Jane's Marriage

Jane went to Paradise:
That was only fair.
Good Sir Walter followed her,
And armed her up the stair.
Henry and Tobias,
And Miguel of Spain,
Stood with Shakespeare at the top
To welcome Jane

Then the Three Archangels
Offered out of hand
Anything in Heaven's gift
That she might command.
Azrael's eyes upon her,
Raphael's wings above,
Michael's sword against her heart,
Jane said: "Love."

Instantly the under-
Standing Seraphim
Laid their fingers on their lips
And went to look for him.
Stole across the Zodiac,
Harnessed Charles's Wain,
And whispered round the Nebulae
"Who loved Jane?"

In a private limbo
Where none had thought to look,
Sat a Hampshire gentleman
Reading of a book.
It was called Persuasion
And it told the plain
Story of the love between
Him and Jane.

He heard the question,
Circle Heaven through
Closed the book and answered:
"I didand do!"
Quietly but speedily
(As Captain Wentworth moved)
Entered into Paradise
The man Jane loved!

Jane lies in Winchester, blessed be her shade!
Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made.
And while the stones of Winchester or Milson Street remain,
Glory, Love, and Honour unto England's Jane!

Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. His notable works include the novels 'The Jungle Book,' 'Kim,' and the poem 'If—.' Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the youngest recipient of the award.

Rudyard

The Changelings

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

A British-Roman Song

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

The Bell Buoy

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

A Song To Mithras

Rudyard , 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.

The Mare's Nest

Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
Was very, very bad indeed.
He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced, but this she did not know.

For Belial Machiavelli kept
The little fact a secret, and,
Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
Jane Austen did not understand
That Lilly, thirteen-two and bay
Absorbed one-half her husband's pay.

She was so good, she made hime worse;
(Some women are like this, I think;)
He taught her parrot how to curse,
Her Assam monkey how to drink.
He vexed her righteous soul until
She went up, and he went down hill.

Then came the crisis, strange to say,
Which turned a good wife to a better.
A telegraphic peon, one day,
Broug...

Rudyard

Lady Geraldine's Hardship

I turned Heaven knows we women turn too much
To broken reeds, mistaken so for pine
That shame forbids confession a handle I turned
(The wrong one, said the agent afterwards)
And so flung clean across your English street
Through the shrill-tinkling glass of the shop-front-paused,
Artemis mazed 'mid gauds to catch a man,
And piteous baby-caps and christening-gowns,
The worse for being worn on the radiator.

.    .    .    .    .    .    .

My cousin Romney judged me from the bench:
Propounding one sleek forty-shillinged law
That takes no count of the Woman's oversoul.
I should have entered, purred he, by the door,
The man's retort, the open obvious door,
And since I chose not, he--not he could change
The man's rule, not the Woman's, for the case.
...

Rudyard

For Jane's Birthday

        If fate had held a careless knife
            And clipped one line that drew,
        Of all the myriad lines of life,
            From Eden up to you;
        If, in the wars and wastes of time,
            One sire had met the sword,
        One mother died before her prime
            Or wed some other lord;

        Or had some other age been blest,
            Long past or yet to be,
        And you had been the world's sweet guest
            Before or after me:
        I wonder how this rose would seem,
            Or yonder hillside cot;
        For, dear, I cannot even dream
            A world where you are not!

        Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink
            The gall that might have been,
        If aught had...

John Charles McNeill

A Prologue

While to the clarion blown by Marlowes breath
Tall Tragedy tramped by in hues of death,
And Shakespeare yet was tuning string by string,
With English hawthorn crowned, in that glad spring
When bright clouds melted in a sky serene,
Romance moved lightly to the pipe of Greene.
As fresh as buds half-open, pure as dew,
Two damsels came in forefront of her crew,
One native to the hedgerows and the meads,
The keepers lass, in simple country weeds,
Her firm white arms, as delicate as silk,
Below her smock-sleeve shining wet with milk;
No marvel the young noble learnt to woo
A maid so merry and frank and homely true.
The other with sad mien, though yet a bride,
Clad in mans raiment softly stole aside
And grieved that he who should have been her stay
Would priv...

John Le Gay Brereton

John And Jane.

Said Jane to John, "Come, let us wed,
For know, dear John, I love you,
And, by the bright stars overhead,
There's none I place above you."

"I doubt it not," said John, "and I
Reciprocate the feeling,
And here, with one despairing cry,
I kneel, and love you, kneeling."

"Then why, dear John, do you despair,
If you do love so madly?"
"Because," said John, "my pocket there
Is slim, and furnish'd badly."

"Oh, that is naught," said Jane, with glee,
"I'd marry you to-morrow,
And live on bread, and water free,
Without one grain of sorrow."

"All right," said John, "I'm with you there,
Old Logan's charming daughter,
You'll get the bread, the work to share,
And I will get the water."

Thomas Frederick Young

The Cunning Woman

On all Arcadia's sunny plain,
On all Arcadia's hill,
None were so blithe as BILL and JANE,
So blithe as JANE and BILL.

No social earthquake e'er occurred
To rack their common mind:
To them a Panic was a word
A Crisis, empty wind.

No Stock Exchange disturbed the lad
With overwhelming shocks
BILL ploughed with all the shares he had,
JANE planted all her stocks.

And learn in what a simple way
Their pleasures they enhanced
JANE danced like any lamb all day,
BILL piped as well as danced.

Surrounded by a twittling crew,
Of linnet, lark, and thrush,
BILL treated his young lady to
This sentimental gush:

"Oh, JANE, how true I am to you!
How true you are to me!
And how we woo, and how we coo!
So fond a pai...

William Schwenck Gilbert