Beauty poems
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Three Years She Grew
© William Wordsworth
Three years she grew in sun and shower,Then Nature said, "A lovelier flowerOn earth was never sown;This Child I to myself will take;She shall be mine, and I will makeA Lady of my own.
12. Song-The Lass of Cessnock Banks
© Robert Burns
ON Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;
Could I describe her shape and mein;
Our lasses a’ she far excels,
An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.
The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued)
© William Wordsworth
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving muchUnvisited, endeavour'd to retraceMy life through its first years, and measured backThe way I travell'd when I first beganTo love the woods and fields; the passion yetWas in its birth, sustain'd, as might befal,By nourishment that came unsought, for still,From week to week, from month to month, we liv'dA round of tumult: duly were our gamesProlong'd in summer till the day-light fail'd;No chair remain'd before the doors, the benchAnd threshold steps were empty; fast asleepThe Labourer, and the old Man who had sate,A later lingerer, yet the revelryContinued, and the loud uproar: at last,When all the ground was dark, and the huge cloudsWere edged with twinkling stars, to bed we went,With weary joints, and with a beating mind
The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time
© William Wordsworth
--Was it for thisThat one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov'dTo blend his murmurs with my Nurse's song,And from his alder shades and rocky falls,And from his fords and shallows, sent a voiceThat flow'd along my dreams? For this, didst Thou,O Derwent! travelling over the green PlainsNear my 'sweet Birthplace', didst thou, beauteous StreamMake ceaseless music through the night and dayWhich with its steady cadence, temperingOur human waywardness, compos'd my thoughtsTo more than infant softness, giving me,Among the fretful dwellings of mankind,A knowledge, a dim earnest, of the calmThat Nature breathes among the hills and groves
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
© William Wordsworth
Five years have past; five summers, with the lengthOf five long winters! and again I hearThese waters, rolling from their mountain-springsWith a soft inland murmur
The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement
© William Wordsworth
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!For mighty were the auxiliars which then stoodUpon our side, we who were strong in love!Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,In which the meagre, stale, forbidding waysOf custom, law, and statute, took at onceThe attraction of a country in romance!When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,When most intent on making of herselfA prime Enchantress--to assist the workWhich then was going forward in her name!Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,The beauty wore of promise, that which sets(As at some moment might not be unfeltAmong the bowers of paradise itself )The budding rose above the rose full blown
The Lady in the White Dress, Whom I Helped Into the Omnibus
© Willis Nathaniel Parker
I know her not! Her hand has been in mine,And the warm pressure of her taper armHas thrill'd upon my fingers, and the hemOf her white dress has lain upon my feet,Till my hush'd pulse, by the caressing folds,Was kindled to a fever! I, to her,Am but the undistinguishable leafBlown by upon the breeze -- yet I have sat,And in the blue depths of her stainless eyes,(Close as a lover in his hour of bliss,And steadfastly as look the twin stars downInto unfathomable wells,) have gazed!And I have felt from out its gate of pearlHer warm breath on my cheek, and while she satDreaming away the moments, I have triedTo count the long dark lashes in the fringeOf her bewildering eyes! The kerchief sweetThat enviably visits her red lipHas slumber'd, while she held it, on my knee, --And her small foot has crept between mine own --And yet, she knows me not! Now, thanks to heavenFor blessings chainless in the rich man's keeping --Wealth that the miser cannot hide away!Buy, if they will, the invaluable flower --They cannot store its fragrance from the breeze!Wear, if they will, the costliest gem of Ind --It pours its light on every passing eye!And he who on this beauty sets his name --Who dreams, perhaps, that for his use aloneSuch loveliness was first of angels born --Tell him, oh whisperer at his dreaming ear,That I too, in her beauty, sun my eye,And, unrebuked, may worship her in song --Tell him that heaven, along our darkling way,Hath set bright lamps with loveliness alight --And all may in their guiding beams rejoice;But he -- as 'twere a watcher by a lamp --Guards but this bright one's shining
I. W. To her Unconstant Lover
© Isabella Whitney
As close as you your wedding kept, yet now the truth I hear,Which you (ere now) might me have told -- what need you nay to swear?
Working Class
© Warr Bertram
We have heard no nightingales singingin cool, dim lane, where eveningcomes like a procession through the aisles at passion-tide,filling the church with quiet prayer dressed in white
Albion's England
© William Warner
The Brutons thus departed hence, seven kingdoms here begun,--Where diversely in divers broils the Saxons lost and won,--King Edel and king Adelbright in Diria jointly reign;In loyal concord during life these kingly friends remain
Upon His Majesty’s Repairing of Paul’s
© Edmund Waller
Scarce suffer'd more upon Melita's shore,Than did his Temple in the sea of Time(Our Nation's Glory, and our Nation's Crime)When the first Monarch of this happy Isle,Mov'd with the ruin of so brave a pile,This work of cost and piety begunTo be accomplish'd by his glorious Son:Who all that came within the ample thoughtOf his wise Sire, has to perfection brought
Echoes from the Greek Anthology
© Henry Van Dyke
I. STARLIGHT1.2Thou lookest on the stars above:1.3Ah, would that I the heaven might be1.4With a million eyes to look on thee.
The Oak and the Hill
© Turner Charles (Tennyson)
When the storm fell'd our oak, and thou, fair wold,Wast seen beyond it, we were slow to takeThe lesson taught, for our old neighbour's sake
Millie MacGill
© Turner Charles (Tennyson)
I watch'd thy merry gambols on the sand,And ask'd thy name beside the morning sea;Sweet came thine answer, with thy little handUpon the spade, and thy blue eyes on me,Millie Macgill
The Gold-Crested Wren
© Turner Charles (Tennyson)
When my hand closed upon thee, worn and spentWith idly dashing on the window-pane,Or clinging to the cornice -- I, that meantAt once to free thee, could not but detain;I dropt my pen, I left th' unfinished lay,To give thee back to freedom; but I took --Oh, charm of sweet occasion! -- one brief lookAt thy bright eyes and innocent dismay;Then forth I sent thee on thy homeward quest,My lesson learnt -- thy beauty got by heart:And if, at times, my sonnet-muse would restShort of her topmost skill, her little best,The memory of thy delicate gold crestShall plead for one last touch, -- the crown of Art
The Cricket
© Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
The humming bee purrs softly o'er his flower, From lawn and thicketThe dogday locust singeth in the sun, From hour to hour;Each has his bard, and thou, ere day be done Shalt have no wrong;So bright that murmur mid the insect crowdMuffled and lost in bottom grass, or loud By pale and picket:Shall I not take to help me in my song A little cooing cricket?
The afternoon is sleepy!, let us lieBeneath these branches, whilst the burdened brookMuttering and moaning to himself goes by,And mark our minstrel's carol, whilst we lookToward the faint horizon, swooning-blue
A Poem, Addressed to the Lord Privy Seal, on the Prospect of Peace
© Thomas Tickell
To The Lord Privy SealContending kings, and fields of death, too long,Have been the subject of the British song
The Ballade of Lovely Ladyes of Long Agoe
© Thorley Wilfred Charles
O tell me where and in what lande Is Flora and the Roman lass?Where's Thaïs or the Ladye grande That was her equal in all grace? Saye where doth Echo hyde her faceWhose voice bye streame and pool doth straye, Whose beauty more than mortal was? --But where are the white snowes borne awaye?
Where nowe is learnéd Heloïse For whom poor Abelard lost allQuick fuel of love's agonies
