Francisca – George Gordon Byron

Francisca walks in the shadow of night, 

But it is not to gaze on the heavenly light – 

But if she sits in her garden bower, 

‘Tis not for the sake of its blowing flower. 

She listens – but not for the nightingale – 

Though her ear expects as soft a tale. 

There winds a step through the foliage thick, 

And her cheek grows pale, and her heart beats quick. 

There whispers a voice thro’ the rustling leaves; 

A moment more and they shall meet – 

‘Tis past – her lover’s at her feet.

Don Juan – George Gordon Byron

Dedication
Difficile est proprie communia dicere 

HOR. Epist. ad PisonI 

Bob Southey! You’re a poet–Poet-laureate, 

And representative of all the race; 

Although ’tis true that you turn’d out a Tory at 

Last–yours has lately been a common case; 

And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? 

With all the Lakers, in and out of place? 

A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye 

Like “four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;II 

“Which pye being open’d they began to sing” 

(This old song and new simile holds good), 

“A dainty dish to set before the King,” 

Or Regent, who admires such kind of food; 

And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, 

But like a hawk encumber’d with his hood, 

Explaining Metaphysics to the nation– 

I wish he would explain his Explanation.III 
You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know, 

At being disappointed in your wish 

To supersede all warblers here below, 

And be the only Blackbird in the dish; 

And then you overstrain yourself, or so, 

And tumble downward like the flying fish 

Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, 

And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob!IV 
And Wordsworth, in a rather long “Excursion” 

(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), 

Has given a sample from the vasty version 

Of his new system to perplex the sages; 

‘Tis poetry–at least by his assertion, 

And may appear so when the dog-star rages– 

And he who understands it would be able 

To add a story to the Tower of Babel.V 
You–Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion 

From better company, have kept your own 

At Keswick, and, through still continu’d fusion 

Of one another’s minds, at last have grown 

To deem as a most logical conclusion, 

That Poesy has wreaths for you alone: 

There is a narrowness in such a notion, 

Which makes me wish you’d change your lakes for Ocean.VI 
I would not imitate the petty thought, 

Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, 

For all the glory your conversion brought, 

Since gold alone should not have been its price. 

You have your salary; was’t for that you wrought? 

And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise. 

You’re shabby fellows–true–but poets still, 

And duly seated on the Immortal Hill.VII 
Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows– 

Perhaps some virtuous blushes–let them go– 

To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs– 

And for the fame you would engross below, 

The field is universal, and allows 

Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow: 

Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore and Crabbe, will try 

‘Gainst you the question with posterity.VIII 
For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, 

Contend not with you on the winged steed, 

I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, 

The fame you envy, and the skill you need; 

And, recollect, a poet nothing loses 

In giving to his brethren their full meed 

Of merit, and complaint of present days 

Is not the certain path to future praise.IX 
He that reserves his laurels for posterity 

(Who does not often claim the bright reversion) 

Has generally no great crop to spare it, he 

Being only injur’d by his own assertion; 

And although here and there some glorious rarity 

Arise like Titan from the sea’s immersion, 

The major part of such appellants go 

To–God knows where–for no one else can know.X 
If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues, 

Milton appeal’d to the Avenger, Time, 

If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, 

And makes the word “Miltonic” mean ” sublime ,” 

He deign’d not to belie his soul in songs, 

Nor turn his very talent to a crime; 

He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son, 

But clos’d the tyrant-hater he begun.XI 
Think’st thou, could he–the blind Old Man–arise 

Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more 

The blood of monarchs with his prophecies 

Or be alive again–again all hoar 

With time and trials, and those helpless eyes, 

And heartless daughters–worn–and pale–and poor; 

Would he adore a sultan? he obey 

The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?XII 
Cold-blooded, smooth-fac’d, placid miscreant! 

Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin’s gore, 

And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, 

Transferr’d to gorge upon a sister shore, 

The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, 

With just enough of talent, and no more, 

To lengthen fetters by another fix’d, 

And offer poison long already mix’d.XIII 
An orator of such set trash of phrase 

Ineffably–legitimately vile, 

That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, 

Nor foes–all nations–condescend to smile, 

Not even a sprightly blunder’s spark can blaze 

From that Ixion grindstone’s ceaseless toil, 

That turns and turns to give the world a notion 

Of endless torments and perpetual motion.XIV 

A bungler even in its disgusting trade, 

And botching, patching, leaving still behind 

Something of which its masters are afraid, 

States to be curb’d, and thoughts to be confin’d, 

Conspiracy or Congress to be made– 

Cobbling at manacles for all mankind– 

A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains, 

With God and Man’s abhorrence for its gains.XV 

If we may judge of matter by the mind, 

Emasculated to the marrow It 

Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind, 

Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit, 

Eutropius of its many masters, blind 

To worth as freedom, wisdom as to Wit, 

Fearless–because no feeling dwells in ice, 

Its very courage stagnates to a vice.XVI 

Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds, 

For I will never feel them?–Italy! 

Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds 

Beneath the lie this State-thing breath’d o’er thee– 

Thy clanking chain, and Erin’s yet green wounds, 

Have voices–tongues to cry aloud for me. 

Europe has slaves–allies–kings–armies still, 

And Southey lives to sing them very ill.XVII 

Meantime–Sir Laureate–I proceed to dedicate, 

In honest simple verse, this song to you, 

And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 

‘Tis that I still retain my “buff and blue”; 

My politics as yet are all to educate: 

Apostasy’s so fashionable, too, 

To keep one creed’s a task grown quite Herculean; 

Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?

Hello – Adele

Hello, it’s me

I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet

To go over everything

They say that time’s supposed to heal ya, but I ain’t done much healing
Hello, can you hear me?

I’m in California dreaming about who we used to be

When we were younger and free

I’ve forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet
There’s such a difference between us

And a million miles
Hello from the other side

I must’ve called a thousand times

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

But when I call you never seem to be home
Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I’ve tried

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

But it don’t matter, it clearly doesn’t tear you apart

Anymore
Hello, how are you?

It’s so typical of me to talk about myself, I’m sorry

I hope that you’re well

Did you ever make it out of that town where nothing ever happened?
It’s no secret that the both of us

Are running out of time
So hello from the other side

I must’ve called a thousand times

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

But when I call you never seem to be home
Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I’ve tried

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

But it don’t matter, it clearly doesn’t tear you apart

Anymore, ooooohh

Anymore, ooooohh

Anymore, ooooohh

Anymore, anymore
Hello from the other side

I must’ve called a thousand times

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

But when I call you never seem to be home
Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I’ve tried

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

But it don’t matter, it clearly doesn’t tear you apart

Anymore

Same Old Love – Selena Gomez

Take away your things and go

You can’t take back what you said, I know

I’ve heard it all before, at least a million times

I’m not one to forget, you know
I don’t believe, I don’t believe it

You left in peace, left me in pieces

Too hard to breathe, I’m on my knees

Right now, ‘ow
I’m so sick of that same old love, that shit, it tears me up

I’m so sick of that same old love, my body’s had enough

Oh, (that same old love) [2x]

I’m so sick of that same old love, feels like I’ve blown apart

I’m so sick of that same old love, the kind that breaks your heart

Oh, (that same old love) [2x]
I’m not spending any time, wasting tonight on you

I know, I’ve heard it all

So don’t you try and change your mind

Cause I won’t be changing too, you know
You can’t believe, still can’t believe it

You left in peace, left me in pieces

Too hard to breathe, I’m on my knees

Right now, ‘ow
I’m so sick of that same old love, that shit, it tears me up

I’m so sick of that same old love, my body’s had enough

Oh, (that same old love) [2x]

I’m so sick of that same old love, feels like I’ve blown apart

I’m so sick of that same old love, the kind that breaks your heart

Oh, (that same old love) [2x]
I’m so sick of that, so sick of that love [4x]
I’m so sick of that same old love, that shit, it tears me up

I’m so sick of that same old love, my body’s had enough

Oh, (that same old love) [2x]

I’m so sick of that same old love, feels like I’ve blown apart

I’m so sick of that same old love, the kind that breaks your heart

Oh, (that same old love) [2x]

Don Juan – George Gordon Byron

Canto The First 

I want a hero: an uncommon want, 

When every year and month sends forth a new one, 

Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, 

The age discovers he is not the true one; 

Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, 

I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan, 

We all have seen him, in the pantomime, 

Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.II 

Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, 

Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe, 

Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk, 

And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now; 

Each in their turn like Banquo’s monarchs stalk, 

Followers of fame, “nine farrow” of that sow: 

France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier 

Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.III 

Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau, 
Pétion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette 

Were French, and famous people, as we know; 

And there were others, scarce forgotten yet, 

Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau, 

With many of the military set, 

Exceedingly remarkable at times, 

But not at all adapted to my rhymes.IV 

Nelson was once Britannia’s god of War, 
And still should be so, but the tide is turn’d; 

There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar, 

‘Tis with our hero quietly inurn’d; 

Because the army’s grown more popular, 

At which the naval people are concern’d; 

Besides, the Prince is all for the land-service, 

Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.V 

Brave men were living before Agamemnon 
And since, exceeding valorous and sage, 

A good deal like him too, though quite the same none; 

But then they shone not on the poet’s page, 

And so have been forgotten: I condemn none, 

But can’t find any in the present age 

Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one); 

So, as I said, I’ll take my friend Don Juan.VI 

Most epic poets plunge “in medias res” 
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road), 

And then your hero tells, whene’er you please, 

What went before–by way of episode, 

While seated after dinner at his ease, 

Beside his mistress in some soft abode, 

Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern, 

Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.VII 

That is the usual method, but not mine– 
My way is to begin with the beginning; 

The regularity of my design 

Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, 

And therefore I shall open with a line 

(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning), 

Narrating somewhat of Don Juan’s father, 

And also of his mother, if you’d rather….CC 

My poem’s epic, and is meant to be 
Divided in twelve books; each book containing, 

With love, and war, a heavy gale at sea, 

A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning, 

New characters; the episodes are three: 

A panoramic view of Hell’s in training, 

After the style of Virgil and of Homer, 

So that my name of Epic’s no misnomer.CCI 

All these things will be specified in time, 
With strict regard to Aristotle’s rules, 

The Vade Mecum of the true sublime, 

Which makes so many poets, and some fools: 

Prose poets like blank-verse, I’m fond of rhyme, 

Good workmen never quarrel with their tools; 

I’ve got new mythological machinery, 

And very handsome supernatural scenery.CCII 

There’s only one slight difference between 
Me and my epic brethren gone before, 

And here the advantage is my own, I ween, 

(Not that I have not several merits more, 

But this will more peculiarly be seen); 

They so embellish, that ’tis quite a bore 

Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, 

Whereas this story’s actually true.CCIII 

If any person doubt it, I appeal 
To history, tradition, and to facts, 

To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel, 

To plays in five, and operas in three acts; 

All these confirm my statement a good deal, 

But that which more completely faith exacts 

Is, that myself, and several now in Seville, 

Saw Juan’s last elopement with the Devil.CCIV 

If ever I should condescend to prose, 
I’ll write poetical commandments, which 

Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those 

That went before; in these I shall enrich 

My text with many things that no one knows, 

And carry precept to the highest pitch: 

I’ll call the work “Longinus o’er a Bottle, 

Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.”CCV 

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; 
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; 

Because the first is craz’d beyond all hope, 

The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy: 

With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope, 

And Campbell’s Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy: 

Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor 

Commit–flirtation with the muse of Moore.CCVI 

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby’s Muse, 

His Pegasus, nor anything that’s his; 

Thou shalt not bear false witness like “the Blues” 

(There’s one, at least, is very fond of this); 

Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose: 

This is true criticism, and you may kiss– 

Exactly as you please, or not–the rod; 

But if you don’t, I’ll lay it on, by G{-}d!

She Walks In Beauty – George Gordon Byron

She walks in Beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 

And all that’s best of dark and bright 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes: 

Thus mellowed to that tender light 

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 
One shade the more, one ray the less, 

Had half impaired the nameless grace 

Which waves in every raven tress, 

Or softly lightens o’er her face; 

Where thoughts serenely sweet express, 

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 

The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 

But tell of days in goodness spent, 

A mind at peace with all below, 

A heart whose love is innocent!

Poem – Summer

See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!
Descending Gods have found Elysium here.
In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray’d,
And chaste Diana haunts the forest shade.
Come lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours,
When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow’rs;
When weary reapers quit the sultry field,
And crown’d with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield.
This harmless grove no lurking viper hides,
But in my breast the serpent Love abides.
Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew,
But your Alexis knows no sweets but you.
Oh deign to visit our forsaken seats,
The mossy fountains, and the green retreats!
Where-e’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade,
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade,
Where-e’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise,
And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.
Oh! How I long with you to pass my days,
Invoke the muses, and resound your praise;
Your praise the birds shall chant in ev’ry grove,
And winds shall waft it to the pow’rs above.
But wou’d you sing, and rival Orpheus’ strain,
The wond’ring forests soon shou’d dance again,
The moving mountains hear the pow’rful call,
And headlong streams hang list’ning in their fall!
But see, the shepherds shun the noon-day heat,
The lowing herds to murm’ring brooks retreat,
To closer shades the panting flocks remove,
Ye Gods! And is there no relief for Love?
But soon the sun with milder rays descends
To the cool ocean, where his journey ends;
On me Love’s fiercer flames for ever prey,
By night he scorches, as he burns by day.

The Rape Of The Lock – Alexander Pope

 Canto 1

Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos; 

Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. 

(Martial, Epigrams 12.84) 

What dire offence from am’rous causes springs, 

What mighty contests rise from trivial things, 

I sing–This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due: 

This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view: 

Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, 

If she inspire, and he approve my lays. 

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel 

A well-bred lord t’ assault a gentle belle? 

O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor’d, 

Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? 

In tasks so bold, can little men engage, 

And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage? 
Sol thro’ white curtains shot a tim’rous ray, 

And op’d those eyes that must eclipse the day; 

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, 

And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake: 

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock’d the ground, 

And the press’d watch return’d a silver sound. 

Belinda still her downy pillow press’d, 

Her guardian sylph prolong’d the balmy rest: 

‘Twas he had summon’d to her silent bed 

The morning dream that hover’d o’er her head; 

A youth more glitt’ring than a birthnight beau, 

(That ev’n in slumber caus’d her cheek to glow) 

Seem’d to her ear his winning lips to lay, 

And thus in whispers said, or seem’d to say. 
“Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish’d care 

Of thousand bright inhabitants of air! 

If e’er one vision touch’d thy infant thought, 

Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught, 

Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, 

The silver token, and the circled green, 

Or virgins visited by angel pow’rs, 

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav’nly flow’rs, 

Hear and believe! thy own importance know, 

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below. 

Some secret truths from learned pride conceal’d, 

To maids alone and children are reveal’d: 

What tho’ no credit doubting wits may give? 

The fair and innocent shall still believe. 

Know then, unnumber’d spirits round thee fly, 

The light militia of the lower sky; 

These, though unseen, are ever on theg, 

Hang o’er the box, and hover round the Ring. 

Think what an equipage thou hast in air, 

And view with scorn two pages and a chair. 

As now your own, our beings were of old, 

And once inclos’d in woman’s beauteous mould; 

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair 

From earthly vehicles to these of air. 

Think not, when woman’s transient breath is fled, 

That all her vanities at once are dead; 

Succeeding vanities she still regards, 

And tho’ she plays no more, o’erlooks the cards. 

Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, 

And love of ombre, after death survive. 

For when the fair in all their pride expire, 

To their first elements their souls retire: 

The sprites of fiery termagants in flame 

Mount up, and take a Salamander’s name. 

Soft yielding minds to water glide away, 

And sip with Nymphs, their elemental tea. 

The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome, 

In search of mischief still on earth to roam. 

The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, 

And sport and flutter in the fields of air. 
Know further yet; whoever fair and chaste 

Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embrac’d: 

For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease 

Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. 

What guards the purity of melting maids, 

In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades, 

Safe from the treach’rous friend, the daring spark, 

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, 

When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 

When music softens, and when dancing fires? 

‘Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know, 

Though honour is the word with men below. 
Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face, 

For life predestin’d to the gnomes’ embrace. 

These swell their prospects and exalt their pride, 

When offers are disdain’d, and love denied: 

Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain, 

While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train, 

And garters, stars, and coronets appear, 

And in soft sounds ‘Your Grace’ salutes their ear. 

‘Tis these that early taint the female soul, 

Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll, 

Teach infant cheeks a bidden blush to know, 

And little hearts to flutter at a beau. 
Oft, when the world imagine women stray, 

The Sylphs through mystic mazes guide their way, 

Thro’ all the giddy circle they pursue, 

And old impertinence expel by new. 

What tender maid but must a victim fall 

To one man’s treat, but for another’s ball? 

When Florio speaks, what virgin could withstand, 

If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand? 

With varying vanities, from ev’ry part, 

They shift the moving toyshop of their heart; 

Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, 

Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive. 

This erring mortals levity may call, 

Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all. 

Of these am I, who thy protection claim, 

A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name. 

Late, as I rang’d the crystal wilds of air, 

In the clear mirror of thy ruling star 

I saw, alas! some dread event impend, 

Ere to the main this morning sun descend, 

But Heav’n reveals not what, or how, or where: 

Warn’d by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware! 

This to disclose is all thy guardian can. 

Beware of all, but most beware of man!” 

He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, 

Leap’d up, and wak’d his mistress with his tongue. 

‘Twas then, Belinda, if report say true, 

Thy eyes first open’d on a billet-doux; 

Wounds, charms, and ardors were no sooner read, 

But all the vision vanish’d from thy head. 

And now, unveil’d, the toilet stands display’d, 

Each silver vase in mystic order laid. 

First, rob’d in white, the nymph intent adores 

With head uncover’d, the cosmetic pow’rs. 

A heav’nly image in the glass appears, 

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears; 

Th’ inferior priestess, at her altar’s side, 

Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride. 

Unnumber’d treasures ope at once, and here 

The various off’rings of the world appear; 

From each she nicely culls with curious toil, 

And decks the goddess with the glitt’ring spoil. 

This casket India’s glowing gems unlocks, 

And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. 

The tortoise here and elephant unite, 

Transform’d to combs, the speckled and the white. 

Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 

Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux. 

Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; 

The fair each moment rises in her charms, 

Repairs her smiles, awakens ev’ry grace, 

And calls forth all the wonders of her face; 

Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, 

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. 

The busy Sylphs surround their darling care; 

These set the head, and those divide the hair, 

Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown; 

And Betty’s prais’d for labours not her own.

The Dunciad – Alexander Pope

Book II

High on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone 

Henley’s gilt tub, or Flecknoe’s Irish throne, 

Or that where on her Curlls the public pours, 

All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers, 

Great Cibber sate: the proud Parnassian sneer, 

The conscious simper, and the jealous leer, 

Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays 

On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze. 

His peers shine round him with reflected grace, 

New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face. 

So from the sun’s broad beam, in shallow urns 

Heaven’s twinkling sparks draw light, and point their horns. 
Not with more glee, by hands Pontific crown’d, 

With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round, 

Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit, 

Throned on seven hills, the Antichrist of wit. 
And now the queen, to glad her sons, proclaims 

By herald hawkers, high heroic games. 

They summon all her race: an endless band 

Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land. 

A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags, 

In silks, in crapes, in garters, and in rags, 

From drawing-rooms, from colleges, from garrets, 

On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots: 

All who true dunces in her cause appear’d, 

And all who knew those dunces to reward. 
Amid that area wide they took their stand, 

Where the tall maypole once o’er-looked the Strand, 

But now (so Anne and piety ordain) 

A church collects the saints of Drury Lane. 
With authors, stationers obey’d the call, 

(The field of glory is a field for all). 

Glory and gain the industrious tribe provoke; 

And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke. 

A poet’s form she placed before their eyes, 

And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize; 

No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin, 

In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin; 

But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise, 

Twelve starveling bards of these degenerate days. 

All as a partridge plump, full-fed, and fair, 

She form’d this image of well-bodied air; 

With pert flat eyes she window’d well its head; 

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead; 

And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, 

But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain! 

Never was dash’d out, at one lucky hit, 

A fool, so just a copy of a wit; 

So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore, 

A wit it was, and call’d the phantom More. 
All gaze with ardour: some a poet’s name, 

Others a sword-knot and laced suit inflame. 

But lofty Lintot in the circle rose: 

‘This prize is mine; who tempt it are my foes; 

With me began this genius, and shall end.’ 

He spoke: and who with Lintot shall contend? 

Fear held them mute. Alone, untaught to fear, 

Stood dauntless Curll: ‘Behold that rival here! 

The race by vigour, not by vaunts is won; 

So take the hindmost Hell.’ He said, and run. 

Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind, 

He left huge Lintot, and out-stripp’d the wind. 

As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse 

On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops: 

So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and head, 

Wide as a wind-mill all his figure spread, 

With arms expanded Bernard rows his state, 

And left-legg’d Jacob seems to emulate. 

Full in the middle way there stood a lake, 

Which Curll’s Corinna chanced that morn to make: 

(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop 

Her evening cates before his neighbour’s shop,) 

Here fortuned Curll to slide; loud shout the band, 

And Bernard! Bernard! rings through all the Strand. 

Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray’d, 

Fallen in the plash his wickedness had laid: 

Then first (if poets aught of truth declare) 

The caitiff vaticide conceived a prayer: 

‘Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore, 

As much at least as any god’s, or more; 

And him and his if more devotion warms, 

Down with the Bible, up with the Pope’s arms.’ 
A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas, 

Where, from Ambrosia, Jove retires for ease. 

There in his seat two spacious vents appear, 

On this he sits, to that he leans his ear, 

And hears the various vows of fond mankind; 

Some beg an eastern, some a western wind: 

All vain petitions, mounting to the sky, 

With reams abundant this abode supply; 

Amused he reads, and then returns the bills 

Sign’d with that ichor which from gods distils. 
In office here fair Cloacina stands, 

And ministers to Jove with purest hands. 

Forth from the heap she pick’d her votary’s prayer, 

And placed it next him, a distinction rare! 

Oft had the goddess heard her servant’s call, 

From her black grottos near the Temple-wall, 

Listening delighted to the jest unclean 

Of link-boys vile, and watermen obscene; 

Where as he fish’d her nether realms for wit, 

She oft had favour’d him, and favours yet. 

Renew’d by ordure’s sympathetic force, 

As oil’d with magic juices for the course, 

Vigorous he rises; from the effluvia strong 

Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along; 

Repasses Lintot, vindicates the race, 

Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face. 
And now the victor stretch’d his eager hand 

Where the tall Nothing stood, or seem’d to stand; 

A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight, 

Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night. 

To seize his papers, Curll, was next thy care; 

His papers light, fly diverse, toss’d in air; 

Songs, sonnets, epigrams the winds uplift, 

And whisk them back to Evans, Young, and Swift. 

The embroider’d suit at least he deem’d his prey, 

That suit an unpaid tailor snatch’d away. 

No rag, no scrap, of all the beau, or wit, 

That once so flutter’d, and that once so writ. 
Heaven rings with laughter: of the laughter vain, 

Dulness, good queen, repeats the jest again. 

Three wicked imps, of her own Grub Street choir, 

She deck’d like Congreve, Addison, and Prior; 

Mears, Warner, Wilkins run: delusive thought! 

Breval, Bond, Bezaleel, the varlets caught. 

Curll stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone, 

He grasps an empty Joseph for a John: 

So Proteus, hunted in a nobler shape, 

Became, when seized, a puppy, or an ape. 
To him the goddess: ‘Son! thy grief lay down, 

And turn this whole illusion on the town: 

As the sage dame, experienced in her trade, 

By names of toasts retails each batter’d jade; 

(Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris 

Of wrongs from duchesses and Lady Maries 

Be thine, my stationer! this magic gift; 

Cook shall be Prior, and Concanen, Swift: 

So shall each hostile name become our own, 

And we too boast our Garth and Addison.’ 
With that she gave him (piteous of his case, 

Yet smiling at his rueful length of face) 

A shaggy tapestry, worthy to be spread 

On Codrus’ old, or Dunton’s modern bed; 

Instructive work! whose wry-mouth’d portraiture 

Display’d the fates her confessors endure. 

Earless on high, stood unabash’d Defoe, 

And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below. 

There Ridpath, Roper, cudgell’d might ye view, 

The very worsted still look’d black and blue. 

Himself among the storied chiefs he spies, 

As, from the blanket, high in air he flies, 

And oh! (he cried) what street, what lane but knows 

Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings, and blows? 

In every loom our labours shall be seen, 

And the fresh vomit run for ever green! 
See in the circle next, Eliza placed, 

Two babes of love close clinging to her waist; 

Fair as before her works she stands confess’d, 

In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress’d. 

The goddess then: ‘Who best can send on high 

The salient spout, far-streaming to the sky; 

His be yon Juno of majestic size, 

With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes. 

This China Jordan let the chief o’ercome 

Replenish, not ingloriously, at home.’ 
Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife, 

(Though this his son dissuades, and that his wife 

One on his manly confidence relies, 

One on his vigour and superior size. 

First Osborne lean’d against his letter’d post; 

It rose, and labour’d to a curve at most. 

So Jove’s bright bow displays its watery round 

(Sure sign, that no spectator shall be drown’d), 

A second effort brought but new disgrace, 

The wild meander wash’d the artist’s face: 

Thus the small jet, which hasty hands unlock, 

Spurts in the gardener’s eyes who turns the cock. 

Not so from shameless Curll; impetuous spread 

The stream, and smoking flourish’d o’er his head. 

So (famed like thee for turbulence and horns) 

Eridanus his humble fountain scorns; 

Through half the heavens he pours the exalted urn; 

His rapid waters in their passage burn. 
Swift as it mounts, all follow with their eyes: 

Still happy impudence obtains the prize. 

Thou triumph’st, victor of the high-wrought day, 

And the pleased dame, soft-smiling, lead’st away. 

Osborne, through perfect modesty o’ercome, 

Crown’d with the Jordan, walks contented home. 
But now for authors nobler palms remain; 

Room for my lord! three jockeys in his train; 

Six huntsmen with a shout precede his chair: 

He grins, and looks broad nonsense with a stare. 

His honour’s meaning Dulness thus express’d, 

‘He wins this patron, who can tickle best.’ 
He chinks his purse, and takes his seat of state: 

With ready quills the dedicators wait; 

Now at his head the dext’rous task commence, 

And, instant, fancy feels the imputed sense; 

Now gentle touches wanton o’er his face, 

He struts Adonis, and affects grimace: 

Rolli the feather to his ear conveys, 

Then his nice taste directs our operas: 

Bentley his mouth with classic flattery opes, 

And the puff’d orator bursts out in tropes. 

But Welsted most the poet’s healing balm 

Strives to extract from his soft, giving palm; 

Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master, 

The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster. 
While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain, 

And quick sensations skip from vein to vein; 

A youth unknown to Phoebus, in despair, 

Puts his last refuge all in Heaven and prayer. 

What force have pious vows! The Queen of Love 

Her sister sends, her votaress, from above. 

As taught by Venus, Paris learn’d the art 

To touch Achilles’ only tender part; 

Secure, through her, the noble prize to carry, 

He marches off, his Grace’s secretary. 
‘Now turn to different sports (the goddess cries), 

And learn, my sons, the wondrous power of noise. 

To move, to raise, to ravish every heart, 

With Shakspeare’s nature, or with Jonson’s art, 

Let others aim: ’tis yours to shake the soul 

With thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl, 

With horns and trumpets now to madness swell, 

Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell; 

Such happy arts attention can command, 

When fancy flags, and sense is at a stand. 

Improve we these. Three cat-calls be the bribe 

Of him whose chattering shames the monkey tribe: 

And his this drum whose hoarse heroic bass 

Drowns the loud clarion of the braying ass.’ 
Now thousand tongues are heard in one loud din: 

The monkey-mimics rush discordant in; 

‘Twas chattering, grinning, mouthing, jabbering all, 

And noise and Norton, brangling and Breval, 

Dennis and dissonance, and captious art, 

And snip-snap short, and interruption smart, 

And demonstration thin, and theses thick, 

And major, minor, and conclusion quick. 

‘Hold’ (cried the queen) ‘a cat-call each shall win; 

Equal your merits! equal is your din! 

But that this well-disputed game may end, 

Sound forth, nay brayers, and the welkin rend.’ 
As when the long-ear’d milky mothers wait 

At some sick miser’s triple-bolted gate, 

For their defrauded, absent foals they make 

A moan so loud, that all the guild awake; 

Sore sighs Sir Gilbert, starting at the bray, 

From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay. 

So swells each windpipe; ass intones to ass, 

Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass; 

Such as from labouring lungs the enthusiast blows, 

High sound, attemper’d to the vocal nose, 

Or such as bellow from the deep divine; 

There, Webster! peal’d thy voice, and, Whitfield! thine. 

But far o’er all, sonorous Blackmore’s strain; 

Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again. 

In Tottenham fields, the brethren, with amaze, 

Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze; 

‘Long Chancery Lane retentive rolls the sound, 

And courts to courts return it round and round; 

Thames wafts it thence to Rufus’ roaring hall, 

And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl. 

All hail him victor in both gifts of song, 

Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long. 
This labour past, by Bridewell all descend, 

(As morning prayer, and flagellation end) 

To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams 

Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, 

The king of dikes! than whom no sluice of mud 

With deeper sable blots the silver flood. 

‘Here strip, my children! here at once leap in, 

Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, 

And who the most in love of dirt excel, 

Or dark dexterity of groping well. 

Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around 

The stream, be his the weekly journals bound; 

A pig of lead to him who dives the best; 

A peck of coals a-piece shall glad the rest.’ 
In naked majesty Oldmixon stands, 

And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands; 

Then sighing, thus, ‘And am I now threescore? 

Ah why, ye gods! should two and two make four?’ 

He said, and climb’d a stranded lighter’s height, 

Shot to the black abyss, and plunged downright. 

The senior’s judgment all the crowd admire, 

Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher. 
Next Smedley dived; slow circles dimpled o’er 

The quaking mud, that closed, and oped no more. 

All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost; 

‘Smedley!’ in vain, resounds through all the coast. 
Then Hill essay’d; scarce vanish’d out of sight, 

He buoys up instant, and returns to light: 

He bears no token of the sable streams, 

And mounts far off among the swans of Thames. 
True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, 

A cold, long-winded, native of the deep: 

If perseverance gain the diver’s prize, 

Not everlasting Blackmore this denies: 

No noise, no stir, no motion can’st thou make, 

The unconscious stream sleeps o’er thee like a lake. 
Next plunged a feeble, but a desperate pack, 

With each a sickly brother at his back: 

Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood, 

Then number’d with the puppies in the mud. 

Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose 

The names of these blind puppies as of those. 

Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone) 

Sits Mother Osborne, stupified to stone! 

And monumental brass this record bears, 

‘These are,-ah no! these were, the gazetteers!’ 
Not so bold Arnall; with a weight of skull, 

Furious he dives, precipitately dull. 

Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest, 

With all the might of gravitation bless’d. 

No crab more active in the dirty dance, 

Downward to climb, and backward to advance. 

He brings up half the bottom on his head, 

And loudly claims the journals and the lead. 
The plunging Prelate, and his ponderous Grace, 

With holy envy gave one layman place. 

When, lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood, 

Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud: 

Shaking the horrors of his sable brows, 

And each ferocious feature grim with ooze. 

Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares: 

Then thus the wonders of the deep declares. 
First he relates, how sinking to the chin, 

Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck’d him in: 

How young Lutetia, softer than the down, 

Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown, 

Vied for his love in jetty bowers below, 

As Hylas fair was ravish’d long ago. 

Then sung, how, shown him by the nut-brown maids; 

A branch of Styx here rises from the shades, 

That, tinctured as it runs with Lethe’s streams, 

And wafting vapours from the land of dreams, 

(As under seas Alpheus’ secret sluice 

Bears Pisa’s offerings to his Arethuse,) 

Pours into Thames: and hence the mingled wave 

Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave: 

Here brisker vapours o’er the Temple creep, 

There, all from Paul’s to Aldgate drink and sleep. 
Thence to the banks where reverend bards repose, 

They led him soft; each reverend bard arose; 

And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest, 

Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest. 

‘Receive (he said) these robes which once were mine, 

Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.’ 
He ceased, and spread the robe; the crowd confess 

The reverend Flamen in his lengthen’d dress. 

Around him wide a sable army stand, 

A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band, 

Prompt or to guard or stab, to saint or damn, 

Heaven’s Swiss, who fight for any god, or man. 

Through Lud’s famed gates, along the well-known Fleet

Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, 

Till showers of sermons, characters, essays, 

In circling fleeces whiten all the ways: 

So clouds replenish’d from some bog below, 

Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow. 

Here stopp’d the goddess; and in pomp proclaims 

A gentler exercise to close the games. 
‘Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales, 

I weigh what author’s heaviness prevails, 

Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers, 

My Henley’s periods, or my Blackmore’s numbers, 

Attend the trial we propose to make: 

If there be man, who o’er such works can wake, 

Sleep’s all-subduing charms who dares defy, 

And boasts Ulysses’ ear with Argus’ eye; 

To him we grant our amplest powers to sit 

Judge of all present, past, and future wit; 

To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong, 

Full and eternal privilege of tongue.’ 
Three college Sophs, and three pert Templars came, 

The same their talents, and their tastes the same; 

Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, 

And smit with love of poesy and prate. 

The ponderous books two gentle readers bring; 

The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring. 

The clamorous crowd is hush’d with mugs of mum, 

Till all, tuned equal, send a general hum. 

Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone 

Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on; 

Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose, 

At every line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. 

As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low 

Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow, 

Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline, 

As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine; 

And now to this side, now to that they nod, 

As verse or prose infuse the drowsy god. 

Thrice Budgell aim’d to speak, but thrice suppress’d 

By potent Arthur, knock’d his chin and breast. 

Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer, 

Yet silent bow’d to Christ’s no kingdom here. 

Who sate the nearest, by the words o’ercome, 

Slept first; the distant nodded to the hum. 

Then down are roll’d the books; stretch’d o’er ’em lies 

Each gentle clerk, and, muttering, seals his eyes, 

As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes, 

One circle first, and then a second makes; 

What Dulness dropp’d among her sons impress’d 

Like motion from one circle to the rest; 

So from the midmost the nutation spreads 

Round and more round, o’er all the sea of heads. 

At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail, 

Motteux himself unfinished left his tale, 

Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o’er, 

Morgan and Mandeville could prate no more; 

Norton, from Daniel and Ostroea sprung, 

Bless’d with his father’s front and mother’s tongue, 

Hung silent down his never-blushing head; 

And all was hush’d, as Polly’s self lay dead. 
Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day, 

And stretch’d on bulks, as usual, poets lay. 

Why should I sing what bards the nightly Muse 

Did slumbering visit, and convey to stews; 

Who prouder march’d, with magistrates in state, 

To some famed round-house, ever open gate! 

How Henley lay inspired beside a sink, 

And to mere mortals seem’d a priest in drink; 

While others, timely, to the neighbouring Fleet 

(Haunt of the Muses!) made their safe retreat?

Poem – Universal Prayer

Father of all! In every age,
In ev’ry clime ador’d,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confin’d
To know but this, that Thou art good,
And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And, binding Nature fast in Fate,
Left free the human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do;
This teach me more than Hell to shun,
That more than Heav’n pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives;
T’ enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth’s contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.

Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And teach damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish Pride
Or impious Discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught that goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To right the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean tho’ I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken’d by thy breath;
O lead me whereso’er I go,
Thro’ this day’s life or death!

This day be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun
Though know’st if best bestow’d or not,
And let Thy will be done.

To Thee, whose temple is of Space,
Whose altar earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all Beings raise!
All Nature’s incense rise!

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”. His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. 
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. 

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. 

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare’s. 

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare’s genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called “bardolatry”. In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. 

Life 

Early life 

William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual birthdate remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George’s Day. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar’s mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616. He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.

Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King’s New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England, and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics. 

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway’s neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596. 

After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592, and scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare’s “lost years”. Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London. John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain “William Shakeshafte” in his will. No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area. 

London and Theatrical Career 

It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit: 

…there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. 

Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words, but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself (the “university wits”). The italicised phrase parodying the line “Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide” from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun “Shake-scene”, identifies Shakespeare as Greene’s target. Here Johannes Factotum—”Jack of all trades”— means a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common “universal genius”. 

Greene’s attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare’s career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene’s remarks. From 1594, Shakespeare’s plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King’s Men. 

In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeare’s property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man. In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford. 

Some of Shakespeare’s plays were published in quarto editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson’s Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson’s Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of “the Principal Actors in all these Plays”, some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that “good Will” played “kingly” roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the Chorus in Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources of the information. 

Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul’s Cathedral with many fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies’ wigs and other headgear. 

Later Years and Death 

Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death; but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time; and Shakespeare continued to visit London. In 1612 he was called as a witness in a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy’s daughter, Mary. In March 1613 he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November 1614 he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall. 

After 1606–1607, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King’s Men. 

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare’s death. 

In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna. The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to “the first son of her body”. The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare’s direct line. Shakespeare’s will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of leaving her “my second best bed”, a bequest that has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance. 

Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008: 

Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, 

To digg the dvst encloased heare. 

Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones, 

And cvrst be he yt moves my bones. 

Modern spelling: 

“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,” 

“To dig the dust enclosed here.” 

“Blessed be the man that spares these stones,” 

“And cursed be he who moves my bones.” 

Sometime before 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil. In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published. 

Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. 

Plays 

Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics agree that Shakespeare did the same, mostly early and late in his career. Some attributions, such as Titus Andronicus and the early history plays, remain controversial, while The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio have well-attested contemporary documentation. Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the plays were revised by other writers after their original composition. 

The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare’s plays are difficult to date, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare’s earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca. The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk story. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of rape, the Shrew’s story of the taming of a woman’s independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics and directors. 

Shakespeare’s early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare’s next comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare’s sequence of great comedies. After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North’s 1579 translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar “the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare’s own reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each other”. 

In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called “problem plays” Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All’s Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies. Many critics believe that Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy “To be or not to be; that is the question”. Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement. The plots of Shakespeare’s tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello’s sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear’s youngest daughter Cordelia. According to the critic Frank Kermode, “the play offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty”. In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare’s tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn. In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare’s finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot. 

In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on Shakespeare’s part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day. Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably with John Fletcher. 

Performances 

It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes. After the plagues of 1592–3, Shakespeare’s plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames. Londoners flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, “Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest…and you scarce shall have a room”.] When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark. The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare’s greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear. 

After the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were renamed the King’s Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new King James. Although the performance records are patchy, the King’s Men performed seven of Shakespeare’s plays at court between 1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of Venice. After 1608, they performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends “in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees.” 

The actors in Shakespeare’s company included the famous Richard Burbage, William Kempe, Henry Condell and John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare’s plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, among other characters. He was replaced around the turn of the 16th century by Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King Lear. In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII “was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony”. On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision. 

Textual Sources 

In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s friends from the King’s Men, published the First Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. It contained 36 texts, including 18 printed for the first time. Many of the plays had already appeared in quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves. No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as “stol’n and surreptitious copies”. Alfred Pollard termed some of them “bad quartos” because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory. Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the other. The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare’s own papers. In some cases, for example Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern additions do conflate them, the 1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto, that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion. 

Poems 

In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin. Influenced by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare’s lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover’s Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover’s Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester’s 1601 Love’s Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare’s name but without his permission. 

Sonnets 

Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare’s non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership. Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare’s “sugred Sonnets among his private friends”. Few analysts believe that the published collection follows Shakespeare’s intended sequence. He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the “dark lady”), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the “fair youth”). It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial “I” who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed that with the sonnets “Shakespeare unlocked his heart”. The 1609 edition was dedicated to a “Mr. W.H.”, credited as “the only begetter” of the poems. 

It is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, whose initials appear at the foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication. Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion, procreation, death, and time. 

Style 

Shakespeare’s first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted. 

Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard’s vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare’s mature plays. No single play marks a change from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles. By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself.

Shakespeare’s standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony. Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet’s mind: 

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting 

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay 

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly— 

And prais’d be rashness for it—let us know 

Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well… 

Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8 

After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as “more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical”. In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length. In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: “was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?” (1.7.35–38); “…pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, hors’d/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air…” (1.7.21–25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense. The late romances, with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity. 

Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre. Like all playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed. He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama. As Shakespeare’s mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays, however. In Shakespeare’s late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre. 

Influence 

Shakespeare’s work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre. Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore characters’ minds. His work heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as “feeble variations on Shakespearean themes.” 

Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. The American novelist Herman Melville’s soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King Lear. Scholars have identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare’s works. These include two operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Otello and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares with that of the source plays. Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even translated Macbeth into German. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature. 

In Shakespeare’s day, English grammar, spelling and pronunciation were less standardised than they are now, and his use of language helped shape modern English. Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type. Expressions such as “with bated breath” (Merchant of Venice) and “a foregone conclusion” (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech. 

Critical Reputation 
Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise. In 1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English writers as “the most excellent” in both comedy and tragedy. And the authors of the Parnassus plays at St John’s College, Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer, Gower and Spenser. In the First Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the “Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage”, though he had remarked elsewhere that “Shakespeare wanted art”. 

Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic John Dryden rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, “I admire him, but I love Shakespeare”. For several decades, Rymer’s view held sway; but during the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in 1765 and Edmond Malone in 1790, added to his growing reputation. By 1800, he was firmly enshrined as the national poet. In the 18th and 19th centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him were the writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Victor Hugo. 

During the Romantic era, Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of German Romanticism. In the 19th century, critical admiration for Shakespeare’s genius often bordered on adulation. “That King Shakespeare,” the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, “does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible”. The Victorians produced his plays as lavish spectacles on a grand scale. The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as “bardolatry”. He claimed that the new naturalism of Ibsen’s plays had made Shakespeare obsolete. 

The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the avant-garde. The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. The poet and critic T. S. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare’s “primitiveness” in fact made him truly modern. Eliot, along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare’s imagery. In the 1950s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for “post-modern” studies of Shakespeare. By the eighties, Shakespeare studies were open to movements such as structuralism, feminism, New Historicism, African American studies, and queer studies. 

Speculation about Shakespeare 

Authorship 

Main article: Shakespeare authorship question 

Around 150 years after Shakespeare’s death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works attributed to him. Proposed alternative candidates include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Several “group theories” have also been proposed. Only a small minority of academics believe there is reason to question the traditional attribution, but interest in the subject, particularly the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the 21st century. 

Religion 

Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeare’s family were Catholics, at a time when Catholic practice was against the law. Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. The document is now lost, however, and scholars differ as to its authenticity. In 1591 the authorities reported that John Shakespeare had missed church “for fear of process for debt”, a common Catholic excuse. In 1606 the name of William’s daughter Susanna appears on a list of those who failed to attend Easter communion in Stratford. Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare’s Catholicism in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove either way. 

Sexuality 

Few details of Shakespeare’s sexuality are known. At 18, he married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May 1583. Over the centuries some readers have posited that Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical, and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than sexual love. The 26 so-called “Dark Lady” sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.

Portraiture 

There is no written description of Shakespeare’s physical appearance and no evidence that he ever commissioned a portrait, so the Droeshout engraving, which Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness, and his Stratford monument provide the best evidence of his appearance. From the 18th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. That demand also led to the production of several fake portraits, as well as misattributions, repaintings and relabelling of portraits of other people.

Believe In Me – Demi Lovato

[Verse 1]

I’m losing myself

Trying to compete

With everyone else

Instead of just being me

Don’t know where to turn

I’ve been stuck in this routine

I need to change my ways

Instead of always being weak
[Chorus:]

I don’t wanna be afraid

I wanna wake up feeling beautiful..today

And know that I’m okay

Cause everyone’s perfect in unusual ways

So you see, I just wanna believe in me
La la la la la la la la
[Verse 2]

The mirror can lie

Doesn’t show you what’s inside

And it, it can tell you you’re full of life

It’s amazing what you can hide

Just by putting on a smile
[Chorus]
I’m quickly finding out

I’m not about to break down

Not today

I guess I always knew

That I had all the strength to make it through
[Chorus:]

Not gonna be afraid

I’m going to wake up feeling beautiful..today

And know that I’m okay

Cause everyone’s perfect in unusual ways

So you see, now, now I believe in me
Now I believe in me

Cambridge In The Long – Amy Levy

Where drowsy sound of college-chimes 

Across the air is blown, 

And drowsy fragrance of the limes, 

I lie and dream alone. 
A dazzling radiance reigns o’er all– 

O’er gardens densely green, 

O’er old grey bridges and the small, 

Slow flood which slides between. 
This is the place; it is not strange, 

But known of old and dear.– 

What went I forth to seek? The change 

Is mine; why am I here? 
Alas, in vain I turned away, 

I fled the town in vain; 

The strenuous life of yesterday 

Calleth me back again. 
And was it peace I came to seek? 

Yet here, where memories throng, 

Ev’n here, I know the past is weak, 

I know the present strong. 
This drowsy fragrance, silent heat, 

Suit not my present mind, 

Whose eager thought goes out to meet 

The life it left behind. 
Spirit with sky to change; such hope, 

An idle one we know; 

Unship the oars, make loose the rope, 

Push off the boat and go. . . 
Ah, would what binds me could have been 

Thus loosened at a touch! 

This pain of living is too keen, 

Of loving, is too much.

The Promise Of Sleep – Amy Levy

Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, 

The dreams from out thy breast; 

No joy for thee–but thou shalt find 

Thy rest 
All day I could not work for woe, 
I could not work nor rest; 

The trouble drove me to and fro, 

Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. 
Night came and saw my sorrow cease; 

Sleep in the chamber stole; 

Peace crept about my limbs, and peace 

Fell on my stormy soul. 
And now I think of only this,– 

How I again may woo 

The gentle sleep– who promises 

That death is gentle too.

The Sick Man And The Nightingale – Amy Levy

So late, and yet a nightingale? 
Long since have dropp’d the blossoms pale, 

The summer fields are ripening, 

And yet a sound of spring? 
O tell me, didst thou come to hear, 

Sweet Spring, that I should die this year; 

And call’st across from the far shore 

To me one greeting more?

New Love, New Life – Amy Levy

She, who so long has lain 
Stone-stiff with folded wings, 

Within my heart again 

The brown bird wakes and sings. 
Brown nightingale, whose strain 

Is heard by day, by night, 

She sings of joy and pain, 

Of sorrow and delight. 
‘Tis true,–in other days 

Have I unbarred the door; 

He knows the walks and ways– 

Love has been here before. 
Love blest and love accurst 

Was here in days long past; 

This time is not the first, 

But this time is the last.

Sonnet – Amy Levy

Most wonderful and strange it seems, that I 

Who but a little time ago was tost 

High on the waves of passion and of pain, 

With aching heat and wildly throbbing brain, 

Who peered into the darkness, deeming vain 

All things there found if but One thing were lost, 

Thus calm and still and silent here should lie, 

Watching and waiting, –waiting passively. 
The dark has faded, and before mine eyes 

Have long, grey flats expanded, dim and bare; 

And through the changing guises all things wear 

Inevitable Law I recognise: 

Yet in my heart a hint of feeling lies 

Which half a hope and half a despair.

First Love – Adele

So little to say but so much time,

Despite my empty mouth the words are in my mind.

Please wear the face, the one where you smile,

Because you lighten up my heart when I start to cry.
Forgive me first love, but I’m tired.

I need to get away to feel again.

Try to understand why,

don’t get so close to change my mind.

Please wipe that look out of your eyes,

it’s bribing me to doubt myself;

Simply, it’s tiring.
This love has dried up and stayed behind,

And if I stay I’ll be a lie

Then choke on words I’d always hide.

Excuse me first love, but we’re through.

I need to taste a kiss from someone new.
Forgive me first love, but I’m too tired.

I’m bored to say the least and I, I lack desire.

Forgive me first love,

Forgive me first love,

Forgive me first love,

Forgive me first love,

Forgive me,

Forgive me first love,

Forgive me first love

Love Will Remember – Selena Gomez

[Voicemail:]

Hey babe it’s me, I just wanted to call to tell you that

I love you so so so so much,

Just wanted to let you know that you are my princess,

You are worthy of all of the love in the world,

You are the love of my life.
Now’s all we got,

And time can’t be bought,

I know it inside my heart

Forever will forever be ours,

Even if we try to forget,

Love will remember
[Verse 1:]

You said you loved me,

I said I loved you back,

What happened to that?

What happened to that?
All your promises,

And all them plans we had,

What happened to that?

What happened to that?
Boom gone,

Yeah, we move on

Even if we try to forget
[Chorus:]

Love will remember you,

And love will remember me,

I know it inside my heart,

Forever will, forever be ours,

Even if we try to forget,

Love will remember [x5]
[Verse 2:]

The trips we dreamed of takin’,

The tacks left on the map,

What happened to that?

What happened to that?
When all you had was nothing,

And all we did was laugh,

What happened, what happened,

What happened to that?
Boom gone,

Yeah, we move on

Even if we try to forget
[Chorus:]

Love will remember you,

And love will remember me,

I know it inside my heart,

Forever will, forever be ours,

Even if we tried to forget

Love will remember [x9]
[Bridge:]

Break down the walls,

Let heaven in.

Somewhere in forever

We’ll dance again.

We used to be inseparable.

I used to think that I was irreplaceable.

We lit the whole world up

Before we blew it up.

I still don’t know just how we screwed it up

Forever [x3]
[Chorus:]

Love will remember you,

And love will remember me,

I know it inside my heart,

Forever will, forever be ours,

Even if we tried to forget

Love will remember [x9]

I Want You To Know – Salena Gomez

[Partial Chorus:]I want you to know that it’s our time

You and me bleed the same light

I want you to know that I’m all yours

You and me run the same course
[Verse 1:]

I’m slippin’ down a chain reaction

And here I go, here I go, here I go, go

And once again, I’m yours in fractions

It takes me down, pulls me down, pulls me down low
[Pre-Chorus:]

Honey, it’s rainin’ tonight

But storms always have an eye, have an eye

Tell me your cover tonight

Or tell me lies, tell me lies, lies, lies…
[Chorus:]

I want you to know that it’s our time

You and me bleed the same light

I want you to know that I’m all yours

You and me, we’re the same force

I want you to know that it’s our time

You and me bleed the same light

I want you to know that I’m all yours

You and me run the same course
[Post-Chorus:]

I want you to know that it’s our time

You and me bleed the same light
[Verse 2:]

I’m better under your reflection

But did you know, did you know, did you know, know

That’s anybody else that’s met ya

It’s all the same, all the same, all the same glow
[Pre-Chorus]
[Chorus]
[Drop:]

You and me run the same course

She – Alice Walker

She is the one 

who will notice 

that the first snapdragon 

of Spring 

is 

in bloom; 
She is the one 

who will tell the most 

funny 

& 

complicated 

joke. 
She is the one 

who will surprise you 

by knowing the difference 

between turnips 

and collard 

Greens; 
& between biscuits 

& scones. 
She is the one who knows where 

to take you 

for dancing 

or where the food 

& the restaurant’s 

decor 

are not 

to be 

missed. 
She is the one 

who is saintly. 
She is the one 

who reserves the right 

to dress 

like a slut. 
She is the one 

who takes you shopping; 
She is the one 

who knows where 

the best clothes 

are bought 

cheap. 
She is the one 

who warms your 

home 

with her fragrance; 
the one who brings 

music, magic & joy. 
She is the one 

speaking 

the truth 

from her heart. 
She is the one at the bedside 

wedding, funerals 

or divorce 

of all the best people 

you dearly love. 
She is the one 

with courage. 
She is the one 

who speaks 

her bright mind; 
She is the one 

who encourages young & 

old 

to do the same. 
She is the one 

on the picket line, at the barricade, 

at the prison, in jail; 
She is the one 

who is there. 
If they come for me 

& I am at her house 

I know 

she will hide me. 
If I tell her 

where I have hidden 

my heart 

she will keep 

my secret 

safe. 
She is the one 

who 

without hesitation 

comes to my aid & 

my defense. 
She is the one 

who believes 

my side of the story 

First; 
She is the one 

whose heart 

is open. 
She is the one who loves. 
She is the one who makes 

activism 

the most compelling 

because she is the one 

who is irresistable 

her own self. 
She is our sister, our teacher, our friend: 
Gloria Steinem. 
Born 75 years ago 

Glorious 

To your parents 

& still 

Radiant 

Today. 
Happy Birthday, Beloved. 

The grand feast 

Of your noble Spirit 

Has been 

& is the cake 

that nourishes 

Us. 
We thank you for your Beauty 

& your Being. 
Namaste.

 

When You See Water – Alice Walker

When you see water in a stream 

you say: oh, this is stream 

water; 

When you see water in the river 

you say: oh, this is water 

of the river; 

When you see ocean 

water 

you say: This is the ocean’s 

water! 

But actually water is always 

only itself 

and does not belong 

to any of these containers 

though it creates them. 

And so it is with you.

When You Thought Me Poor – Alice Walker

When you thought me poor, 

my poverty was shaming. 

When blackness was unwelcome 

we found it best 

that I stay home. 
When by the miracle 

of fierce dreaming and hard work 

Life fulfilled our every want 

you found me crassly 

well off; 

not trimly, 

inconspicuously wealthy 

like your rich friends. 
Still black too, 

now 

I owned too much and too many 

of everything. 
Woe is me: I became a 

success! Blackness, who 

knows how? 

Became suddenly 

in! 
What to do? 

Now that Fate appears 

(for the moment anyhow) 

to have dismissed 

abject failure 

in any case? 

Now that moonlight and night 

have blessed me. 
Now that the sun 

unaffected by criticism 

of any sort, 

implacably beams 

the kiss filled magic that creates 

the dark and radiant wonder 

of my face.

Down Behind The Dustbin – Michael Rosen

Down behind the dustbin 

I met a dog called Ted. 

‘Leave me alone,’ he says, 

‘I’m just going to bed.’ 

Down behind the dustbin 

I met a dog called Roger. 

‘Do you own this bin?’ I said. 

‘No. I’m only a lodger.’ 

Down behind the dustbin 

I met a dog called Sue. 

‘What are you doing here?’ I said. 

‘I’ve got nothing else to do.’

The Silent Old Man – Billy Loving

Body bent and twisted 

Gnarled fingers gripping his cane 

Face weathered with age 

An old man enters the bar 

Perching himself upon the barstool 

Ordering a drink from the bartender 

Silently he sips one after another 

As the time ticks away 

Glazed eyes staring into nowhere 

I watched expectantly 

If only, his mind I could read 

What magnificent stories would lie within? 

Too late, I’ll never know 

As he wobbles out the door 

Disappointedly, I take a gulp 

And think of what might have been

Especially When The October Wind – Dylan Thomas

Especially when the October wind 

With frosty fingers punishes my hair, 

Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire 

And cast a shadow crab upon the land, 

By the sea’s side, hearing the noise of birds, 

Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks, 

My busy heart who shudders as she talks 

Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words. 
Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark 

On the horizon walking like the trees 

The wordy shapes of women, and the rows 

Of the star-gestured children in the park. 

Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches, 

Some of the oaken voices, from the roots 

Of many a thorny shire tell you notes, 

Some let me make you of the water’s speeches. 
Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock 

Tells me the hour’s word, the neural meaning 

Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning 

And tells the windy weather in the cock. 

Some let me make you of the meadow’s signs; 

The signal grass that tells me all I know 

Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye. 

Some let me tell you of the raven’s sins. 
Especially when the October wind 

(Some let me make you of autumnal spells, 

The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales) 

With fists of turnips punishes the land, 

Some let me make you of the heartless words. 

The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry 

Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury. 

By the sea’s side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

न्याय उठ्यो – युद्धप्रसाद मिश्र

न्याय ढलेको ठाडो पार्न
उभियो बबण्डर चर्को

पतनशील अनुहार प्रष्ट भो

प्रतिगामीका धर्को
आजादीका सही दिशातिर

खुले सबैका आँखा

आक्रोशित भै बोल्न पुगे अब

ज्वालामुखीका भाखा
भाग्नु कहाँ अब बढ्दै आयो

जनजागृतिको भीषण ज्वार

उठिसक्यो शिरमाथि कसको

विजयमुखी न्यायिक तरवार
धरतीमाथि उभिनसम्म

यहाँ रगतको लाग्छ जमात

तर छन् त्यसका माथि उठेको

दरा बलिया ब्यापक हात

Before I Leave The Stage – Alice Walker

Before I leave the stage 

I will sing the only song 

I was meant truly to sing. 
It is the song 

of I AM. 

Yes: I am Me 

& 

You. 

WE ARE. 
I love Us with every drop 

of our blood 

every atom of our cells 

our waving particles 

-undaunted flags of our Being- 

neither here nor there.

Two Tramps In Mud Time – Robert Frost

Out of the mud two strangers came 

And caught me splitting wood in the yard, 

And one of them put me off my aim 

By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!” 

I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind 

And let the other go on a way. 

I knew pretty well what he had in mind: 

He wanted to take my job for pay. 
Good blocks of oak it was I split, 

As large around as the chopping block; 

And every piece I squarely hit 

Fell splinterless as a cloven rock. 

The blows that a life of self-control 

Spares to strike for the common good, 

That day, giving a loose my soul, 

I spent on the unimportant wood. 
The sun was warm but the wind was chill. 

You know how it is with an April day 

When the sun is out and the wind is still, 

You’re one month on in the middle of May. 

But if you so much as dare to speak, 

A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, 

A wind comes off a frozen peak, 

And you’re two months back in the middle of March. 
A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight 

And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume, 

His song so pitched as not to excite 

A single flower as yet to bloom. 

It is snowing a flake; and he half knew 

Winter was only playing possum. 

Except in color he isn’t blue, 

But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom. 
The water for which we may have to look 

In summertime with a witching wand, 

In every wheelrut’s now a brook, 

In every print of a hoof a pond. 

Be glad of water, but don’t forget 

The lurking frost in the earth beneath 

That will steal forth after the sun is set 

And show on the water its crystal teeth. 
The time when most I loved my task 

The two must make me love it more 

By coming with what they came to ask. 

You’d think I never had felt before 

The weight of an ax-head poised aloft, 

The grip of earth on outspread feet, 

The life of muscles rocking soft 

And smooth and moist in vernal heat. 
Out of the wood two hulking tramps 

(From sleeping God knows where last night, 

But not long since in the lumber camps). 

They thought all chopping was theirs of right. 

Men of the woods and lumberjacks, 

They judged me by their appropriate tool. 

Except as a fellow handled an ax 

They had no way of knowing a fool. 
Nothing on either side was said. 

They knew they had but to stay their stay 
And all their logic would fill my head: 

As that I had no right to play 

With what was another man’s work for gain. 

My right might be love but theirs was need. 

And where the two exist in twain 

Theirs was the better right–agreed. 
But yield who will to their separation, 

My object in living is to unite 

My avocation and my vocation 

As my two eyes make one in sight. 

Only where love and need are one, 

And the work is play for mortal stakes, 

Is the deed ever really done 

For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

Unharvested – Robert Frost

A scent of ripeness from over a wall. 

And come to leave the routine road 

And look for what had made me stall, 

There sure enough was an apple tree 

That had eased itself of its summer load, 

And of all but its trivial foliage free, 

Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan. 

For there had been an apple fall 

As complete as the apple had given man. 

The ground was one circle of solid red. 
May something go always unharvested! 

May much stay out of our stated plan, 

Apples or something forgotten and left, 

So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

Tree At My Window -Robert Frost

Tree at my window, window tree, 

My sash is lowered when night comes on; 

But let there never be curtain drawn 

Between you and me. 
Vague dream head lifted out of the ground, 

And thing next most diffuse to cloud, 

Not all your light tongues talking aloud 

Could be profound. 
But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed, 

And if you have seen me when I slept, 

You have seen me when I was taken and swept 

And all but lost. 
That day she put our heads together, 

Fate had her imagination about her, 

Your head so much concerned with outer, 

Mine with inner, weather.

Wind And Window Flower – Robert Frost

Lovers, forget your love, 

And list to the love of these, 

She a window flower, 

And he a winter breeze. 

When the frosty window veil 

Was melted down at noon, 

And the cagèd yellow bird 

Hung over her in tune, 

He marked her through the pane, 

He could not help but mark, 

And only passed her by, 

To come again at dark. 

He was a winter wind, 

Concerned with ice and snow, 

Dead weeds and unmated birds, 

And little of love could know. 

But he sighed upon the sill, 

He gave the sash a shake, 

As witness all within 

Who lay that night awake. 

Perchance he half prevailed 

To win her for the flight 

From the firelit looking-glass 

And warm stove-window light. 

But the flower leaned aside 

And thought of naught to say, 

And morning found the breeze 

A hundred miles away.

Recital Of The Ramayana – Valmiki

When the silent night was ended, and their pure ablutions done, 

Joyous went the minstrel brothers, and their lofty lay begun, 
Rama to the hermit minstrels lent a monarch’s willing car, 

Blended with the simple music dulcet was the lay to hear, 
And so sweet the chanted accents, Rama’s inmost soul was stirred, 

With his royal guests and courtiers still the deathless lay he heard! 
Heralds versed in old Puranas, Brahmans skilled in pious rite, 

Minstrels deep in lore of music, poets fired by heavenly might, 
Watchers of the constellations, min’sters of the festive day, 

Men of science and of logic, bards who sang the ancient lay, 
Painters skilled and merry dancers who the festive joy prolong 

Hushed and silent in their wonder listed to the wondrous song! 
And as poured the flood of music through the bright and livelong day, 

Eyes and ears and hearts insatiate drank the nectar of the lay, 
And the eager people whispered: ‘See the boys, how like our king 

As two drops of limpid water from the parent bubble spring! 
Were the boys no hermit-children, in the hermit’s garments clad, 

We would deem them Rama’s image,-Rama as a youthful lad!’ 
Twenty cantos of the Epic thus the youthful minstrels sung, 

And the voice of stringéd music through the Epic rolled along, 
Out spake Rama in his wonder: ‘Scarce I know who these may be, 

Eighteen thousand golden pieces be the children-minstrels’ fee!’ 
‘Not so,’ answered thus the children, ‘we in darksome forests dwell, 

Gold and silver, bounteous monarch, forest life beseem not well!’ 
‘Noble children!’ uttered Rama, ‘dear to me the words you say, 

Tell me who composed this Epic,-Father of this deathless Lay?’ 
‘Saint Valmiki,’ spake the minstrels, ‘framed the great immortal song 

Four and twenty thousand verses to this noble Lay belong, 
Untold tales of deathless virtue sanctify his sacred line, 

And five hundred glorious cantos in this glorious Epic shine, 
In six Books of mighty splendour was the poet’s task begun, 

With a seventh Book, supplemental is the poet’s labour done, 
All thy matchless deeds, O monarch, in this Lay will brighter shine, 

List to us from first to ending if thy royal heart incline!’ 
‘Be it so,’ thus Rama answered, but the hours of day were o’er, 

And Valmiki’s youthful pupils to their cottage came once more. 
Rama with his guests and courtiers slowly left the royal hall, 

Eager was his heart to listen, eager were the monarchs all, 
And the voice of song and music thus was lifted day to day, 

And from day to day they listened to Valmiki’s deathless Lay!

The King’s Lament -Valmiki

Is this torturing dream or madness, do my feeble senses fail, O’er my darkened mind and bosom doth a fainting fit prevail? 
So the stricken monarch pondered and in hushed and silent fear, 

Looked on her as on a tigress looks the dazed and stricken deer, 
Lying on the unswept pavement still he heaved the choking sigh, 

Like a wild and hissing serpent quelled by incantations high! 
Sobs convulsive shook his bosom and his speech and accent failed, 

And a dark and deathlike faintness o’er his feeble soul prevailed, 
Stunned awhile remained the monarch, then in furious passion woke. 

And his eyeballs flamed with redfire, to the queen as thus he spoke: 
‘Traitress to thy king and husband, fell destroyer of thy race, 

Wherefore seeks thy ruthless rancour Rama rich in righteous grace, 
Traitress to thy kith and kindred, Rama loves thee as thy own, 

Wherefore then with causeless vengeance as a mother hate thy son! 
Have I courted thee, Kaikeyi, throned thee in my heart of truth, 

Nursed thee in my home and bosom like a snake of poisoned tooth, 
Have I courted thee, Kaikeyi, placed thee on Ayodhya’s throne, 

That my Rama, loved of people, thou shouldst banish from his own? 
Banish far my Queen Kausalya, Queen Sumitra saintly wife, 

Wrench from me my ancient empire, from my bosom wrench my life, 
But with brave and princely Rama never can his father part, 

Till his ancient life is ended, cold and still his beating heart! 
Sunless roll the world in darkness, rainless may the harvests thrive, 

But from ri~hteous Rama severed, never can his sire survive, 
Feeble is thy aged husband, few and brief on earth his day, 

Lend me, wife, a woman’s kindness, as a consort be my stay! 
Ask for other boon, Kaikeyi, aught my sea-girt empire yields, 

Wealth or treasure, gem or jewel, castled town or smiling fields, 
Ask for other gift, Kaikeyi, and thy wishes shall be given, 

Stain me not with crime unholy in the eye of righteous Heaven!’ 
Coldly spake the Queen Kaikeyi: ‘If thy royal heart repent, 

Break thy word and plighted promise, let thy royal faith be rent, 
Ever known for truth and virtue, speak to peers and monarchs all, 

When from near and distant regions they shall gather in thy hall, 
Speak if so it please thee, monarch, of thy evil-destined wife, 

How she loved with wife’s devotion, how she served and saved thy life, 
How on plighted promise trusting for a humble boon she sighed, 

How a monarch broke his promise, how a cheated woman died!’ 
‘Fair thy form,’ resumed the monarch, ‘beauty dwells upon thy face, 

Woman’s winsome charms bedeck thee, and a woman’s peerless grace, 
Wherefore then within thy bosom wakes this thought of cruel wile, 

And what dark and loathsome spirit stains thy heart with blackest guile? 
Ever since the day, Kaikeyi, when a gentle bride you came, 

By a wife’s unfailing duty you have won a woman’s fame, 
Wherefore now this cruel purpose hath a stainless heart defiled, 

Ruthless wish to send my Rama to the dark and pathless wild? 
Wherefore, darkly-scheming woman, on unrighteous purpose bent, 

Doth thy cruel causeless vengeance on my Rama seek a vent, 
Wherefore seek by deeds unholy for thy son the throne to win, 

Throne which Bharat doth not covet,-blackened byhis mother’s sin? 
Shall I see my banished Rama mantled in the garb of woe, 

Reft of home and kin and empire to the pathless jungle go, 
Shall I see disasters sweeping o’er my empire dark and deep, 

As the forces of a foeman o’er a scattered army sweep? 
Shall I hear assembled monarchs in their whispered voices say, 

Weak and foolish in his dotapre, Dasa-ratha holds his sway, 
Shall I say to righteous elders when they blame my action done, 

That by woman’s mandate driven I have banished thus my son? 
Queen Kansalya, dear-loved woman! she who serves me as a slave, 

Soothes me like a tender sister, helps me like a consort brave, 
As a fond and loving mother tends me with a watchful care, 

As a daughter ever duteous doth obeisance sweet and fair, 
When my fond and fair Kausalya asks me of her banished son, 

How shall Dasa-ratha answer for the impious action done, 
How can husband, cold and cruel, break a wife’s confiding heart, 

How can father, false and faithless, from his best and eldest part?’ 
Coldly spake the Queen Kaikeyi: ‘If thy royal heart repent, 

Break thy word and plighted promise, let thy royal faith be rent, 
Truth-abiding is our monarch, so I heard the people say, 

And his word is all inviolate, stainless virtue marks his sway, 
Let it now be known to nations,-righteous Dasa-ratha lied, 

And a trusting, cheated woman broke her loving heart and died!’ 
Darker grew the shades of midnight, coldly shone each distant star, 

Wilder in the monarch’s bosom raged the struggle and the war: 
‘Starry midnight, robed in shadows! give my wearied heart relief, 

Spread thy sable covering mantle o’er an impious monarch’s grief, 
Spread thy vast and inky darkness o’er a deed of nameless crime, 

Reign perennial o’er my sorrows heedless of the lapse of time, 
May a sinful monarch perish ere the dawning of the day, 

O’er a dark life sin-polluted, beam not morning’s righteous ray!’

The Quest For Sita – Valmiki

Past the rains, the marshalled Vanars gathered round Sugriva bold, 

And unto a gallant chieftain thus the king his purpose told: 
‘Brave in war and wise in counsel! take ten thousand of my best 

Seek the hiding-place of Ravan in the regions of the East. 
Seek each ravine rock and forest and each shadowy hill and cave, 

Far where bright Sarayu’s waters mix with Ganga’s ruddy wave, 
And where Jumna’s dark blue waters ceaseless roll in regal pride, 

And the Sone through leagues of country spreads its torrents far and wide. 
Seek where in Videha’s empire castled towns and hamlets shine, 

In Kosala and in Malwa and by Kasi’s sacred shrine, 
Magadh rich in peopled centres, Pundra region of the brave, 

Anga rich in corn and cattle on the eastern ocean wave. 
Seek where clans of skilful weavers dwell upon the eastern shore, 

And from virgin mines of silver miners work the sparkling ore. 
In the realms of uncouth nations, in the islets of the sea, 

In the mountains of the ocean, wander far and wander free!’ 
Next to Nila son of AGNI, Jambaman VIDHATA’S son, 

Hanuman the son of MARUT, famed for deeds of valour done, 
Unto Gaya and Gavaksha, Gandha-madan true and tried, 

Unto Angad prince and regent, thus the brave Sugriva cried: 
‘Noblest, bravest of our chieftains, greatest of our race are ye, 

Seek and search the Southern regions, rock and ravine, wood and tree, 
Search the thousand peaks of Vindhya lifting high its misty head, 

Through the gorges of Narmada rolling o’er its rocky bed, 
By the gloomy Godavari and by Krishna’s wooded stream, 

Through Utkala’s sea-girt forests tinged by morning’s early gleam. 
Search the towns of famed Dasarna and Avanti’s rocky shore, 

And the uplands of Vidarbha and the mountains of Mysore, 
Land of Matsyas and Kalingas and Kausika’s regions fair, 

Trackless wilderness of Dandak seek with anxious toil and care. 
Search the empire of the Andhras, of the sister-nations three,- 

Cholas, Cheras and the Pandyas dwelling by the southern sea, 
Pass Kaveri’s spreading waters, Malya’s mountains towering brave, 

Seek the isle of Tamra-parni, gemmed upon the ocean wave!’ 
To Susena chief and elder,-Tara’s noble sire was he,- 

Spake Sugriva with obeisance and in accents bold and free: 
‘Take my lord, a countless army of the bravest and the best, 

Search where beats the sleepless ocean on the regions of the West. 
Search the country of Saurashtras, of Bahlikas strong and brave, 

And each busy mart and seaport on the western ocean wave, 
Castles girt by barren mountains, deserts by the sandy sea, 

Forests of the fragrant ketak, regions of the tamal tree! 
Search the ocean port of Pattan shaded by its fruitful trees, 

Where the feathery groves of cocoa court the balmy western breeze, 
Where on peaks of Soma-giri lordly lions wander free, 

Where the waters of the Indus mingle with the mighty sea!’ 
Lastly to the valiant chieftain Satavala strong and brave, 

For the quest of saintly Sita, thus his mighty mandate gave: 
‘Hie thee, gallant Satavala, with thy forces wander forth, 

To the peaks of Himalaya, to the regions of the North! 
Mlechchas and the wild Pulindas in the rocky regions dwell, 

Madra chiefs and mighty Kurus live within each fertile vale, 
Wild Kambojas of the mountains, Yavanas of wondrous skill, 

Sakas swooping from their gorges, Pattanas of iron will!
Search the woods of devadaru mantling Himalaya’s side, 

And the forests of the lodhra spreading in their darksome pride, 
Search the land of Soma-srama where the gay Gandharvas dwell 

In the tableland of Kala search each rock and ravine well! 
Cross the snowy Himalaya, and Sudarsan’s holy peak, 

Deva-sakha’s wooded ranges which the feathered songsters seek, 
Cross the vast and dreary region void of stream or wooded bill, 

Till, you reach the white Kailasa, home of Gods, serene and still! 
Pass Kuvera’s pleasant regions, search the Krauncha mountain well, 

And the land where warlike females and the horse-faced women dwell, 
Halt not till you reach the country where the Northern Kurus rest, 

Utmost confines of the wide earth, home of Gods and Spirits blest!’

The Sandals – Valmiki

Tears nor sighs nor sad entreaty Rama’s changeless purpose shook, 

Till. once more with hands conjoinéd Bharat to his elder spoke: 
‘Rama, true to royal mercy, true to duties of thy race, 

Grant this favour to thy mother, to thy brother grant this grace, 
Vain were my unaided efforts to protect our father’s throne, 

Town and hamlet, lord and tiller, turn to thee and thee alone! 
Unto Rama, friends and kinsmen, chiefs and warriors, turn in pain, 

And each city chief and elder, and each humble village swain, 
Base thy empire strong, unshaken, on a loyal nation’s will, 

With thy worth and with thy valour serve thy faithful people still!’ 
Rama raised the prostrate Bharat to his ever-loving breast, 

And in voice of tuneful hansa thus his gentle speech addrest: 
‘Trust me, Bharat, lofty virtue, strength and will to thee belong, 

Thou could’st rule a worldwide empire in thy faith and purpose strong, 
And our father’s ancient min’sters, ever faithful, wise and deep, 

They shall help thee with their counsel and thy ancient frontiers keep. 
List! the Moon may lose his lustre, Himalaya lose his snow, 

Heaving Ocean pass his confines surging from the caves below, 
But the truth-abiding Rama will not move from promise given, 

He hath spoke and will not palter, help him righteous Gods in heaven!’ 
Blazing like the Sun in splendour, beauteous like the Lord of Night, 

Rama vowed his Vow of Duty, changeless in his holy might! 
‘Humble token,’ answered Bharat, ‘still I seek from Rama’s hand, 

Token of his love and kindness, token of his high command, 
From thy feet cast forth those sandals, they shall decorate the throne. 

They shall nerve my heart to duty and shall safely guard thy own, 
They shall to a loyal nation absent monarch’s will proclaim, 

Watch the frontiers of the empire and the people’s homage claim!’ 
Rama gave the loosened sandals as his younger humbly prayed, 

Bharat bowed to them in homage and his parting purpose said: 
‘Not alone will banished Rama barks and matted tresses wear, 

Fourteen years the crownéd Bharat will in hermit’s dress appear, 
Henceforth Bharat dwells in palace guised as hermit of the wood, 

In the sumptuous hall of feasting wild fruit is his only food, 
Fourteen years shall pass in waiting, weary toil and penance dire 

Then, if Rama comes not living, Bharat dies upon the pyre!’

poem – the wedding

Sage Vasishtha skilled in duty placed Videha’s honoured king,
Viswa-mitra, Sata-nanda, all within the sacred ring,

And he raised the holy altar as the ancient writs ordain,
Decked and graced with scented garlands grateful unto gods and men,

And he set the golden ladles, vases pierced by artists skilled,
Holy censers fresh and fragrant, cups with sacred honey filled,

Sanka bowls and shining salvers, arghya plates for honoured guest,
Parchéd rice arranged in dishes, corn unhusked that filled the rest,

And with careful hand Vasishtha grass around the altar flung,
Offered gift to lighted AGNI and the sacred mantra sung!

Softly came the sweet-eyed Sita,-bridal blush upon her brow,
Rama in his manly beauty came to take the sacred vow,

Janak placed his beauteous daughter facing Dasa-ratha’s soil,
Spake with father’s fond emotion and the holy rite was done:

‘This is Sita child of Janak, dearer unto him than life,
Henceforth sharer of thy virtue, be. she, prince, thy faithful wife,

Of thy weal and woe partaker, be she thine in every land,
Cherish her in joy and sorrow, clasp her hand within thy hand,

As the shadow to the substance, to her lord is faithful wife,
And my Sita best of women follows thee in death or life! ‘

Tears bedew his ancient bosom, gods and men his wishes share,
And he sprinkles holy water on the blest and wedded pair.

Next he turned to Sita’s sister, Urmila of beauty rare,
And to Lakshman young and valiant spake in accents soft and fair:

Lakshman, dauntless in thy duty, loved of men and Gods above,
Take my dear devoted daughter, Urmila of stainless love,

Lakshman, fearless in thy virtue, take thy true and faithful wife,
Clasp her hand within thy fingers, be she thine in death or life! ‘

To his brother’s child Mandavi, Janak turned with father’s love,
Yielded her to righteous Bharat, prayed for blessings from above:

‘Bharat, take the fair Mandavi, be she thine in death or life,
Clasp her hand within thy fingers as thy true and faithful wife! ‘

Last of all was Sruta-kriti, fair in form and fair in face,
And her gentle name was honoured for her acts of righteous grace,

‘Take her by the hand, Satrughna, be she thine in death or life,
As the shadow to the suistance, to her lord is faithful wife! ‘

Then the princes held the maidens, hand embraced in loving hand,
And Vasishtha spake the mantra, holiest priest in all the land,

And as ancient rite ordaineth, and as sacred laws require,
Stepped each bride and princely bridegroom round the altar’s lighted fire,

Round Videha’s ancient monarch, round the holy rishis all,
Ughtly stepped the gentle maidens, proudly stepped the princes tall!

And a rain of flowers descended from the sky serene and fair,
And a soft celestial music filled the fresh and fragrant air,

Bright Gandkarvas skilled in music waked the sweet celestial song
Fair Apsaras in their beauty on the greensward tripped along!

As the flowery rain descended and the music rose in pride,
Thrice around the lighted altar every bridegroom led his bride,

And the nuptial rites were ended, princes took their brides away,
Janak followed with his courtiers, and the town was proud and gay!

Mariana In The North – Victoria Sackville West

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, 

Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home 

No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn 

Where she was wont to roam. 
All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead, 

That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse, 

Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled 

Out of the yellow gorse. 
All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, 

The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand, 

And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last 

Is the voice of the lonely land.

Trio – Victoria Sackville West

So well she knew them both! yet as she came 

Into the room, and heard their speech 

Of tragic meshes knotted with her name, 

And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each 

Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity, 

Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she 

Broke as the stranger on their conference, 

And stole abashed from thence.

Beechwoods At Knole – Victoria Sackville West

How do I love you, beech-trees, in the autumn, 

Your stone-grey columns a cathedral nave 

Processional above the earth’s brown glory! 
I was a child, and I loved the knurly tangle 

Of roots that coiled above a scarp like serpents, 

Where I might hide my treasure with the squirrels. 
I was a child, and splashed my way in laughter 

Through drifts of leaves, where underfoot the beech-nuts 

Split with crisp crackle to my great rejoicing. 
Red are the beechen slopes below Shock Tavern, 

Red is the bracken on the sandy Furze-field, 

Red are the stags and hinds by Bo-Pit Meadows, 
The rutting stags that nightly through the beechwoods 

Bell out their challenge, carrying their antlers 

Proudly beneath the antlered autumn branches. 
I was a child, and heard the red deer’s challenge 

Prowling and belling underneath my window, 

Never a cry so haughty or so mournful.

Bee Master – Victoria Sackville West

I have known honey from the Syrian hills 

Stored in cool jars; the wild acacia there 

On the rough terrace where the locust shrills 

Tosses her spindrift on the ringing air. 

Narcissus bares his nectarous perianth 

In white and golden tabard to the sun, 

And while the workers rob the amaranth 

Or scarlet windflower low among the stone, 

Intent upon their crops, 

The Syrian queens mate in the high hot day 

Rapt visionaries of creative fray; 

Soaring from fecund ecstasy alone, 

And, through the blazing ether, drops 

Like a small thunderbolt the vindicated drone. 
But this is the bee-master’s reckoning 

In England. Walk among the hives and hear. 
Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep. 

For winter’s big with summer in her womb, 

And when you plant your rose-trees, plant them deep, 

Having regard to bushes all aflame, 

And see the dusky promise of their bloom 

In small red shoots, and let each redolent name- 

Tuscany, Crested Cabbage, Cottage Maid- 

Load with full June November’s dank repose, 

See the kind cattle drowsing in the shade, 

And hear the bee about his amorous trade 

Brown in the gipsy crimson of the rose. 
In February, if the days be clear, 

The waking bee, still drowsy on the wing, 

Will sense the opening of another year 

And blunder out to seek another spring. 

Crashing through winter sunlight’s pallid gold 

His clumsiness sets catkins on the willow 

Ashake like lambs’ tails in the early fold, 

Dusting with pollen all his brown and yellow, 

But when the rimy afternoon turns cold 

And undern squalls buffet the chilly fellow, 

He’ll seek the hive’s warm waxen welcoming 

And set about the chambers’ classic mould. 
And then, pell-mell, his harvest follows swift, 

Blossom and borage, lime and balm and clover, 

On Downs the thyme, on cliffs the scantling thrift, 

Everywhere bees go racing with the hours, 

For every bee becomes a drunken lover, 

Standing upon his head to sup the flowers, 

All over England, from Northumbrian coasts, 

To the wild sea-pink blown on Devon rocks. 

Over the merry southern gardens, over 

The grey-green bean-fields, round the Sussex oasts, 

Through the frilled spires of cottage hollyhocks, 

Go the big brown fat bees, and blunder in 

Where dusty spears of sunlight cleave the barn, 

And seek the sun again, and storm the whin, 

And in the warm meridian solitude 

Hum in the heather round the moorland tarn, 

Look, too, when summer hatches out the brood, 

In tardy May or early June, 

And the young queens are strong in the cocoon, 

Watch, if the days be warm, 

The flitting of the swarm. 

Follow, for if beyond your sight they stray 

Your bees are lost, and you must take your way 

Homeward disconsolate, but if you be at hand 

Then you may take your bees on strangers’ land. 

Have your skep ready, drowse them with, your smoke, 

Whether they cluster on the handy bough 

Or in the difficult hedge, be nimble now, 

For bees are captious folk 

And quick to turn against the lubber’s touch, 

But if you shake them to their wicker hutch 

Firmly, and turn towards the hive your skep, 

Into the hive the clustered thousands stream, 

Mounting the little slatted sloping step, 

A ready colony, queen, workers, drones, 

Patient to build again the waxen thrones 

For younger queens, and all the chambered cells 

For lesser brood, and all the immemorial scheme. 

And still they labour, though the hand of man 
Inscrutable and ravaging descend, 

Pillaging in their citadels, 

Defeating wantonly their provident plan, 

Making a havoc of their patient hoard; 

Still start afresh, not knowing to what end, 

Not knowing to what ultimate reward, 

Or what new ruin of the garnered hive 

The senseless god in man will send. 

Still their blind stupid industry will strive, 

Constructing for destruction pitiably, 

That still their unintelligible lord 

May reap his wealth from their calamity.

Tuscany – Victoria Sackville West

 
Cisterns and stones; the fig-tree in the wall 

Casts down her shadow, ashen as her boughs, 

Across the road, across the thick white dust. 

Down from the hill the slow white oxen crawl, 

Dragging the purple waggon heaped with must, 

With scarlet tassels on their milky brows, 

Gentle as evening moths. Beneath the yoke 

Lounging against the shaft they fitful strain 

To draw the waggon on its creaking spoke, 

And all the vineyard folk 

With staves and shouldered tools surround the wain. 

The wooden shovels take the purple stain, 

The dusk is heavy with the wine’s warm load; 

Here the long sense of classic measure cures 

The spirit weary of its difficult pain; 

Here the old Bacchic piety endures, 

Here the sweet legends of the world remain. 

Homeric waggons lumbering the road; 

Virgilian litanies among the bine; 

Pastoral sloth of flocks beneath the pine; 

The swineherd watching, propped upon his goad, 

Urder the chestnut trees the rootling swine 

Who could so stand, and see this evening fall, 

This calm of husbandry, this redolent tilth, 

This terracing of hills, this vintage wealth, 

Without the pagan sanity of blood 

Mounting his veins in young and tempered health? 

Whu could so stand, and watch processional 

The vintners, herds, and flocks in dusty train 

Wend through the golden evening to regain 

The terraced farm and trodden threshing-floor 

Where late the flail 

Tossed high the maize in scud of gritty ore, 

And lies half-buried in the heap of grain 

Who could so watch, and not forget the rack 

Of wills worn thin and thought become too frail, 

Nor roll the centuries back * 

And feel the sinews of his soul grow hale, 

And know himself for Rome’s inheritor?

Bitterness – Victoria Sackville West

Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild 

Even in indignation, taking by the hand 

One that obeyed them mutely, as a child 

Submissive to a law he does not understand. 
They would not blame the sins his passion wrought. 

No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, ‘We 

Only deplore …’ saying they only sought 

To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he 
Following them with unrecalcitrant tread, 

Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities, 

Having slain rebellion, ever turned his head 

Over his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyes 
Her motionless figure on the road. The song 

Rang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell, 

Full of young glory as a bugle; strong; 

Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird’s cry ‘Farewell!’
And they, they whispered kindly to him ‘Come! 

Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget! 

She was your lawless dark familiar.’ Dumb, 

He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet, 
(Knowing the while that they were very kind) 

Remembrance clamoured in him: ‘She was wild and free, 

Magnificent in giving; she was blind 

To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me,–but me! 
‘Valiant she was, and comradely, and bold; 

High-mettled; all her thoughts a challenge, like gay ships 

Adventurous, with treasure in the hold. 

I met her with the lesson put into my lips, 
‘Spoke reason to her, and she bowed her head, 

Having no argument, and giving up the strife. 

She said I should be free. I think she said 

That, for the asking, she would give me all her life.’ 
And still they led him onwards, and he still 

Looked back towards her standing there; and they, content, 

Cheered him and praised him that he did their will. 

The gradual distance hid them, and she turned, and went.

Refusal – Maya Angelou

Beloved, 

In what other lives or lands 

Have I known your lips 

Your Hands 

Your Laughter brave 

Irreverent. 

Those sweet excesses that 

I do adore. 

What surety is there 

That we will meet again, 

On other worlds some 

Future time undated. 

I defy my body’s haste. 

Without the promise 

Of one more sweet encounter 

I will not deign to die.

Old Folks Laugh – Maya Angelou

They have spent their 

content of simpering, 

holding their lips this 

and that way, winding 

the lines between 

their brows. Old folks 

allow their bellies to jiggle like slow 

tambourines. 

The hollers 

rise up and spill 

over any way they want. 

When old folks laugh, they free the world. 

They turn slowly, slyly knowing 

the best and the worst 

of remembering. 

Saliva glistens in 

the corners of their mouths, 

their heads wobble 

on brittle necks, but 

their laps 

are filled with memories. 

When old folks laugh, they consider the promise 

of dear painless death, and generously 

forgive life for happening 

to them.

On The Pulse Of Morning – Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree 

Hosts to species long since departed, 

Mark the mastodon. 

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens 

Of their sojourn here 

On our planet floor, 

Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom 

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. 

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, 

Come, you may stand upon my 

Back and face your distant destiny, 

But seek no haven in my shadow. 

I will give you no hiding place down here. 

You, created only a little lower than 

The angels, have crouched too long in 

The bruising darkness, 

Have lain too long 

Face down in ignorance. 

Your mouths spelling words 

Armed for slaughter. 

The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, 

But do not hide your face. 

Across the wall of the world, 

A river sings a beautiful song, 

Come rest here by my side. 

Each of you a bordered country, 

Delicate and strangely made proud, 

Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. 

Your armed struggles for profit 

Have left collars of waste upon 

My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. 

Yet, today I call you to my riverside, 

If you will study war no more. 

Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs 

The Creator gave to me when I 

And the tree and stone were one. 

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow 

And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. 

The river sings and sings on. 

There is a true yearning to respond to 

The singing river and the wise rock. 

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, 

The African and Native American, the Sioux, 

The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, 

The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, 

The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, 

The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. 

They hear. They all hear 

The speaking of the tree. 

Today, the first and last of every tree 

Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. 

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. 

Each of you, descendant of some passed on 

Traveller, has been paid for. 

You, who gave me my first name, 

You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, 

You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, 

Then forced on bloody feet, 

Left me to the employment of other seekers- 

Desperate for gain, starving for gold. 

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot… 

You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, 

Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare 

Praying for a dream. 

Here, root yourselves beside me. 

I am the tree planted by the river, 

Which will not be moved. 

I, the rock, I the river, I the tree 

I am yours- your passages have been paid. 

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need 

For this bright morning dawning for you. 

History, despite its wrenching pain, 

Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, 

Need not be lived again. 

Lift up your eyes upon 

The day breaking for you. 

Give birth again 

To the dream. 

Women, children, men, 

Take it into the palms of your hands. 

Mold it into the shape of your most 

Private need. Sculpt it into 

The image of your most public self. 

Lift up your hearts. 

Each new hour holds new chances 

For new beginnings. 

Do not be wedded forever 

To fear, yoked eternally 

To brutishness. 

The horizon leans forward, 

Offering you space to place new steps of change. 

Here, on the pulse of this fine day 

You may have the courage 

To look up and out upon me, 

The rock, the river, the tree, your country. 

No less to Midas than the mendicant. 

No less to you now than the mastodon then. 

Here on the pulse of this new day 

You may have the grace to look up and out 

And into your sister’s eyes, 

Into your brother’s face, your country 

And say simply 

Very simply 

With hope 

Good morning.

Over The Carnage – Walt Whitman

OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice, 

Be not dishearten’d–Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom 

yet; 

Those who love each other shall become invincible–they shall yet 

make Columbia victorious. 
Sons of the Mother of All! you shall yet be victorious! 

You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the 

earth. 
No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers; 

If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one. 
One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s comrade; 

From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another, an Oregonese, shall be 

friends triune, 

More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth. 10 
To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come; 

Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death. 
It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly 

affection; 

The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly; 

The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, 

The continuance of Equality shall be comrades. 
These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron; 

I, extatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you. 
(Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? 

Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? 20 

–Nay–nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

Passage To India – Walt Whitman

SINGING my days, 

Singing the great achievements of the present, 

Singing the strong, light works of engineers, 

Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,) 

In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal, 

The New by its mighty railroad spann’d, 

The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires, 

I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul, 

The Past! the Past! the Past! 
The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect! 10 

The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows! 

The past! the infinite greatness of the past! 

For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past? 

(As a projectile, form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still 

keeps on, 

So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.) 

Passage, O soul, to India! 

Eclaircise the myths Asiatic–the primitive fables. 
Not you alone, proud truths of the world! 

Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science! 

But myths and fables of eld–Asia’s, Africa’s fables! 20 

The far-darting beams of the spirit!–the unloos’d dreams! 

The deep diving bibles and legends; 

The daring plots of the poets–the elder religions; 

–O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun! 

O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, 

mounting to heaven! 

You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d 

with gold! 

Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams! 

You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest; 

You too with joy I sing. 

Passage to India! 30 

Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first? 

The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work, 

The people to become brothers and sisters, 

The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, 

The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near, 

The lands to be welded together. 
(A worship new, I sing; 

You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours! 

You engineers! you architects, machinists, your! 

You, not for trade or transportation only, 40 

But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.) 

Passage to India! 

Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain, 

I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open’d, 

I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie’s leading the 

van; 

I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level 

sand in the distance; 

I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather’d, 

The gigantic dredging machines. 
In one, again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,) 

I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad, surmounting every 

barrier; 50 

I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte, carrying 

freight and passengers; 

I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam- 

whistle, 

I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the 

world; 

I cross the Laramie plains–I note the rocks in grotesque shapes–the 

buttes; 

I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions–the barren, colorless, 

sage-deserts; 

I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately above me, the great 

mountains–I see the Wind River and the Wahsatch mountains; 

I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest–I pass the 

Promontory–I ascend the Nevadas; 

I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its base; 

I see the Humboldt range–I thread the valley and cross the river, 

I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe–I see forests of majestic 

pines, 60 

Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold 

enchanting mirages of waters and meadows; 

Marking through these, and after all, in duplicate slender lines, 

Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel, 

Tying the Eastern to the Western sea, 

The road between Europe and Asia. 
(Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream! 

Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave, 

The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!) 

Passage to India! 

Struggles of many a captain–tales of many a sailor dead! 70 

Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come, 

Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky. 
Along all history, down the slopes, 

As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface 

rising, 

A ceaseless thought, a varied train–Lo, soul! to thee, thy sight, 

they rise, 

The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions: 

Again Vasco de Gama sails forth; 

Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s compass, 

Lands found, and nations born–thou born, America, (a hemisphere 

unborn,) 

For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d, 80 

Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish’d. 

O, vast Rondure, swimming in space! 

Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty! 

Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual darkness; 

Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, 

above; 

Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees; 

With inscrutable purpose–some hidden, prophetic intention; 

Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee. 
Down from the gardens of Asia, descending, radiating, 

Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them, 90 

Wandering, yearning, curious–with restless explorations, 

With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish–with never-happy 

hearts, 

With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore, unsatisfied Soul? and 

Whither, O mocking Life? 
Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children? 

Who justify these restless explorations? 

Who speak the secret of impassive Earth? 

Who bind it to us? What is this separate Nature, so unnatural? 

What is this Earth, to our affections? (unloving earth, without a 

throb to answer ours; 

Cold earth, the place of graves.) 
Yet, soul, be sure the first intent remains–and shall be carried 

out; 100 

(Perhaps even now the time has arrived.) 
After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,) 

After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work, 

After the noble inventors–after the scientists, the chemist, the 

geologist, ethnologist, 

Finally shall come the Poet, worthy that name; 

The true Son of God shall come, singing his songs. 
Then, not your deeds only, O voyagers, O scientists and inventors, 

shall be justified, 

All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall be sooth’d, 

All affection shall be fully responded to–the secret shall be told; 

All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and hook’d and 

link’d together; 110 

The whole Earth–this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be 

completely justified; 

Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the 

the Son of God, the poet, 

(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains, 

He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some purpose;) 

Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more, 

The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them. 

Year at whose open’d, wide-flung door I sing! 

Year of the purpose accomplish’d! 

Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans! 

(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic;) 120 

I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe, given, and giving 

all, 

Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the New World; 

The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival 

garland, 

As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand. 

Passage to India! 

Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man,

The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again. 
Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward; 

The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s lands, 

The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and their many 

affluents; 130 

(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resuming all,) 

The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly dying, 

On one side China, and on the other side Persia and Arabia, 

To the south the great seas, and the Bay of Bengal; 

The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes, 

Old occult Brahma, interminably far back–the tender and junior 

Buddha, 

Central and southern empires, and all their belongings, possessors, 

The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe, 

The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the 

Arabs, Portuguese, 

The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor, 140 

Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks to be fill’d, 

The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at rest, 

Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge. 

The medieval navigators rise before me, 

The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise; 

Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in 

spring, 

The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. 
And who art thou, sad shade? 

Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary, 

With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes, 150 

Spreading around, with every look of thine, a golden world, 

Enhuing it with gorgeous hues. 
As the chief histrion, 

Down to the footlights walks, in some great scena, 

Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself, 

(History’s type of courage, action, faith;) 

Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little fleet; 

His voyage behold–his return–his great fame, 

His misfortunes, calumniators–behold him a prisoner, chain’d, 

Behold his dejection, poverty, death. 160 
(Curious, in time, I stand, noting the efforts of heroes; 

Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death? 

Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? Lo! to God’s due 

occasion, 

Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms, 

And fills the earth with use and beauty.) 

Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought! 

Not lands and seas alone–thy own clear freshness, 

The young maturity of brood and bloom; 

To realms of budding bibles. 
O soul, repressless, I with thee, and thou with me, 170 

Thy circumnavigation of the world begin; 

Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return, 

To reason’s early paradise, 

Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions, 

Again with fair Creation. 

O we can wait no longer! 

We too take ship, O soul! 

Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas! 

Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of extasy to sail, 

Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O 

soul,) 180 

Caroling free–singing our song of God, 

Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration. 
With laugh, and many a kiss, 

(Let others deprecate–let others weep for sin, remorse,

humiliation;) 

O soul, thou pleasest me–I thee. 
Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God; 

But with the mystery of God we dare not dally. 
O soul, thou pleasest me–I thee; 

Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night, 

Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters 

flowing, 190 

Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite, 

Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear–lave me all over; 

Bathe me, O God, in thee–mounting to thee, 

I and my soul to range in range of thee. 
O Thou transcendant! 

Nameless–the fibre and the breath! 

Light of the light–shedding forth universes–thou centre of them! 

Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving! 

Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection’s source! thou reservoir! 

(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied! waitest not there? 200 

Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?) 

Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, 

That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, 

Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space! 
How should I think–how breathe a single breath–how speak–if, out 

of myself, 

I could not launch, to those, superior universes? 
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, 

At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,

But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou actual Me, 

And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs, 210 

Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, 

And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of Space. 
Greater than stars or suns, 

Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth; 

–What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify? 

What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul? 

What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength? 

What cheerful willingness, for others’ sake, to give up all? 

For others’ sake to suffer all? 
Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d, 220 

(The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,) 

Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d, 

As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found, 

The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. 

Passage to more than India! 

Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? 

O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these? 

Disportest thou on waters such as these? 

Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? 

Then have thy bent unleash’d. 230 
Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! 

Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems! 

You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never 

reach’d you. 

Passage to more than India! 

O secret of the earth and sky! 

Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers! 

Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land! 

Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks! 

O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! 

O day and night, passage to you! 240 
O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter! 

Passage to you! 
Passage–immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! 

Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! 

Cut the hawsers–haul out–shake out every sail! 

Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? 

Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere 

brutes? 

Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough? 
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! 

Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; 250 

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, 

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. 
O my brave soul! 

O farther, farther sail! 

O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?

O farther, farther, farther sail!

Not The Pilot – Walt Whitman

NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though 

beaten back, and many times baffled; 

Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long, 

By deserts parch’d, snows-chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he 

reaches his destination, 

More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a 

free march for These States, 

To be exhilarating music to them–a battle-call, rousing to arms, if 

need be–years, centuries hence.

In Midnight Sleep – Walt Whitman

IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, 

Of the look at first of the mortally wounded–of that indescribable 

look; 

Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, 

I dream, I dream, I dream. 

Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; 

Of skies, so beauteous after a storm–and at night the moon so 

unearthly bright, 

Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather 

the heaps, 

I dream, I dream, I dream. 

Long, long have they pass’d–faces and trenches and fields; 

Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure–or away 

from the fallen, 

Onward I sped at the time–But now of their forms at night, 

I dream, I dream, I dream. 10

Germs – Walt Whitman

FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts, 
The ones known, and the ones unknown–the ones on the stars, 

The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped, 

Wonders as of those countries–the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, 

whatever they may be, 

Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and 

effects; 

Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand 

provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my arm and 

half enclose with my hand; 

That contains the start of each and all–the virtue, the germs of 

all.

City of Ships – Walt Whitman

CITY of ships! 

(O the black ships! O the fierce ships! 
O the beautiful, sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!) 

City of the world! (for all races are here; 

All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) 

City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! 

City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and 

out, with eddies and foam! 

City of wharves and stores! city of tall façades of marble and iron! 

Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city! 

Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, 

warlike! 10 

Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city! 

Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you! 

I have rejected nothing you offer’d me–whom you adopted, I have 

adopted; 

Good or bad, I never question you–I love all–I do not condemn 

anything; 

I chant and celebrate all that is yours–yet peace no more; 

In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine; 

War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!

City Of Orgies – Walt Whitman

CITY of orgies, walks and joys! 
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make 

you illustrious, 

Not the pageants of you–not your shifting tableaux, your spectacles, 

repay me; 

Not the interminable rows of your houses–nor the ships at the 

wharves, 

Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows, with 

goods in them; 

Nor to converse with learn’d persons, or bear my share in the soiree 

or feast; 

Not those–but, as I pass, O Manhattan! your frequent and swift flash 

of eyes offering me love, 

Offering response to my own–these repay me; 

Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.

The Plums Tasted – Mirabai

sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl- 

but what manners! To chew into each! She was ungainly, 

low-caste, ill mannered and dirty, 

but the god took the 

fruit she’d been sucking. 

Why? She’d knew how to love. 

She might not distinquish 

splendor from filth 

but she’d tasted the nectar of passion. 

Might not know any Veda, 

but a chariot swept her away- 

now she frolics in heaven, esctatically bound 

to her god. 

The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira, 

will save anyone 

who can practice rapture like that- 

I myself in a previous birth 

was a cowherding girl 

at Gokul.

 

Torn In Shreds – Mirabai

Mine is Gopal, the Mountain-Holder; there is no one else. 

On his head he wears the peacock-crown: He alone is my husband. 

Father, mother, brother, relative: I have none to call my own. 

I’ve forsaken both God, and the family’s honor: what should I do? 

I’ve sat near the holy ones, and I’ve lost shame before the people. 

I’ve torn my scarf into shreds; I’m all wrapped up in a blanket. 

I took off my finery of pearls and coral, and strung a garland of wildwood flowers. 

With my tears, I watered the creeper of love that I planted; 

Now the creeper has grown spread all over, and borne the fruit of bliss. 

The churner of the milk churned with great love. 

When I took out the butter, no need to drink any buttermilk. 

I came for the sake of love-devotion; seeing the world, I wept. 

Mira is the maidservant of the Mountain-Holder: now with love He takes me across to the further shore. 
~~~~~~~ 

mere to giridhara gupaala, duusaraa na koii | 

jaa ke sira mora mukuTa, mero pati soii || 

taata, maata, bhraata, baMdhu, apanaa nahiM koii | 

ghaaM.Da daii, kula kii kaana, kyaa karegaa koii? 

saMtana Dhiga baiThi baiThi, loka laaja khoii || 

chunarii ke kiye Tuuka Tuuka, o.Dha liinha loii | 

motii muu.Nge utaara bana maalaa poii || 

a.Nsuvana jala siiMchi siiMchi prema beli boii | 

aba to beli phaila gaii, aanaMda phala hoii || 

duudha kii mathaniyaa, ba.De prema se biloii | 

maakhana jaba kaa.Dhi liyo, ghaagha piye koii || 

aaii maiM bhakti kaaja, jagata dekha roii | 

daasii miiraa.N giradhara prabhu taare aba moii ||

 

No One Knows My Invisible Life – Mirabai

No one knows my invisible life. 

Pain 

and madness for Rama. 

Our wedding bed is high up 

in the gallows. 

Meet him? 

If the dark healer comes, 

we’ll negotiate the hurt. 

I love the man who takes care 

of cows. The cowherd. 

Cowherd and dancer. 

My eyes are drunk, 

worn out from making love 

with him. We are one. 

I am now his dark color. 

People notice me, point fingers at me. 

They see my desire, 

since I’m walking about like a lunatic. 

I’m wiped out, gone. 

Yet no one knows I live with my prince, 

the cowherd. 

The palace can’t contain me. 

I leave it behind. 

I couldn’t care less about gossip 

or my royal name. 

I’ll be with him 

in all his gardens. 

The Heat Of Midnight Tears – Mirabai

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening, 

Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night. 
If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water, 

I would have asked to be born a fish in this life. 

If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts, 

Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb! 

If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves, 

Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us! 
If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way, 

I would have adored a granite mountain years ago. 
Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God. 

Why Mira Can’T Come Back To Her Old House – Mirabai

The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira’s body; all the other colors washed out. 

Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians. 

Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings. 

That’s enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this. 

Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day. 

I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries. 

I don’t steal money, I don’t hit anyone. What will you charge me with? 

I have felt the swaying of the elephant’s shoulders; 

and now you want me to climb on a jackass? 

Try to be serious 

Do Not Accept – Yehuda Amichai

Do not accept these rains that come too late. 

Better to linger. Make your pain 

An image of the desert. Say it’s said 

And do not look to the west. Refuse 
To surrender. Try this year too 

To live alone in the long summer, 

Eat your drying bread, refrain 

From tears. And do not learn from 
Experience. Take as an example my youth, 

My return late at night, what has been written 

In the rain of yesteryear. It makes no difference 
Now. See your events as my events. 

Everything will be as before: Abraham will again 

Be Abram. Sarah will be Sarai. 

 

Of Three Or Four In The Room – Yehuda Amichai

Out of three or four in the room 

One is always standing at the window. 

Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, 

The fires on the hills. 
And people who left whole 

Are brought home in the evening, like small change. 
Out of three or four in the room 

One is always standing at the window. 

Hair dark above his thoughts. 

Behind him, the words, wandering, without luggage, 

Hearts without provision, prophecies without water 

Big stones put there 

Standing, closed like letters 

With no addresses; and no one to receive them.

 

Quick And Bitter – Yehuda Amichai

The end was quick and bitter. 

Slow and sweet was the time between us, 

slow and sweet were the nights 

when my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love 

of your body which came 

between them. 
And when I entered into you 

it seemed then that great happiness 

could be measured with precision 

of sharp pain. Quick and bitter. 
Slow and sweet were the nights. 

Now is bitter and grinding as sand— 

‘Let’s be sensible’ and similiar curses. 
And as we stray further from love 

we multiply the words, 

words and sentences so long and orderly. 

Had we remained together 

we could have become a silence.

Her Dream – William Butler Yeats

I dreamed as in my bed I lay, 

All night’s fathomless wisdom come, 

That I had shorn my locks away 

And laid them on Love’s lettered tomb: 

But something bore them out of sight 

In a great tumult of the air, 

And after nailed upon the night 

Berenice’s burning hair.

When You Are Old – William Butler Yeats

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep, 

And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 

And loved your beauty with love false or true, 

But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, 

And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 

And paced upon the mountains overhead 

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Summer and Spring – William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old: Viii. 
We sat under an old thorn-tree 

And talked away the night, 

Told all that had been said or done 

Since first we saw the light, 

And when we talked of growing up 

Knew that we’d halved a soul 

And fell the one in t’other’s arms 

That we might make it whole; 

Then peter had a murdering look, 

For it seemed that he and she 

Had spoken of their childish days 

Under that very tree. 

O what a bursting out there was, 

And what a blossoming, 

When we had all the summer-time 

And she had all the spring!

The Rose of Peace – William Butler Yeats

IF Michael, leader of God’s host 

When Heaven and Hell are met, 

Looked down on you from Heaven’s door-post 

He would his deeds forget. 

Brooding no more upon God’s wars 

In his divine homestead, 

He would go weave out of the stars 

A chaplet for your head. 

And all folk seeing him bow down, 

And white stars tell your praise, 

Would come at last to God’s great town, 

Led on by gentle ways; 

And God would bid His warfare cease, 

Saying all things were well; 

And softly make a rosy peace, 

A peace of Heaven with Hell.

The Man And The Echo – William Butler Yeats

Man 

IN a cleft that’s christened Alt 

Under broken stone I halt 

At the bottom of a pit 

That broad noon has never lit, 

And shout a secret to the stone. 

All that I have said and done, 

Now that I am old and ill, 

Turns into a question till 

I lie awake night after night 

And never get the answers right. 

Did that play of mine send out 

Certain men the English shot? 

Did words of mine put too great strain 

On that woman’s reeling brain? 

Could my spoken words have checked 

That whereby a house lay wrecked? 

And all seems evil until I 

Sleepless would lie down and die. 

Echo 

Lie down and die. 

Man 

That were to shirk 

The spiritual intellect’s great work, 

And shirk it in vain. There is no release 

In a bodkin or disease, 

Nor can there be work so great 

As that which cleans man’s dirty slate. 

While man can still his body keep 

Wine or love drug him to sleep, 

Waking he thanks the Lord that he 

Has body and its stupidity, 

But body gone he sleeps no more, 

And till his intellect grows sure 

That all’s arranged in one clear view, 

pursues the thoughts that I pursue, 

Then stands in judgment on his soul, 

And, all work done, dismisses all 

Out of intellect and sight 

And sinks at last into the night. 

Echo 

Into the night. 

Man 

O Rocky Voice, 

Shall we in that great night rejoice? 

What do we know but that we face 

One another in this place? 

But hush, for I have lost the theme, 

Its joy or night-seem but a dream; 

Up there some hawk or owl has struck, 

Dropping out of sky or rock, 

A stricken rabbit is crying out, 

And its cry distracts my thought.

The Heart Of The Woman – William Butler Yeats

O WHAT to me the little room 

That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; 

He bade me out into the gloom, 

And my breast lies upon his breast. 

O what to me my mother’s care, 

The house where I was safe and warm; 

The shadowy blossom of my hair 

Will hide us from the bitter storm. 

O hiding hair and dewy eyes, 

I am no more with life and death, 

My heart upon his warm heart lies, 

My breath is mixed into his breath.

The Indian To His Love – William Butler Yeats

THE island dreams under the dawn 

And great boughs drop tranquillity; 

The peahens dance on a smooth lawn, 

A parrot sways upon a tree, 

Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. 

Here we will moor our lonely ship 

And wander ever with woven hands, 

Murmuring softly lip to lip, 

Along the grass, along the sands, 

Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands: 

How we alone of mortals are 

Hid under quiet boughs apart, 

While our love grows an Indian star, 

A meteor of the burning heart, 

One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam 

and dart, 

The heavy boughs, the burnished dove 

That moans and sighs a hundred days: 

How when we die our shades will rove, 

When eve has hushed the feathered ways, 

With vapoury footsole by the water’s drowsy blaze.

When To The Sessions Of Sweet Silent – William Shakespeare

Sonnet 30:
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 

I summon up remembrance of things past, 

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: 

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, 

And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe, 

And moan the expense of many a vanished sight: 

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er 

The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan, 

Which I new pay as if not paid before. 

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, 

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Sonnets I – William Shakespeare

SHALL I compare thee to a Summer’s day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 

And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date: 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; 

And every fair from fair sometime declines, 

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d: 

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade 

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, 

When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 

   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

When I Consider Everything That Grows – William Shakespeare

Sonnet Xv:

When I consider everything that grows 

Holds in perfection but a little moment, 

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows 

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; 

When I perceive that men as plants increase, 

Cheered and check’d even by the selfsame sky, 

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, 

And wear their brave state out of memory; 

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 

Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay 

To change your day of youth to sullied night; 

And all in war with Time for love of you, 

As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

Sonnet Lx – William Shakespeare

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 

So do our minutes hasten to their end; 

Each changing place with that which goes before, 

In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 

Nativity, once in the main of light, 

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d, 

Crooked elipses ‘gainst his glory fight, 

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. 

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth 

And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow, 

Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth, 

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: 

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, 

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds – William Shakespeare

Sonnet Cxvi:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

Admit impediments. Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove: 

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 

It is the star to every wandering bark, 

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. 

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle’s compass come: 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

If this be error and upon me proved, 

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Against My Love Shall Be As I Am Now – William Shakespeare

Sonnet 63:

Against my love shall be as I am now 

With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn, 

When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow 

With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn 

Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night, 

And all those beauties whereof now he’s king 

Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight, 

Stealing away the treasure of his spring: 

For such a time do I now fortify 

Against confounding age’s cruel knife, 

That he shall never cut from memory 

My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life. 

His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, 

And they shall live, and he in them still green.

Those Lips That Love’s Own Hand Did Make – William Shakespeare

Sonnet 145:

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make 

Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate” 

To me that languished for her sake; 

But when she saw my woeful state, 

Straight in her heart did mercy come, 

Chiding that tongue that ever sweet 

Was used in giving gentle doom, 

And taught it thus anew to greet: 

“I hate” she altered with an end, 

That followed it as gentle day 

Doth follow night, who like a fiend 

From heaven to hell is flown away. 

“I hate” from hate away she threw, 

And saved my life, saying “not you.”

Poor Soul, The Centre Of My Sinful Earth – William Shakespeare

Sonnet 146:

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 

My sinful earth these rebel powers array, 

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, 

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? 

Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? 

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, 

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end? 

Then soul live thou upon thy servant’s loss, 

And let that pine to aggravate thy store; 

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; 

Within be fed, without be rich no more. 

So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, 

And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

My Love Is As A Fever, Longing Still – William Shakespeare

Sonnet 147:

My love is as a fever, longing still 

For that which longer nurseth the disease, 

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, 

Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please. 

My reason, the physician to my love, 

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, 

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve 

Desire is death, which physic did except. 

Past cure I am, now reason is past care, 

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; 

My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are, 

At random from the truth vainly expressed. 

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, 

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
William Shakespeare

How The Leaves Came Down – Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

‘I’ll tell you how the leaves came down,’ 

The great Tree to his children said: 

‘You’re getting sleepy, Yellow and Brown, 

Yes, very sleepy, little Red. 

It is quite time to go to bed.’ 

‘Ah!’ begged each silly, pouting leaf, 

‘Let us a little longer stay; 

Dear Father Tree, behold our grief! 

‘Tis such a very pleasant day, 

We do not want to go away.’ 

So, for just one more merry day 

To the great Tree the leaflets clung, 

Frolicked and danced, and had their way, 

Upon the autumn breezes swung, 

Whispering all their sports among— 

‘Perhaps the great Tree will forget, 

And let us stay until the spring, 

If we all beg, and coax, and fret.’ 

But the great Tree did no such thing; 

He smiled to hear their whispering. 

‘Come, children, all to bed,’ he cried; 

And ere the leaves could urge their prayer, 

He shook his head, and far and wide, 

Fluttering and rustling everywhere, 

Down sped the leaflets through the air. 

I saw them; on the ground they lay, 

Golden and red, a huddled swarm, 

Waiting till one from far away, 

White bedclothes heaped upon her arm, 

Should come to wrap them safe and warm. 

The great bare Tree looked down and smiled. 

‘Good-night, dear little leaves,’ he said. 

And from below each sleepy child 

Replied, ‘Good-night,’ and murmured, 

‘It is so nice to go to bed!’

Poem – A Minor Poet – Amy Levy

“What should such fellows as I do, 

Crawling between earth and heaven?” 
Here is the phial; here I turn the key 

Sharp in the lock. Click!–there’s no doubt it turned. 

This is the third time; there is luck in threes– 

Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now 

And freely I’ll forgive you many wrongs! 

Just as the draught began to work, first time, 

Tom Leigh, my friend (as friends go in the world), 

Burst in, and drew the phial from my hand, 

(Ah, Tom! ah, Tom! that was a sorry turn!) 

And lectured me a lecture, all compact 

Of neatest, newest phrases, freshly culled 

From works of newest culture: “common good ;” 

“The world’s great harmonies;””must be content 

With knowing God works all things for the best, 

And Nature never stumbles.” Then again, 

“The common good,” and still, “the common, good;” 

And what a small thing was our joy or grief 

When weigh’d with that of thousands. Gentle Tom, 

But you might wag your philosophic tongue 

From morn till eve, and still the thing’s the same: 

I am myself, as each man is himself– 

Feels his own pain, joys his own joy, and loves 

With his own love, no other’s. Friend, the world 

Is but one man; one man is but the world. 

And I am I, and you are Tom, that bleeds 

When needles prick your flesh (mark, yours, not mine). 

I must confess it; I can feel the pulse 

A-beating at my heart, yet never knew 

The throb of cosmic pulses. I lament 

The death of youth’s ideal in my heart; 

And, to be honest, never yet rejoiced 

In the world’s progress–scarce, indeed, discerned; 

(For still it seems that God’s a Sisyphus 

With the world for stone). 

You shake your head. I’m base, 

Ignoble? Who is noble–you or I? 

I was not once thus? Ah, my friend, we are 

As the Fates make us. 

This time is the third; 

The second time the flask fell from my hand, 

Its drowsy juices spilt upon the board; 

And there my face fell flat, and all the life 

Crept from my limbs, and hand and foot were bound 

With mighty chains, subtle, intangible; 

While still the mind held to its wonted use, 

Or rather grew intense and keen with dread, 

An awful dread–I thought I was in Hell. 

In Hell, in Hell ! Was ever Hell conceived 

By mortal brain, by brain Divine devised, 

Darker, more fraught with torment, than the world 

For such as I? A creature maimed and marr’d 

From very birth. A blot, a blur, a note 

All out of tune in this world’s instrument. 

A base thing, yet not knowing to fulfil 

Base functions. A high thing, yet all unmeet 

For work that’s high. A dweller on the earth, 

Yet not content to dig with other men 

Because of certain sudden sights and sounds 

(Bars of broke music; furtive, fleeting glimpse 

Of angel faces ‘thwart the grating seen) 

Perceived in Heaven. Yet when I approach 

To catch the sound’s completeness, to absorb 

The faces’ full perfection, Heaven’s gate, 

Which then had stood ajar, sudden falls to, 

And I, a-shiver in the dark and cold, 

Scarce hear afar the mocking tones of men: 

“He would not dig, forsooth ; but he must strive 

For higher fruits than what our tillage yields; 

Behold what comes, my brothers, of vain pride!” 

Why play with figures? trifle prettily 

With this my grief which very simply’s said, 

“There is no place for me in all the world”? 

The world’s a rock, and I will beat no more 

A breast of flesh and blood against a rock. . . 

A stride across the planks for old time’s sake. 

Ah, bare, small room that I have sorrowed in; 

Ay, and on sunny days, haply, rejoiced; 

We know some things together, you and I! 

Hold there, you rangèd row of books ! In vain 

You beckon from your shelf. You’ve stood my friends 

Where all things else were foes; yet now I’ll turn 

My back upon you, even as the world 

Turns it on me. And yet–farewell, farewell! 

You, lofty Shakespere, with the tattered leaves 

And fathomless great heart, your binding’s bruised 

Yet did I love you less? Goethe, farewell; 

Farewell, triumphant smile and tragic eyes, 

And pitiless world-wisdom! 
For all men 

These two. And ’tis farewell with you, my friends, 

More dear because more near: Theokritus; 

Heine that stings and smiles; Prometheus’ bard; 

(I’ve grown too coarse for Shelley latterly:) 

And one wild singer of to-day, whose song 

Is all aflame with passionate bard’s blood 

Lash’d into foam by pain and the world’s wrong. 

At least, he has a voice to cry his pain; 

For him, no silent writhing in the dark, 

No muttering of mute lips, no straining out 

Of a weak throat a-choke with pent-up sound, 

A-throb with pent-up passion. . . 

Ah, my sun! 

That’s you, then, at the window, looking in 

To beam farewell on one who’s loved you long 

And very truly. Up, you creaking thing, 

You squinting, cobwebbed casement! 

So, at last, 

I can drink in the sunlight. How it falls. 

Across that endless sea of London roofs, 

Weaving such golden wonders on the grey, 

That almost, for the moment, we forget 

The world of woe beneath them. 

Underneath, 

For all the sunset glory, Pain is king. 
Yet, the sun’s there, and very sweet withal; 

And I’ll not grumble that it’s only sun, 

But open wide my lips–thus–drink it in; 

Turn up my face to the sweet evening sky 

(What royal wealth of scarlet on the blue 

So tender toned, you’d almost think it green) 

And stretch my hands out–so–to grasp it tight. 

Ha, ha! ’tis sweet awhile to cheat the Fates, 

And be as happy as another man. 

The sun works in my veins like wine, like wine! 

‘Tis a fair world: if dark, indeed, with woe, 

Yet having hope and hint of such a joy, 

That a man, winning, well might turn aside, 

Careless of Heaven . . . 

O enough; I turn 

From the sun’s light, or haply I shall hope. 

I have hoped enough; I would not hope again: 

‘Tis hope that is most cruel. 

Tom, my friend, 

You very sorry philosophic fool; 

‘Tis you, I think, that bid me be resign’d, 

Trust, and be thankful. 

Out on you! Resign’d? 

I’m not resign’d, not patient, not school’d in 

To take my starveling’s portion and pretend 

I’m grateful for it. I want all, all, all; 

I’ve appetite for all. I want the best: 

Love, beauty, sunlight, nameless joy of life. 

There’s too much patience in the world, I think. 

We have grown base with crooking of the knee. 

Mankind–say–God has bidden to a feast; 

The board is spread, and groans with cates and drinks; 

In troop the guests; each man with appetite 

Keen-whetted with expectance. 

In they troop, 

Struggle for seats, jostle and push and seize. 

What’s this? what’s this? There are not seats for all! 

Some men must stand without the gates; and some 

Must linger by the table, ill-supplied 

With broken meats. One man gets meat for two, 

The while another hungers. If I stand 

Without the portals, seeing others eat 

Where I had thought to satiate the pangs 

Of mine own hunger; shall I then come forth 

When all is done, and drink my Lord’s good health 

In my Lord’s water? Shall I not rather turn 

And curse him, curse him for a niggard host? 

O, I have hungered, hungered, through the years, 

Till appetite grows craving, then disease; 

I am starved, wither’d, shrivelled. 

Peace, O peace! 

This rage is idle; what avails to curse 

The nameless forces, the vast silences 

That work in all things. 

This time is the third, 

I wrought before in heat, stung mad with pain, 

Blind, scarcely understanding; now I know 

What thing I do. 

There was a woman once; 

Deep eyes she had, white hands, a subtle smile, 

Soft speaking tones: she did not break my heart, 

Yet haply had her heart been otherwise 

Mine had not now been broken. Yet, who knows? 

My life was jarring discord from the first: 

Tho’ here and there brief hints of melody, 

Of melody unutterable, clove the air. 

From this bleak world, into the heart of night, 

The dim, deep bosom of the universe, 

I cast myself. I only crave for rest; 

Too heavy is the load. I fling it down. 

EPILOGUE. 
We knocked and knocked; at last, burst in the door, 

And found him as you know–the outstretched arms 

Propping the hidden face. The sun had set, 

And all the place was dim with lurking shade. 

There was no written word to say farewell, 

Or make more clear the deed. 

I search’d and search’d; 

The room held little: just a row of books 

Much scrawl’d and noted; sketches on the wall, 

Done rough in charcoal; the old instrument 

(A violin, no Stradivarius) 

He played so ill on; in the table drawer 

Large schemes of undone work. Poems half-writ; 

Wild drafts of symphonies; big plans of fugues; 

Some scraps of writing in a woman’s hand: 

No more–the scattered pages of a tale, 

A sorry tale that no man cared to read. 

Alas, my friend, I lov’d him well, tho’ he 

Held me a cold and stagnant-blooded fool, 

Because I am content to watch, and wait 

With a calm mind the issue of all things. 

Certain it is my blood’s no turbid stream; 

Yet, for all that, haply I understood 

More than he ever deem’d; nor held so light 

The poet in him. Nay, I sometimes doubt 

If they have not, indeed, the better part– 

These poets, who get drunk with sun, and weep 

Because the night or a woman’s face is fair. 

Meantime there is much talk about my friend. 

The women say, of course, he died for love; 

The men, for lack of gold, or cavilling 

Of carping critics. I, Tom Leigh, his friend 

I have no word at all to say of this. 

Nay, I had deem’d him more philosopher; 

For did he think by this one paltry deed 

To cut the knot of circumstance, and snap 

The chain which binds all being?

Poem – The Little Negro – Ann Taylor

Ah! the poor little blackamoor, see there he goes, 

And the blood gushes out from his half frozen toes, 

And his legs are so thin you may see the very bones, 

As he goes shiver, shiver, on the sharp cutting stones. 
He was once a negro boy, and a merry boy was he, 

Playing outlandish plays, by the tall palm tree; 

Or bathing in the river, like a brisk water rat, 

And at night sleeping sound, on a little bit of mat. 

But there came some wicked people, and they stole him far away, 

And then good bye to palm-tree tall, and merry merry play; 

For they took him from his house and home, and ev’ry body dear, 

And now, poor little negro boy, he’s come a begging here. 

And fie upon the wicked folks who did this cruel thing! 

I wish some mighty nobleman would go and tell the king; 

For to steal him from his house and home must be a crying sin, 

Though he was a little negro boy, and had a sooty skin.

Poem – The Cow – Ann Taylor

Thank you, pretty cow, that made 

Pleasant milk to soak my bread, 

Every day and every night, 

Warm, and fresh, and sweet, and white. 
Do not chew the hemlock rank, 

Growing on the weedy bank; 

But the yellow cowslips eat; 

They perhaps will make it sweet. 
Where the purple violet grows, 

Where the bubbling water flows, 

Where the grass is fresh and fine, 

Pretty cow, go there to dine.

यसै गरी बिताइदिन्छु – काली प्रसाद रिजाल

यसै गरी बिताइदिन्छु दुई दिनको जिन्दगी

हाँसोमा लुटाइदिन्छु आफू आँसुमा डुबी

यसै गरी बिताइदिन्छु दुई दिनको जिन्दगी

भीड छ म भीडमा आफूलाई बिलाईदिन्छु

बिर्सिदिन्छु आफुलाई होशमा हराईदिन्छु

कि त लुकी यतै कतै रोईदिन्छु सुस्तरी

हाँसोमा लुटाई दिन्छु आफु आँशुमा डुबी

च्याती दिन्छु आफुलाई बालिदिन्छु साँझमा

फालिदिन्छु आफुलाई दिनहरुको माझमा

गाईदिन्छु गीत आफ्नो आफैलाई नै पिई

हाँसोमा लुटाईदिन्छु आफु आँशुमा डुबी

आँखा छोपी नरोउ भनि – काली प्रसाद रिजाल

आँखा छोपी नरोउ भनि भन्नु पर्‍या छ

मुटुमाथि ढुंगा राखि हाँस्नु पर्‍या छ

भोली उठी कहाँ जाने केही थाहा छैन

फर्कि आउने हो कि होईन केही थाहा छैन

वाचा छिटै आउछु भनि गर्नु पर्‍या छ

मुटुमाथि ढुंगा राखि हाँस्नु पर्‍या छ

छातीभरि गाँउ-बेशी पखेरीको छाँया

आखाँभरि मेलापात मायालुको माया

आफैलाई छाडी कतै जानु पर्‍या छ

मुटुमाथि ढुंगा राखि हाँस्नु पर्‍या छ

भन्ने कुरा कति थियो छाती भित्रै रह्यो

परेलीका ओठबाट आँशु झरी रह्यो

कुलचिएर आफैलाई हिड्नु पर्‍या छ

मुटु माथि ढुंगा राखि हाँस्नु पर्‍या छ

अवकाशप्राप्त समय – कालीप्रसाद रिजाल

कुनैबेला अरवी घोडाजस्तै

र्फदवाल दौड्ने समय

अहिले आएर

चिप्लेकीराजस्तै

घिसिरहेछ !

के भएको होला

यो घामलाई पनि ?

हिँड्दा हिँड्दै कहिले

कुनै रुखमा अड्किदिन्छ

त्यहाँबाट निस्कियो भने

फेरि मुण्डाघरमा गएर

घण्टौं बसिदिन्छ

के भएको होला

यो घामलाई पनि

कहिले गुटुमुटु बादल ओढेर सुतिदिन्छ

कहिले पहाडको कापमा गएर

लुकिदिन्छ !

ओल्टाइ पल्टाई अद्योपान्त

पत्रपत्रिका पढ्छु

उपन्यासलाई कुनै पानामा दोब्य्राउँछु

फेरि पढ्छु फेरि पढ्छु

लुगामा इस्त्री लगाउँछु

जुत्ता पालिस गरेर टल्काउँछु

बिगि्रएको हिटर खोलेर बनाउँछु

बगैंचामा जान्छु

झार उखेल्छु, माटो सम्याउँछु

गुलाफको हाँगा काटेर मिलाउँछु

फेरि बारीको तीनचार फन्का लगाउँछु

तर यतिविधि काम गरिसक्दा पनि

समय एक बित्ता हिँडेको हुँदैन !

आँङ तानेर हाऽऽई गर्दै

फोन घुमाउँछु

बसि बिँयालो केही बेर

बकम्फुस गफमा

आफूलाई अल्मलाउँछु

फेरि बाहिर निस्केर

केही किनेर ल्याउँछु

बाटामा रमिता हेरेर

केही क्षण टोलाउँछु

क्रिकेट खेलिरहेका फुच्चेहरूलाई

एकछिन जिस्काउँछु ।

फर्केर काम गर्नेसित कुनै कुरामा

जङ्िगन्छु, फत्फताउँछु

आँगनमा पटुसित बातमार्छु

सुसेलीमा सिकाउँछु,

फेरि कोठामा आएर

लमतन्न पल्टन्छु

तर यतिकासरो काम गरिसक्दा पनि

यत्रा चक्कर लगाएर आउँदा पनि

असत्ति समय साले समय

जहीँको तहीँ टिक्टिक् गरिरहेको हुन्छ !!

यस्तो त कहिले थिएन

सधैँ भ्याइनभ्याइ हुन्थ्यो

मिलिक्क गर्न नपाई

समयले डाँडा काटिसक्थ्यो

के भएको होला

यो समयलाई हिजो आज ?

नातिनातिनाले पठाएको चिठी

बीसौं पटक पढिसकेँ

अलबमका तसबिर पनि कैयौंपल्ट हेरिसकें

पुराना क्यासेटका गीतहरू

दोहोर्‍याएर तेहेर्‍याएर सुनिसकें

तै पनि ढिट समय यस्तो छ

कि कट्दै कट्दैन !!

ए युवाहरू हो !

जाँचका तयारी गरिरहेका

विद्यार्थीहरू हो !

तिमीलाई समयको अभाव छ भने

आउ लिएर जाउ

जति चाहिन्छ लिएर जाउ

म सित्नैमा मेरो समय

दिन तयार छु !!

Poem – The Washing And Dressing – Ann Taylor

Ah! why will my dear little girl be so cross, 

And cry, and look sulky, and pout? 

To lose her sweet smile is a terrible loss, 

I can’t even kiss her without. 
You say you don’t like to be wash’d and be dress’d, 

But would you not wish to be clean? 

Come, drive that long sob from your dear little breast, 

This face is not fit to be seen. 
If the water is cold, and the brush hurts your head, 

And the soap has got into your eye, 

Will the water grow warmer for all that you’ve said? 

And what good will it do you to cry? 
It is not to tease you and hurt you, my sweet, 

But only for kindness and care, 

That I wash you, and dress you, and make you look neat, 

And comb out your tanglesome hair. 
I don’t mind the trouble, if you would not cry, 

But pay me for all with a kiss; 

That’s right — ­take the towel and wipe your wet eye, 

I thought you’d be good after this.

Poem – The Spider – Ann Taylor

‘OH, look at that great ugly spider!’ said Ann; 

And screaming, she brush’d it away with her fan; 

”Tis a frightful black creature as ever can be, 

I wish that it would not come crawling on me. ‘ 
‘Indeed,’ said her mother, ‘I’ll venture to say, 

The poor thing will try to keep out of your way; 

For after the fright, and the fall, and the pain, 

It has much more occasion than you to complain. 
‘But why should you dread the poor insect, my dear? 

If it hurt you, there’d be some excuse for your fear; 

But its little black legs, as it hurried away, 

Did but tickle your arm, as they went, I dare say. 
‘For them to fear us we must grant to be just, 

Who in less than a moment can tread them to dust; 

But certainly we have no cause for alarm; 

For, were they to try, they could do us no harm. 
‘Now look! it has got to its home; do you see 

What a delicate web it has spun in the tree? 

Why here, my dear Ann, is a lesson for you: 

Come learn from this spider what patience can do! 
‘And when at your business you’re tempted to play, 

Recollect what you see in this insect to-day, 

Or else, to your shame, it may seem to be true, 

That a poor little spider is wiser than you. ‘

Poem – The Addict – Anne Sexton

Sleepmonger, 

deathmonger, 

with capsules in my palms each night, 

eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles 

I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey. 

I’m the queen of this condition. 

I’m an expert on making the trip 

and now they say I’m an addict. 

Now they ask why. 

WHY! 
Don’t they know that I promised to die! 

I’m keping in practice. 

I’m merely staying in shape. 

The pills are a mother, but better, 

every color and as good as sour balls. 

I’m on a diet from death. 
Yes, I admit 

it has gotten to be a bit of a habit- 

blows eight at a time, socked in the eye, 

hauled away by the pink, the orange, 

the green and the white goodnights. 

I’m becoming something of a chemical 

mixture. 

that’s it! 
My supply 

of tablets 

has got to last for years and years. 

I like them more than I like me. 

It’s a kind of marriage. 

It’s a kind of war where I plant bombs inside 

of myself. 
Yes 

I try 

to kill myself in small amounts, 

an innocuous occupatin. 

Actually I’m hung up on it. 

But remember I don’t make too much noise. 

And frankly no one has to lug me out 

and I don’t stand there in my winding sheet. 

I’m a little buttercup in my yellow nightie 

eating my eight loaves in a row 

and in a certain order as in 

the laying on of hands 

or the black sacrament. 
It’s a ceremony 

but like any other sport 

it’s full of rules. 

It’s like a musical tennis match where 

my mouth keeps catching the ball. 

Then I lie on; my altar 

elevated by the eight chemical kisses. 
What a lay me down this is 

with two pink, two orange, 

two green, two white goodnights. 

Fee-fi-fo-fum- 

Now I’m borrowed. 

Now I’m numb.

झर्यो जिन्दगी फुट्यो जिन्दगी – काली प्रसाद रिजाल

झर्यो जिन्दगी फुट्यो जिन्दगी

छल्केर आँखामा बग्यो जिन्दगी
काँडामा हाँसेको मिठो जिन्दगी

सपनीमा नाँचेको झुठो जिन्दगी

रहरको दहमा डुब्यो जिन्दगी

झर्यो जिन्दगी फुट्यो जिन्दगी
पिरले भरेको खाली जिन्दगी

पिरतीले रुवाएको प्यारो जिन्दगी

आज आफ्नै छातीमा दुख्यो जिन्दगी

झर्यो जिन्दगी फुट्यो जिन्दगी

मेरो हजुरलाई के दिऊँ नि भेट – काली प्रसाद रिजाल

मेरो हजुरलाई के दिऊँ नि भेट 

तारा दिऊँ कि जून दिऊँ इन्द्रेणीको सेट

मगमग बास्ना दिऊँ कि फूलै फूलले बेरेर

हिउँचुली नै चढाऊँ कि, लालीमाले घेरेर

पखेरीको छायाँ दिऊँ कि, झलझलाउने शीत

सारङ्गीको सुरमा दिऊँ कि, एकै चरण गीत

सबै भन्न सक्छु – काली प्रसाद रिजाल

म कुनै सिद्ध आत्मा होइन,

न कुनै दिव्य दृष्टि छ मसित

तर आँखा चिम्लेर भन्न सक्छु

यो देशमा कहाँ के भइरहेछ !

यतिबेला सिंह दरबारमा

राष्ट्रको ढुकुटीबाट

लाखौंलाख बाडिँदै छ

आफ्ना कार्यकर्तालाई

र एकाएक बिरामी परेपछि

फेरि अर्का नेता

दिल्ली प्रस्थान गर्ने भएका छन्

साउथ ब्लकमा उपचार गराउन

उता मन्त्री क्वार्टरमा

उद्योगपति व्यापारीहरू

यतिबेला ब्रिफकेसमा

शुभकामना चढाइरहेका छन्

मृर्गौला बेचेर फर्किएका नेपालीहरू

फेरि लुटिएका छन् सीमा क्षेत्रमा

अहिले ठमेलको मसाज पार्लरमा

संभोगरत छन्

एक प्रतिष्ठित समाजसेवी

र सुन्नुहोस्

एक महान् नेताका

होनहार सुपुत्र

दिउँसै फिट्टु भएर

एक्लै कोठामा कड्किरहेका छन् ।

कहाँ के भइरहेछ

सब भन्न सक्छु

नपत्याए फोन गरेर सोध्नुहोस्

भोलि अखबारमा पढ्नुहुनेछ

दुर्घटनामा परेर

नौ जना ठहरै भएको

झाडापखालापछि त खान नपाएर

चार जनाको प्राण गएको

र अहिले ठीक यसैबेला

विशाल आमसभामा

शीर्ष नेताहरू

थपडीको गडगडाहटबीच

एक-अर्कालाई

धाराप्रवाह गाली गरिरहेका छन् !

अपहरणपछि तराईमा

फेरि एक जनाको हत्या भएको छ

उग्रभीडले चारओटा बसमा

भर्खरै आगो लगाइदिएको छ ।

र तात्तातो अर्काे खबर सुन्नुहोस्

मन्त्रिपरिषद्को निर्णयअनुसार

खुंखार अपराधी र तस्करहरूमाथि

लगाइएका सम्पूर्ण अभियोग

सरकारले फिर्ता लिने भएको छ

र अन्ततः

छोरीलाई उपप्रधानमन्त्री बनाउने सहमतिपछि

सरकार गिर्ने सम्भावना पनि

तत्काललाई टरेर गएको छ

तर भन्न नसक्ने कुरा एउटै छ

मैले भन्न नसक्ने कुरा एउटै छ

यो देशको के हुन्छ ?

त्यो म भन्न सक्दिन

साम्प्रदायिकता, जातियता, क्षेत्रीयतामा

जीर्ण हुँदै गएको

वैमनस्य र द्वन्द्वमा

चर्कँदै चर्कँदै गएको

यो देशको के हुन्छ ?

यसको अखण्डता र सम्प्रभूता

रहन्छ रहँदैन ?

त्यो म भन्न सक्दिन

यसको लागि त

तपाईंहरूले नेताहरूसित सोध्नुपर्छ

राष्ट्रको नाममा, जनताको नाममा

सत्य निष्ठाको शपथ खाएका

नेताहरूसित सोध्नुपर्छ !

मै हूँ – काली प्रसाद रिजाल

पर्वतहरूमा सुमेरु हुँ म

नदीहरूमा

महाकाली, टनकपुर हुँ म

वृक्षहरूमा रक्तचन्दन हुँ म

विमानहरूमा लाउडा हुँ म ।

म सहस्र छु, अनेक छु

अनेक भएर पनि एक छु

कर्ता पनि, कारण पनि

कर्म पनि मै हुँ

पाप, पुण्य, धर्म पनि

अधर्म पनि मै हुँ

सबै अधिकार शक्ति

मैबाट निःसृत हुन्छन्

सबै मूल्य, मान्यता

मैबाट स्थापित हुन्छन्

म स्वयम्भू, मेरो कसैप्रति जवाफदेही छैन

कुनै विधान, संविधानले मलाई छुदैन ।

सबै यज्ञ, अनुष्ठानहरूको अधिष्ठाता

युगको प्रणेता हुँ म

नेताहरूको पनि नेता

महानेता हुँ म

नेपथ्यमा बसेर म नै गराउछु

प्रपञ्च भातीभाती

तर, कमलजस्तै ओभानो छु

सदैव पानीभन्दा माथि ।

सबै ग्रन्थ, शास्त्रहरूको मै हु सार

म अज्ञेय, अद्वेत, अपरम्पार

मलाई बुझेपछि फेरि बुझ्नुपर्ने

केही रह दैन

मलाई पाएपछि प्राप्त गर्नुपर्ने

जगमा केही छैन ।

सुरमुनि देवगण सबै

मेरै उपासना गर्छन्

मेरै भक्ति स्तुति गाएर

यो भवसागर तर्छन् ।

त्यसैले ए नरहरि, गगनहरू हो !

विवेक र तर्कको

जालोलाई फाल

मैमा समर्पित होऊ

मलाई अङ्गाल 

तिमीहरू पनि आऊ

मेरै शरणमा आऊ

र धनधान्यसहित

परमपद पाऊ ।

Poem – Killing The Love -Anne Sexton

I am the love killer, 

I am murdering the music we thought so special, 

that blazed between us, over and over. 

I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss. 

I am pushing knives through the hands 

that created two into one. 

Our hands do not bleed at this, 

they lie still in their dishonor. 

I am taking the boats of our beds 

and swamping them, letting them cough on the sea 

and choke on it and go down into nothing. 

I am stuffing your mouth with your 

promises and watching 

you vomit them out upon my face. 

The Camp we directed? 

I have gassed the campers. 
Now I am alone with the dead, 

flying off bridges, 

hurling myself like a beer can into the wastebasket. 

I am flying like a single red rose, 

leaving a jet stream 

of solitude 

and yet I feel nothing, 

though I fly and hurl, 

my insides are empty 

and my face is as blank as a wall. 
Shall I call the funeral director? 

He could put our two bodies into one pink casket, 

those bodies from before, 

and someone might send flowers, 

and someone might come to mourn 

and it would be in the obits, 

and people would know that something died, 

is no more, speaks no more, won’t even 

drive a car again and all of that. 
When a life is over, 

the one you were living for, 

where do you go? 
I’ll work nights. 

I’ll dance in the city. 

I’ll wear red for a burning. 

I’ll look at the Charles very carefully, 

wearing its long legs of neon. 

And the cars will go by. 

The cars will go by. 

And there’ll be no scream 

from the lady in the red dress 

dancing on her own Ellis Island, 

who turns in circles, 

dancing alone 

as the cars go by.

Poem – Mother And Daughter – Anne Sextom

Linda, you are leaving 

your old body now, 

It lies flat, an old butterfly, 

all arm, all leg, all wing, 

loose as an old dress. 

I reach out toward it but 

my fingers turn to cankers 

and I am motherwarm and used, 

just as your childhood is used. 

Question you about this 

and you hold up pearls. 

Question you about this 

and you pass by armies. 

Question you about this – 

you with your big clock going, 

its hands wider than jackstraws – 

and you’ll sew up a continent. 

Now that you are eighteen 

I give you my booty, my spoils, 

my Mother & Co. and my ailments. 

Question you about this 

and you’ll not know the answer – 

the muzzle at the oxygen, 

the tubes, the pathways, 

the war and the war’s vomit. 

Keep on, keep on, keep on, 

carrying keepsakes to the boys, 

carrying powders to the boys, 

carrying, my Linda, blood to 

the bloodletter. 

Linda, you are leaving 

your old body now. 

You’ve picked my pocket clean 

and you’ve racked up all my 

poker chips and left me empty 

and, as the river between us 

narrows, you do calisthenics, 

that womanly leggy semaphore. 

Question you about this 

and you will sew me a shroud 

and hold up Monday’s broiler 

and thumb out the chicken gut. 

Question you about this 

and you will see my death 

drooling at these gray lips 

while you, my burglar, will eat 

fruit and pass the time of day.

Poem – Ghosts – Anne Sexton

Some ghosts are women, 

neither abstract nor pale, 

their breasts as limp as killed fish. 

Not witches, but ghosts 

who come, moving their useless arms 

like forsaken servants. 
Not all ghosts are women, 

I have seen others; 

fat, white-bellied men, 

wearing their genitals like old rags. 

Not devils, but ghosts. 

This one thumps barefoot, lurching 

above my bed. 
But that isn’t all. 

Some ghosts are children. 

Not angels, but ghosts; 

curling like pink tea cups 

on any pillow, or kicking, 

showing their innocent bottoms, wailing 

for Lucifer.

Poem – The Big Heart – Anne Sexton

Big heart,

wide as a watermelon, 

but wise as birth, 

there is so much abundance 

in the people I have: 

Max, Lois, Joe, Louise, 

Joan, Marie, Dawn, 

Arlene, Father Dunne, 

and all in their short lives 

give to me repeatedly, 

in the way the sea 

places its many fingers on the shore, 

again and again 

and they know me, 

they help me unravel, 

they listen with ears made of conch shells, 

they speak back with the wine of the best region. 

They are my staff. 

They comfort me. 
They hear how 

the artery of my soul has been severed 

and soul is spurting out upon them, 

bleeding on them, 

messing up their clothes, 

dirtying their shoes. 

And God is filling me, 

though there are times of doubt 

as hollow as the Grand Canyon, 

still God is filling me. 

He is giving me the thoughts of dogs, 

the spider in its intricate web, 

the sun 

in all its amazement, 

and a slain ram 

that is the glory, 

the mystery of great cost, 

and my heart, 

which is very big, 

I promise it is very large, 

a monster of sorts, 

takes it all in— 

all in comes the fury of love.

Poem – The Breast – Anne Sexton

This is the key to it. 

This is the key to everything. 

Preciously. 
I am worse than the gamekeeper’s children 

picking for dust and bread. 

Here I am drumming up perfume. 
Let me go down on your carpet, 

your straw mattress – whatever’s at hand 

because the child in me is dying, dying. 
It is not that I am cattle to be eaten. 

It is not that I am some sort of street. 

But your hands found me like an architect. 
Jugful of milk! It was yours years ago 

when I lived in the valley of my bones, 

bones dumb in the swamp. Little playthings. 
A xylophone maybe with skin 

stretched over it awkwardly. 

Only later did it become something real. 
Later I measured my size against movie stars. 

I didn’t measure up. Something between 

my shoulders was there. But never enough. 
Sure, there was a meadow, 

but no yound men singing the truth. 

Nothing to tell truth by. 
Ignorant of men I lay next to my sisters 

and rising out of the ashes I cried 

my sex will be transfixed! 
Now I am your mother, your daughter, your brand new thing – a snail, a nest. 

I am alive when your fingers are. 
I wear silk – the cover to uncover – 

because silk is what I want you to think of. 

But I dislike the cloth. It is too stern. 
So tell me anything but track me like a climber 

for here is the eye, here is the jewel, 

here is the excitement the nipple learns. 
I am unbalanced – but I am not mad with snow. 

I am mad the way young girls are mad, 

with an offering, an offering… 
I burn the way money burns.

Poem – The Civil War – Anne Sexton

I am torn in two 

but I will conquer myself. 

I will dig up the pride. 

I will take scissors 

and cut out the beggar. 

I will take a crowbar 

and pry out the broken 

pieces of God in me. 

Just like a jigsaw puzzle, 

I will put Him together again 

with the patience of a chess player. 
How many pieces? 
It feels like thousands, 

God dressed up like a whore 

in a slime of green algae. 

God dressed up like an old man 

staggering out of His shoes. 

God dressed up like a child, 

all naked, 

even without skin, 

soft as an avocado when you peel it. 

And others, others, others. 
But I will conquer them all 

and build a whole nation of God 

in me – but united, 

build a new soul, 

dress it with skin 

and then put on my shirt 

and sing an anthem, 

a song of myself.

Poem – The Dream -Amy Levy

Believe me, this was true last night, Tho’ it is false to-day. 

• A.M.F. Robinson. 

A fair dream to my chamber flew: 

Such a crowd of folk that stirred, 

Jested, fluttered; only you, 

You alone of all that band, 

Calm and silent, spake no word. 

Only once you neared my place, 

And your hand one moment’s space 

Sought the fingers of my hand; 

Your eyes flashed to mine; I knew 

All was well between us two. 

• • • • * 

On from dream to dream I past, 

But the first sweet vision cast 

Mystic radiance o’er the last. 

• • • • * 

When I woke the pale night lay 

Still, expectant of the day; 

All about the chamber hung 

Tender shade of twilight gloom; 

The fair dream hovered round me, clung 

To my thought like faint perfume:- 

Like sweet odours, such as cling 

To the void flask, which erst encloses 

Attar of rose; or the pale string 

Of amber which has lain with roses.

Poem – Borderland – Amy Levy

Am I waking, am I sleeping? 

As the first faint dawn comes creeping 

Thro’ the pane, I am aware 

Of an unseen presence hovering, 

Round, above, in the dusky air: 

A downy bird, with an odorous wing, 

That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume, 

As sweet as love, as soft as death, 

Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom. 

My heart in some dream-rapture saith, 

It is she. Half in a swoon, 

I spread my arms in slow delight.– 

O prolong, prolong the night, 

For the nights are short in June!

To Rosa – Abraham Lincoln

You are young, and I am older; 

You are hopeful, I am not – 

Enjoy life, ere it grow colder – 

Pluck the roses ere they rot. 
Teach your beau to heed the lay – 

That sunshine soon is lost in shade – 

That now’s as good as any day – 

To take thee, Rosa, ere she fade.

Poem – Love Of Jerusalem -Yehuda Amichai

There is a street where they sell only red meat 

And there is a street where they sell only clothes and perfumes. And there 

is a day when I see only cripples and the blind 

And those covered with leprosy, and spastics and those with twisted lips. 
Here they build a house and there they destroy 

Here they dig into the earth 

And there they dig into the sky, 

Here they sit and there they walk 

Here they hate and there they love. 
But he who loves Jerusalem 

By the tourist book or the prayer book 

is like one who loves a women 

By a manual of sex positions. 

Translated by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav

Poem – The Little Park Planted – Yehuda Amichai

The little park planted in memory of a boy 

who fell in the war begins 

to resemble him 

as he was twenty eight years ago. 

Year by year they look more alike. 

His old parents come almost daily 

to sit on a bench 

and look at him. 
And every night the memory in the garden 

hums like a little motor. 

During the day you can’t hear it.

Poem – Tourists – Yehuda Amichai

Visits of condolence is all we get from them. 

They squat at the Holocaust Memorial, 

They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall 

And they laugh behind heavy curtains 

In their hotels. 

They have their pictures taken 

Together with our famous dead 

At Rachel’s Tomb and Herzl’s Tomb 

And on Ammunition Hill. 

They weep over our sweet boys 

And lust after our tough girls 

And hang up their underwear 

To dry quickly 

In cool, blue bathrooms.

Poem – A Bush Lawyer – Banjo Paterson

When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony’s lagoon 

The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, 

The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune 

And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. 

But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; 

The ripple of the rivulets, the rustle of the trees 

Were only apple sauce to him, or just a piece of cheese. 
Now, Dan-di-dan the water rat was exquisitely dressed,

For not a seal in Bass’s Straits had half as fine a coat, 

And every day he combed and brushed his golden-yellow vest, 

A contrast with the white cravat he wore beneath his throat. 
And Dan-di-dan the water rat could move with ease and grace, 

So Ironbark appeared to him a creature out of place, 

With iron-plated overcoat and dirty little face. 
A crawfish at the point of death came drifting down the drains. 

Said he, “I’m scalded to the heart with bathing near the bore.” 

The turtle and the water rat disputed his remains, 

For crawfish meat all day they’d eat, and then they’d ask for more. 
Said Dan-di-dan, “The prize is mine, for I was fishing here 

Before you tumbled down the bank and landed on your ear.” 

“I wouldn’t care,” the turtle said, “if you’d have fished a year.” 
So Baggy-beak the Pelican was asked to arbitrate; 

The scales of justice seemed to hang beneath his noble beak. 

He said, “I’ll take possession of the subject of debate”; 

He stowed the fish inside his pouch and then began to speak. 
“The case is far from clear,” he said, “and justices of note” — 

But here he snapped his beak and flapped his piebald overcoat — 

“Oh dear,” he said, “that wretched fish has slithered down my throat.” 
“But still,” he said, “the point involved requires a full debate. 

I’ll have to get the lawyer birds and fix a special day. 

Ad interim I rule that costs come out of the estate.” 

And Baggy-beak the Pelican got up and flew away. 
So both the pair who went to law were feeling very small. 

Said they, “We might have halved the fish and saved a nasty brawl; 

For half a crawfish isn’t much, but more than none at all.”

Poem – Buffalo Country – Banjo Paterson

Out where the grey streams glide, 

Sullen and deep and slow, 

And the alligators slide 

From the mud to the depths below 

Or drift on the stream like a floating death, 

Where the fever comes on the south wind’s breath, 

There is the buffalo. 

Out of the big lagoons, 

Where the Regia lilies float, 

And the Nankin heron croons 

With a deep ill-omened note, 

In the ooze and the mud of the swamps below 

Lazily wallows the buffalo, 

Buried to nose and throat. 
From the hunter’s gun he hides 

In the jungle’s dark and damp, 

Where the slinking dingo glides 

And the flying foxes camp; 

Hanging like myriad fiends in line 

Where the trailing creepers twist and twine 

And the sun is a sluggish lamp. 
On the edge of the rolling plains 

Where the coarse cane grasses swell, 

Lush with the tropic rains 

In the noontide’s drowsy spell, 

Slowly the buffalo grazes through 

Where the brolgas dance, and the jabiru 

Stands like a sentinel. 
All that the world can know 

Of the wild and the weird is here, 

Where the black men come and go 

With their boomerang and spear, 

And the wild duck darken the evening sky 

As they fly to their nests in the reed beds high 

When the tropic night is near.

Poem – A Change Of Menu – Banjo Paterson

Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three, 

It’s a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big. 

“I am fed to the teeth with old ewe,” said he, 

“And I might be able to shoot a pig.” 

And he trusted more to his nose than ear 

To give him warning when pigs were near. 
Out of his lair in the lignum dark. 

Where the wild duck nests and the bilbie digs, 

With a whoof and a snort and a kind of bark 

There rose the father of all the pigs: 

And a tiger would have walked wide of him 

As he stropped his tusks on a leaning limb. 
Then the new chum’s three-nought-three gave tongue 

Like a popgun fired in an opera bouffe: 

But a pig that was old when the world was young 

Is near as possible bullet-proof. 

(The more you shoot him the less he dies, 

Unless you catch him between the eyes.) 
So the new chum saw it was up to him 

To become extinct if he stopped to shoot; 

So he made a leap for a gidgee limb 

While the tusker narrowly missed his boot. 

Then he found a fork, where he swayed in air 

As he gripped the boughs like a native bear. 
The pig sat silent and gaunt and grim 

To wait and wait till his foe should fall: 

For night and day were the same to him, 

And home was any old place at all. 

“I must wait,” said he, “till this sportsman drops; 

I could use his boots for a pair of strops.” 
The crows that watch from the distant blue 

Came down to see what it all might mean; 

An eaglehawk and a cockatoo 

Bestowed their patronage on the scene. 

Till a far-off boundary rider said 

“I must have a look — there is something dead.” 
Now the new chum sits at his Christmas fare 

Of a dried-up chop from a tough old ewe. 

Says he, “It’s better than native bear 

And nearly as tender as kangaroo. 

An emu’s egg I can masticate, 

But pork,” says he, “is the thing I hate.”

Poem – A Song Of The Pen – Banjo Paterson

Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft, 

Not for the people’s praise; 

Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed, 

Claiming us all our days, 

Claiming our best endeavour — body and heart and brain 

Given with no reserve — 

Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain: 

Still, we are proud to serve. 
Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try, 

Gathering grain or chaff; 

One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high, 

One, that a child may laugh. 
Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place, 

Freely she doth accord 

Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace, 

Work is its own reward! 

Poem – Sleep And Poetry – John Keats

As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete 

Was unto me, but why that I ne might 

Rest I ne wist, for there n’as erthly wight 

[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese 

Than I, for I n’ad sicknesse nor disese. ~ Chaucer 

What is more gentle than a wind in summer? 

What is more soothing than the pretty hummer 

That stays one moment in an open flower, 

And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower? 

What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing 

In a green island, far from all men’s knowing? 

More healthful than the leafiness of dales? 

More secret than a nest of nightingales? 

More serene than Cordelia’s countenance? 

More full of visions than a high romance? 

What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes! 

Low murmurer of tender lullabies! 

Light hoverer around our happy pillows! 

Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows! 

Silent entangler of a beauty’s tresses! 

Most happy listener! when the morning blesses 

Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes 

That glance so brightly at the new sun-rise. 
But what is higher beyond thought than thee? 

Fresher than berries of a mountain tree? 

More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, more regal, 

Than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-seen eagle? 

What is it? And to what shall I compare it? 

It has a glory, and naught else can share it: 

The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy, 

Chasing away all worldliness and folly; 

Coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder, 

Or the low rumblings earth’s regions under; 

And sometimes like a gentle whispering 

Of all the secrets of some wond’rous thing 

That breathes about us in the vacant air; 

So that we look around with prying stare, 

Perhaps to see shapes of light, aerial limning, 

And catch soft floatings from a faint-heard hymning; 

To see the laurel wreath, on high suspended, 

That is to crown our name when life is ended. 

Sometimes it gives a glory to the voice, 

And from the heart up-springs, rejoice! rejoice! 

Sounds which will reach the Framer of all things, 

And die away in ardent mutterings. 
No one who once the glorious sun has seen, 

And all the clouds, and felt his bosom clean 

For his great Maker’s presence, but must know 

What ’tis I mean, and feel his being glow: 

Therefore no insult will I give his spirit, 

By telling what he sees from native merit. 
O Poesy! for thee I hold my pen 

That am not yet a glorious denizen 

Of thy wide heaven- Should I rather kneel 

Upon some mountain-top until I feel 

A glowing splendour round about me hung, 

And echo back the voice of thine own tongue? 

O Poesy! for thee I grasp my pen 

That am not yet a glorious denizen 

Of thy wide heaven; yet, to my ardent prayer, 

Yield from thy sanctuary some clear air, 

Smooth’d for intoxication by the breath 

Of flowering bays, that I may die a death 

Of luxury, and my young spirit follow 

The morning sun-beams to the great Apollo 

Like a fresh sacrifice; or, if I can bear 

The o’erwhelming sweets, ’twill bring to me the fair 

Visions of all places: a bowery nook 

Will be elysium- an eternal book 

Whence I may copy many a lovely saying 

About the leaves, and flowers- about the playing 

Of nymphs in woods, and fountains; and the shade 

Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid; 

And many a verse from so strange influence 

That we must ever wonder how, and whence 

It came. Also imaginings will hover 

Round my fire-side, and haply there discover 

Vistas of solemn beauty, where I’d wander 

In happy silence, like the clear Meander 

Through its lone vales; and where I found a spot 

Of awfuller shade, or an enchanted grot, 

Or a green hill o’erspread with chequer’d dress 

Of flowers, and fearful from its loveliness, 

Write on my tablets all that was permitted, 

All that was for our human senses fitted. 

Then the events of this wide world I’d seize 

Like a strong giant, and my spirit teaze 

Till at its shoulders it should proudly see 

Wings to find out an immortality. 
Stop and consider! life is but a day; 

A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way 

From a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep 

While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep 

Of Montmorenci. Why so sad a moan? 

Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown; 

The reading of an ever-changing tale; 

The light uplifting of a maiden’s veil; 

A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air; 

A laughing school-boy, without grief or care, 

Riding the springy branches of an elm. 
O for ten years, that I may overwhelm 

Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed 

That my own soul has to itself decreed. 

Then will I pass the countries that I see 

In long perspective, and continually 

Taste their pure fountains. First the realm I’ll pass 

Of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass, 

Feed upon apples red, and strawberries, 

And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees; 

Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places, 

To woo sweet kisses from averted faces,- 

Play with their fingers, touch their shoulders white 

Into a pretty shrinking with a bite 

As hard as lips can make it: till agreed, 

A lovely tale of human life we’ll read. 

And one will teach a tame dove how it best 

May fan the cool air gently o’er my rest; 

Another, bending o’er her nimble tread, 

Will set a green robe floating round her head, 

And still will dance with ever varied ease, 

Smiling upon the flowers and the trees: 

Another will entice me on, and on 

Through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon; 

Till in the bosom of a leafy world 

We rest in silence, like two gems upcurl’d 

In the recesses of a pearly shell. 
And can I ever bid these joys farewell? 

Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, 

Where I may find the agonies, the strife 

Of human hearts: for lo! I see afar, 

O’ersailing the blue cragginess, a car 

And steeds with streamy manes- the charioteer 

Looks out upon the winds with glorious fear: 

And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly 

Along a huge cloud’s ridge; and now with sprightly 

Wheel downward come they into fresher skies, 

Tipt round with silver from the sun’s bright eyes. 

Still downward with capacious whirl they glide; 

And now I see them on the green-hill’s side 

In breezy rest among the nodding stalks. 

The charioteer with wond’rous gesture talks 

To the trees and mountains; and there soon appear 

Shapes of delight, of mystery, and fear, 

Passing along before a dusky space 

Made by some mighty oaks: as they would chase 

Some ever- fleeting music on they sweep. 

Lo! how they murmur, laugh, and smile, and weep: 

Some with upholden hand and mouth severe; 

Some with their faces muffled to the ear 

Between their arms; some, clear in youthful bloom, 

Go glad and smilingly athwart the gloom; 

Some looking back, and some with upward gaze; 

Yes, thousands in a thousand different ways 

Flit onward- now a lovely wreath of girls 

Dancing their sleek hair into tangled curls; 

And now broad wings. Most awfully intent 

The driver of those steeds is forward bent, 

And seems to listen: O that I might know 

All that he writes with such a hurrying glow. 
The visions all are fled- the car is fled 

Into the light of heaven, and in their stead 

A sense of real things comes doubly strong, 

And, like a muddy stream, would bear along 

My soul to nothingness: but I will strive 

Against all doubtings, and will keep alive 

The thought of that same chariot, and the strange 

Journey it went. 

Is there so small a range 

In the present strength of manhood, that the high 

Imagination cannot freely fly 

As she was wont of old? prepare her steeds, 

Paw up against the light, and do strange deeds 

Upon the clouds? Has she not shown us all? 

From the clear space of ether, to the small 

Breath of new buds unfolding? From the meaning 

Of Jove’s large eye-brow, to the tender greening 

Of April meadows? Here her altar shone, 

E’en in this isle; and who could paragon 

The fervid choir that lifted up a noise 

Of harmony, to where it aye will poise 

Its mighty self of convoluting sound, 

Huge as a planet, and like that roll round, 

Eternally around a dizzy void? 

Ay, in those days the Muses were nigh cloy’d 

With honors; nor had any other care 

Than to sing out and sooth their wavy hair. 
Could all this be forgotten? Yes, a schism 

Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, 

Made great Apollo blush for this his land. 

Men were thought wise who could not understand 

His glories: with a puling infant’s force 

They sway’d about upon a rocking horse, 

And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal soul’d! 

The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d 

Its gathering waves- ye felt it not. The blue 

Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew 

Of summer nights collected still to make 

The morning precious: beauty was awake! 

Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead 

To things ye knew not of,- were closely wed 

To musty laws lined out with wretched rule 

And compass vile: so that ye taught a school 

Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit, 

Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit, 

Their verses tallied. Easy was the task: 

A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask 

Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race! 

That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face, 

And did not know it,- no, they went about, 

Holding a poor, decrepid standard out 

Mark’d with most flimsy mottos, and in large 

The name of one Boileau! 
O ye whose charge 

It is to hover round our pleasant hills! 

Whose congregated majesty so fills 

My boundly reverence, that I cannot trace 

Your hallowed names, in this unholy place, 

So near those common folk; did not their shames 

Affright you? Did our old lamenting Thames 

Delight you? Did ye never cluster round 

Delicious Avon, with a mournful sound, 

And weep? Or did ye wholly bid adieu 

To regions where no more the laurel grew? 

Or did ye stay to give a welcoming 

To some lone spirits who could proudly sing 

Their youth away, and die? ‘Twas even so: 

But let me think away those times of woe: 

Now ’tis a fairer season; ye have breathed 

Rich benedictions o’er us; ye have wreathed 

Fresh garlands: for sweet music has been heard 

In many places;- some has been upstirr’d 

From out its crystal dwelling in a lake, 

By a swan’s ebon bill; from a thick brake, 

Nested and quiet in a valley mild, 

Bubbles a pipe; fine sounds are floating wild 

About the earth: happy are ye and glad. 
These things are doubtless: yet in truth we’ve had 

Strange thunders from the potency of song; 

Mingled indeed with what is sweet and strong, 

From majesty: but in clear truth the themes 

Are ugly clubs, the Poets’ Polyphemes 

Disturbing the grand sea. A drainless shower 

Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; 

‘Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm. 

The very archings of her eye-lids charm 

A thousand willing agents to obey, 

And still she governs with the mildest sway: 

But strength alone though of the Muses born 

Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, 

Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres 

Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, 

And thorns of life; forgetting the great end 

Of poesy, that it should be a friend 

To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. 
Yet I rejoice: a myrtle fairer than 

E’er grew in Paphos, from the bitter weeds 

Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds 

A silent space with ever sprouting green. 

All tenderest birds there find a pleasant screen, 

Creep through the shade with jaunty fluttering, 

Nibble the little cupped flowers and sing. 

Then let us clear away the choking thorns 

From round its gentle stem; let the young fawns, 

Yeaned in after times, when we are flown, 

Find a fresh sward beneath it, overgrown 

With simple flowers: let there nothing be 

More boisterous than a lover’s bended knee; 

Nought more ungentle than the placid look 

Of one who leans upon a closed book; 

Nought more untranquil than the grassy slopes 

Between two hills. All hail delightful hopes! 

As she was wont, th’ imagination 

Into most lovely labyrinths will be gone, 

And they shall be accounted poet kings 

Who simply tell the most heart-easing things. 

O may these joys be ripe before I die. 
Will not some say that I presumptuously 

Have spoken? that from hastening disgrace 

‘Twere better far to hide my foolish face? 

That whining boyhood should with reverence bow 

Ere the dread thunderbolt could reach? How! 

If I do hide myself, it sure shall be 

In the very fane, the light of Poesy: 

If I do fall, at least I will be laid 

Beneath the silence of a poplar shade; 

And over me the grass shall be smooth shaven; 

And there shall be a kind memorial graven. 

But off Despondence! miserable bane! 

They should not know thee, who athirst to gain 

A noble end, are thirsty every hour. 

What though I am not wealthy in the dower 

Of spanning wisdom; though I do not know 

The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow 

Hither and thither all the changing thoughts 

Of man: though no great minist’ring reason sorts 

Out the dark mysteries of human souls 

To clear conceiving: yet there ever rolls 

A vast idea before me, and I glean 

Therefrom my liberty; thence too I’ve seen 

The end and aim of Poesy. ‘Tis clear 

As anything most true; as that the year 

Is made of the four seasons- manifest 

As a large cross, some old cathedral’s crest, 

Lifted to the white clouds. Therefore should I 

Be but the essence of deformity, 

A coward, did my very eye-lids wink 

At speaking out what I have dared to think. 

Ah! rather let me like a madman run 

Over some precipice; let the hot sun 

Melt my Dedalian wings, and drive me down 

Convuls’d and headlong! Stay! an inward frown 

Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile. 

An ocean dim, sprinkled with many an isle, 

Spreads awfully before me. How much toil! 

How many days! what desperate turmoil! 

Ere I can have explored its widenesses. 

Ah, what a task! upon my bended knees, 

I could unsay those- no, impossible! 

Impossible! 
For sweet relief I’ll dwell 

On humbler thoughts, and let this strange assay 

Begun in gentleness die so away. 

E’en now all tumult from my bosom fades: 

I turn full hearted to the friendly aids 

That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood, 

And friendliness the nurse of mutual good. 

The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet 

Into the brain ere one can think upon it; 

The silence when some rhymes are coming out; 

And when they’re come, the very pleasant rout: 

The message certain to be done to-morrow. 

‘Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow 

Some precious book from out its snug retreat, 

To cluster round it when we next shall meet. 

Scarce can I scribble on; for lovely airs 

Are fluttering round the room like doves in pairs; 

Many delights of that glad day recalling, 

When first my senses caught their tender falling. 

And with these airs come forms of elegance 

Stooping their shoulders o’er a horse’s prance, 

Careless, and grand-fingers soft and round 

Parting luxuriant curls;- and the swift bound 

Of Bacchus from his chariot, when his eye 

Made Ariadne’s cheek look blushingly. 

Thus I remember all the pleasant flow 

Of words at opening a portfolio. 
Things such as these are ever harbingers 

To trains of peaceful images: the stirs 

Of a swan’s neck unseen among the rushes: 

A linnet starting all about the bushes: 

A butterfly, with golden wings broad parted, 

Nestling a rose, convuls’d as though it smarted 

With over pleasure- many, many more, 

Might I indulge at large in all my store 

Of luxuries: yet I must not forget 

Sleep, quiet with his poppy coronet: 

For what there may be worthy in these rhymes 

I partly owe to him: and thus, the chimes 

Of friendly voices had just given place 

To as sweet a silence, when I ‘gan retrace 

The pleasant day, upon a couch at ease. 

It was a poet’s house who keeps the keys 

Of pleasure’s temple. Round about were hung 

The glorious features of the bards who sung 

In other ages- cold and sacred busts 

Smiled at each other. Happy he who trusts 

To clear Futurity his darling fame! 

Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim 

At swelling apples with a frisky leap 

And reaching fingers, ‘mid a luscious heap 

Of vine-leaves. Then there rose to view a fane 

Of liny marble, and thereto a train 

Of nymphs approaching fairly o’er the sward: 

One, loveliest, holding her white hand toward 

The dazzling sun-rise: two sisters sweet 

Bending their graceful figures till they meet 

Over the trippings of a little child: 

And some are hearing, eagerly, the wild 

Thrilling liquidity of dewy piping. 

See, in another picture, nymphs are wiping 

Cherishingly Diana’s timorous limbs;- 

A fold of lawny mantle dabbling swims 

At the bath’s edge, and keeps a gentle motion 

With the subsiding crystal: as when ocean 

Heaves calmly its broad swelling smoothness o’er 

Its rocky marge, and balances once more 

The patient weeds; that now unshent by foam 

Feel all about their undulating home. 
Sappho’s meek head was there half smiling down 

At nothing; just as though the earnest frown 

Of over thinking had that moment gone 

From off her brow, and left her all alone. 
Great Alfred’s too, with anxious, pitying eyes, 

As if he always listened to the sighs 

Of the goaded world; and Kosciusko’s worn 

By horrid suffrance- mightily forlorn. 

Petrarch, outstepping from the shady green, 

Starts at the sight of Laura; nor can wean 

His eyes from her sweet face. Most happy they! 

For over them was seen a free display 

Of out-spread wings, and from between them shone 

The face of Poesy: from off her throne 

She overlook’d things that I scarce could tell. 

The very sense of where I was might well 

Keep Sleep aloof: but more than that there came 

Thought after thought to nourish up the flame 

Within my breast; so that the morning light 

Surprised me even from a sleepless night; 

And up I rose refresh’d, and glad, and gay, 

Resolving to begin that very day 

These lines; and howsoever they be done, 

I leave them as a father does his son. 
THE END

Poem – Robin Hood – John Keats

To A Friend 

NO! those days are gone away, 

And their hours are old and gray, 

And their minutes buried all 

Under the down-trodden pall 

Ofthe leaves of many years: 

Many times have winter’s shears, 

Frozen North, and chilling East, 

Sounded tempests to the feast 

Of the forest’s whispering fleeces, 

Since men knew nor rent nor leases. 
No, the bugle sounds no more, 

And the twanging bow no more; 

Silent is the ivory shrill 

Past the heath and up the hill; 

There is no mid-forest laugh, 

Where lone Echo gives the half 

To some wight, amaz’d to hear 

Jesting, deep in forest drear. 
On the fairest time of June 

You may go, with sun or moon, 

Or the seven stars to light you, 

Or the polar ray to right you; 

But you never may behold 

Little John, or Robin bold; 

Never one, of all the clan, 

Thrumming on an empty can 

Some old hunting ditty, while 

He doth his green way beguile 

To fair hostess Merriment, 

Down beside the pasture Trent; 

For he left the merry tale, 

Messenger for spicy ale. 
Gone, the merry morris din; 

Gone, the song of Gamelyn; 

Gone, the tough-belted outlaw 

Idling in the ‘grene shawe’; 

All are gone away and past! 

And if Robin should be cast 

Sudden from his turfed grave, 

And if Marian should have 

Once again her forest days, 

She would weep, and he would craze: 

He would swear, for all his oaks, 

Fall’n beneath the dockyard strokes, 

Have rotted on the briny seas; 

She would weep that her wild bees 

Sang not to her- -strange! that honey 

Can’t be got without hard money! 
So it is; yet let us sing 

Honour to the old bow-string! 

Honour to the bugle-horn! 

Honour to the woods unshorn! 

Honour to the Lincoln green! 

Honour to the archer keen! 

Honour to tight little John, 

And the horse he rode upon! 

Honour to bold Robin Hood, 

Sleeping in the underwood! 

Honour to maid Marian, 

And to all the Sherwood clan! 

Though their days have hurried by 

Let us two a burden try.

गोपाल प्रसाद रिमालले बोलिरहेको खास कुरा – गोपाल प्रसाद रिमाल

गोपाल प्रसाद रिमाल
२१ मई १९१८ – २४ अक्टोबर १९७३ , काठमाडौँ नेपाल

हाम्रो छाती कत्रो ? हिमालजत्रो
हाम्रो बारीको नाउँ के ? नेपाल
हाम्रो गाउँको नाउँ के ? नयाँ नेपाल
त्यसको सेरोफेरो कति ? ब्रह्मपुत्रवारि, इन्दसवारि, गङ्गावारि
हाम्रो देशको नाउँ के ? खसमीर, खुशी, खसियाशैल ।
हाम्रो उचाइ कत्ति ? नोर्के थुम्कोजति ।
हाम्रो आदर्श के ? गोरखा—
तर गाई र ब्रह्माले जस्तै ढाँट नबोलेर
बलभद्रले जस्तै साँचो बोलेर ।
हाम्रो जुक्ति के ? सकेसम्म छलफल
अनि छल
दामोदरको, भीमसेनको, जङ्गबहादुर खसको जस्तो ।
हाम्रो धर्म के ? लडाइँ—
पृथ्वीनारायण शाहको जस्तो
बहादुर शाहको जस्तो
रणबहादुर शाहको जस्तो ।
हाम्रो कला कस्तो ? अर्निकोको जस्तो
हाम्रो कैदी कस्तो ? भगवान् अरविन्दजस्तो
हाम्रो मुक्ति कस्तो ? त्रिभुवनजस्तो ।

Poem – George Edmunds’ Song – Charles Dickens

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around he here; 

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! 

How like the hopes of childhood’s day, 

Thick clust’ring on the bough! 

How like those hopes in their decay- 

How faded are they now! 

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; 

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! 
Wither’d leaves, wither’d leaves, that fly before the gale: 

Withered leaves, withered leaves, ye tell a mournful tale, 

Of love once true, and friends once kind, 

And happy moments fled: 

Dispersed by every breath of wind, 

Forgotten, changed, or dead! 

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here! 

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!

Poem – The Ivy Green – Charles Dickens

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, 

That creepeth o’er ruins old! 

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, 

In his cell so lone and cold. 

The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, 

To pleasure his dainty whim: 

And the mouldering dust that years have made 

Is a merry meal for him. 

Creeping where no life is seen, 

A rare old plant is the Ivy green. 
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, 

And a staunch old heart has he. 

How closely he twineth, how tight he clings 

To his friend the huge Oak Tree! 

And slyly he traileth along the ground, 

And his leaves he gently waves, 

As he joyously hugs and crawleth round 

The rich mould of dead men’s graves. 

Creeping where grim death hath been, 

A rare old plant is the Ivy green. 
Whole ages have fled and their works decayed, 

And nations have scattered been; 

But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, 

From its hale and hearty green. 

The brave old plant, in its lonely days, 

Shall fatten upon the past: 

For the stateliest building man can raise 

Is the Ivy’s food at last. 

Creeping on where time has been, 

A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Poem – The Song of the Wreck – Charles Dickens

The wind blew high, the waters raved, 

A ship drove on the land, 

A hundred human creatures saved 

Kneel’d down upon the sand. 

Threescore were drown’d, threescore were thrown 

Upon the black rocks wild, 

And thus among them, left alone, 

They found one helpless child. 
A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, 

Stood out from all the rest, 

And gently laid the lonely head 

Upon his honest breast. 

And travelling o’er the desert wide 

It was a solemn joy, 

To see them, ever side by side, 

The sailor and the boy. 
In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst, 

The two were still but one, 

Until the strong man droop’d the first 

And felt his labors done. 

Then to a trusty friend he spake, 

‘Across the desert wide, 

Oh, take this poor boy for my sake!’ 

And kiss’d the child and died. 
Toiling along in weary plight 

Through heavy jungle, mire, 

These two came later every night 

To warm them at the fire. 

Until the captain said one day 

‘O seaman, good and kind, 

To save thyself now come away, 

And leave the boy behind!’ 
The child was slumbering near the blaze: 

‘O captain, let him rest 

Until it sinks, when God’s own ways 

Shall teach us what is best!’ 

They watch’d the whiten’d, ashy heap, 

They touch’d the child in vain; 

They did not leave him there asleep, 

He never woke again.

Poem – Easter – Edmund Spenser

Most  glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, 

Didn’t make the triumph over death and sin; 

And, having harrowd hell, didn’t  bring away 

Captivity thence captive, us to win: 

This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; 

And grant that we, for whom thou didn’t die,

Being with the dear blood clean wasn’t from sin, 

May live for ever in felicity! 
And that the love we weighing worthily, 

May likewise love thee  for the same again;

And for the sake, that all like dear didn’t buy, 

With love may one another entertain! 

   So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought, 

   Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Poem – My Love Is Like To Ice – Edmund Spenser

My love is like to ice, and I to fire: 

How comes it then that this her cold so great 

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, 

But harder grows the more I her entreat? 

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat 

Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, 

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, 

And feel my flames augmented manifold? 

What more miraculous thing may be told, 

That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice, 

And ice, which is congeal’s with senseless cold, 

Should kindle fire by wonderful device? 

Such is the power of love in gentle mind, 

That it can alter all the course of kind.