Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (266 page)
Read Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Online
Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
Coventry Patmore (1823–1896)
IT was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have naught other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
You went,
5
With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
Upon your journey of so many days
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
10
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.
Well, it was well
To hear you such things speak,
15
And I could tell
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
20
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
To let the laughter flash,
Whilst I drew near,
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
But all at once to leave me at the last,
25
More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
And go your journey of all days
With not one kiss, or a good-bye,
30
And the only loveless look the look with which you pass’d:
’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William (Johnson) Cory (1823–1892)
THEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remember’d how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
5
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William (Johnson) Cory (1823–1892)
YOU promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
But sweet, sweet is this human life,
So sweet, I fain would breathe it still:
Your chilly stars I can forego,
5
This warm kind world is all I know.
You say there is no substance here,
One great reality above:
Back from that void I shrink in fear,
And child-like hide myself in love:
10
Show me what angels feel. Till then,
I cling, a mere weak man, to men.
You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and fitful veins
To sexless souls, ideal quires,
15
Unwearied voices, wordless strains:
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend’s remembered tones.
Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away;
20
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Ballad of Keith of Ravelston
Sydney Dobell (1824–1874)
THE MURMUR of the mourning ghost
That keeps the shadowy kine,
‘O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!’
Ravelston, Ravelston,
5
The merry path that leads
Down the golden morning hill,
And thro’ the silver meads;
Ravelston, Ravelston,
The stile beneath the tree,
10
The maid that kept her mother’s kine,
The song that sang she!
She sang her song, she kept her kine,
She sat beneath the thorn,
When Andrew Keith of Ravelston
15
Rode thro’ the Monday morn.
His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring,
His belted jewels shine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
20
Year after year, where Andrew came,
Comes evening down the glade,
And still there sits a moonshine ghost
Where sat the sunshine maid.
Her misty hair is faint and fair,
25
She keeps the shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
I lay my hand upon the stile,
The stile is lone and cold,
30
The burnie that goes babbling by
Says naught that can be told.
Yet, stranger! here, from year to year,
She keeps her shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
35
The sorrows of thy line!
Step out three steps, where Andrew stood —
Why blanch thy cheeks for fear?
The ancient stile is not alone,
’Tis not the burn I bear!
40
She makes her immemorial moan,
She keeps her shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Allingham (1824–1889)
UP the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
5
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
10
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
15
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
20
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
25
On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
30
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
35
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
40
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
If any man so daring
45
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
50
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
55
And white owl’s feather!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George MacDonald (1824–1905)
THEY all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high:
Thou cam’st, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.
O Son of Man, to right my lot
5
Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
Nor on the sea Thy sail!
My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
But come down Thine own secret stair,
10
That Thou mayst answer all my need —
Yea, every bygone prayer.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order