Senex To Matt. Prior

Ah! Matt, old age has brought to me
Thy wisdom, less thy certainty;
The world's a jest, and joy's a trinket;
I knew that once, but now I think it.

James Kenneth Stephen

James Kenneth Stephen was an English poet, known for his satirical verse. Although his career was cut short by mental illness, he is remembered for works such as "Lapsus Calami" and "Quo Musa Tendis." Stephen attended Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, and was a tutor to Prince Albert Victor, son of King Edward VII. His brilliance was overshadowed by speculation regarding his mental health and tragic death at the age of 32.

James Kenneth Stephen

School

James Kenneth Stephen, Simple Poetry

The Millennium

James Kenneth Stephen, Simple Poetry

Thought, A

James Kenneth Stephen, Simple Poetry

English

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Cynicus To W. Shakespeare

You wrote a line too much, my sage,
    Of seers the first, and first of sayers;
For only half the world's a stage,
    And only all the women players.

James Kenneth Stephen

Retrospection.

After C. S. C.

When the hunter-star Orion
    (Or, it may be, Charles his Wain)
Tempts the tiny elves to try on
    All their little tricks again;
When the earth is calmly breathing
    Draughts of slumber undefiled,
And the sire, unused to teething,
    Seeks for errant pins his child;

When the moon is on the ocean,
    And our little sons and heirs
From a natural emotion
    Wish the luminary theirs;
Then a feeling hard to stifle,
    Even harder to define,
Makes me feel I 'd give a trifle
    For the days of Auld Lang Syne.

James--for we have been as brothers
    (Are, to speak correctly, twins),
Went about in one another's
    Clothing, bore each other's sins,
Rose together, ere the pearly
    Tint of morn ha...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Gualterus Danistonus, Ad Amicos. - And Imitation

Dum studeo fungi fallentis munere vitae,
Adfectoque viam sedibus Elysiis
Arctoa florens sophia, Samiisque superbus
Discipulis, animas morte carere cano.
Has ego corporibus profugas ad sidera mitto;
Sideraque ingressis otia blanda dico;
Qualia conveniunt divis, queis fata volebant
Vitai faciles molliter ire vias:
Vinaque coelicolis media inter gaudia libo;
Et me quid majus suspicor esse viro,
Sed fuerint nulli forsan, quos spondeo, coeli;
Nullaque sint Ditis numina, nulla Jovis:
Fabula sit torris agitur, quae vita relictis
Quique superstes homo; qui nihil, esto Deus.
Attamen esse hilares, et inanes mittere curas
Proderit, ac vitae commoditate frui,
Et festos agitasse dies, aevique fugacis
Tempora perpetuis detinuisse jocis.
His me parentem praeceptis ...

Matthew Prior

To The Honourable Charles Montague, Esq.

Howe'er, 'tis well that, while mankind
Through fate's perverse meander errs,
He can imagined pleasures find
To combat against real cares.

Fancies and notions he pursues,
Which ne'er had being but in thought;
Each, like the Grecian artist, wooes,
The image he himself has wrought.

Against experience he believes;
He argues against demonstration:
Pleased when his reason he deceives,
And sets his judgement by his passion.

The hoary fool, who many days
Has struggled with continued sorrow,
Renew's his hope, and blindly lays
The desperate bet upon to-morrow.

To-morrow comes: 'tis noon, 'tis night:
This day like all the former flies;
Yet on he runs to seek delight
To-morrow, till to-night he dies.

Our hopes like towerin...

Matthew Prior

Matthew

If Nature, for a favourite child,
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue
Its history of two hundred years.

When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye
Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,
Is silent as a standing pool;
Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved wer...

William Wordsworth

The Mice. A Tale - To Mr. Adrian Drift

Two mice, dear boy, of genteel fashion,
And, what is more, good education,
Frolic and gay, in infant years
Equally shared their parents' cares.
The sire of these two babes (poor creature)
Paid his last debt to human nature;
A wealthy widow left behind,
Four babes, three male, one female kind,
The sire being under ground, and buried,
'Twas thought his spouse would soon have married;
Matches proposed, and numerous suitors,
Most tender husbands, careful tutors,
She modestly refused, and show'd
She'd be a mother to her brood.

Mother, dear mother, that endearing thought
Has thousand and ten thousand fancies brought.
Tell me, oh! tell me (thou art now above)
How to describe thy true maternal love,
Thy early pangs, thy growing anxious cares,
Thy ...

Matthew Prior