Mr. Apollinax by T. S. Eliot
WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States His laughter tinkled among the teacups. I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees, And of Priapus in the shrubbery Gaping at the lady in the swing. In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s He laughed like an irresponsible foetus. His laughter was submarine […]
Morning at the Window by T. S. Eliot
THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts […]
Lune de Miel by T. S. Eliot
ILS ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute; Mais une nuit d’été, les voici à Ravenne, A l’aise entre deux draps, chez deux centaines de punaises; La sueur aestivale, et une forte odeur de chienne. Ils restent sur le dos écartant les genoux De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures. On relève […]
Le Directeur by T. S. Eliot
MALHEUR à la malheureuse Tamise Qui coule si preès du Spectateur. Le directeur Conservateur Du Spectateur Empeste la brise. Les actionnaires Réactionnaires Du Spectateur Conservateur Bras dessus bras dessous Font des tours A pas de loup. Dans un égout Une petite fille En guenilles Camarde Regarde Le directeur Du Spectateur Conservateur Et crève d’amour. ————— […]
La Figlia che Piange by T. S. Eliot
O quam te memorem virgo… STAND on the highest pavement of the stair— Lean on a garden urn— Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise— Fling them to the ground and turn With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: But weave, weave the sunlight in your […]
Journey Of The Magi by T. S. Eliot
‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, […]
Hysteria by T. S. Eliot
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of […]
Gus: The Theatre Cat by T. S. Eliot
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus. That’s such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus. His coat’s very shabby, he’s thin as a rake, And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake. Yet he […]
Growltiger’s Last Stand by T. S. Eliot
GROWLTIGER was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge; In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large. From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims, Rejoicing in his title of “The Terror of the Thames.” His manners and appearance did not calculate to please; His coat was torn […]
Gerontion by T. S. Eliot
Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both. HERE I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt […]
Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot
I Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that is the heart’s heat, Reflecting in a watery mirror A glare that […]
Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot
(The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages—is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced to rhyme with assuages. Groaner: a whistling buoy.) I I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable, […]
Four Quartets 2: East Coker by T. S. Eliot
I In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is […]
Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot
I Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been […]
Dans le Restaurant by T. S. Eliot
LE garçon délabré qui n’a rien à faire Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule: “Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux, Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie; C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.” (Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie, Je te prie, […]
Cousin Nancy by T. S. Eliot
MISS NANCY ELLICOTT Strode across the hills and broke them, Rode across the hills and broke them— The barren New England hills— Riding to hounds Over the cow-pasture. Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked And danced all the modern dances; And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it, But they knew that it […]
Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
I OBSERVE: “Our sentimental friend the moon! Or possibly (fantastic, I confess) It may be Prester John’s balloon Or an old battered lantern hung aloft To light poor travellers to their distress.” She then: “How you digress!” And I then: “Someone frames upon the keys That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain The night and […]
Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town by T. S. Eliot
Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones– In fact, he’s remarkably fat. He doesn’t haunt pubs–he has eight or nine clubs, For he’s the St. James’s Street Cat! He’s the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street In his coat of fastidious black: No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers Or such […]
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar by T. S. Eliot
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed. BURBANK crossed a little bridge Descending at a […]
Aunt Helen by T. S. Eliot
MISS HELEN SLINGSBY was my maiden aunt, And lived in a small house near a fashionable square Cared for by servants to the number of four. Now when she died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet— He was […]
Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot
I Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the […]
A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot
En l’an trentiesme do mon aage Que toutes mes hontes j’ay beues… PIPIT sate upright in her chair Some distance from where I was sitting; Views of the Oxford Colleges Lay on the table, with the knitting. Daguerreotypes and silhouettes, Here grandfather and great great aunts, Supported on the mantelpiece An Invitation to the Dance. […]
The Paint-Kings by Washington Allston
Fair Ellen was long the delight of the young, No damsel could with her compare; Her charms were the theme of the heart and the tongue. And bards without number in extacies sung, The beauties of Ellen the fair. Yet cold was the maid; and tho’ legions advanced, All drill’d by Ovidean art, And languish’d, […]
Rosalie by Washington Allston
‘O POUR upon my soul again That sad, unearthly strain, That seems from other worlds to plain; Thus falling, falling from afar, As if some melancholy star Had mingled with her light her sighs, And dropped them from the skies! ‘No,—never came from aught below This melody of woe, That makes my heart to overflow, […]
On The Luxembourg Gallery by Washington Allston
There is a Charm no vulgar mind can reach. No critick thwart, no mighty master teach; A Charm how mingled of the good and ill! Yet still so mingled that the mystick whole Shall captive hold the struggling Gazer’s will, ‘Till vanquish’d reason own its full control. And such, oh Rubens, thy mysterious art, The […]
Eccentricity by Washington Allston
Alas, my friend! what hope have I of fame, Who am, as Nature made me, still the same? And thou, poor suitor to a bankrupt muse, How mad thy toil, how arrogant thy views! What though endued with Genius’ power to move The magick chords of sympathy and love, The painter’s eye, the poet’s fervid […]
Art by Washington Allston
O Art, high gift of Heaven! how oft defamed When seeming praised! To most a craft that fits, By dead, prescriptive Rule, the scattered bits Of gathered knowledge; even so misnamed By some who would invoke thee; but not so By him,-the noble Tuscan,-who gave birth To forms unseen of man, unknown to Earth, Now […]
America To Great Britain by Washington Allston
ALL hail! thou noble land, Our Fathers’ native soil! Oh, stretch thy mighty hand, Gigantic grown by toil, O’er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore! For thou with magic might Canst reach to where the light Of Phœbus travels bright The world o’er! The Genius of our clime, From his pine-embattled steep, Shall hail […]
William Ellery Leonard – William Ellery Leonard
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The Swamp Fox by William Gilmore Simms
WE follow where the Swamp Fox guides, His friends and merry men are we; And when the troop of Tarleton rides, We burrow in the cypress tree. The turfy hammock is our bed, Our home is in the red deer’s den, Our roof, the tree-top overhead, For we are wild and hunted men. We fly […]
The Lost Pleiad by William Gilmore Simms
NOT in the sky, Where it was seen So long in eminence of light serene,— Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave, Nor down in mansions of the hidden deep, Though beautiful in green And crystal, its great caves of mystery,— Shall the bright watcher have Her place, and, as of old, high […]
The Decay Of A People by William Gilmore Simms
THIS the true sign of ruin to a race— It undertakes no march, and day by day Drowses in camp, or, with the laggard’s pace, Walks sentry o’er possessions that decay; Destined, with sensible waste, to fleet away;— For the first secret of continued power Is the continued conquest;—all our sway Hath surety in the […]
The Bard by William Gilmore Simms
Where dwells the spirit of the Bard–what sky Persuades his daring wing,– Folded in soft carnation, or in snow Still sleeping, far o’er summits of the cloud, And, with a seeming, sweet unconsciousness, Wooing his plume, through baffling storms to fly, Assured of all that ever yet might bless The spirit, by love and loftiest […]
The Angel Of The Church by William Gilmore Simms
I. Aye, strike with sacrilegious aim The temple of the living God; Hurl iron bolt and seething flame Through aisles which holiest feet have trod; Tear up the altar, spoil the tomb, And, raging with demoniac ire, Send down, in sudden crash of doom, That grand, old, sky-sustaining spire. II. That spire, for full a […]
Sumter In Ruins by William Gilmore Simms
I. Ye batter down the lion’s den, But yet the lordly beast g’oes free; And ye shall hear his roar again, From mountain height, from lowland glen, From sandy shore and reedy fen– Where’er a band of freeborn men Rears sacred shrines to liberty. II. The serpent scales the eagle’s nest, And yet the royal […]
Song In March by William Gilmore Simms
NOW are the winds about us in their glee, Tossing the slender tree; Whirling the sands about his furious car, March cometh from afar; Breaks the sealed magic of old Winter’s dreams, And rends his glassy streams; Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes Their fetters from the lakes, And, with a power by queenly […]
William Gilmore Simms – William Gilmore Simms
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Ode–Shell The Old City! Shell! by William Gilmore Simms
I. Shell the old city I shell! Ye myrmidons of Hell; Ye serve your master well, With hellish arts! Hurl down, with bolt and fire, The grand old shrines, the spire; But know, your demon ire Subdues no hearts! II. There, we defy ye still, With sworn and resolute will; Courage ye cannot kill While […]
Morris Island by William Gilmore Simms
Oh! from the deeds well done, the blood well shed In a good cause springs up to crown the land With ever-during verdure, memory fed, Wherever freedom rears one fearless band, The genius, which makes sacred time and place, Shaping the grand memorials of a race! The barren rock becomes a monument, The sea-shore sands […]
Hast Thou A Song For A Flower by William Gilmore Simms
I. HAST thou a song for a flower, Such as, if breathed in its ear, Would waken in beauty’s own bower The spirit most fit to be there? Then, minstrel, I challenge thy power– Such song, if thou hast, sing it here!– Here, where the breeze o’erwearied, With his travel o’er ocean creeps, And on […]