All Poems
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Idea VI
© Michael Drayton
How many paltry, foolish, painted things,That now in coaches trouble every street,Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,Ere they be well wrapp'd in their winding-sheet?Where I to thee eternity shall give,When nothing else remaineth of these days,And queens hereafter shall be glad to liveUpon the alms of thy superfluous praise
Idea LI
© Michael Drayton
Calling to mind since first my love begun,Th' incertain times oft varying in their course,How things still unexpectedly have run,As t' please the fates by their resistless force:Lastly, mine eyes amazedly have seenEssex' great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain,The quiet end of that long-living Queen,This King's fair entrance, and our peace with Spain,We and the Dutch at length ourselves to sever:Thus the world doth and evermore shall reel
Endimion and Phoebe
© Michael Drayton
In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,From whom that sea did first derive her name,The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,First unto Athens brought philosophy:In this fair region on a goodly plain,Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,Smiling to see the ocean billows play:Latmus, where young Endymion used to keepHis fairest flock of silver-fleeced sheep,To whom Silvanus often would resort,At barley-brake to see the Satyrs sport;And when rude Pan his tabret list to sound,To see the fair Nymphs foot it in a round,Under the trees which on this mountain grew,As yet the like Arabia never knew;For all the pleasures Nature could deviseWithin this plot she did imparadise;And great Diana of her special graceWith vestal rites had hallowed all the place
To Ennui
© Joseph Rodman Drake
Avaunt! arch enemy of fun, Grim nightmare of the mind;Which way great Momus! shall I run, A refuge safe to find?My puppy's dead -- Miss Rumor's breath Is stopt for lack of news,And Fitz is almost hyp'd to death, And Lang has got the blues
The Song of the Bow
© Doyle Arthur Conan
What of the bow? The bow was made in England:Of true wood, of yew-wood, The wood of English bows; So men who are free Love the old yew-treeAnd the land where the yew-tree grows.
Retrospect
© Doyle Arthur Conan
There is a better thing, dear heart, Than youthful flush or girlish grace
Religio Medici
© Doyle Arthur Conan
God's own best will bide the test And God's own worst will fall;But, best or worst or last or first, He ordereth it all.
A Parable
© Doyle Arthur Conan
The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, And warmly debated the matter;The Orthodox said that it came from the air, And the Heretics said from the platter
A Lay of the Links
© Doyle Arthur Conan
It's up and away from our work to-day, For the breeze sweeps over the down;And it's hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame, And the bracken is bronzing to brown
The Guards Came Through
© Doyle Arthur Conan
Men of the Twenty-first Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,Weak with our wounds and our thirst, Wanting our sleep and our food,After a day and a night
Vitæ Summa Brevis Spem nos Vetet Incohare Longam
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate;I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate.
Weep You No More, Sad Fountains
© Dowland John
Weep you no more, sad fountains; What need you flow so fast?Look how the snowy mountains Heaven's sun doth gently waste
La Belle et la Bête
© Mark Doty
"My heart," he said, "is the heartof a beast." What could she dobut love him? First she must resist:the copper bowls gleaming on the rack
Isis: Dorothy Eady, 1924
© Mark Doty
I was never this beautiful.I don't know if anyone can see how much moreI've become tonight, when the boys hired to play Nubians still the peacock fans, and another girl and I,
Twicknam Garden
© John Donne
Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears, Hither I come to seek the spring, And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,Receive such balms as else cure every thing; But oh, self-traitor, I do bringThe spider love, which transubstantiates all, And can convert manna to gall,And that this place may thoroughly be thoughtTrue paradise, I have the serpent brought
[Tutelage]
© John Donne
Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love,And in that sophistry, O, thou dost proveToo subtle; fool, thou didst not understandThe mystic language of the eye nor hand;Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the airOf sighs, and say, "This lies, this sounds despair";Nor by th' eye's water cast a maladyDesperately hot, or changing feverously
To the Countess of Bedford [To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to me ...]
© John Donne
To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to meWorst of spiritual vices, simony ;And not to have written then seems little lessThan worst of civil vices, thanklessness
