Professor Minto

Nature, that makes Professors all day long,
And, filling idle souls with idle song,
Turns out small Poets every other minute,
Made earth for men - but seldom puts men in it.

Ah, Minto, thou of that minority
Wert man of men - we had deep need of thee!
Had Heaven a deeper? Did the heavenly Chair
Of Earthly Love wait empty for thee there?

March 1, 1893.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

Songs For Fragoletta

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Omar Khayyám

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

A New Year Letter

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Second Crucifixion

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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The Tables Turned

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
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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<...

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An Ode To Spring (To Grant And Nellie Allen)

Is it the Spring?
    Or are the birds all wrong
That play on flute and viol,
    A thousand strong,
In minstrel galleries
    Of the long deep wood,
Epiphanies
    Of bloom and bud.

Grave minstrels those,
    Of deep responsive chant;
But see how yonder goes,
    Dew-drunk, with giddy slant,
Yon Shelley-lark,
    And hark!
Him on the giddy brink
    Of pearly heaven
His fairy anvil clink.

Or watch, in fancy,
    How the brimming note
Falls, like a string of pearls,
    From out his heavenly throat;
Or like a fountain
    In Hesperides,
Raining its silver rain,
    In gleam and chime,
On backs of ivory girls -
    Twice happy rhyme!

Ah, none of these
    May make it plain,
No im...

Richard Le Gallienne

Ode On The Installation Of The Duke Of Devonshire, Chancellor Of The University Of Cambridge, 1862[1]

Hence a while, severer Muses;
Spare your slaves till drear October.
Hence; for Alma Mater chooses
Not to be for ever sober:
But, like stately matron gray,
Calling child and grandchild round her,
Will for them at least be gay;
Share for once their holiday;
And, knowing she will sleep the sounder,
Cheerier-hearted on the morrow
Rise to grapple care and sorrow,
Grandly leads the dance adown, and joins the children's play.
    So go, for in your places
    Already, as you see,
(Her tears for some deep sorrow scarcely dried),
Venus holds court among her sinless graces,
With many a nymph from many a park and lea.
She, pensive, waits the merrier faces
Of those your wittier sisters three,
O'er jest and dance and song who still preside,
To cheer her...

Charles Kingsley

The Coming Era

They tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence,
Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear,
Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science,
The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear.

Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy,
Physics will grasp imagination's wings,
Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy,
The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings,

No more with laugher at Thalia's frolics
Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down,
But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics
Spout forth his watery science to the town.

No more our foolish passions and affections
The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try,
But, nobler far, a course of vivisections
Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die.

The unearthed monad, long in burie...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Tempora Mutantur.

    There once was a time when I revelled in rhyme, with Valentines deluged my cousins,

    Translated Tibullus and half of Catullus, and poems produced by the dozens.

    Now my tale is nigh told, for my blood's running cold, all my laurels lie yellow and faded.

    "We have come to the boss;" [1] like a weary old hoss, poor Pegasus limps, and is jaded.

    And yet Mr. Editor, like a stern creditor, duns me for this or that article,

    Though he very well knows that of Verse and of prose I am stripped to the very last particle.

    What shall I write of?    What subject indite of? All my vis viva is failing;

    Emeritus sum; Mons Parnassus is dumb, and my prayers to the Nine unavailing. -

    Thus in vain have I often attempted to soft...

Edward Woodley Bowling