HEIR to the wealth of all the storied past,
A thousand generations pour their life
Into this heart of mine;
'Twere base indeed if these should be the last,
Life's standard bearing in some noble strife,
To advance the battle line.

Thou Art Indeed Just

© Gerard Manley Hopkins

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leav{`e}d how thick! lac{`e}d they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build - but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

Olney Hymn 19: Contentment

© William Cowper

Fierce passions discompose the mind,
As tempests vex the sea,
But calm, content and peace we find,
When, Lord, we turn to Thee.

Ma And Her Checkbook

© Edgar Albert Guest

Ma has a dandy little book that's full of narrow

slips,

A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison

© Ogden Nash

A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison,
And had an affair with a Saracen;
She was not over-sexed,
Or jealous or vexed,
She just wanted to make a comparison.

The Waster's Presentiment

© Robert Fuller Murray

I shall be spun. There is a voice within
Which tells me plainly I am all undone;
For though I toil not, neither do I spin,
I shall be spun.

The War After The War

© John Le Gay Brereton

What shall we say, who, drawing indolent breath,
Mark the quick pant of those who, full of hate,
Drive home the steel or loose the shrieking shell,
Heroes or Huns, who smite the grin of death
And laugh or curse beneath the blows of fate,
Swept madly to the thudding heart of hell?

Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XI

Beyond her sat a second monster. She
In shape and sense was undisguisedly real,
An ox--eyed queen of full--fed majesty
And giant height and comeliness ideal.

Annus Memorabilis : Written in Commemoration of His Majesty's Happy Recovery

I ransack'd for a theme of song,

Much ancient chronicle, and long;

The Cross Roads; Or, The Haymaker's Story

© John Clare

The maids, impatient now old Goody ceased,
As restless children from the school released,
Right gladly proving, what she'd just foretold,
That young ones' stories were preferred to old,
Turn to the whisperings of their former joy,
That oft deceive, but very rarely cloy.

A Lament

CLOUDS is under clouds and rain
For there will not come again
Two, the beloved sire and son
Whom all gifts were rained upon.

© Jones Very

Dark fossil flower! I see thy leaves unrolled,

With all thy lines of beauty freshly marked,

Incription to Milton

The new world honors him whose lofty plea
For England's freedom made her own more sure,
Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be
Their common freehold while both worlds endure.