Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (170 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring’s unclouded weather,
In this sequester’d nook how sweet
5
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My last year’s friends together.
One have I mark’d, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
10
Hail to Thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array
Presiding Spirit here to-day
Dost lead the revels of the May,
15
And this is thy dominion.
While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers
Art sole in thy employment;
20
A Life, a Presence like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.
Amid yon tuft of hazel trees
25
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perch’d in ecstasies
Yet seeming still to hover;
There, where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
30
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.
My dazzled sight he oft deceives —
A brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
35
Pours forth his song in gushes,
As if by that exulting strain
He mock’d and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.
40
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
I HEARD a thousand blended notes
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
5
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.
Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trail’d its wreaths;
10
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopp’d and play’d,
Their thoughts I cannot measure, —
But the least motion which they made
15
It seem’d a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
20
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What Man has made of Man?
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
5
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
To the last point of vision, and beyond
Mount, daring warbler! — that love-prompted strain
— ‘Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond —
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
10
Yet might’st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy Spring.
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
15
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam —
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
WHERE art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead!
O find me, prosperous or undone!
Or if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same
5
That I may rest; and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?
Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child —
To have despair’d, have hoped, believed,
10
And been for evermore beguiled, —
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss;
Was ever darkness like to this?
He was among the prime in worth,
15
An object beauteous to behold;
Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace
As hath been said, they were not base;
20
And never blush was on my face.
Ah! little doth the young-one dream
When full of play and childish cares,
What power is in his wildest scream
Heard by his mother unawares!
25
He knows it not, he cannot guess;
Years to a mother bring distress,
But do not make her love the less.
Neglect me! no, I suffer’d long
From that ill thought; and being blind
30
Said ‘Pride shall help me in my wrong:
Kind mother have I been, as kind
As ever breathed:’ and that is true;
I’ve wet my path with tears like dew,
Weeping for him when no one knew.
35
My Son, if thou be humbled, poor,
Hopeless of honour and of gain,
O! do not dread thy mother’s door;
Think not of me with grief and pain:
I now can see with better eyes;
40
And worldly grandeur I despise
And fortune with her gifts and lies.
Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings,
And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
They mount — how short a voyage brings
45
The wanderers back to their delight!
Chains tie us down by land and sea;
And wishes, vain as mine, may be
All that is left to comfort thee.
Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan
50
Maim’d, mangled by inhuman men;
Or thou upon a desert thrown
Inheritest the lion’s den;
Or hast been summon’d to the deep
Thou, thou, and all thy mates, to keep
55
An incommunicable sleep.
I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me: ’tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between the living and the dead;
60
For surely then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night
With love and longings infinite.
My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass;
65
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass;
I question things, and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind.
70
Beyond participation lie
My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh
They pity me, and not my grief.
Then come to me, my Son, or send
75
Some tidings that my woes may end!
I have no other earthly friend.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
I’ve heard he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
5
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.
No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee,
10
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.
In those proud days he little cared
For husbandry of or tillage;
To blither tasks did Simon rouse
15
The sleepers of the village.
He all the country could outrun,
Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the chase was done,
He reel’d and was stone-blind.
20
And still there’s something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;
For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices.
But O the heavy change! — bereft
25
Of health, strength, friends and kindred; see
Old Simon to the world is left
In liveried poverty:
His master’s dead, and no one now
Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;
30
Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.
And he is lean and he is sick,
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
35
His legs are thin and dry.
He has no son, he has no child,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village common.
40
Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he from the heath
45
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails the land to them
Which he can till no longer?
Oft, working by her husband’s side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
50
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.
And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
’Tis little, very little, all
55
That they can do between them.
Few months of life has he in store
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
60
My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently you’ve waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.
O reader! had you in your mind
65
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader! you would find
A tale in everything.
What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:
70
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.
One summer-day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
75
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock totter’d in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour
That at the root of the old tree
He might have work’d for ever.
80
‘You’re overtask’d, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool,’ to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffer’d aid.
I struck, and with a single blow
85
The tangled root I sever’d,
At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavour’d.
The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seem’d to run
90
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
— I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
95
Hath oftener left me mourning.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order