Time poems
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The Measure of Beauty
© Thomas Campion
Give Beauty all her right,
She's not to one form tied;
Each shape yields fair delight,
Where her perfections bide:
Helen, I grant, might pleasing be,
And Ros'mond was as sweet as she.
Faithful Eckart.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They'll drink, though with toil we have fetch'd it, the beer,
The Walking Bell
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A CHILD refused to go betimesTo church like other people;
He roam'd abroad, when rang the chimesOn Sundays from the steeple.His mother said: "Loud rings the bell,Its voice ne'er think of scorning;
Unless thou wilt behave thee well,'Twill fetch thee without warning."The child then thought: "High over headThe bell is safe suspended--"
So to the fields he straightway spedAs if 'twas school-time ended.The bell now ceas'd as bell to ring,Roused by the mother's twaddle;
The Spectral Attitudes
© André Breton
I attach no importance to life
I pin not the least of life's butterflies to importance
The Meeting Of The Dryads
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
IT was not many centuries since,
When, gathered on the moonlit green,
Beneath the Tree of Liberty,
A ring of weeping sprites was seen.
The German Parnassus.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
With her modest pinions, see,
Philomel encircles me!
In these bushes, in yon grove,
A Retrospective Review
© Thomas Hood
Oh, when I was a tiny boy,
My days and nights were full of joy,
My mates were blithe and kind!
No wonder that I sometimes sigh,
And dash the tear-drop from my eye,
To cast a look behind!
Occasion'd By Reading The Memoirs Of Anne Of Austria
© Mary Barber
Ye heedless Fair, who pass the live--long Day,
In Dress and Scandal, Gallantry and Play;
Who thro' new Scenes of Pleasure hourly run,
Whilst Life's important Business is undone;
Look here, when guilty Conquests make you vain,
And see, how sad Remorse shuts up the Scene.
Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on high.
Louvain 19
© Robert Laurence Binyon
ii
But from that blood, those ashes there arose
Not hoped-for terror cowering as it ran,
But divine anger flaming upon those
Defamers of the very name of man,
Hans Sachs' Poetical Mission.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soon as the spring-sun meets his view,
Repose begets him labour anew;
He feels that he holds within his brain
A little world, that broods there amain,
And that begins to act and to live,
Which he to others would gladly give.
The Shepherd's Lament.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ON yonder lofty mountainA thousand times I stand,
And on my staff reclining,Look down on the smiling land.My grazing flocks then I follow,My dog protecting them well;
I find myself in the valley,But how, I scarcely can tell.The whole of the meadow is cover'dWith flowers of beauty rare;
I pluck them, but pluck them unknowingTo whom the offering to bear.In rain and storm and tempest,I tarry beneath the tree,
To The Countess Granville.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Believe me, with great truth,
Very faithfully yours,
EDGAR A. BOWRING.
London, April, 1853.
Playing At Priests.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Through house and garden thus in state
We strutted early, strutted late,
Repeating with all proper unction,
Incessantly each holy function.
The best was wanting to the game;
Two Sisters Of Persephone
© Sylvia Plath
Two girls there are : within the house
One sits; the other, without.
Daylong a duet of shade and light
Plays between these.
Ballad Of The Banished And Returning Count.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Goethe began to write an opera called Lowenstuhl,
founded upon the old tradition which forms the subject of this Ballad,
but he never carried out his design.]
The Beauteous Flower.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Were I not prison'd here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,
To A Golden Heart That He Wore Round His Neck.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Addressed, during the Swiss tour already mentioned,
to a present Lily had given him, during the time of their happy
connection, which was then about to be terminated for ever.]
