A Commonplace Day by Thomas Hardy
The day is turning ghost, And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, To join the anonymous host Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, To one of like degree. I part the fire-gnawed logs, Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends Upon the shining dogs; Further […]
A Circular by Thomas Hardy
As ‘legal representative’ I read a missive not my own, On new designs the senders give For clothes, in tints as shown. Here figure blouses, gowns for tea, And presentation-trains of state, Charming ball-dresses, millinery, Warranted up to date. And this gay-pictured, spring-time shout Of Fashion, hails what lady proud? Her who before last year […]
A Christmas Ghost Story by Thomas Hardy
South of the Line, inland from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies-your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus: “I would know By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, Was ruled to be […]
After The Visit by Thomas Hardy
Come again to the place Where your presence was as a leaf that skims Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims The bloom on the farer’s face. Come again, with the feet That were light on the green as a thistledown ball, And those mute ministrations to one and to all Beyond a man’s saying […]
After A Journey by Thomas Hardy
I come to interview a Voiceless ghost; Whither, O whither will its whim now draw me? Up the cliff, down, till I’m lonely, lost, And the unseen waters’ soliloquies awe me. Where you will next be there’s no knowing, Facing round about me everywhere, With your nut-coloured hair, And gray eyes, and rose-flush coming and […]
“According to the Mighty Working” by Thomas Hardy
I When moiling seems at cease In the vague void of night-time, And heaven’s wide roomage stormless Between the dusk and light-time, And fear at last is formless, We call the allurement Peace. II Peace, this hid riot, Change, This revel of quick-cued mumming, This never truly being, This evermore becoming, This spinner’s wheel onfleeing […]
A Wasted Illness by Thomas Hardy
Through vaults of pain, Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness, I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain To dire distress. And hammerings, And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent With webby waxing things and waning things As on I went. “Where lies the end To this foul way?” I asked with weakening […]
A Jog-Trot Pair by Thomas Hardy
Who were the twain that trod this track So many times together Hither and back, In spells of certain and uncertain weather? Commonplace in conduct they Who wandered to and fro here Day by day: Two that few dwellers troubled themselves to know here. The very gravel-path was prim That daily they would follow: Borders […]
A Dream Or No by Thomas Hardy
Why go to Saint-Juliot? What’s Juliot to me? I’ve been but made fancy By some necromancy That much of my life claims the spot as its key. Yes. I have had dreams of that place in the West, And a maiden abiding Thereat as in hiding; Fair-eyed and white-shouldered, broad-browed and brown-tressed. And of how, […]
Specula by Thomas Edward Brown
Specula by Thomas Edward Brown When He appoints to meet thee, go thou forth— It matters not If south or north, Bleak waste or sunny plot. Nor think, if haply He thou seek’st be late, He does thee wrong. To stile or gate Lean thou thy head, and long! It may be that to spy […]
Salve! by Thomas Edward Brown
Salve! by Thomas Edward Brown TO live within a cave–it is most good; But, if God make a day, And some one come, and say, ‘Lo! I have gather’d faggots in the wood!’ E’en let him stay, And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood! So sit till morning! when the light is grown […]
Risus Dei by Thomas Edward Brown
Risus Dei by Thomas Edward Brown Methinks in Him there dwells alway A sea of laughter very deep, Where the leviathans leap, And little children play, Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge; But in the outer bay The strong man drives the wedge Of polished limbs, And swims. Yet there is one will […]
Pain by Thomas Edward Brown
Pain by Thomas Edward Brown The Man that hath great griefs I pity not; ’Tis something to be great In any wise, and hint the larger state, Though but in shadow of a shade, God wot! Moreover, while we wait the possible, This man has touched the fact, And probed till he has felt the […]
Jessie by Thomas Edward Brown
Jessie by Thomas Edward Brown WHEN Jessie comes with her soft breast, And yields the golden keys, Then is it as if God caress’d Twin babes upon His knees– Twin babes that, each to other press’d, Just feel the Father’s arms, wherewith they both are bless’d. But when I think if we must part, And […]
If Thou Could’st Empty All Thyself Of Self by Thomas Edward Brown
If Thou Could’st Empty All Thyself Of Self by Thomas Edward Brown If thou could’st empty all thyself of self, Like to a shell dishabited, Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf, And say, “This is not dead,” And fill thee with Himself instead. But thou are all replete with very thou And […]
Ibant Obscur? by Thomas Edward Brown
Ibant Obscur? by Thomas Edward Brown To-night I saw three maidens on the beach, Dark-robed descending to the sea, So slow, so silent of all speech, And visible to me Only by that strange drift-light, dim, forlorn, Of the sun’s wreck and clashing surges born. Each after other went, And they were gathered to his […]
I bended unto me a Bough by Thomas Edward Brown
I bended unto me a Bough by Thomas Edward Brown I bended unto me a bough of May, That I might see and smell: It bore it in a sort of way, It bore it very well. But, when I let it backward sway, Then it were hard to tell With what a toss, with […]
Dora by Thomas Edward Brown
Dora by Thomas Edward Brown SHE knelt upon her brother’s grave, My little girl of six years old– He used to be so good and brave, The sweetest lamb of all our fold; He used to shout, he used to sing, Of all our tribe the little king– And so unto the turf her ear […]
Disguises by Thomas Edward Brown
Disguises by Thomas Edward Brown High stretched upon the swinging yard, I gather in the sheet; But it is hard And stiff, and one cries haste. Then He that is most dear in my regard Of all the crew gives aidance meet; But from His hands, and from His feet, A glory spreads wherewith the […]
The World is with Me by Thomas Hood
The World is with Me by Thomas Hood The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes–its wants–the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs– The shades of former and of future years– Forboding fancies and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate. Heavens! what a wilderness the […]
The Death Bed by Thomas Hood
The Death Bed by Thomas Hood We watch’d her breathing thro’ the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro. But when the morn came dim and sad And chill with early showers, Her queit eyelids closed; she had Another morn than ours. ————— […]
Silence by Thomas Hood
Silence by Thomas Hood There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave—under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush’d—no life treads silently, […]
Past and Present by Thomas Hood
Past and Present by Thomas Hood I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor bought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away. I remember, I […]
On Mistress Nicely, a Pattern for Housekeepers by Thomas Hood
On Mistress Nicely, a Pattern for Housekeepers by Thomas Hood She was a woman peerless in her station, With household virtues wedded to her name; Spotless in linen, grass-bleached in her fame; And pure and clear-starched in her conversation; Thence in my Castle of Imagination She dwells for evermore, the dainty dame, To keep all […]
November by Thomas Hood
November by Thomas Hood No sun; no moon! No morn; no noon; No dawn; no dusk; no proper time of day. No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member; No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!; November! ————— The End And […]
No! by Thomas Hood
No! by Thomas Hood No sun–no moon! No morn–no noon! No dawn–no dusk–no proper time of day– No sky–no earthly view– No distance looking blue– No road–no street–no “t’other side this way”– No end to any Row– No indications where the Crescents go– No top to any steeple– No recognitions of familiar people– No courtesies […]
I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood
I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood I Remember, I Remember I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor brought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my […]
Gold! by Thomas Hood
Gold! by Thomas Hood Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold Molten, graven, hammered and rolled, Heavy to get and light to hold, Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold, Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled, Spurned by young, but hung by old To the verge of a church yard mold; Price of many a crime […]
Death by Thomas Hood
Death by Thomas Hood It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow; That […]
Christmas Holidays by Thomas Hood
Christmas Holidays by Thomas Hood Along the Woodford road there comes a noise Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding’s neat post-chaise Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays, With Reverend Mr. Crow and six small boys, Who ever and anon declare their joys With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas, At going home to spend their […]
Allegory by Thomas Hood
Allegory by Thomas Hood I had a gig-horse, and I called him Pleasure Because on Sundays for a little jaunt He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure; Although he sometimes kicked and shied aslant. I had a chaise, and christened it Enjoyment, With yellow body and the wheels of red, Because it was […]
Without Ceremony by Thomas Hardy
It was your way, my dear, To be gone without a word When callers, friends, or kin Had left, and I hastened in To rejoin you, as I inferred. And when you’d a mind to career Off anywhere – say to town – You were all on a sudden gone Before I had thought thereon, […]
[Greek Title] by Thomas Hardy
Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee, O Willer masked and dumb! Who makest Life become, – As though by labouring all-unknowingly, Like one whom reveries numb. How much of consciousness informs Thy will Thy biddings, as if blind, Of death-inducing kind, Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill But moments in Thy […]
Afterwards by Thomas Hardy
When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, ‘He was a man who used to notice such things’? If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes […]
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot On the meaning and significance of the poem Translations The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot FOR EZRA POUND IL MIGLIOR FABBRO I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull […]