Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

Scenes In London I - Piccadilly

© Letitia Elizabeth Landon

THE sun is on the crowded street,
It kindles those old towers;
Where England's noblest memories meet,
Of old historic hours.

The Blessing

© Charles Baudelaire

Since I must be chosen among all women that are
To bear the lifetime's grudge of a sullen husband,
And since I cannot get rid of this caricature,
-Fling it away like old letters to be burned,

Imagination plays me most intolerable tricks.
To enumerate them all would be unbearably prolix.
Just a trifle bids them gather and a trifle bids them go.
And they tease me and torment me more than anyone can know.

North Wind

© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

LOUD wind, strong wind, sweeping o'er the mountains,
Fresh wind, free wind, blowing from the sea,
Pour forth thy vials like streams from airy fountains,
Draughts of life to me.

bush-clover flowers

© Matsuo Basho

bush-clover flowers
they sway but do not drop
their beads of dew

Wild Oats

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

I saw a fair youth, with a brow broad and white,
And an eye that was beaming with intellect's light:
And his face seemed to glow with the wealth of his mind;
And I said, "He will grace and ennoble mankind:
He is Nature's own king."

Manipulation

© Richard Harris Barham

Oh, my head! my head! my head!

Lack! for my poor unfortunate head!

Evening Rain

What is lovelier than rain that lingers
Falling through the western light?
The light that's red between my fingers
Bathes infinite heaven's remotest height.

Italy : 33. The Campagna Of Rome

Have none appeared as tillers of the ground,
None since They went -- as though it still were theirs,
And they might come and claim their own again?
Was the last plough a Roman's?

An Interview

I met him down upon the pier,
His eyes were wild and sad,
And something in them made me fear
That he was going mad.

Laying Up Treasure

Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer
Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year
Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that kings
Nor thieves can take away. When all the things
Thou tallest thine, goods, pleasures, honors fall,
Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all.

The Fens

© John Clare

Among the tawny tasselled reed
The ducks and ducklings float and feed.
With head oft dabbing in the flood
They fish all day the weedy mud,
And tumbler-like are bobbing there,
Heels topsy turvy in the air.

The March Of Mortality

Over the hills of time to the valley of endless years;
Over the roads of woe to the land that is free from tears
Up from the haunts of men to the place where the angels are,
This is the march of mortality to a wonderful goal afar.