Category Archives: Poetry

The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields Are hung, as if with golden shields, Bright trophies of the sun! Like a fair sister of the sky, Unruffled doth the blue lake lie, The mountains looking on. And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove, Albeit uninspired by love, By love untaught to ring, May well afford toContinue reading “These vespers of another year”

The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mountContinue reading “The Wild Swans at Coole”

If there were dreams to sell,      What would you buy? Some cost a passing bell;      Some a light sigh, That shakes from Life’s fresh crown Only a rose-leaf down. If there were dreams to sell, Merry and sad to tell, And the carrier rang that bell,      What would you buy? A cottage lone and still,Continue reading “Dream-Pedlary”

I grieve, yet dare not show my discontent; I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate; I dote, but dare not what I ever meant, I seem stark mute, yet inwardly doe prate; I am, and am not—freeze, and yet I burn; Since from myself my other self I turn. My care isContinue reading “On Monsieur’s Departure”

          Let me powre forth My teares before thy face, whil’st I stay here, For thy face coines them, and thy stampe they beare, And by this Mintage they are something worth,           For thus they bee           Pregnant of thee; Fruits of much grief they are, emblemes of more, When a teare falls, that thou falls whichContinue reading “A Valediction: of Weeping”

A moon impoverished amid stars curtailed,       A sun of its exuberant lustre shorn,       A transient morning that is scarcely morn, A lingering night in double dimness veiled.— Our hands are slackened and our strength has failed;       We born to darkness, wherefore were we born?       No ripening more for olive, grape, or corn ; Faith faints,Continue reading “The Greatest of these is Charity”

See how my heart runs off, stealing away!       It flies to a spot it knows, Going upstream to see Memphis, House of the Spirit of Ptah—       and I wish I were with it! But I sit here expecting my heart back       so it can tell me how it is in Memphis. No work can beContinue reading “Classroom wandering”

What doth this noise of thoughts within my heart,           As if they had a part? What do these loud complaints and puling fears,      As if there were no rule or ears? But, Lord, the house and family are thine,           Though some of them repine. Turn out these wranglers, which defile thy seat:      For where thouContinue reading “The Family”

As men, for fear the stars should sleep and nod         And trip at night, have spheres suppli’d; As if a star were duller than a clod,         Which knows his way without a guide: Just so the other heav’n they also serve,         Divinity’s transcendent sky: Which with the edge of wit they cut and carve.         ReasonContinue reading “Divinity”

Behold! The ruins of Babylon. Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground. Isaiah 21.9 The ruins of Nineveh. Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her? Nahum 3.7 The outline of the ancient Neo-Assyrian walls of Nineveh is clear, even though the suburban sprawl of Mosul hasContinue reading “Fallen, fallen . . .”