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The Two Friends
AXIOCHUS, a handsome youth of old,And Alcibiades, (both gay and bold,)So well agreed, they kept a beauteous belle,With whom by turns they equally would dwell.IT happened, one of them so nicely played,The fav'rite lass produced a little maid,Which both extolled, and each his own believed,Though doubtless one or t'other was deceived.BUT when to riper years the bantling grew,And sought her mother's foot-steps to pursue,Each friend desired to be her chosen swain,And neither would a parent's name retain.SAID one, why brother, she's your very shade;The features are the same-:-your looks pervade.Oh no, the other cried, it cannot beHer chin, mouth, nose, and eyes, with your's agree;But that as 'twill, let me her favours win,And ...
Jean de La Fontaine
Cristina
I.She should never have looked at meIf she meant I should not love her!There are plenty . . . men, you call such,I suppose . . . she may discoverAll her soul to, if she pleases,And yet leave much as she found them:But Im not so, and she knew itWhen she fixed me, glancing round them,II.What? To fix me thus meant nothing?But I cant tell . . . theres my weakness . . .What her look said! no vile cant, sure,About need to strew the bleaknessOf some lone shore with its pearl-seed.That the sea feels no strange yearningThat such souls have, most to lavishWhere theres chance of least returning.III.Oh, were sunk enough here, God knows!But not quite so sunk that moments,Sure tho seld...
Robert Browning
To J.S.
The wind, that beats the mountain, blowsMore softly round the open wold,And gently comes the world to thoseThat are cast in gentle mould.And me this knowledge bolder made,Or else I had not dared to flowIn these words toward you, and invadeEven with a verse your holy woe.Tis strange that those we lean on most,Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,Fall into shadow, soonest lost:Those we love first are taken first.God gives us love. Something to loveHe lends us; but, when love is grownTo ripeness, that on which it throveFalls off, and love is left alone.This is the curse of time. Alas!In grief I am not all unlearnd;Once thro mine own doors Death did pass;One went, who never hath returnd....
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Special Pleading.
Time, hurry my Love to me:Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company?Here's but a heart-break sandy waste'Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing hasteWere best, dear Time, for thee, for thee!Oh, would that I might divineThy name beyond the zodiac signWherefrom our times-to-come descend.He called thee `Sometime'. Change it, friend:`Now-time' sounds so much more fine!Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me:Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-treeAnd broods as gray as any dove,And calls, `When wilt thou come, O Love?'And pleads across the waste to thee.Good Moment, that giv'st him me,Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybeThou'lt be this heavenly velvet timeWhen Day and Night as rhyme and rhymeSet lip to lip dusk-modestly;Or hap...
Sidney Lanier
Venus Of The Louvre.
Down the long hall she glistens like a star,The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.When first the enthralled enchantress from afarDazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, -But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew,Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love.Here Heine wept! Here still we weeps anew,Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move,While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain,For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain.
Emma Lazarus
A Wife.
Wod yo leead a happy life?Aw can show yo ha, -Get a true an lovin wife, -(Yo may have one nah.)If yo have, remember this,Be a true man to her,An whativver gooas amiss,Keep noa secrets throo her.Some chaps think a wife's a toy,Just for ther caressin;But sichlike can ne'er enjoy,This world's richest blessin.Some ther are who think 'em slaves,Fit for nowt but drudgin,An if owt ther fancy craves,Give it to 'em grudgin.Dooant forget yor patient wife,Like yorsen is human,For yo owe yor precious life,To another woman.Mak her equal wi' yorsen,(Ten to one shoo's better,)Tell her all yor plans, an thenIf shoo'll help yo, let her.Oft yo'll find her ready wit,An her keen perception,
John Hartley
A Child's Wish
Before an AltarI wish I were the little keyThat locks Love's Captive in,And lets Him out to go and freeA sinful heart from sin.I wish I were the little bellThat tinkles for the Host,When God comes down each day to dwellWith hearts He loves the most.I wish I were the chalice fair,That holds the Blood of Love,When every flash lights holy prayerUpon its way above.I wish I were the little flowerSo near the Host's sweet face,Or like the light that half an hourBurns on the shrine of grace.I wish I were the altar where,As on His mother's breast,Christ nestles, like a child, fore'erIn Eucharistic rest.But, oh! my God, I wish the mostThat my poor heart may beA home...
Abram Joseph Ryan
Her Dilemma
(In - Church)The two were silent in a sunless church,Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,And wasted carvings passed antique research;And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,- For he was soon to die, he softly said,"Tell me you love me!" holding hard her hand.She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly,So much his life seemed handing on her mind,And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly'Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,So mocked humanity that she shamed to prizeA world conditioned thus, or care for breathWhere Nature such dilemmas could devise.
Thomas Hardy
The Sale Of Loves.
I dreamt that, in the Paphian groves, My nets by moonlight laying,I caught a flight of wanton Loves, Among the rose-beds playing.Some just had left their silvery shell, While some were full in feather;So pretty a lot of Loves to sell, Were never yet strung together. Come buy my Loves, Come buy my Loves,Ye dames and rose-lipped misses!-- They're new and bright, The cost is light,For the coin of this isle is kisses.First Cloris came, with looks sedate. The coin on her lips was ready;"I buy," quoth she, "my Love by weight, "Full grown, if you please, and steady.""Let mine be light," said Fanny, "pray-- "Such lasting toys undo one;"A light little Love that will last to-day,--
Thomas Moore
A Cry
Oh, there are eyes that he can see,And hands to make his hands rejoice,But to my lover I must beOnly a voice.Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,And lips whereon his lips can lie,But I must be till I am deadOnly a cry.
Sara Teasdale
Echo.
How sweet the answer Echo makes To music at night,When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,And far away, o'er lawns and lakes, Goes answering light.Yet Love hath echoes truer far, And far more sweet,Than e'er beneath the moonlight star,Of horn or lute, or soft guitar, The songs repeat.'Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere, And only then,--The sigh that's breath'd for one to hear,Is by that one, that only dear, Breathed back again!
Sweet Little Fairy,
Sweet little fairy,Tender and airy,Come, let us dance on the good baby-eyes;Merrily skipping,Cheerily tripping,Murmur we ever our soft lullabies.
Eugene Field
Lament Of An Icarus
Lovers of whores dont care,happy, calm and replete:But my arms are incomplete,grasping the empty air.Thanks to stars, incomparable ones,that blaze in the depths of the skies,all my destroyed eyessee, are the memories of suns.I look, in vain, for beginning and endof the heavens slow revolve:Under an unknown eye of fire, I ascendfeeling my wings dissolve.And, scorched by desire for the beautiful,I will not know the bliss,of giving my name to that abyss,that knows my tomb and funeral.
Charles Baudelaire
Nature.
O simple Nature, how I do delightTo pause upon thy trifles--foolish things,As some would call them.--On the summer night,Tracing the lane-path where the dog-rose hingsWith dew-drops seeth'd, while chick'ring cricket sings;My eye can't help but glance upon its leaves,Where love's warm beauty steals her sweetest blush,When, soft the while, the Even silent heavesHer pausing breath just trembling thro' the bush,And then again dies calm, and all is hush.O how I feel, just as I pluck the flowerAnd stick it to my breast--words can't reveal;But there are souls that in this lovely hourKnow all I mean, and feel whate'er I feel.
John Clare
To Mrs. .......
To see thee every day that came,And find thee still each day the same;In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tearTo me still ever kind and dear;--To meet thee early, leave thee late,Has been so long my bliss, my fate,That life, without this cheering ray,Which came, like sunshine, every day,And all my pain, my sorrow chased,Is now a lone, a loveless waste.Where are the chords she used to touch?The airs, the songs she loved so much?Those songs are hushed, those chords are still,And so, perhaps, will every thrillOf feeling soon be lulled to rest,Which late I waked in Anna's breast.Yet, no--the simple notes I playedFrom memory's tablet soon may fade;The songs, which Anna loved to hear,May vanish from her heart and ear;But fri...
Romance
They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;Her voice, they say, is dumb for aye, that once was clarion-clear and high,But in their hearts, their frozen hearts, they know that bitterly they lie.Her brow of white, that was with bright rose-garland in the old days crowned,Is now, they say, all shorn of light, and with a fatal fillet bound.Her eyes divine no more shall shine to lead the hardy knight and goodUnto the Castle Perilous, beyond the dark Enchanted Wood.And do they deem, these fools supreme, whose iron wheels unceasing whirr,That, in this rushing Age of Steam, there is no longer room for her?That, as they hold the Key of Gold that shuts or opens Mammon's Den,R...
Victor James Daley
To The Moon - Rydal
Queen of the stars! so gentle, so benign,That ancient Fable did to thee assign,When darkness creeping o'er thy silver browWarned thee these upper regions to forego,Alternate empire in the shades belowA Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread seaTraversed by gleaming ships, looked up to theeWith grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hailFrom the close confines of a shadowy vale.Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,Nor less attractive when by glimpses seenThrough cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face,And all those attributes of modest grace,In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere,To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!O still beloved (for thine, meek Power, are charmsThat...
William Wordsworth
To A Day Lily
What! only to stay For a single day?Thou beautiful, bright hued on Just to open thine eyes To the blue of the skiesAnd the light of the glorious sun, Then, to fade away In the same rich ray,And die ere the day is done? Bright thing of a day Thou hast caught a rayFrom Morn's jewelled curtain fold On thy burning cheek, And the ruby streakHis dyed it with charms untold - And the gorgeous vest On thy queenly breast,Is dashed with her choicest gold. A statelier queen Has never been seen,A lovelier never will be! - Nay, Solomon, dressed In his kingliest best,Was never a match for thee,<...
Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)