Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (283 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
A LATE lark twitters from the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day’s work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, gray city
5
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.
The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine, and are changed. In the valley
10
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night —
Night with her train of stars
15
And her great gift of sleep.
So be my passing!
My task accomplished and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
20
Let me be gathered to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
15
I am the captain of my soul.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
WHAT have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
5
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the Song on your bugles blown,
England —
Round the world on your bugles blown!
10
Where shall the watchful sun,
England, my England,
Match the master-work you’ve done,
England, my own?
When shall he rejoice agen
15
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
To the Song on your bugles blown,
England —
Down the years on your bugles blown?
20
Ever the faith endures,
England, my England: —
‘Take and break us: we are yours,
England, my own!
Life is good, and joy runs high
25
Between English earth and sky:
Death is death; but we shall die
To the Song of your bugles blown,
England —
To the stars on your bugles blown!’
30
They call you proud and hard,
England, my England:
You with worlds to watch and ward,
England, my own!
You whose mail’d hand keeps the keys
35
Of such teeming destinies,
You could know nor dread nor ease
Were the Song on your bugles blown,
England —
Round the Pit on your bugles blown!
40
Mother of Ships whose might,
England, my England,
Is the fierce old Sea’s delight,
England, my own,
Chosen daughter of the Lord,
45
Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword,
There’s the menace of the Word
In the Song on your bugles blown,
England —
Out of heaven on your bugles blown!
50
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
IN the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence chills and blesses,
5
And for ever in the hill-recesses
Her
more lovely music
Broods and dies —
O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
10
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow
15
Lamp-bestarr’d!
O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath!
20
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
IF I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
5
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain: —
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
10
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
UNDER the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
5
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
TO him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
5
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
10
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; —
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around —
15
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air —
Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
20
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
25
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
30
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings,
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good,
35
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods — rivers that move
40
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste, —
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
45
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings
50
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
55
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
60
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
65
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man —
70
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
75
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
80
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order