Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (226 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
Last Sonnet: Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art
John Keats (1795–1821)
BRIGHT STAR! would I were steadfast as thou art: —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
5
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors: —
No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair Love’s ripening breast
10
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever, — or else swoon to death.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
AH, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
5
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
TWENTY years hence my eyes may grow,
If not quite dim, yet rather so;
Yet yours from others they shall know,
Twenty years hence.
Twenty years hence, though it may hap
5
That I be call’d to take a nap
In a cool cell where thunder-clap
Was never heard,
There breathe but o’er my arch of grass
A not too sadly sigh’d ‘Alas!’
10
And I shall catch, ere you can pass,
That wingèd word.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
PROUD word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
‘This man loved
me’
— then rise and trip away.
5
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
HERE, ever since you went abroad,
If there be change, no change I see:
I only walk our wonted road,
The road is only walk’d by me.
Yes; I forgot; a change there is —
5
Was it of
that
you bade me tell?
I catch at times, at times I miss
The sight, the tone, I know so well.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
STAND close around, ye Stygian set,
With Dirce in one boat convey’d!
Or Charon, seeing, may forget
That he is old and she a shade.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Corinna to Tanagra, from Athens
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
TANAGRA! think not I forget
Thy beautifully storied streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy,
5
Whose sunny bosom swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheav’d with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes.
A gift I promise: one I see
Which thou with transport wilt receive,
10
The only proper gift for thee,
Of which no mortal shall bereave
In later times thy mouldering walls,
Until the last old turret falls;
A crown, a crown from Athens won,
15
A crown no God can wear, beside Latona’s son.
There may be cities who refuse
To their own child the honours due,
And look ungently on the Muse;
But ever shall those cities rue
20
The dry, unyielding, niggard breast,
Offering no nourishment, no rest,
To that young head which soon shall rise
Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.
Sweetly where cavern’d Dirce flows
25
Do white-arm’d maidens chant my lay,
Flapping the while with laurel-rose
The honey-gathering tribes away;
And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues
Lisp your Corinna’s early songs;
30
To her with feet more graceful come
The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home.
O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender mother’s knee,
And gaze into her face, and want
35
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others as in holy trance
Look up to heaven: be such my praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays.
40
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!
But oh, who ever felt as I?
No longer could I doubt him true —
5
All other men may use deceit;
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
WELL I remember how you smiled
To see me write your name upon
The soft sea-sand— ‘
O! what a child!
You think you’re writing upon stone!’
I have since written what no tide
5
Shall ever wash away, what men
Unborn shall read o’er ocean wide
And find Ianthe’s name again.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
NO, my own love of other years!
No, it must never be.
Much rests with you that yet endears,
Alas! but what with me?
Could those bright years o’er me revolve
5
So gay, o’er you so fair,
The pearl of life we would dissolve,
And each the cup might share.
You show that truth can ne’er decay,
Whatever fate befalls;
10
I, that the myrtle and the bay
Shoot fresh on ruined walls.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
THERE is delight in singing, though none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight
In praising, though the praiser sit alone
And see the praised far off him, far above.
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world’s,
5
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walked along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse. But warmer climes
10
Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze
Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order