At a Lecture.

    The lecturer took his place and looked
        At the eager women's faces,
    Then he cleared his throat and he jetted out
        A stream of commonplaces.

    He fondled Wordsworth and patted Shelley
        And said with his hand on his heart
    He would brook no interference from morals
        In any matter of art.

    He finished at last and strode away
        Over the naked boards,
    Erect in his conscious majesty
        Back to the House of Lords.

Edward Shanks

Edward Shanks was an English writer, poet, and novelist, known for his literary contributions during the early 20th century. Born on June 11, 1892, in London, Shanks attended Cambridge University where he was a member of the 'War Poets' of World War I. His works reflect the turmoil and changes of his time. Besides poetry, he wrote novels, essays, and book reviews, contributing significantly to English literature. He passed away on May 4, 1953.

Edward Shanks

The Cataclysm

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Persuasion.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Song: The Weed.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

The Glade

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Mr. MacCall at Cleveland Hall

Mr. MacCall at Cleveland Hall,
Sunday evening-date to fix
Fifteenth April, sixty-six,
Speech reported and redacted
By a fellow much distracted.

I

Who lectures? No mere scorner;
Clear-brained, his heart is warm.

She sits at the nearest comer
Of I will not say what form.


II

The Conflict of Opinions
In the Present Day, saith Chair.

What muff in the British dominions
Could dispute that she is fair?

III

Mammon-worship is horrid,
Plutocracy is base.

Dark hair from a fine small forehead;
I catch but the still side face.



The WeatherPixie

IV

We wallow in mere dimension,
The Big to us is Great.

If she stood at her utmost tension<...

James Thomson

Behold! I Am Not One That Goes To Lectures.'

By W. W.

Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of Professors.

The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.

I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is signed by the Dean's name--

And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I stay up

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

I am one who goes to the river,

I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'

How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is everything,

But the end is something.

I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.

I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the trousers of the twenty-two young men,

I see the Balliol men en masse

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Recollection Of The Portrait Of King Henry Eighth, Trinity Lodge, Cambridge
The imperial Stature, the colossal stride,
Are yet before me; yet do I behold
The broad full visage, chest of amplest mould,
The vestments 'broidered with barbaric pride:
And lo! a poniard, at the Monarch's side,
Hangs ready to be grasped in sympathy
With the keen threatenings of that fulgent eye,
Below the white-rimmed bonnet, far-descried,
Who trembles now at thy capricious mood?
'Mid those surrounding Worthies, haughty King,
We rather think, with grateful mind sedate,
How Providence educeth, from the spring
Of lawless will, unlooked-for streams of good,
Which neither force shall check nor time abate!
William Wordsworth

To Wordsworth
Those who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings.
And, catching back some favourite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again.

But Memory is not a Muse,
O Wordsworth! though 'tis said
They all descend from her, and use
To haunt her fountain-head:
That other men should work for me
In the rich mines of Poesie,
Pleases me better than the toil
Of smoothing under hardened hand,
With Attic emery and oil,
The shining point for Wisdom's wand,
Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills
Descending from thy native hills.

Without his governance, in vain
Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold
If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain
Clogs in the furnace, and grows cold
Walter Savage Landor

The Princess (The Conclusion)
So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,
'What, if you drest it up poetically?'
So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:
Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?
The men required that I should give throughout
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which we bantered little Lilia first:
The women--and perhaps they felt their power,
For something in the ballads which they sang,
Or in their silent influence as they sat,
Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque,
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close--
They hated banter, wi...
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Thoughts Suggested By A College Examination.
High in the midst, surrounded by his peers,
Magnus ^[1] his ample front sublime uprears:
Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God,
While Sophs ^[2] and Freshmen tremble at his nod;
As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,
His voice, in thunder, shakes the sounding dome;
Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools,
Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules.

Happy the youth! in Euclid's axioms tried,
Though little vers'd in any art beside;
Who, scarcely skill'd an English line to pen,
Scans Attic metres with a critic's ken.

What! though he knows not how his fathers bled,
When civil discord pil'd the fields with dead,
When Edward bade his conquering bands advance,
Or Henry trampled on the crest of France:
Though marvellin...
George Gordon Byron