Tag: England

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19th century Alfred Lord Tennyson English English poetry European Poetry Poetry UK United Kingodm Victorian Era

“The Splendor Falls” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892)


The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugles; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
They faint on hill or field or river; 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Categories
19th century English English poetry European Poetry Love Poetry Victorian Era women women poets

“How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861)


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of being and ideal grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day’s 
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 
I love thee with the passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death.

Categories
England English English poetry English Renaissance Poetry renaissance William Shakespeare

“When, in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes (or, ‘Sonnet 29’)” by William Shakespeare” (1564 – 1616)


When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate, wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Categories
20th century A.E. Housman England English English poetry Victorian Era

“When I Was One-and-Twenty” by A.E. Housman


“When I Was One-and-Twenty”
 BY A. E. HOUSMAN

Listen to “When I Was One-and-Twenty” by A.E. Housman at SoundCloud.com

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Categories
19th century England English English poetry European Poetry Uncategorized

“If—” by Rudyard Kipling


If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Categories
16th Century England English English poetry Sir Walter Raleigh

“Even Such Is Time” by Sir Walter Ralegh (or, Sir Walter Raleigh)


Listen to this poem at SoundCloud.com.

Even such is time, that takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust;

Who, in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

My God shall raise me up, I trust.

Categories
Uncategorized

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672)


If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;	
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.
Categories
18th Century Alexander Pope British Poetry Christian Christianity Religion and Spirituality Uncategorized

“The Christian to His Dying Soul”


Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?

Categories
18th Century British Poetry Celebration England English English poetry European Poetry UK United Kingodm

“The Lamb” by William Blake


Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Categories
Aphra Behn English poetry European Poetry

“A Thousand Martyrs I Have Made” by Aphra Behn


A THOUSAND Martyrs I have made,

All sacrific’d to my desire;

A thousand Beauties have betray’d,

That languish in resistless Fire.

The untam’d Heart to hand I brought,

And fixt the wild and wandring Thought.

I never vow’d nor sigh’d in vain

But both, thô false, were well receiv’d.

The Fair are pleas’d to give us pain,

And what they wish is soon believ’d.

And thô I talked of Wounds and Smart,

Loves Pleasures only toucht my Heart.

Alone the Glory and the SpoilI always Laughing bore away;

The Triumphs, without Pain or Toil,

Without the Hell, the Heav’n of Joy.

And while I thus at random rove

Despise the Fools that whine for Love.

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