Henry Wadsworth Longfellow My Books

Edmund Spenser Sonnets

Sonnet XXX

My love is like to ice, and I to fire;

How comes it, then, that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her intreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat

Is not delayed by her heart0frozen cold,

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,

And feel my flames augmented manifold?

What more miraculous thing may be told,

That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,

And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,

Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Such is the power of love in gentle mind,

That it can alter all the course of kind.

Robert Herrick To Dianeme

Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes,

Which star-like sparkle in the skies;

Nor be you proud that you can see

All hearts your captives; yours, yet free;

Be you not proud of that rich hair

Which wantons with the love-sick air;

When as that ruby which you wear

Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,

Will last to be a precious stone

When all your world of beauty’s gone.

Arthur Hugh Clough

To spend uncounted years of pain,

Again, again, and yet again,

In working out in heart and brain

The problem of our being here;

T gather facts from far and near,

Upon the mind to hold them clear,

And, knowing more may yet appear,

Unto one’s latest breath to fear

The premature result to draw –

Is this the object, end and law,

And purpose of our being here?

William Henry Davies The Hour of Magic

This is the hour of magic, when the Moon

With her bright wand has charmed the tallest tree

To stand stone-still with all his million leaves!

I feel around me things I cannot see;

I hold my breath, as Nature holds her own.

And do the mice and birds, the horse and cow,

Sleepless in this deep silence, so intense,

Believe a miracle has happened now,

And wait to hear a sound they’ll recognize,

To prove they still have life with earthly ties?

William Henry Davies Leisure

What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass,
No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at beauty's glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies Where We Differ

To think my thoughts are hers,

Not one of hers is mine;

She laughs - while I must sigh;

She sighs - while I must whine.

She eats - while I must fast;

She reads - while I am blind;

She sleeps - while I must wake;

Free -- I no freedom find.

To think the world for me

Contains but her alone,

And that her eyes prefer

Some ribbon, scarf, or stone.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow My Books

Sadly as some old medieval knight

Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield,

The sword two-handed and the shining shield

Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,

While secret longings for the lost delight

Of tourney or adventure in the field

Came over him, and tears but half concealed

Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,

So I behold these books upon their shelf,

My ornaments and arms of other days;

Nor wholly useless, though no longer used,

For they remind me of my other self,

Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways

In which I walked, now clouded and confused.

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 1340