Crossing the Bar By Alfred Tennyson

SUNSET and evening star,

  And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

  When I put out to sea,

 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,        5

  Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

  Turns again home.

 

Twilight and evening bell,

  And after that the dark!        10

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

  When I embark;

 

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

  The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face        15

  When I have cross’d the bar.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,

  Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape        5

  Of deities or mortals, or of both,

    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

  What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?        10

 

2.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave        15

  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

  She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!        20

 

3.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

  For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!        25

  For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

    For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

  That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.        30

 

4.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

  To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

  And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,        35

  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

    Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

  Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

    Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.        40

 

5.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

  Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

  Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!        45

  When old age shall this generation waste,

    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.        50

 

Ozymandias of Egypt By P. B. Shelley

I MET a traveller from an antique land  

Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone  

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,  

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown  

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command         5

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read  

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,  

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.  

And on the pedestal these words appear:  

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  10

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"  

Nothing beside remains: round the decay  

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,  

The lone and level sands stretch far away.  

 

The Isles of Greece By George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron

THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece  

  Where burning Sappho loved and sung,  

Where grew the arts of war and peace,  

  Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!  

Eternal summer gilds them yet,         5

But all, except their sun, is set.  

 

The Scian and the Teian muse,  

  The hero's harp, the lover's lute,  

Have found the fame your shores refuse:  

  Their place of birth alone is mute  10

To sounds which echo further west  

Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.  

 

The mountains look on Marathon—  

  And Marathon looks on the sea;  

And musing there an hour alone,  15

  I dream'd that Greece might still be free;  

For standing on the Persians' grave,  

I could not deem myself a slave.  

 

A king sate on the rocky brow  

  Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;  20

And ships, by thousands, lay below,  

  And men in nations;—all were his!  

He counted them at break of day—  

And when the sun set, where were they?  

 

And where are they? and where art thou,  25

  My country? On thy voiceless shore  

The heroic lay is tuneless now—  

  The heroic bosom beats no more!  

And must thy lyre, so long divine,  

Degenerate into hands like mine?  30

 

'Tis something in the dearth of fame,  

  Though link'd among a fetter'd race,  

To feel at least a patriot's shame,  

  Even as I sing, suffuse my face;  

For what is left the poet here?  35

For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.  

 

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?  

  Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled.  

Earth! render back from out thy breast  

  A remnant of our Spartan dead!  40

Of the three hundred grant but three,  

To make a new Thermopylæ!  

 

What, silent still? and silent all?  

  Ah! no;—the voices of the dead  

Sound like a distant torrent's fall,  45

  And answer, 'Let one living head,  

But one, arise,—we come, we come!'  

'Tis but the living who are dumb.  

 

In vain—in vain: strike other chords;  

  Fill high the cup with Samian wine!  50

Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,  

  And shed the blood of Scio's vine:  

Hark! rising to the ignoble call—  

How answers each bold Bacchanal!  

 

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;  55

  Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?  

Of two such lessons, why forget  

  The nobler and the manlier one?  

You have the letters Cadmus gave—  

Think ye he meant them for a slave?  60

 

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!  

  We will not think of themes like these!  

It made Anacreon's song divine:  

  He served—but served Polycrates—  

A tyrant; but our masters then  65

Were still, at least, our countrymen.  

 

The tyrant of the Chersonese  

  Was freedom's best and bravest friend;  

That tyrant was Miltiades!  

  O that the present hour would lend  70

Another despot of the kind!  

Such chains as his were sure to bind.  

 

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!  

  On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,  

Exists the remnant of a line  75

  Such as the Doric mothers bore;  

And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,  

The Heracleidan blood might own.  

 

Trust not for freedom to the Franks—  

  They have a king who buys and sells;  80

In native swords and native ranks  

  The only hope of courage dwells:  

But Turkish force and Latin fraud  

Would break your shield, however broad.  

 

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!  85

  Our virgins dance beneath the shade—  

I see their glorious black eyes shine;  

  But gazing on each glowing maid,  

My own the burning tear-drop laves,  

To think such breasts must suckle slaves.  90

 

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,  

  Where nothing, save the waves and I,  

May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;  

  There, swan-like, let me sing and die:  

A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—  95

Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Kubla Khan By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan  

    A stately pleasure-dome decree:  

  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran  

  Through caverns measureless to man  

    Down to a sunless sea.         5

  So twice five miles of fertile ground  

  With walls and towers were girdled round:  

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills  

Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;  

And here were forests ancient as the hills,  10

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.  

 

But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted  

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!  

A savage place! as holy and enchanted  

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted  15

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!  

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,  

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,  

A mighty fountain momently was forced;  

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst  20

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,  

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:  

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever  

It flung up momently the sacred river.  

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion  25

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,  

Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,  

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:  

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far  

Ancestral voices prophesying war!  30

 

  The shadow of the dome of pleasure  

    Floated midway on the waves;  

  Where was heard the mingled measure  

    From the fountain and the caves.  

It was a miracle of rare device,  35

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!  

 

  A damsel with a dulcimer  

    In a vision once I saw:  

  It was an Abyssinian maid,  

    And on her dulcimer she play'd,  40

  Singing of Mount Abora.  

  Could I revive within me,  

  Her symphony and song,  

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,  

That with music loud and long,  45

I would build that dome in air,  

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!  

And all who heard should see them there,  

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!  

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!  50

Weave a circle round him thrice,  

  And close your eyes with holy dread,  

  For he on honey-dew hath fed,  

And drunk the milk of Paradise.  

 

London, 1802 By W. Wordsworth

O FRIEND! I know not which way I must look  

  For comfort, being, as I am, opprest  

  To think that now our life is only drest  

For show—mean handiwork of craftsman, cook,  

Or groom!—We must run glittering like a brook         5

  In the open sunshine, or we are unblest;  

  The wealthiest man among us is the best.  

No grandeur now in nature or in book  

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,  

This is idolatry; and these we adore—  10

Plain living and high thinking are no more.  

  The homely beauty of the good old cause  

Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,  

  And pure religion breathing household laws.  

 

To the Cuckoo By W. Wordsworth

O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,  

  I hear thee and rejoice.  

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,  

  Or but a wandering Voice?  

  

While I am lying on the grass         5

  Thy twofold shout I hear;  

From hill to hill it seems to pass,  

  At once far off and near.  

  

Though babbling only to the vale  

  Of sunshine and of flowers,  10

Thou bringest unto me a tale  

  Of visionary hours.  

  

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!  

  Even yet thou art to me  

No bird, but an invisible thing,  15

  A voice, a mystery;  

  

The same whom in my schoolboy days  

  I listen'd to; that Cry  

Which made me look a thousand ways  

  In bush, and tree, and sky.  20

  

To seek thee did I often rove  

  Through woods and on the green;  

And thou wert still a hope, a love—  

  Still long'd for, never seen!  

  

And I can listen to thee yet;  25

  Can lie upon the plain  

And listen, till I do beget  

  That golden time again.  

  

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace  

  Again appears to be  30

An unsubstantial, faery place,  

  That is fit home for thee!  

 

On His Blindness By John Milton

WHEN I consider how my light is spent  

  Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,  

  And that one talent which is death to hide  

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent  

To serve therewith my Maker, and present         5

  My true account, lest He returning chide,—  

  Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?  

I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent  

That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need  

  Either man's work, or His own gifts, who best  10

Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state  

Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed  

  And post o'er land and ocean without rest:—  

They also serve who only stand and wait.  

Sonnet LXXIII By William Shakespeare

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold” 

THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold  

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang  

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,  

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.  

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day         5

As after sunset fadeth in the west;  

Which by and by black night doth take away,  

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.  

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,  

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,  10

As the death-bed whereon it must expire  

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.  

  This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,  

  To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet XVIII By William Shakespeare

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” 

SHALL I compare thee to a summer’s day?  

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:  

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:  

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,         5

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;  

And every fair from fair sometime declines,  

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;  

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,  

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,  10

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,  

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;  

  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,  

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Ode to the West Wind

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being—  

Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead  

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,  

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,  

Pestilence-stricken multitudes!—O thou         5

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed  

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,  

Each like a corpse within its grave, until  

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow  

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill  10

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)  

With living hues and odours plain and hill—  

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere—  

Destroyer and Preserver—hear, O hear!  

  

  Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,  15

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,  

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,  

Angels of rain and lightning! they are spread  

On the blue surface of thine airy surge,  

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head  20

Of some fierce Mænad, ev'n from the dim verge  

Of the horizon to the zenith's height—  

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge  

Of the dying year, to which this closing night  

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,  25

Vaulted with all thy congregated might  

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere  

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:—O hear!  

  

  Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams  

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,  30

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,  

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,  

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers  

Quivering within the wave's intenser day,  

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers  35

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou  

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers  

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below  

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear  

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know  40

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear  

And tremble and despoil themselves:—O hear!  

  

  If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;  

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;  

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share  45

The impulse of thy strength, only less free  

Than thou, O uncontrollable!—if even  

I were as in my boyhood, and could be  

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,  

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed  50

Scarce seem'd a vision,—I would ne'er have striven  

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.  

O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!  

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!  

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd  55

One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.  

  

  Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is:  

What if my leaves are falling like its own!  

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies  

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,  60

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,  

My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!  

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,  

Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;  

And, by the incantation of this verse,  65

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth  

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!  

Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth  

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,  

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?  70

 

Ode to a Nightingale

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains  

  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,  

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains  

  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:  

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,         5

  But being too happy in thy happiness,—  

    That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,  

          In some melodious plot  

  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,  

    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.  10

  

Oh for a draught of vintage! that hath been  

  Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,  

Tasting of Flora and the country green,  

  Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!  

Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,  15

  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,  

    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,  

          And purple-stainèd mouth;  

  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,  

    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:  20

  

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget  

  What thou among the leaves hast never known,  

The weariness, the fever, and the fret  

  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;  

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,  25

  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies  

    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow  

          And leaden-eyed despairs;  

  Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,  

    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.  30

  

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,  

  Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,  

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,  

  Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:  

Already with thee! tender is the night,  35

  And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,  

    Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;  

          But here there is no light,  

  Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown  

    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.  40

  

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,  

  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,  

But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet  

  Wherewith the seasonable month endows  

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;  45

  White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;  

    Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;  

          And mid-May's eldest child,  

  The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,  

    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.  50

  

Darkling I listen; and for many a time  

  I have been half in love with easeful Death,  

Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,  

  To take into the air my quiet breath;  

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,  55

  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,  

    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad  

          In such an ecstasy!  

  Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—  

    To thy high requiem become a sod.  60

  

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!  

  No hungry generations tread thee down;  

The voice I hear this passing night was heard  

  In ancient days by emperor and clown:  

Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path  65

  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home  

    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;  

          The same that ofttimes hath  

  Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam  

    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.  70

  

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell  

  To toll me back from thee to my sole self.  

Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well  

  As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.  

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades  75

  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,  

    Up the hillside; and now 'tis buried deep  

          In the next valley-glades.  

  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?  

    Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?  80

 

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,  

  Yon solitary Highland Lass!  

Reaping and singing by herself;  

  Stop here, or gently pass!  

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,         5

And sings a melancholy strain;  

O listen! for the Vale profound  

Is overflowing with the sound.  

 

No Nightingale did ever chaunt  

  More welcome notes to weary bands  10

Of travellers in some shady haunt,  

  Among Arabian sands:  

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard  

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,  

Breaking the silence of the seas  15

Among the farthest Hebrides.  

 

Will no one tell me what she sings?—  

  Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow  

For old, unhappy, far-off things,  

  And battles long ago:  20

Or is it some more humble lay,  

Familiar matter of to-day?  

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,  

That has been, and may be again?  

 

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang  25

  As if her song could have no ending;  

I saw her singing at her work,  

  And o'er the sickle bending;—  

I listen'd, motionless and still;  

And, as I mounted up the hill,  30

The music in my heart I bore,  

Long after it was heard no more

THE DAFFODILS

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud  

  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,  

When all at once I saw a crowd,  

  A host of golden daffodils,  

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,         5

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.  

  

Continuous as the stars that shine  

  And twinkle on the Milky Way,  

They stretch'd in never-ending line  

  Along the margin of a bay:  10

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,  

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.  

  

The waves beside them danced, but they  

  Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—  

A poet could not but be gay  15

  In such a jocund company!  

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought  

What wealth the show to me had brought:  

  

For oft, when on my couch I lie  

  In vacant or in pensive mood,  20

They flash upon that inward eye  

  Which is the bliss of solitude;  

And then my heart with pleasure fills,  

And dances with the daffodils.

LA BELLE DAM SANS MERCI

I.

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither’d from the lake,

And no birds sing.

 

II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!        5

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

 

III.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew,        10

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

 

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,

  Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,        15

  And her eyes were wild.

 

V.

I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look’d at me as she did love,

  And made sweet moan.        20

 

VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,

  And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

  A faery’s song.

 

VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet,        25

  And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

  “I love thee true.”

 

VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,        30

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

  With kisses four.

 

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,

  And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream’d        35

  On the cold hill’s side.

 

X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci

  Hath thee in thrall!”        40

 

XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

  With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

  On the cold hill’s side.

 

XII.

And this is why I sojourn here,        45

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,

And no birds sing.