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Ave! (An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, 1892)
© Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
I Wide marshes ever washed in clearest air,Whether beneath the sole and spectral star The dear severity of dawn you wear,Or whether in the joy of ample day And speechless ecstasy of growing JuneYou lie and dream the long blue hours away Till nightfall comes too soon,Or whether, naked to the unstarred night,You strike with wondering awe my inward sight, --
II Go forth to you with longing, though the yearsThat turn not back like your returning streams And fain would mist the memory with tears,Though the inexorable years deny My feet the fellowship of your deep grass,O'er which, as o'er another, tenderer sky, Cloud phantoms drift and pass, --You know my confident love, since first, a child,Amid your wastes of green I wandered wild
White Flock
© Anna Akhmatova
Copyright Anna Akhmatova
Copyright English translation by Ilya Shambat (ilya_shambat@yahoo.com)
Origin: http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat/akhmatova.html
My Last Will
© Raleigh Walter Alexander
When I am safely laid away,Out of work and out of play,Sheltered by the kindly groundFrom the world of sight and sound,One or two of those I leaveWill remember me and grieve,Thinking how I made them gayBy the things I used to say;-- But the crown of their distressWill be my untidiness
Prais'd be Diana's Fair and Harmless Light
© Ralegh Sir Walter
Prais'd be Diana's fair and harmless light;Prais'd be the dews wherewith she moists the ground;Prais'd be her beams, the glory of the night;Prais'd be her power by which all powers abound.
Bleinheim, a Poem
© Philips John
From low and abject themes the grov'ling museNow mounts aërial, to sing of armsTriumphant, and emblaze the martial actsOf Britain's hero; may the verse not sinkBeneath his merits, but detain a whileThy ear, O Harley, (though thy country's wealDepends on thee, though mighty Anne requiresThy hourly counsels) since with ev'ry artThy self adorn'd, the mean essays of youthThou wilt not damp, but guide, wherever found,The willing genius to the muses' seat:Therefore thee first, and last, the muse shall sing
A Farewell Entitled to the Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English Forces
© George Peele
Have done with care, my hearts, abord amain,With stretching sail to plow the swelling waves
Quia Multum Amavit
© John Payne
Just a drowned woman, with death-draggled hair And wan eyes, all a-stare;The weary limbs composed in ghastly rest, The hands together prest,Tight holding something that the flood has spared, Nor even the rough workhouse folk have dared To separate from her wholly, but untiedGently the knotted hands and laid it by her side
A Satire, in Imitation of the Third of Juvenal
© John Oldham
Though much concern'd to leave my dear old friend,I must however his design commendOf fixing in the country: for were IAs free to choose my residence, as he;The Peak, the Fens, the Hundreds, or Land's End,I would prefer to Fleet Street, or the Strand
Darwin
© Robert Norwood
Eternal night and solitude of space;Breath as of vapour crimsoning to flame;Far constellations moving in the sameInvariable order and the paceThat times the sun, or earth's elliptic raceAmong the planets: Life--dumb, blind and lame--Creeping from form to form, until her shameBlends with the beauty of a human face!
Death can not claim what Life so hardly wonOut of her ancient warfare with the Void--O Man! whose day is only now begun,Go forth with her and do what she hath done;Till thy last enemy--Death--be destroyed,And earth outshine the splendour of the sun
A Changeling
© Nicholls Marjory
When nurse won't talk of fairies And says that I'm a bother,'Tis then I run away and hide, Or seek my eldest brother.
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung
© William Morris
But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious girth;But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread,And bathed in the light returning, she cried aloud and said:"All hail, O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things!Hail, following Night, and thy Daughter that leadeth thy wavering wings!Look down With unangry eyes on us today alive,And give us the hearts victorious, and the gain for which we strive!All hail, ye Lords of God-home, and ye Queens of the House of Gold!Hail, thou dear Earth that bearest, and thou Wealth of field and fold!Give us, your noble children, the glory of wisdom and speech,And the hearts and the hands of healing, and the mouths and hands that teach!"
Then they turned and were knit together; and oft and o'er againThey craved, and kissed rejoicing, and their hearts were full and fain
The Virgin
© Harold Monro
Arms that have never held me; lips of himWho should have been for me; hair most beloved,I would have smoothed so gently; steadfast eyes,Half-closed, yet gazing at me through the dusk;And hands
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
© John Milton
PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad successThe Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope,So oft, and the perswasive RhetoricThat sleek't his tongue, and won so much on Eve,So little here, nay lost; but Eve was Eve,This far his over-match, who self deceiv'dAnd rash, before-hand had no better weigh'dThe strength he was to cope with, or his own:But as a man who had been matchless heldIn cunning, over-reach't where least he thought,To salve his credit, and for very spightStill will be tempting him who foyls him still,And never cease, though to his shame the more;Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr'd,Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;Or surging waves against a solid rock,Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew,Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end;So Satan, whom repulse upon repulseMet ever; and to shameful silence brought,Yet gives not o're though desperate of success,And his vain importunity pursues
Paradise Regain'd: Book III (1671)
© John Milton
SO spake the Son of God, and Satan stoodA while as mute confounded what to say,What to reply, confuted and convinc'tOf his weak arguing, and fallacious drift;At length collecting all his Serpent wiles,With soothing words renew'd, him thus accosts
Paradise Regain'd: Book II (1671)
© John Milton
MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'dAt Jordan with the Baptist, and had seenHim whom they heard so late expresly call'dJesus Messiah Son of God declar'd,And on that high Authority had believ'd,And with him talkt, and with him lodg'd, I meanAndrew and Simon, famous after knownWith others though in Holy Writ not nam'd,Now missing him thir joy so lately found,So lately found, and so abruptly gone,Began to doubt, and doubted many days,And as the days increas'd, increas'd thir doubt:Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,And for a time caught up to God, as onceMoses was in the Mount, and missing long;And the great Thisbite who on fiery wheelsRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come
