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Learning Language Arts Through Literature The Gold Book – British Literature

A British Poetry

Anthology

A British Poetry

Anthology for

Learning Language Arts Through Literature

The Gold Book British Literature

Compiled by

Common Sense Press

A British Poetry

Anthology for

Printed in the United States of America

Printed 05/12

ISBN 978-1-929683-30-7

Table of Contents

Page The Romantic Poets (1789 – 1832) 1 William Wordsworth Daffodils 2 The World Is Too Much with Us 3 Tintern Abbey 4 Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 8 Kubla Khan 27

Percy Bysshe Shelley Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 29 Ode to the West Wind 32 To a Skylark 34

John Keats On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer 37 When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be 38 A Thing of Beauty 39 Ode on Melancholy 41 Ode on a Grecian Urn 42

The Victorian Poets (1832 – 1914) 45 Alfred, Lord Tennyson St. Agnes’ Eve 46 Dark House, by Which Once More I Stand 47 I Envy Not In Any Moods 48 O Yet We Trust that Somehow Good 49 Ring Out, Wild Bells, to the Wild Sky 50

Robert Browning Home – Thoughts from Abroad 51 My Last Duchess 52 Rabbi Ben Ezra 54

Matthew Arnold Dover Beach 60

Gerard Manley Hopkins God’s Grandeur 61 Spring and Fall 62 Pied Beauty 63

Thomas Hardy The Darkling Thrush 64 The Oxen 65 The Convergence of the Twain 66

The Modern Poets (1914 – Present) 69 T.S. Eliot (poetry selections for T.S. Eliot are included in Learning Language Arts

Through Literature: The Gold Book—British Literature)

Wilfred Owen Dulce Et Decorum Est 70

Robert Graves Rocky Acres 71 Recalling War 72

Introduction

A British Poetry Anthology is a valuable tool for any British literature course as well as a component to Learning Language Arts Through Literature, The Gold Book — British Literature.

Embark on a journey through classic British literature. Set off with the Romantic Era, cross the threshold into the Victorian Era, and conclude your journey with the Modern Era. The authors of these selections are considered among the best and most influential of British authors. Enjoy your voyage with A British Poetry Anthology as a stand alone poetry book or your companion for The Gold Book — British Literature.

The Romantic Poets

1789-1832

William Wordsworth (1770 -1850)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

John Keats (1795 - 1821)

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) William Wordsworth

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed — and gazed — but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

The World Is Too Much with Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; — Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Lines Composed A Few Miles Above

Tintern Abbey On Revisiting The Banks Of The Wye During A Tour. July 13, 1798.

Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. — Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration: — feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) William Wordsworth

To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened: — that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, — Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft — In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all. — I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract

William Wordsworth The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompence. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, — both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay: For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) William Wordsworth

The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance — If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence — wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love — oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

William Wordsworth The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

PART I

IT is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 5 And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 10 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: 15 The Mariner hath his will. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. 20 'The ship was cheer'd, the harbour clear'd, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. The Sun came up upon the left, 25 Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon——' 30 The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.

An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth one.

The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes 35 The merry minstrelsy. The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. 40 'And now the Storm-blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along. With sloping masts and dipping prow, 45 As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast, And southward aye we fled. 50 And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald. And through the drifts the snowy clifts 55 Did send a dismal sheen: Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: 60 It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd, Like noises in a swound! At length did cross an Albatross, Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, 65 We hail'd it in God's name.

The Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale.

The ship drawn by a storm toward the South Pole.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steer'd us through! 70 And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 75 It perch'd for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmer'd the white moonshine.' 'God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— 80 Why look'st thou so?'—'With my crossbow I shot the Albatross.

PART II

The Sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left 85 Went down into the sea. And the good south wind still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play Came to the mariners' hollo! 90 And I had done an hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, 95 That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird That brought the fog and mist. 100

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.

His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner for killing the bird of good luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow follow'd free; We were the first that ever burst 105 Into that silent sea. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! 110 All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, 115 We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; 120 Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 125 Upon the slimy sea. About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue, and white. 130 And some in dreams assuréd were Of the Spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.

The shipmates in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.

The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

And every tongue, through utter drought, 135 Was wither'd at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! 140 Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

PART III

'There passed a weary time. Each throat Was parch'd, and glazed each eye. A weary time! a weary time! 145 How glazed each weary eye! When looking westward, I beheld A something in the sky. At first it seem'd a little speck, And then it seem'd a mist; 150 It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it near'd and near'd: As if it dodged a water-sprite, 155 It plunged, and tack'd, and veer'd. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood, 160 And cried, A sail! a sail! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call:

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, 165 As they were drinking all. See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal — Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel! 170 The western wave was all aflame, The day was wellnigh done! Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad, bright Sun; When that strange shape drove suddenly 175 Betwixt us and the Sun. And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars (Heaven's Mother send us grace!), As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd With broad and burning face. 180 Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears! Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossameres? Are those her ribs through which the Sun 185 Did peer, as through a grate? And is that Woman all her crew? Is that a Death? and are there two? Is Death that Woman's mate? Her lips were red, her looks were free, 190 Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold. The naked hulk alongside came, 195 And the twain were casting dice; "The game is done! I've won! I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

A flash of joy;

And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun. The Spectre- Woman and her Death- mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship. Like vessel, like crew!

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; 200 With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark. We listen'd and look'd sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seem'd to sip! 205 The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd white; From the sails the dew did drip— Till clomb above the eastern bar The hornéd Moon, with one bright star 210 Within the nether tip. One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye. 215 Four times fifty living men (And I heard nor sigh nor groan), With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropp'd down one by one. The souls did from their bodies fly— 220 They fled to bliss or woe! And every soul, it pass'd me by Like the whizz of my crossbow!'

PART IV

I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! 225 And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribb'd sea-sand. I fear thee and thy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand so brown.'— Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! 230 This body dropt not down.

No twilight within the courts of the Sun.

At the rising of the Moon,

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead.

But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.

The Wedding-Guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him;

But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony. 235 The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I. I look'd upon the rotting sea, 240 And drew my eyes away; I look'd upon the rotting deck, And there the dead men lay. I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, 245 A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust. I closed my lids, and kept them close, And the balls like pulses beat; For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky, 250 Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet. The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they: The look with which they look'd on me 255 Had never pass'd away. An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! 260 Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die. The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, 265 And a star or two beside —

He despiseth the creatures of the calm.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread; But where the ship's huge shadow lay, The charméd water burnt alway 270 A still and awful red. Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watch'd the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they rear'd, the elfish light 275 Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watch'd their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coil'd and swam; and every track 280 Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gush'd from my heart, And I bless'd them unaware: 285 Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I bless'd them unaware. The selfsame moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank 290 Like lead into the sea.

PART V

'O sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, 295 That slid into my soul.

onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The spell begins to break.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The silly buckets on the deck, That had so long remain'd, I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew; And when I awoke, it rain'd. 300 My lips were wet, my throat was cold, My garments all were dank; Sure I had drunken in my dreams, And still my body drank. I moved, and could not feel my limbs: 305 I was so light — almost I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blesséd ghost. And soon I heard a roaring wind: It did not come anear; 310 But with its sound it shook the sails, That were so thin and sere. The upper air burst into life; And a hundred fire-flags sheen; To and fro they were hurried about! 315 And to and fro, and in and out, The wan stars danced between. And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; And the rain pour'd down from one black cloud; 320 The Moon was at its edge. The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side; Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag, 325 A river steep and wide. The loud wind never reach'd the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the Moon The dead men gave a groan. 330

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved on; 335 Yet never a breeze up-blew; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools— We were a ghastly crew. 340 The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pull'd at one rope, But he said naught to me.' I fear thee, ancient Mariner!' 345 Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest: 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to their corses came again, But a troop of spirits blest: For when it dawn'd—they dropp'd their arms, 350 And cluster'd round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies pass'd. Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; 355 Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mix'd, now one by one. Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the skylark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, 360 How they seem'd to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning! And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, 365 That makes the Heavens be mute.

But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, 370 That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. Till noon we quietly sail'd on, Yet never a breeze did breathe: Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 375 Moved onward from beneath. Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow, The Spirit slid: and it was he That made the ship to go. 380 The sails at noon left off their tune, And the ship stood still also. The Sun, right up above the mast, Had fix'd her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, 385 With a short uneasy motion — Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: 390 It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life return'd, 395 I heard, and in my soul discern'd Two voices in the air. "Is it he?" quoth one, "is this the man? By Him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low 400 The harmless Albatross.

The lonesome Spirit from the South Pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

The Polar Spirit's fellow- demons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

The Spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow." 405 The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.

PART VI

First Voice: '"But tell me, tell me! speak again, 410 Thy soft response renewing— What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the Ocean doing?" Second Voice: "Still as a slave before his lord, The Ocean hath no blast; 415 His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast— If he may know which way to go; For she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see! how graciously 420 She looketh down on him." First Voice: "But why drives on that ship so fast, Without or wave or wind?" Second Voice: "The air is cut away before, And closes from behind. 425 Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high! Or we shall be belated: For slow and slow that ship will go, When the Mariner's trance is abated.' I woke, and we were sailing on 430 As in a gentle weather: 'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high; The dead men stood together.

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.

The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: 435 All fix'd on me their stony eyes, That in the Moon did glitter. The pang, the curse, with which they died, Had never pass'd away: I could not draw my eyes from theirs, 440 Nor turn them up to pray. And now this spell was snapt: once more I viewed the ocean green, And look'd far forth, yet little saw Of what had else been seen — 445 Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turn'd round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend 450 Doth close behind him tread. But soon there breathed a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made: Its path was not upon the sea, In ripple or in shade. 455 It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek Like a meadow-gale of spring — It mingled strangely with my fears, Yet it felt like a welcoming. Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 460 Yet she sail'd softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — On me alone it blew. O dream of joy! is this indeed The lighthouse top I see? 465 Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree?

The curse is finally expiated.

And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, And I with sobs did pray — O let me be awake, my God! 470 Or let me sleep alway. The harbour-bay was clear as glass, So smoothly it was strewn! And on the bay the moonlight lay, And the shadow of the Moon. 475 The rock shone bright, the kirk no less That stands above the rock: The moonlight steep'd in silentness The steady weathercock. And the bay was white with silent light 480 Till rising from the same, Full many shapes, that shadows were, In crimson colours came. A little distance from the prow Those crimson shadows were: 485 I turn'd my eyes upon the deck— O Christ! what saw I there! Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, And, by the holy rood! A man all light, a seraph-man, 490 On every corse there stood. This seraph-band, each waved his hand: It was a heavenly sight! They stood as signals to the land, Each one a lovely light; 495 This seraph-band, each waved his hand, No voice did they impart— No voice; but O, the silence sank Like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars, 500 I heard the Pilot's cheer; My head was turn'd perforce away, And I saw a boat appear.

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

And appear in their own forms of light.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, I heard them coming fast: 505 Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy The dead men could not blast. I saw a third — I heard his voice: It is the Hermit good! He singeth loud his godly hymns 510 That he makes in the wood. He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.

PART VII

'This Hermit good lives in that wood Which slopes down to the sea. 515 How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He loves to talk with marineres That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — He hath a cushion plump: 520 It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk, "Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 That signal made but now?" "Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said — "And they answer'd not our cheer! The planks looked warp'd! and see those sails, How thin they are and sere! 530 I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons of leaves that lag My forest-brook along; When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 535 And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf's young."

The Hermit of the Wood.

Approacheth the ship with wonder.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

"Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look — (The Pilot made reply) I am a-fear'd" — "Push on, push on!" 540 Said the Hermit cheerily. The boat came closer to the ship, But I nor spake nor stirr'd; The boat came close beneath the ship, And straight a sound was heard. 545 Under the water it rumbled on, Still louder and more dread: It reach'd the ship, it split the bay; The ship went down like lead. Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound, 550 Which sky and ocean smote, Like one that hath been seven days drown'd My body lay afloat; But swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot's boat. 555 Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, The boat spun round and round; And all was still, save that the hill Was telling of the sound. I moved my lips—the Pilot shriek'd 560 And fell down in a fit; The holy Hermit raised his eyes, And pray'd where he did sit. I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, Who now doth crazy go, 565 Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro. "Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see The Devil knows how to row." And now, all in my own countree, 570 I stood on the firm land! The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat, And scarcely he could stand.

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient Mariner is saved in the Pilot's boat.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" The Hermit cross'd his brow. 575 "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say — What manner of man art thou?" Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale; 580 And then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns. 585 I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach. 590 What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: And hark the little vesper bell, 595 Which biddeth me to prayer! O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God Himself Scarce seeméd there to be. 600 O sweeter than the marriage-feast, 'Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company! — To walk together to the kirk, 605 And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends, And youths and maidens gay!

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.

And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land;

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 610 To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; 615 For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.' The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest 620 Turn'd from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunn'd, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn. 625

And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately Pleasure-Dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers was girdled ’round, And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But, oh! That deep, romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill, athwart a cedarn cover: A savage place! As holy and enchanted As e’er beneath the waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her Demon Lover! And from this chasm with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this Earth in fast, thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced, Amid whose swift, half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail; And ‘midst these dancing rocks at once and ever, It flung up momently the sacred river! Five miles meandering with ever a mazy motion, Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean. And ‘mid this tumult, Kublai heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the Dome of Pleasure Floated midway on the waves, Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device: A sunny Pleasure-Dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such deep delight ‘twould win me That with music loud and long, I would build that dome within the air! That sunny dome, those caves of ice, And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry: “Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle ’round him thrice, And close your eyes in holy dread: For he on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise!”

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Percy Bysshe Shelley The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats through unseen among us,-visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,- Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening,- Like clouds in starlight widely spread,- Like memory of music fled,- Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,-where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom,-why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given- Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells-whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone-like mist oe'er the mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Percy Bysshe Shelley

Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messgenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers' eyes- Thou-that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not-lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; I was not heard-I saw them not- When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming,- Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine-have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious night- They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou-O awful Loveliness, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past-there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth

Percy Bysshe Shelley The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm-to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.

Ode to the West Wind O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave,until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Percy Bysshe Shelley

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened Earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

To a Skylark Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert- That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden light'ning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight-

Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:-

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Percy Bysshe Shelley

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'd In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingèd thieves.

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken'd flowers- All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh-thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt- A thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

Percy Bysshe Shelley The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear, If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know; Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) Percy Bysshe Shelley

John Keats The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer Much have I traveled in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet never did I breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific — and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) John Keats

When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love; — then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

A Thing of Beauty A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast, They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own valleys: so I will begin

Now while I cannot hear the city's din; Now while the early budders are just new, And run in mazes of the youngest hue About old forests; while the willow trails Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer My little boat, for many quiet hours, With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. Many and many a verse I hope to write, Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white, Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, I must be near the middle of my story. O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, See it half finished: but let Autumn bold, With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end! And now at once, adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) John Keats

Ode on Melancholy No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine: His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

John Keats The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

Ode on a Grecian Urn Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? what maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore

The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832) John Keats

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats The Romantic Poets (1789 - 1832)

The Victorian Poets

1832-1914

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888)

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889)

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Alfred, Lord Tennyson

St. Agnes’ Eve Deep on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapour goes: May my soul follow soon! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soil'd and dark, To yonder shining ground; As this pale taper's earthly spark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee; So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean.

He lifts me to the golden doors; The flashes come and go; All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strows her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin. The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide — A light upon the shining sea — The Bridegroom with his bride!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

Dark House, by Which Once More I Stand Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more — Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day.

I Envy Not In Any Moods I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods;

I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth: Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'T is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Alfred, Lord Tennyson

O Yet We Trust that Somehow Good Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final end of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire I shrivell'd in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last — far off — at last, to all, And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

Ring Out, Wild Bells, to the Wild Sky Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night — Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new — , Ring happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land — Ring in the Christ that is to be.

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Robert Browning The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

Home - Thoughts from Abroad O, to be in England Now that April 's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England — now!

And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge — That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower — Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Robert Browning

My Last Duchess That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said 'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Frà Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:' such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace — all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark' — and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

Robert Browning The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet The company below then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Rabbi Ben Ezra Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall!" Not that, admiring stars, It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied To That which doth provide And not partake, effect and not receive! A spark disturbs our clod; Nearer we hold of God. Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Robert Browning

For thence, — a paradox Which comforts while it mocks,— Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

What is he but a brute Whose flesh has soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? To man, propose this test — Thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use: I own the Past profuse Of power each side, perfection every turn: Eyes, ears took in their dole, Brain treasured up the whole; Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?"

Not once beat "Praise be Thine! I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: Perfect I call Thy plan: Thanks that I was a man! Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou shall do!"

For pleasant is this flesh; Our soul, in its rose-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!

Robert Browning The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a god tho' in the germ.

And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try My gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For, note when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: A whisper from the west Shoots — "Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."

So, still within this life, Tho' lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, "This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."

For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Robert Browning

As it was better, youth Should strive, thro' acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named¡ here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straight way to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account: All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Robert Browning The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped: All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, — Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What tho' the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What tho' about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Robert Browning

But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men! And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I, — to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily, — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst.

So take and use Thy work, Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Robert Browning The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

God’s Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Gerard Manley Hopkins

Spring and Fall To a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow's spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things — For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.

The Darkling Thrush I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

The Oxen Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock, “Now they are all on their knees”, An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know”, I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.

The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

Steel chambers, late the pyres Of her salamandrine fires, Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Over the mirrors meant To glass the opulent The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

Jewels in joy designed To ravish the sensuous mind Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

Dim moon-eyed fishes near Gaze at the gilded gear And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?". . .

Well: while was fashioning This creature of cleaving wing, The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

Prepared a sinister mate For her — so gaily great — A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.

And as the smart ship grew In stature, grace, and hue In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be: No mortal eye could see The intimate welding of their later history.

Or sign that they were bent By paths coincident On being anon twin halves of one August event,

The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914) Thomas Hardy

Till the Spinner of the Years Said "Now!" And each one hears, And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

Thomas Hardy The Victorian Poets (1832 - 1914)

The Modern Poets

1914-Present

T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) (poetry selections for T.S. Eliot are included in Learning Language Arts Through Literature:

The Gold Book – British Literature)

Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Robert Graves (1895 - 1985)

The Modern Poets (1914 - Present) Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime. — Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, — My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Robert Graves The Modern Poets (1914 - Present)

Rocky Acres Used by permission of A P Watt Ltd. on behalf of The Trustees of the Robert Graves Copyright Trust. Taken from Robert Graves, The Complete Poems In One Volume, edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward, published by Carcanet Press Limited, 2000.

This is a wild land, country of my choice, With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare. Seldom in these acres is heard any voice But voice of cold water that runs here and there Through rocks and lank heather growing without care. No mice in the heath run, nor no song-birds fly For fear of the buzzard that floats in the sky.

He soars and he hovers, rocking on his wings, He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye, He catches the trembling of small hidden things, He tears them in pieces, dropping them from the sky; Tenderness and pity the heart will deny, Where life is but nourished by water and rock — A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.

Time has never journeyed to this lost land, Crakeberry and heather bloom out of date, The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand, Careless if the season be early or late, The skies wander overhead, now blue, now slate; Winter would be known by his cutting snow If June did not borrow his armour also.

Yet this is my country, beloved by me best, The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood, Nursing no valleys for comfort or rest, Trampled by no shod hooves, bought with no blood. Sempiternal country whose barrows have stood Stronghold for the demigods when on earth they go, Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.

The Modern Poets (1914 - Present) Robert Graves

Recalling War Used by permission of A P Watt Ltd. on behalf of The Trustees of the Robert Graves Copyright Trust. Taken from Robert Graves, The Complete Poems In One Volume, edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward, published by Carcanet Press Limited, 2000.

Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes. Their war was fought these twenty years ago And now assumes the nature-look of time, As when the morning traveller turns and views His wild night-stumbling carved into a hill.

What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth Even when the season was the airiest May. Down pressed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust out Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant yard. Natural infirmities were out of mode, For Death was young again: patron alone Of healthy dying, premature fate-spasm.

Fear made fine bed-fellows. Sick with delight At life's discovered transitoriness, Our youth became all-flesh and waived the mind. Never was such antiqueness of romance, Such tasty honey oozing from the heart. And old importances came swimming back – Wine, meat, log-fires, a roof over the head, A weapon at the thigh, surgeons at call. Even there was a use again for God – A word of rage in lack of meat, wine, fire, In ache of wounds beyond all surgeoning.

War was return of earth to ugly earth, War was foundering of sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world had still kept head in air,

Robert Graves The Modern Poets (1914 - Present)

Protesting logic or protesting love, Until the unendurable moment struck — The inward scream, the duty to run mad.

And we recall the merry ways of guns — Nibbling the walls of factory and church Like a child, piecrust; felling groves of trees Like a child, dandelions with a switch. Machine-guns rattle toy-like from a hill, Down in a row the brave tin-soldiers fall: A sight to be recalled in elder days When learnedly the future we devote To yet more boastful visions of despair.

for

Learning Language Arts Through Literature The Gold Book – British Literature

Compiled by

Common Sense Press

A British Poetry Anthology

A British Poetry Anthology is a valuable tool for any British literature course as well as a component to Learning Language Arts Through Literature, The Gold Book — British Literature.

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