Loss And Waste.

Up to far Osteroe and Suderoe
    The deep sea-floor lies strewn with Spanish wrecks,
O'er minted gold the fair-haired fishers go,
    O'er sunken bravery of high carvèd decks.

In earlier days great Carthage suffered bale
    (All her waste works choke under sandy shoals);
And reckless hands tore down the temple veil;
    And Omar burned the Alexandrian rolls.
The Old World arts men suffered not to last,
    Flung down they trampled lie and sunk from view,
He lets wild forest for these ages past
    Grow over the lost cities of the New.

O for a life that shall not be refused
To see the lost things found, and waste things used.

Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow was an English poet and novelist known for her popular stories and poems in the 19th century. Her work, including 'Mopsa the Fairy', earned her recognition during her lifetime. She was also involved in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Ingelow published several poetry collections, with her first in 1863, which was well-received and cemented her reputation as a poet.

Jean Ingelow

An Arrow-Slit.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

Bees And Other Fellow-Creatures.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

A Lily And A Lute.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

Persephone.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

English

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Compensation.

One launched a ship, but she was wrecked at sea;
    He built a bridge, but floods have borne it down;
He meant much good, none came: strange destiny,
    His corn lies sunk, his bridge bears none to town,
    Yet good he had not meant became his crown;
For once at work, when even as nature free,
    From thought of good he was, or of renown,
God took the work for good and let good be.
So wakened with a trembling after sleep,
    Dread Mona Roa yields her fateful store;
All gleaming hot the scarlet rivers creep,
    And fanned of great-leaved palms slip to the shore,
Then stolen to unplumbed wastes of that far deep,
    Lay the foundations for one island more.

Jean Ingelow

Work.

Like coral insects multitudinous
    The minutes are whereof our life is made.
    They build it up as in the deep's blue shade
It grows, it comes to light, and then, and thus
For both there is an end. The populous
    Sea-blossoms close, our minutes that have paid
    Life's debt of work are spent; the work is laid
Before our feet that shall come after us.
We may not stay to watch if it will speed,
    The bard if on some luter's string his song
Live sweetly yet; the hero if his star
Doth shine. Work is its own best earthly meed,
    Else have we none more than the sea-born throng
Who wrought those marvellous isles that bloom afar.

Jean Ingelow

Sea Margins.

        Ever restless, ever toiling,
    Fretting fiercely on its narrow bounds,
    Still filling heaven and earth with mournful sounds,
Old ocean, sullen from its rocks recoiling,
    Rearing wild waves foam-crested to the sky,
    Lashes again the beaches angrily:

        Slowly victor-like advancing,
    Marching roughly o'er the conquer'd land,
    Clean sweeping olden limits from the strand,
In proud derision o'er the spoil'd Earth glancing,
    Where 'neath its ruthless tide on hill or plain,
    No flower or shady leaf shall bud again.

        Slowly thus the ocean creeping,
    Creeping coldly o'er the world of old,
    Stole many an Eden from the Age of Gold,
And gazing now we see blank billows sweeping,
    Long cheerless wavings of the ...

Walter R. Cassels

Arabesque.

On a background of pale gold
I would trace with quaint design,
    Penciled fine,
Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,
Mosques and crescents, pages, queens,
    Line on line,
That the prose-world of to-day
Might the gorgeous Past's array
    Once behold.


On the magic painted shield
Rich Granada's Vega green
    Should be seen;
Crystal fountains, coolness flinging,
Hanging gardens' skyward springing
    Emerald sheen;
Ruddy when the daylight falls,
Crowned Alhambra's beetling walls
    Stand revealed;


Balconies that overbrow
Field and city, vale and stream.
    In a dream
Lulled the drowsy landscape basks;
    Mark the gleam
Silvery of each white-swathed peak!
Mountain-airs caress the cheek,
   ...

Emma Lazarus

Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where, amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.

In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Dominion.

When found the rose delight in her fair hue?
Color is nothing to this world; 'tis I
That see it. Farther, I have found, my soul,
That trees are nothing to their fellow trees;
It is but I that love their stateliness,
And I that, comforting my heart, do sit
At noon beneath their shadow. I will step
On the ledges of this world, for it is mine;
But the other world ye wot of, shall go too;
I will carry it in my bosom. O my world,
That was not built with clay!
    Consider it
(This outer world we tread on) as a harp, -
A gracious instrument on whose fair strings
We learn those airs we shall be set to play
When mortal hours are ended. Let the wings,
Man, of thy spirit move on it as wind,
And draw forth melody. Why shouldst thou yet
Lie grovelling? More is w...

Jean Ingelow