,
And hovering death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy display’d
15
The power of art without the show.
In misery’s darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish pour’d his groan,
And lonely want retired to die.
20
No summons mock’d by chill delay,
No petty gain disdain’d by pride;
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.
His virtues walked their narrow round,
25
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the eternal Master found
The single talent well employ’d.
The busy day, the peaceful night,
Unfelt, uncounted, glided by;
30
His frame was firm — his powers were bright,
Though now his eightieth year was nigh.
Then with no fiery throbbing pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
35
And freed his soul the nearest way.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order