Glycine’s Song by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Glycine’s Song

A sunny shaft did I behold,
From sky to earth it slanted:
And poised therein a bird so bold –
Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!
He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he troll’d
Within that shaft of sunny mist;
His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,
All else of amethyst! 

And thus he sang: ‘Adieu! adieu!
Love’s dreams prove seldom true.
The blossoms, they make no delay:
The sparkling dew-drops will not stay.
   Sweet month of May,
      We must away;
      Far, far away!
          To-day! to-day!

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photo by Dez Pain at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/moF90iu/Bird+Silhouette+on+Branch+1

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A Wet Sheet And A Flowing Sea by Allan Cunningham

Bark Kruzenshtern. 1989 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
   A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail
   And bends the gallant mast;
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
   While like the eagle free
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
   Old England on the lee. 

O for a soft and gentle wind!
   I heard a fair one cry;
But give to me the snoring breeze
   And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my lads,
   The good ship tight and free –
The world of waters is our home,
   And merry men are we. 

There’s tempest in yon horned moon,
   And lightning in yon cloud;
But hark the music, mariners!
   The wind is piping loud;
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
   The lightning flashes free –
While the hollow oak our palace is,
   Our heritage the sea.

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Betrayal by Hester H. Cholmondeley

            Betrayal

Still as of old
Men by themselves are priced –
For thirty pieces Judas sold
Himself, not Christ.

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I’d Rather Be by Emily Dickinson

        I”d Rather Be

I would not paint – a picture –
I’d rather be the One
Its bright impossibility
To dwell – delicious – on
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare- celestial – stir –
Evokes so sweet a Torment –
Such sumptuous – Despair – 

I would not talk, like Cornets –
I’d rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings –
And out, and easy on –
Through Villages of Ether –
Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal –
The pier to my Pontoon – 

Nor would I be a Poet –
It’s finer – own the Ear –
Enamored – impotent – content –
The License to revere,
A privilege so awful
What would the Dower be,
Had I the Art to stun myself
With Bolts of Melody!

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The Only Ghost by Emily Dickinson

 

The Only Ghost 

The only Ghost I ever saw
Was dressed in Mechlin – so –
He wore no sandal on his foot  -
And stepped like flakes of snow – 

His Gait – was soundless, like the Bird –
But rapid – like the Roe –
His fashions, quaint, Mosaic –
Or haply, Mistletoe – 

His conversation – seldom –
His laughter, like the Breeze –
That dies away in Dimples
Among the pensive Trees – 

Our interview – was transient –
Of me, himself was shy –
And God forbid I look behind –
Since that appalling Day!

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photo by Lars Sundstrom at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mifyxr8/Ghost

 

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The Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson

 

The Thing With Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches on the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.
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photo by Manu Mohan at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mgF4aQ8/Pigeon+flight

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Loss Of The Royal George by William Cowper

Sinking of the Royal George (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Loss Of The Royal George

Toll for the Brave!
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore!

Eight hundred of the brave
Whose courage was well tried,
Had made the vessel heel
And laid her on her side.

A land-breeze shook the shrouds
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.

Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought,
His work of glory done.

It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak,
She ran upon no rock.

His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.

-  Weigh the vessel up
Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with our cup
The tears that England owes.

Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again
Full charged with England’s thunder,
And plough the distant main:

But Kempenfelt is gone,
His victories are o’er;
And he and his eight hundred
Shall plough the wave no more.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_George_(1756
)

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To Die by Emily Dickinson

                  To Die

To die – takes just a little while –
They say it doesn’t hurt –
It’s only fainter – by degrees –
And then – it’s out of sight – 

A darker Ribbon – for a Day –
A Crape upon the Hat –
And then the pretty sunshine comes –
And helps us to forget – 

The absent – mystic – creature –
That but for love of us –
Had gone to sleep – that soundest time –
Without the weariness –

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From A Hundred Cribs by Emily Dickinson

From A Hundred Cribs

As Children bid the Guest “Good Night”
And then reluctant turn –
My flowers raise their pretty lips –
Then put their nightgowns on.

As children caper when they wake
Merry that it is Morn –
My flowers from a hundred cribs
Will peep, and prance again.

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photo by Michal Zacharzewski at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mhiHX76/Flowerbed

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The Master-Player by Paul Laurence Dunbar

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

             The Master-Player

 An old, worn harp that had been played
Till all its strings were loose and frayed,
Joy, Hate, and Fear, each one essayed,
To play.  But each in turn had found
No sweet responsiveness of sound.

Then Love the Master-Player came
With heaving breast and eyes aflame;
The Harp he took all undismayed,
Smote on its strings, still strange to song,
And brought forth music sweet and strong.

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