Ode To Evening by William Collins

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
…Like thy own solemn springs,
…Thy springs, and dying gales,

O nymph reserv’d, while now the bright-hair’d sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
…With brede ethereal wove,
…O’er hang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-ey’d bat,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
…Or where the beetle winds
…His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises ‘midst the twilight path,
Against the Pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
…Now teach me, maid compos’d,
…To breathe some soften’d strain,

Whose numbers, stealing thro’ my darkning vale
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
…As, musing slow, I hail
…Thy genial lov’d return!

For when thy folding-star arising shews
His play circlet, at his warning lamp
…The fragrant Hours, and elves
…Who slept in flowers the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the fresh’ning dew, and lovelier still,
…The pensive Pleasures sweet
…Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then lead, calm vot’ress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile,
…Or upland fallows grey
…Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blust’ring winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
…That from the mountain’s side,
…Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover’d spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
…Thy dewy fingers draw
…The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
…While Summer loves to sport,
…Beneath thy ling’ring light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter yelling thro’ the troublous air,
…Affrights thy shrinking train,
…And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lip’d Health
…Thy gentlest influence own,
…And hymn thy fav’rite name!

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Two At A Fireside by Edwin Markham

I built a chimney for a comrade old,
…I did the service not for hope of hire –
And then I travelled on in winter’s cold
…Yet all the way I glowed before the fire.

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“No, Thank You, John” by Christina Rossetti

  “No, Thank You, John”

I never said I loved you, John:
Why will you teaze me day by day,
And wax a weariness to think upon
With always “do” and “pray”?

You know I never loved you, John;
No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
As shows an hour-old ghost?

I dare say Meg or Moll would take
Pity upon you, if you’d ask:
And pray don’t remain single for my sake
Who can’t perform that task.

I have no heart? – Perhaps I have not;
But then you’re mad to take offence
That I don’t give you what I have not got:
Use your own common sense.

Let bygones be bygones:
Don’t call me false, who owed not to be true:
I’d rather answer “No” to fifty Johns
Than answer “Yes” to you.

Let’s mar our pleasant days no more,
Song-birds of passage, days of youth:
Catch at today, forget the days before:
I’ll wink at your untruth.

Let us strike hands as hearty friends;
No more, no less; and friendship’s good:
Only don’t keep in view ulterior ends,
And points not understood

In open treaty.  Rise above
Quibbles and shuffling off and on:
Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love, –
No, thank you, John.

 

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