Things

THINGS MORTAL STILL MUTABLE

by Robert Herrick

Things are uncertain; and the more we get,
The more on icy pavements we are set.

Ch'ing P'ing Tiao

Ch'ing P'ing Tiao

by Li Po

Clouds bring back to mind her dress, the flowers her face.
Winds of spring caress the rail where sparkling dew-drops cluster.
If you cannot see her by the jewelled mountain top,
Maybe on the moonlit Jasper Terrance you will meet her.

Morning Rain

by Tu Fu
A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light.
I hear it among treetop leaves before mist Arrives.
Soon it sprinkles the soil and,
Windblown, follows clouds away.
Deepened Colors grace thatch homes for a moment.
Flocks and herds of things wild glisten Faintly.
Then the scent of musk opens across Half a mountain -- and lingers on past noon.

Prayer for Our Lady of Paphos

Prayer to Our Lady of Paphos


by Sappho

Dapple-throned Aphrodite,
eternal daughter of God, snare-knitter!
Don't, I beg you, cow my heart with grief!

Come, as once when you heard my far- off cry and,
listening, stepped from your father's house to your gold car,
to yoke the pair whose beautiful thick-feathered wings

oaring down mid-air from heaven carried you
to light swiftly on dark earth; then, blissful one,
smiling your immortal smile you asked,

What ailed me now that me call you again?
What was it that my distracted heart most wanted?
``Whom has Persuasion to bring round now

``to your love? Who, Sappho, is unfair to you?
For, let her run, she will soon run after;
`if she won't accept gifts, she will one day give them;

and if she won't love you --- she soon will
``love, although unwillingly...'' If ever --- come now!
Relieve this intolerable pain!

What my heart most hopes will happen,
make happen; you
your- self join forces on my side!

Happy is England

Happy is England

by John Keats

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

Sonnet XVII

Sonnet XVII

By William Shakespeare

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies:
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.

Garden of Love

Garden of Love,

The by William Blake

I laid me down upon a bank,
Where Love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping.
Then I went to the heath and the wild,
To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
And they told me how they were beguiled,
Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires

Out in the Fields with God

Out in the Fields with God

by Anonymous

The little cares that fretted me
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields, above the sea,
Among the winds at play,
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.
The foolish fears of what might happen,
I cast them all away,
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay,
Among the husking of the corn,
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born--
Out in the fields with God

To M.S.G.

To M. S. G.
by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Whene'er I view those lips of thine,
Their hue invites my fervent kiss; Yet,
I forego that bliss divine,
Alas! it were---unhallow'd bliss.

Whene'er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snows!
Yet, is the daring wish represt, For that,
---would banish its repose.

A glance from thy soul-searching eye
Can raise with hope, depress with fear;
Yet, I conceal my love,---and why?
I would not force a painful tear.

I ne'er have told my love, yet thou
Hast seen my ardent flame too well;
And shall I plead my passion now,
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell?

No! for thou never canst be mine,
United by the priest's decree:
By any ties but those divine,
Mine, my belov'd, thou ne'er shalt be.

Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know:
With joy I court a certain doom,
Rather than spread its guilty glow.

I will not ease my tortur'd heart,
By driving dove-ey'd peace from thine;
Rather than such a sting impart,
Each thought presumptuous I resign.

Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save,---
I bid thee now a last farewell.

Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair
And hope no more thy soft embrace;
Which to obtain, my soul would dare,
All, all reproach, but thy disgrace.

At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove;
Though cureless pangs may prey on me,
No martyr shalt thou be to love.

Dave Lilly

Dave Lilly


There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.
I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.

By Joyce Kilmer

One Way Of Love


I. All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye.

II. How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music?
So! Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

III. My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion---heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven?
'Tis well! Lose who may---
I still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!

By Robert Browning

Procrastination

Procrastination

by Marcus Valerius Martialis

Tomorrow you will live, you always cry;
In what fair country does this morrow lie,
That 'tis so mighty long ere it arrive?
Beyond the Indies does this morrow live? '
Tis so far-fetched, this morrow, that I fear
'Twill be both very old and very dear.
"Tomorrow I will live," the fool does say;
Today itself's too late --
the wise lived yesterday.

Magna Est Veritas

Magna Est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fail;
When all its work is down, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

By Coventry Patmore.

Love and Frienship

Love and Friendship


Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree --
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most contantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who wil call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.

By Emily Jane Brontë.

By The Peonies

By The Peonies

The peonies bloom, white and pink.
And inside each, as in a fragrant bowl,
A swarm of tiny beetles have their coversation,
For the flower is given to them as their home.

Mother stands by the peony bed,
Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,
And looks for a long time into peony lands,
Where one short instant equals a whole year.

Then lets the flower go. And what she thinks

she repeats aloud to the children and herself.
The wind sways the green leaves gently
And specles of light flick acros their faces

By Czeslaw Milosz

He who knows Love

By Elsa Barker

HE who knows Love—becomes Love, and his eyes
Behold Love in the heart of everyone,
Even the loveless: as the light of the sun
Is one with all it touches. He is wise
With undivided wisdom, for he lies
In Wisdom’s arms. His wanderings are done,
For he has found the Source whence all things run—
The guerdon of the quest, that satisfies.
He who knows Love becomes Love, and he knows
All beings are himself, twin-born of Love.
Melted in Love’s own fire, his spirit flows
Into all earthly forms, below, above;
He is the breath and glamour of the rose,
He is the benediction of the dove.