The Muses Threnodie: Second Muse (Henry Adamson Poems)
But this sad melancholick disquisition,Did not befit our jovial disposition,In these our days; therefore when we had mournedFor this good ...
But this sad melancholick disquisition,Did not befit our jovial disposition,In these our days; therefore when we had mournedFor this good ...
And while he spoke there was a noise without;The curtains of the door were flung aside,And some with heavy feet ...
There stands a City,-- neither large nor small,Its air and situation sweet and pretty;It matters very little -- if at ...
Blest by the song! (a bard, though humble, cries),That moves by Pity's power th' infuriate breast;Lures Mercy beaming from her ...
(THE PARSON’S BROTHER, SISTER, AND TWO CHILDREN)Preface.What wonder man should fail to stay A nursling wafted from above,The growth celestial come ...
FATE AND SYMPATHY."NE'ER have I seen the market and streets so thoroughly empty!Still as the grave is the town, clear'd ...
I. While envious crowds the summit view, Where Danger with Ambition strays; Or far, with anxious step, pursue Pale Av'rice, thro' his winding ways; The ...
I hain't no hand at tellin' tales,Er spinnin' yarns, as the sailors say;Someway o' 'nother, language failsTo slide fer me ...
DOROTHEA.As the man on a journey, who, just at the moment of sunset,Fixes his gaze once more on the rapidly ...
PILGRIMS who journey in the narrow way,Should go as little cumbered as they may.'Tis heavy sailing with a freighted ship ...
This is a very pleasant sight,—The Moslems thronging to the squareThat lies before their house of prayer!Through narrow streets, that ...
Of all the blessings which kind heaven bestows,From infancy to life's most lengthened close,The one, far greater than all earthly ...
This time our boat passing too nigh the land,The whirling stream did make her run on sand;Aluif, we cry'd, but ...
I.O'er bush and briar Childe Launcelot sprungWith ardent hopes elate,And loudly blew the horn that hungBefore Sir Hornbook's gate.The inner ...
I.AH, yes, 't is sweet still to remember,Though 't were less painful to forget;For while my heart glows like an ...
AND can his antiquarian eyes,My Anglo-Saxon C despise?And does Lord Harcourt, day by day,Regret th' extinct initial K?And still, with ...
IIN an old play-house, in an old play,In an old piece that has been done to death,We dance, kind ladies, ...
DAME FORTUNE often loves a laugh to raise,And, playing off her tricks and roguish ways,Instead of giving us what we ...
Well; I may now receive and die. My sin Indeed is great, but yet I have been in A purgatory, such as ...
FROM HER FRIEND IN THE COUNTRY.By especial request I take up my pen,To write a few lines to my dear ...
This comes to let you knowI'm well, thank God, and hope you're so:In Truth, I'm very much perplext,For something fine ...
I: ENGLANDThere lies an isle, a splendour of the seaHaunting as Babylon, illustrious as Rome:A race of Saxon freemen there ...
My friend has left me, he has gone away;Before his time-so long before-he went.Bright was the dawn of his unended ...
I had rather write one word upon the rockOf ages than ten thousand in the sand.The rock of ages! lo ...
ONE morning I said to my wife,Near the time when the heavens are rifeWith the Equinoctial strife,"Arabella, the weather looks ...
-A RhapsodyOf all the various lots around the ball,Which fate to man distributes, absolute;Avert, ye gods! that of the Muse's ...
Well; I may now receive, and die. My sin Indeed is great, but yet I have been in A purgatory, such as ...
Sir Ralph, a simple, rural Knight,Could just distinguish Wrong from Right;When he receiv'd a Quarter's Rent,And almost half in Taxes ...
O, go not by Dunorloch's wallsWhen the moon is in the wane,And cross not o'er Dunorloch's bridge,The farther bank to ...
. IN THE BACKS. As I was strolling lonely in the Backs, I met a woman whom I did not like. I did not like the way the woman walked: Loose-hipped, big-boned, disjointed, angular. If her anatomy comprised a waist, I did not notice it: she had a face With eyes and lips adjusted thereunto, But round her mouth no pleasing shadows stirred, Nor did her eyes invite a second glance. Her dress was absolutely colourless, Devoid of taste or shape or character; Her boots were rather old, and rather large, And rather shabby, not precisely matched. Her hair was very far from beautiful And not abundant: she had such a hat As neither merits nor expects remark. She was not clever, I am very sure, Nor witty nor amusing: well-informed She may have been, and kind, perhaps, of heart; But gossip was writ plain upon her face. And so she stalked her dull unthinking way; Or, if she thought of anything, it was That such a one had got a second class, Or Mrs So-and-So a second child. I did not want to see that girl again: I did not like her: and I should not mind If she were done away with, killed, or ploughed. She did not seem to serve a useful end: And certainly she was not beautiful.. ON THE KING'S PARADE. As I was waiting for the tardy tram, I met what purported to be a man. What seemed to pass for its material frame, The semblance of a suit of clothes had on, Fit emblem of the grand sartorial art And worthy of a more sublime abode. Its coat and waistcoat were of weird design Adapted to the fashion's latest whim. I think it wore an Athenæum tie. White flannels draped its too ethereal limbs And in its vacant eye there glared a glass. In vain for this poor derelict of flesh, Void of the spirit it was built to house, Have classic poets tuned their deathless lyre, Astute historians fingered mouldering sheets And reared a palace of sententious truth. In vain has y been added unto x, In vain the mighty decimal unrolled, Which strives indefinitely to be π In vain the palpitating frog has groaned Beneath the licensed knife: in vain for this The surreptitious corpse been disinterred And forced, amid the disinfectant fumes, To yield its secrets to philosophy. In vain the stress and storm of politics Beat round this empty head: in vain the priest Pronounces loud anathemas: the fool In vain remarks upon the fact that God Is missing in the world of his belief. Vain are the problems whether space, or time, Or force, or matter can be said to be: Vain are the mysteries of Melchisedec, And vain Methuselah's unusual years. It had a landlady I make no doubt; A friend or two as vacant as itself; A kitchen-bill; a thousand cigarettes; A dog which knew it for the fool it was. Perhaps it was a member of the Union, Who votes as often as he does not speak, And "recommends" as wildly as he spells. Its income was as much beyond its merits As less than its inane expenditure. Its conversation stood to common sense As stands the Sporting Times (its favourite print) To wit or humour. It was seldom drunk, But seldom sober when it went to bed. The mean contents of these superior clothes Were they but duly trained by careful hands, And castigated with remorseless zeal, Endowed with purpose, gifted with a mind, And taught to work, or play, or talk, or laugh, Might possibly aspire—I do not know— To pass, in time, for what they dare to scorn, An ordinary undergraduate. What did this thing crawling 'twixt heaven and earth, Amid the network of our grimy streets? What end was it intended to subserve, What lowly mission fashioned to neglect? It did not seem to wish for a degree, And what its object was I do not know, Unless it was to catch the tardy tram. (James Kenneth Stephen)
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