Life poems
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Sonnet XXXVIII
© Edmund Spenser
ARion, when through tempests cruel wracke,
He forth was thrown into the greedy seas:
through the sweet musick which his harp did make
allu'rd a Dolphin him from death to ease.
Astrophel
© Edmund Spenser
Yet as they been, if any nycer wit
Shall hap to heare, or couet them to read:
Thinke he, that such are for such ones most fit,
Made not to please the liuing but the dead.
And if in him found pity euer place,
Let him be moou'd to pity such a case.
Ruins of Rome, by Bellay
© Edmund Spenser
1 Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest,
But not your praise, the which shall never die
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest;
Sonnet LXXXII
© Edmund Spenser
Ioy of my life, full oft for louing you
I blesse my lot, that was so lucky placed:
but then the more your owne mishap I rew,
that are so much by so meane loue embased.
Sonnet LX
© Edmund Spenser
THey that in course of heauenly spheares are skild,
To euery planet point his sundry yeare:
in which her circles voyage is fulfild,
as Mars in three score yeares doth run his spheare
Mutability
© Edmund Spenser
When I bethink me on that speech whilere,
Of Mutability, and well it weigh:
Me seems,that though she all unworthy were
Of the Heav'ns Rule; yet very sooth to say,
Prothalamion
© Edmund Spenser
Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair;
A Hymn In Honour Of Beauty
© Edmund Spenser
Ah whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
So Let Us Love
© Edmund Spenser
Most glorious Lord of life! that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto IV (excerpts)
© Edmund Spenser
CANTO IIII
To sinfull house of Pride, Duessa
guides the faithfull knight,
Where brothers death to wreak Sansjoy
doth chalenge him to fight.
Sonnet I
© Edmund Spenser
HAppy ye leaues when as those lilly hands,
which hold my life in their dead doing might
shall handle you and hold in loues soft bands,
lyke captiues trembling at the victors sight.
Sonnet 75
© Edmund Spenser
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
Cartoon Physics, Part 1
© Nick Flynn
Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies
To J.W.
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Set not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.
Musketaquid
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
Merlin II
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
The rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs,
Balance-loving nature
Made all things in pairs.
Monadnoc
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I heard and I obeyed,
Assured that he who pressed the claim,
Well-known, but loving not a name,
Was not to be gainsaid.
Threnody
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
The Day's Ration
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I was born,
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
Saying, This be thy portion, child; this chalice,
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw
