Integer Vitae

The man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;

The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent;

That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunders violence:

He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.

Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;

Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.

Thomas Campion

Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet, and physician, renowned for his lute songs, masques, and influential musical and literary theories. He published several collections of songs, both solo and in collaboration, and his work was characterized by its technical innovation and expressive depth. Besides music, he authored influential treatises on music theory and poetics, including 'A Book of Ayres' and 'Observations in the Art of English Poesy'. His works reflect the fusion of Renaissance music and literature.

Thomas Campion

O Come Quickly!

Thomas Campion, Simple Poetry

Amaryllis

Thomas Campion, Simple Poetry

My Sweetest Lesbia

Thomas Campion, Simple Poetry

A Hymn In Praise Of Neptune

Thomas Campion, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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De Profundis - II

"Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam; et non erat qui cognosceret me
. . . Non est qui requirat animam meam." - Ps. cxli.

When the clouds' swoln bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and strong
That things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right ere long,
And my eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is so clear,
The blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he were not here.

The stout upstanders say, All's well with us: ruers have nought to rue!
And what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat true?
Breezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their career,
Till I think I am one horn out of due time, who has no calling here.

Their dawns bring lusty joys, it seems; their eves exultance sweet;
Our ti...

Thomas Hardy

Liberty - Sequel To - The Gold And Silver Fishes

Those breathing Tokens of your kind regard,
(Suspect not, Anna, that their fate is hard;
Not soon does aught to which mild fancies cling
In lonely spots, become a slighted thing;)
Those silent Inmates now no longer share,
Nor do they need, our hospitable care,
Removed in kindness from their glassy Cell
To the fresh waters of a living Well
An elfin pool so sheltered that its rest
No winds disturb; the mirror of whose breast
Is smooth as clear, save where with dimples small
A fly may settle, or a blossom fall.
'There' swims, of blazing sun and beating shower
Fearless (but how obscured!) the golden Power,
That from his bauble prison used to cast
Gleams by the richest jewel unsurpast;
And near him, darkling like a sullen Gnome,
The silver Tenant of the crysta...

William Wordsworth

In Memoriam E.B.E.

I mourn upon this battle-field,
But not for those who perished here.
Behold the river-bank
Whither the angry farmers came,
In sloven dress and broken rank,
Nor thought of fame.
Their deed of blood
All mankind praise;
Even the serene Reason says,
It was well done.
The wise and simple have one glance
To greet yon stern head-stone,
Which more of pride than pity gave
To mark the Briton's friendless grave.
Yet it is a stately tomb;
The grand return
Of eve and morn,
The year's fresh bloom,
The silver cloud,
Might grace the dust that is most proud.

Yet not of these I muse
In this ancestral place,
But of a kindred face
That never joy or hope shall here diffuse.

Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star!
What has...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Shakespeare - After Three Hundred Years

Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,
Thou, who display'dst a life of common-place,
Leaving no intimate word or personal trace
Of high design outside the artistry
Of thy penned dreams,
Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.

Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,
Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on
In harmonies that cow Oblivion,
And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
Maintain a sway
Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.

And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note
The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,
The Avon just as always glassed the tower,
Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
But in due rote
With other dwellers' deaths accorded a like knell.

And at the strokes some...

Thomas Hardy

The Old Cumberland Beggar

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged Man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude:
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

William Wordsworth

Lines In Memory Of The Late Ven. Archdeacon Elwood, A.M.

When men of gentle lives depart,
They leave behind no brilliant story
Of fam'd exploits, to make men start
In wonder at their dazzling glory.

The scholar's light, religion's beams,
Tho' fill'd with great, commanding pow'r,
In modest greatness throw their gleams,
In quiet rays, from hour to hour.

The greatest battles oft are fought,
Unseen by any earthly eye;
The victors all alone have wrought,
And, unapplauded, live or die.

'Twas thus with thee, thou rev'rend man;
In peaceful, holy work thy life
Was spent, until th' allotted span
Was cut by Time's relentless knife.

Far from the keen and heartless train,
Who daily feel Ambition's sting,
Thy life, remov'd, felt not the pain,
Which goads each one beneath her wing.

Thomas Frederick Young