The Reverie Of Poor Susan by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

              The Reverie of Poor Susan

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has pass’d by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird. 

‘T is a note of enchantment; what ails her?  She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. 

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale
Down which she so often has tripp’d with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. 

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colors have all pass’d away from her eyes!

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Forgiveness by John Greenleaf Whittier

Forgiveness

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Wither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

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To A Distant Friend by William Wordsworth

           To A Distant Friend

Why art thou silent?  Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?

Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant,
Bound to thy service with unceasing care –
The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.

Speak! – though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold.

Than a forsaken bird’s-nest fill’d with snow
‘Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine –
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

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The Beautiful Snow by John Whittaker Watson

          The Beautiful Snow

Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below!
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet:
                     Dancing,
                       Flirting,
                         Skimming along.
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady’s cheek,
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak,
Beautiful snow from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love!

Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go
Whirling about in their maddening fun!
It plays to its glee with everyone.
                     Chasing,
                       Laughing,
                         Hurrying by;
It lights on the face and it sparkles the eye,
And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around.
The town is alive and its heart in a glow,
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow! 

How the wild crowd goes swaying along!
Hailing each other with humor and song!
How the gay sledges, like meteors, flash by,
Bright for a moment, then lost to the eye;
                     Ringing,
                       Singing,
                         Dashing they go –
Over the crust of the beautiful snow –
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by,
To be trampled and tracked by the thousands of feet,
Till it blends with the horrible filth in the street. 

Once I was pure as the snow – but I fell!
Fell, like the snowflakes, from heaven – to hell;
Fell, to be trampled as the filth of the street;
Fell, to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat;
                     Pleading,
                       Cursing,
                         Dreading to die,
Selling my soul to whoever would buy,
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,
Hating the living and fearing the dead.
Merciful God! have I fallen so low?
And yet I was once like this beautiful snow! 

Once I was fair as the beautiful snow,
With an eye like its crystals, a heart like its glow;
Once I was loved for my innocent grace,
Flattered and sought for the charms of my face!
                     Father,
                       Mother,
                         Sisters, all,
God and myself, I have lost by my fall.
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by
Will take a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh;
For all that is on or about me, I know,
There is nothing that’s pure but the beautiful snow. 

How strange it should be that this beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it would be, when the night comes again,
If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain!
                      Fainting,
                        Freezing,
                          Dying alone;
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the streets of the crazy town,
Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down;
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow.

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To-Day by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward

To-Day

Why fear to-morrow, timid heart?
   Why tread the future’s way?
We only need to do our pat
   To-day, dear child, to-day.

The past is written!  Close the book
   On pages sad and gay;
Within the future do not look,
   But live to-day — to-day.

‘Tis this one hour that God has given;
   His Now we must obey;
And it will make our earth his heaven
   To live to-day — to-day.

———————————————

photo by Photonut at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dQMYHn/Golden+Sunrise

 

 

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The Character Of A Happy Life by Sir Henry Wotton

The Character Of A Happy Life

How happy is he born or taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armor is his honest thought
And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise
Nor vice; hath ever understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:

Who hat this life from rumors freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;

- This man is freed from servile bonds
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

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The Ballad Of Reading Gaol (excerpt) by Oscar Wilde

Reading Prison, built 1844. Wilde was imprisoned here from 1895 to 1897. (Photo credit: Andrew Smith via Wikipedia)

from The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie;
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

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A Cradle Song by William Butler Yeats

A Cradle Song

The angels are stooping
Above your head;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.

God’s laughing in heaven
To see you so good;
The Shining Seven
Are gay with His mood.

I kiss you and kiss you
My pigeon, my own;
Ah, how I shall miss you
When you have grown.

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My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth

(Photo credit: davidyuweb)

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

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The Beyond by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Beyond

It seemeth such a little way to me,
Across to that strange country, the Beyond;
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
The home of those of whom I am so fond;
They make it seem familiar and most dear,
As journeying friends bring distant countries near.

And so for me there is no sting to death,
And so the grave has lost its victory;
It is but crossing with abated breath
And white, set face, a little strip of sea,
To find the loved ones waiting on the shore,
More beautiful, more precious than before.

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