Interior

    I and myself swore enmity.    Alack,
    Myself has tied my hands behind my back.
    Yielding, I know there's no excuse in them,
    I was accomplice to the stratagem.

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Winter Nightfall

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

On A Friend Recently Dead

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Echoes

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Dialogue

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

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Epilogue To 'The Sister'

What! five long acts and all to make us wiser!
Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser.
Had she consulted 'me', she should have made
Her moral play a speaking masquerade;
Warm'd up each bustling scene, and in her rage
Have emptied all the green-room on the stage.
My life on't, this had kept her play from sinking;
Have pleas'd our eyes, and sav'd the pain of thinking.
Well! since she thus has shown her want of skill,
What if I give a masquerade?    I will.
But how? ay, there's the rub! ('pausing')    I've got my cue:
The world's a masquerade! the maskers, you, you, you.
('To Boxes, Pit, and Gallery'.)
____, what a group the motley scene discloses!
False wits, false wives, false virgins, and false spouses!
Statesmen with bridles on; and, close beside 'em,
Patri...

Oliver Goldsmith

Dialogue

    THE ONE

    The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
    The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
    And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
    And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.


    THE OTHER

    This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
    Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
    Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
    Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?


    THE ONE

    No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
    I walked no rut with eyelids shut, ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

To A Person Who Wrote Ill, And Spake Worse, Against Me

Lie Philo untouch'd, on my peaceable shelf,
Nor take it amiss that so little I heed thee;
I've no envy to thee, and some love to myself:
Then why should I answer since first I must read thee?
Drunk with Helicon's waters, and double-brew'd bub,
Be a linguist, a poet, a critic, a wag;
To the solid delight of thy well-judging club,
To the damage alone of thy bookseller Brag.
Pursue me with satire; what harm is there in't?
But from all viva voce reflection forbear;
There can be no danger from what thou shalt print,
There may be a little from what thou may'st swear.

Matthew Prior

Friendship's Garland

    I

    When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
    We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
    Stupid old animals who never understood
    And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."

    We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
    We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
    Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame,
    O the surprise when the postman came!

    We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
    In people's houses when people were away,
    We broke street lamps and away we ran,
    Then I was a boy but now I am a man.

    Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
    I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
    And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
    For then I was a boy and now...

John Collings Squire, Sir

A First Confession

I admit the briar
Entangled in my hair
Did not injure me;
My blenching and trembling,
Nothing but dissembling,
Nothing but coquetry.

I long for truth, and yet
I cannot stay from that
My better self disowns,
For a mans attention
Brings such satisfaction
To the craving in my bones.

Brightness that I pull back
From the Zodiac,
Why those questioning eyes
That are fixed upon me?
What can they do but shun me
If empty night replies?

William Butler Yeats

The Duel

"I am here to time, you see;
The glade is well-screened - eh? - against alarm;
Fit place to vindicate by my arm
The honour of my spotless wife,
Who scorns your libel upon her life
In boasting intimacy!

"'All hush-offerings you'll spurn,
My husband. Two must come; one only go,'
She said. 'That he'll be you I know;
To faith like ours Heaven will be just,
And I shall abide in fullest trust
Your speedy glad return.'"

"Good. Here am also I;
And we'll proceed without more waste of words
To warm your cockpit. Of the swords
Take you your choice. I shall thereby
Feel that on me no blame can lie,
Whatever Fate accords."

So stripped they there, and fought,
And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;
Till the husband fell...

Thomas Hardy