Happy poems
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Joe Ramsbottom
© Marriott Edgar
Joe Ramshottom rented a bit of a farm
From its owner, Squire Goslett his name;
And the Gosletts came over with William the First,
And found Ramsbottoms here when they came.
Henry the Seventh
© Marriott Edgar
Henry the Seventh of England
Wasn't out of the Royal top drawer,
The only connection of which he could boast,
He were King's nephew's brother-in-law.
Elegy For Jane
© Theodore Roethke
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
To Lucasta, Going Beyond The Seas
© Richard Lovelace
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone,
You or I were alone,
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
Pity from blust'ring wind or swallowing wave.
Modern Love XXI: We Three Are
© George Meredith
We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
My friend being third. He who at love once laughed,
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
Struck through, and tells his passion's bashful dawn
Modern Love XVIII: Here Jack and Tom
© George Meredith
Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg.
Curved open to the river-reach is seen
A country merry-making on the green.
Fair space for signal shakings of the leg.
Modern Love XVII: At Dinner She Is Hostess
© George Meredith
At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
Love in the Valley
© George Meredith
Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
Couched with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
© Richard Crashaw
Farewell then, all the world, adieu!
Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell all pleasures, sports, and joys,
Never till now esteemed toys!
Prayer
© Richard Crashaw
LO here a little volume, but great Book
A nest of new-born sweets;
Whose native fires disdaining
To ly thus folded, and complaining
To the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus
© Richard Crashaw
I sing the Name which None can say
But toucht with An interiour Ray:
The Name of our New Peace; our Good:
Our Blisse: and Supernaturall Blood:
The Halt Before Rome--September 1867
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
Is it so, that the sword is broken,
Our sword, that was halfway drawn?
Is it so, that the light was a spark,
That the bird we hailed as the lark
A Year's Carols
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Tiresias
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
It is an hour before the hour of dawn.
Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here
Outside the hollow house that blind men fear,
More blind than I who live on life withdrawn
And feel on eyes that see not but foresee
The shadow of death which clothes Antigone.
A Swimmer's Dream
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
III
Far off westward, whither sets the sounding strife,
Strife more sweet than peace, of shoreless waves whose glee
Scorns the shore and loves the wind that leaves them free,
Strange as sleep and pale as death and fair as life,
Shifts the moonlight-coloured sunshine on the sea.
In the Depths
© Arthur Hugh Clough
It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?
There Is No God, the Wicked Sayeth
© Arthur Hugh Clough
"There is no God," the wicked saith,
"And truly it's a blessing,
For what He might have done with us
It's better only guessing."
Lullaby For The Cat
© Elizabeth Bishop
Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.
Wayside Flowers
© William Allingham
Pluck not the wayside flower,
It is the traveller's dower;
A thousand passers-by
Its beauties may espy,
Places and Men
© William Allingham
Goodwood and Arundel possess their lords,
Successive in the towers and groves, which stay;
These two poor men, by some right of their own,
Possessed the earth and sea, the sun and moon,
The inner sweet of life; and put in words
A personal force that doth not pass away.
