Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
O! it is pleasant with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend’s fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of […]
Epitaph On An Infant. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Its balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother’s breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety! And such my infant’s latest sigh! Oh tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with Lullaby. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
Elegy, Imitated From One Of Akenside’s Blank-Verse Inscriptions by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Near the lone pile with ivy overspread, Fast by the rivulet’s sleep-persuading sound, Where ‘sleeps the moonlight’ on yon verdant bed– O humbly press that consecrated ground! For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain! And there his spirit most delights to rove: Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain, And the sore wounds of […]
Domestic Peace by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Tell me, on what holy ground May domestic peace be found? Halcyon daughter of the skies, Far on fearful wing she flies, From the pomp of scepter’d state, From the rebel’s noisy hate. In a cottaged vale she dwells List’ning to the Sabbath bells! Still around her steps are seen, Spotless honor’s meeker mien, Love, […]
Despair by Samuel Coleridge
I have experienc’d The worst, the World can wreak on me–the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper’d Discontents the dying prayer– I have beheld the whole of all, wherein My Heart had any interest in this Life, To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes That nothing now is left. […]
Desire by Samuel Coleridge
Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame; It is the reflex of our earthly frame, That takes its meaning from the nobler part, And but translates the language of the heart. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
A Day Dream by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
My eyes make pictures when they’re shut:– I see a fountain large and fair, A Willow and a ruined Hut, And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o’er us, like a bower, my beautiful green Willow! A wild-rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer […]
Come, come thou bleak December wind (fragment) by Samuel Coleridge
Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree! Flash, like a Love-thought, thro’ me, Death And take a Life that wearies me. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. […]
A Christmas Carol by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I. The shepherds went their hasty way, And found the lowly stable-shed Where the Virgin-Mother lay: And now they checked their eager tread, For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung, A Mother’s song the Virgin-Mother sung. II. They told her how a glorious light, Streaming from a heavenly throng. Around them shone, suspending […]
A Child’s Evening Prayer by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear In strength and health for many a year; And, O! preserve my father too, And may I pay him reverence due; And may I my best thoughts employ To be my parents’ hope […]
Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua by Samuel Coleridge
The poet in his lone yet genial hour Gives to his eyes a magnifying power : Or rather he emancipates his eyes From the black shapeless accidents of size– In unctuous cones of kindling coal, Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe’s trim bole, His gifted ken can see Phantoms of sublimity. ————— The End And […]
Answer To A Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove, The linnet, and thrush say, ‘I love and I love!’ In the winter they’re silent, the wind is so strong; What it says I don’t know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing, and […]
Absence: A Farewell Ode On Quitting School For Jesus College by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Where graced with many a classic spoil Cam rolls his reverend stream along, I haste to urge the learned toil That sternly chides my love-lorn song: Ah me! too mindful of the days Illumed by Passion’s orient rays, When peace, and Cheerfulness, and Health Enriched me with the best of wealth. Ah fair Delights! that […]
A Soliloquy Of The Full Moon, She Being In A Mad Passion by Samuel Coleridge
Now as Heaven is my Lot, they’re the Pests of the Nation! Wherever they can come With clankum and blankum ‘Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation, With fun, jeering Conjuring Sky-staring, Loungering, And still to the tune of Transmogrification– Those muttering Spluttering Ventriloquogusty Poets With no Hats Or Hats that are rusty. They’re my […]
The Triumph by Siegfried Sassoon
When life was a cobweb of stars for Beauty who came In the whisper of leaves or a bird’s lone cry in the glen, On dawn-lit hills and horizons girdled with flame I sought for the triumph that troubles the faces of men. With death in the terrible flickering gloom of the fight I was […]
The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
My hopes, my messengers I sent Across the ten years continent Of Time. In dream I saw them go– And thought, ‘When they come back I’ll show To what far place I lead my friends Where this disastrous decade ends.’ Like one in purgatory, I learned The loss of hope. For none returned, And long […]
The Portrait by Siegfried Sassoon
I watch you, gazing at me from the wall, And wonder how you’d match your dreams with mine, If, mastering time’s illusion, I could call You back to share this quiet candle-shine. For you were young, three hundred years ago; And by your looks I guess that you were wise… Come, whisper soft, and Death […]
Sporting Acquaintances by Siegfried Sassoon
I watched old squatting Chimpanzee: he traced His painful patterns in the dirt: I saw Red-haired Ourang-utang, whimsical-faced, Chewing a sportsman’s meditative straw: I’d met them years ago, and half-forgotten They’d come to grief (but how, I’d never heard, Poor beggars!); still, it seemed so rude and rotten To stand and gape at them with […]
The Triumph by Siegfried Sassoon
When life was a cobweb of stars for Beauty who came In the whisper of leaves or a bird’s lone cry in the glen, On dawn-lit hills and horizons girdled with flame I sought for the triumph that troubles the faces of men. With death in the terrible flickering gloom of the fight I was […]
The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
My hopes, my messengers I sent Across the ten years continent Of Time. In dream I saw them go– And thought, ‘When they come back I’ll show To what far place I lead my friends Where this disastrous decade ends.’ Like one in purgatory, I learned The loss of hope. For none returned, And long […]
Sassoon’s Public Statement Of Defiance by Siegfried Sassoon
“I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as […]
The Portrait by Siegfried Sassoon
I watch you, gazing at me from the wall, And wonder how you’d match your dreams with mine, If, mastering time’s illusion, I could call You back to share this quiet candle-shine. For you were young, three hundred years ago; And by your looks I guess that you were wise… Come, whisper soft, and Death […]
Sporting Acquaintances by Siegfried Sassoon
I watched old squatting Chimpanzee: he traced His painful patterns in the dirt: I saw Red-haired Ourang-utang, whimsical-faced, Chewing a sportsman’s meditative straw: I’d met them years ago, and half-forgotten They’d come to grief (but how, I’d never heard, Poor beggars!); still, it seemed so rude and rotten To stand and gape at them with […]
The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
My hopes, my messengers I sent Across the ten years continent Of Time. In dream I saw them go– And thought, ‘When they come back I’ll show To what far place I lead my friends Where this disastrous decade ends.’ Like one in purgatory, I learned The loss of hope. For none returned, And long […]
Solar Eclipse by Siegfried Sassoon
Observe these blue solemnities of sky Offering for the academes of after-ages A mythologic welkin freaked with white! Listen : one tiny tinkling rivulet Accentuates the super-sultry stillness That drones on ripening landscapes which imply Serene Parnassus plagued with amorous goats. * * * * Far down the vale Apollo has pursued The noon-bedazzled nymph […]
Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
A lady watches from the crowd, Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ “Oh! there’s Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! Such dignity…. Saluting…. (Wave your flag… now, Freda!)… Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,-at Munich. “Here’s the next carriage!… Jack was once in […]
Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
A lady watches from the crowd, Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ “Oh! there’s Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! Such dignity…. Saluting…. (Wave your flag… now, Freda!)… Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,-at Munich. “Here’s the next carriage!… Jack was once in […]
Prelude: The Troops by Siegfried Sassoon
Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours […]
The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
My hopes, my messengers I sent Across the ten years continent Of Time. In dream I saw them go– And thought, ‘When they come back I’ll show To what far place I lead my friends Where this disastrous decade ends.’ Like one in purgatory, I learned The loss of hope. For none returned, And long […]
On Passing The New Menin Gate by Siegfried Sassoon
Who will remember, passing through this Gate, the unheroic dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,- Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen […]
Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
A lady watches from the crowd, Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ “Oh! there’s Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! Such dignity…. Saluting…. (Wave your flag… now, Freda!)… Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,-at Munich. “Here’s the next carriage!… Jack was once in […]
In An Underground Dressing Station by Siegfried Sassoon
Quietly they set their burden down: he tried To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side. He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, “O put my leg down, doctor, do!” (He’d got A bullet in his ankle; and he’d been shot Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed So kind and gentle, […]
Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
A lady watches from the crowd, Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ “Oh! there’s Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! Such dignity…. Saluting…. (Wave your flag… now, Freda!)… Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,-at Munich. “Here’s the next carriage!… Jack was once in […]
Grandeur Of Ghosts by Siegfried Sassoon
When I have heard small talk about great men I climb to bed; light my two candles; then Consider what was said; and put aside What Such-a-one remarked and Someone-else replied. They have spoken lightly of my deathless friends, (Lamps for my gloom, hands guiding where I stumble,) Quoting, for shallow conversational ends, What Shelley […]
Prelude: The Troops by Siegfried Sassoon
Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours […]
On Passing The New Menin Gate by Siegfried Sassoon
Who will remember, passing through this Gate, the unheroic dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,- Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen […]
In An Underground Dressing Station by Siegfried Sassoon
Quietly they set their burden down: he tried To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side. He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, “O put my leg down, doctor, do!” (He’d got A bullet in his ankle; and he’d been shot Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed So kind and gentle, […]
Grandeur Of Ghosts by Siegfried Sassoon
When I have heard small talk about great men I climb to bed; light my two candles; then Consider what was said; and put aside What Such-a-one remarked and Someone-else replied. They have spoken lightly of my deathless friends, (Lamps for my gloom, hands guiding where I stumble,) Quoting, for shallow conversational ends, What Shelley […]
‘Blighters’ by Siegfried Sassoon
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; ‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!’ I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls, Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home, sweet Home’, And there’d be […]
At The Cenotaph by Siegfried Sassoon
I saw the Prince of Darkness, with his Staff, Standing bare-headed by the Cenotaph: Unostentatious and respectful, there He stood, and offered up the following prayer. ‘Make them forget, O Lord, what this Memorial Means; their discredited ideas revive; Breed new belief that War is purgatorial Proof of the pride and power of being alive; […]