Time poems
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Hudson's Last Voyage
© Henry Van Dyke
June 22, 1611 THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard
These waters, greater grown than any since
The Nightjar
© Sir Henry Newbolt
We loved our nightjar, but she would not stay with us.
We had found her lying as dead, but soft and warm,
Under the apple tree beside the old thatched wall.
Two days we kept her in a basket by the fire,
Drake's Drum
© Sir Henry Newbolt
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time O' Plymouth Hoe.
One White Tree
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three.
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.
I Sit and Think
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
Earendil
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
All Ye Joyful
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Sing all ye joyful, now sing all together!
The wind's in the tree-top, the wind's in the heather;
The stars are in blossom, the moon is in flower,
And bright are the windows of night in her tower.
Sackcloth
© Brooks Haxton
I made sackcloth also my garment; and I
became a proverb to them. They that sit in
the gate speak against me; and I was the
song of drunkards. Psalm 102
Thy Name
© Brooks Haxton
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
I will declare thy name unto my brethren.
Psalm 102OK. Lets not call what ditched us God:
ghu, the root in Sanskrit, means not God,
but only the calling thereupon. Lets call God
The New Helen
© Oscar Wilde
Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
Queen Henrietta Maria
© Oscar Wilde
(To Ellen Terry)In the lone tent, waiting for victory,
She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,
Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,
Quantum Mutata
© Oscar Wilde
There was a time in Europe long ago
When no man died for freedom anywhere,
But England's lion leaping from its lair
Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so
Athanasia
© Oscar Wilde
To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.
Humanitad
© Oscar Wilde
It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew
Helas!
© Oscar Wilde
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
The Sphinx
© Oscar Wilde
In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.
Ravenna
© Oscar Wilde
(Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford
June
26th, 1878.
The Garden Of Eros
© Oscar Wilde
It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.
Charmides
© Oscar Wilde
He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.
Her Voice
© Oscar Wilde
The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
