classic: results 1–24 of 88

I and Pangur Ban my cat,

Tis a like task we are at:

Hunting mice is his delight,

Hunting words I sit all night.

Old papers thrown away,

      Old garments cast aside,

The talk of yesterday,

      Are things identified;

But time once torn away

      No voices can recall:

The eve of New Year's Day

      Left the Old Year lost to all.

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Lucks, my fair falcon, and your fellows all,

   How well pleasant it were your liberty!

Ye not forsake me that fair might ye befall.

But they that sometime liked my company:

Like lice away from dead bodies they crawl.

The winter it is past, and the simmer comes at last,

And the small birds sing on ev'ry tree:

The hearts of these are glad, but mine is very sad,

For my love is parted from me.

Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don't even know what songs

would please you.

again and again the two of us walk out together

under the ancient trees, lie down again and again

among the flowers…

What if I say I shall not wait!

What if I burst the fleshly Gate—

And pass, escaped—to thee!

O my Luve's like a red, red rose

   That's newly sprung in June:

O my Luve's like the melodie

   That's sweetly play'd in tune!

Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear,

   To outward view, of blemish or of spot,

   Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;

   Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear

Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,

   Or man, or woman.

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs

   By the known rules of ancient liberty,

   When straight a barbarous noise environs me

   Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs …

Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint

  Purification in the Old Law did save,

  And such as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.

When I consider how my light is spent,

  Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

  And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

  My true account, lest He returning chide;

They get a forked stick to bear him down

And clap the dogs and take him to the town,

And bait him all the day with many dogs,

And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.

He runs along and bites at all he meets:

They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill;

  Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:

    No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,

  Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,

    Nor the cropp'd grasses shoot another head.

      But when the fields are still,

  And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,

    And only the white sheep are sometimes seen

    Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green;

  Come Shepherd, and again begin the quest.

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Yet everything that touches us, me and you,

takes us together like a violin's bow,

which draws one voice out of two separate strings.

We might be fifty, we might be five,

So snug, so compact, so wise are we!

Under the kitchen-table leg

My knee is pressing against his knee.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

'O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:

The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark

Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

There's a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;

Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay—

      Stay till the good old year,

So long companion of our way,

      Shakes hands, and leaves us here.

            Oh stay, oh stay,

One little hour, and then away.