Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast by John Keats

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite.
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors: -
No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair Love’s ripening breast
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
Awake forever in a sweet unrest;
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever, – or else swoon to death.

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Dying Speech Of An Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor

 

 

Dying Speech Of An Old Philosopher 

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
   Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life;
   It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

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photo by Jasper Greek Lao Golangco at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/myzKAnq/fire

 

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The Hour-Glass by Ben Jonson

photo by S. Sepp

           The Hour-Glass 

Do but consider this small dust
   Here running in the glass,
      By atoms moved;
Could you believe that this
   The body, ever, was
      Of one that loved?
And in his mistress’ flame, playing like a fly,
   Turned to cinders by her eye?
   Yes; and in death, as life, unblessed,
      To have’t expressed,
   Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

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On The Death Of Dr. Robert Levet by Samuel Johnson

On The Death Of Dr. Robert Levet

Condemn’d to hope’s delusive mine,
   As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
   Our social comforts drop away. 

Well tried through many a varying year,
   See LEVET to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
   Of ev’ry friendless name the friend. 

Ye still he fills affection’s eye,
   Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;
Nor, letter’d arrogance, deny
   Thy praise to merit unrefin’d. 

When fainting nature call’d for aid,
   And hov’ring death prepar’d the blow,
His vig’rous remedy display’d
   The power of art without the show. 

In misery’s darkest caverns known,
   His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish pour’d his groan,
   And lonely want retir’d to die. 

No summons mock’d by chill delay,
   No petty gain disdain’d by pride,
The modest wants of ev’ry day
   The toil of ev’ry day supplied. 

His virtues walk’d their narrow round,
   Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure th’ Eternal Master found
   The single talent well employ’d. 

The busy day, the peaceful night,
   Unfelt, uncounted, glided by;
His frame was firm, his powers were bright,
   Tho’ now his eightieth year was nigh. 

Then with no throbbing fiery pain,
   No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
   And free’d his soul the nearest way.

 

 

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To Sleep by John Keats

                          To Sleep

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
   Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light,
   Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep!  If so it please thee, close,
   In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
   Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes, -
   Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
   Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

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We Have Lived And Loved Together by Charles Jefferys

We Have Lived And Loved Together

We have lived and loved together
   Through many changing years;
We have shared each other’s gladness
   And wept each other’s tears;
I have known ne’er a sorrow
   That was long unsoothed by thee;
For thy smiles can make a summer
   Where darkness else would be.

Like the leaves that fall around us
   In autumn’s fading hours,
Are the traitor’s smiles, that darken
   When the cloud of sorrow lowers;
And though many such we’ve known, love,
   Too prone, alas, to range,
We both can speak of one love
   Which time can never change. 

We have lived and loved together
   Through many changing years;
We have shared each other’s gladness
   And wept each other’s tears.
And let us hope the future,
   As the past has been will be:
I will share with thee my sorrows,
   And thou thy joys with me.

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Two Epigrams by Walter Savage Landor

No Truer Word

No truer word, save God’s, was ever spoken,
Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.

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On Every Human Thing

On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe’s water with his wing.

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*Lethe’s water – “afterworld river of forgetfulness”

 

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The Manuscripts of God by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Manuscripts Of God

And nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, “Here is a story book
My father hath writ for thee.
Come, wander with me,” she said,
“In regions yet untrod
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.”

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The picture is mine, taken of the hills
in northern Arkansas.

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The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

                 The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips.  “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

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The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

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(photo by Jay Simmons at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2djrC0i/rainy+day )

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