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    Default A poem a day

    Starting this thread to present a great poem everyday for any readers that care to follow .
    Today I am presenting one by a great poet I recently discovered that to me was a poetic genius.
    I will present works by many other poets so keep reading and checking if you care at all to read poetry.
    I will not in this thread present any of my compositions as this thread is to be reserved for presenting the works of great poets only.-Tyr

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    My Lady April

    DEW on her robe and on her tangled hair;
    Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
    With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
    The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
    Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
    And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
    Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
    Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.

    Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
    Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
    Across her youth the joys grow less and less
    The burden of the days that are to be:
    Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
    And winter bringing end in barrenness.

    Authored by--- Ernest Dowson
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 06-03-2015 at 09:24 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot View Post

    My Lady April
    Thank you for your poems! You are doing a great favor for me and I am grateful to you. I give them to read to my grand children for their better understanding and feeling English. I am sure that it is absolutely necessary not only learning words and Grammar, but also feel the language itself and it's tune.
    Indifferent alike to praise or blame
    Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
    Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
    Nor casting pearls to swine.
    (A.Pushkin)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Balu View Post
    Thank you for your poems! You are doing a great favor for me and I am grateful to you. I give them to read to my grand children for their better understanding and feeling English. I am sure that it is absolutely necessary not only learning words and Grammar, but also feel the language itself and it's tune.
    Happy that this may indeed help and be enjoyed by you and your family.
    I hope they may enjoy it greatly and be blessed by God with a deeper understanding of life and the world. -Tyr
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot View Post
    Happy that this may indeed help and be enjoyed by you and your family.
    I hope they may enjoy it greatly and be blessed by God with a deeper understanding of life and the world. -Tyr
    I've already said that I am here to refresh my English as I am planning to take my grand son with me to show him a couple of countries from those I worked before for rather long time.
    Last edited by Balu; 06-03-2015 at 10:22 AM.
    Indifferent alike to praise or blame
    Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
    Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
    Nor casting pearls to swine.
    (A.Pushkin)

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    An August Midnight
    by Thomas Hardy


    I

    A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
    And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
    On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -
    A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
    While 'mid my page there idly stands
    A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

    II

    Thus meet we five, in this still place,
    At this point of time, at this point in space.
    - My guests parade my new-penned ink,
    Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
    "God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
    They know Earth-secrets that know not I.


    ----------------------------------------------

    Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) own life wasn't similar to his stories. He was born on the Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester. His father was a master mason and building contractor. Hardy's mother, whose tastes included Latin poets and French romances, provided for his education. After schooling in Dorchester Hardy was apprenticed to an architect. He worked in an office, which specialized in restoration of churches. In 1874 Hardy married Emma Lavinia Gifford, for whom he wrote 40 years later, after her death, a group of poems known as VETERIS VESTIGIAE FLAMMAE (Vestiges of an Old Flame).

    At the age of 22 Hardy moved to London and started to write poems, which idealized the rural life. He was an assistant in the architectural firm of Arthur Blomfield, visited art galleries, attended evening classes in French at King's College, enjoyed Shakespeare and opera, and read works of Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and John Stuart Mills, whose positivism influenced him deeply. In 1867 Hardy left London for the family home in Dorset, and resumed work briefly with Hicks in Dorchester. He entered into a temporary engagement with Tryphena Sparks, a sixteen-year-old relative. Hardy continued his architectural work, but encouraged by Emma Lavinia Gifford, he started to consider literature as his "true vocation."

    Unable to find public for his poetry, the novelist George Meredith advised Hardy to write a novel. His first novel, THE POOR MAN AND THE LADY, was written in 1867, but the book was rejected by many publishers and he destroyed the manuscript. His first book that gained notice, was FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1874). After its success Hardy was convinced that he could earn his living as an author. He devoted himself entirely to writing and produced a series of novels, among them THE RETURN OF NATIVE (1878), THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE (1886).

    TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES (1891) came into conflict with Victorian morality. It explored the dark side of his family connections in Berkshire. In the story the poor villager girl Tess Durbeyfield is seduced by the wealthy Alec D'Uberville. She becomes pregnant but the child dies in infancy. Tess finds work as a dairymaid on a farm and falls in love with Angel Clare, a clergyman's son. They marry but when Tess tells Angel about her past, he hypocritically desert her. Tess becomes Alec's mistress. Angel returns from Brazil, repenting his harshness, but finds her living with Alec. Tess kills Alec in desperation, she is arrested and hanged.

    Hardy's JUDE THE OBSCURE (1895) aroused even more debate. The story dramatized the conflict between carnal and spiritual life, tracing Jude Fawley's life from his boyhood to his early death. Jude marries Arabella, but deserts her. He falls in love with his cousin, hypersensitive Sue Bridehead, who marries the decaying schoolmaster, Phillotson, in a masochist fit. Jude and Sue obtain divorces, but their life together deteriorates under the pressure of poverty and social disapproval. The eldest son of Jude and Arabella, a grotesque boy nicknamed 'Father Time', kills their children and himself. Broken by the loss, Sue goes back to Phillotson, and Jude returns to Arabella. Soon thereafter Jude dies, and his last words are: "Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?".

    In 1896, disturbed by the public uproar over the unconventional subjects of two of his greatest novels, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Hardy announced that he would never write fiction again. A bishop solemnly burnt the book, 'probably in his despair at not being able to burn me', Hardy noted. Hardy's marriage had also suffered from the public outrage - critics on both sides of the Atlantic abused the author as degenerate and called the work itself disgusting. In April, 1912, Hardy wrote:

    By 1885 the Hardys had settled near Dorchester at Max gate, a house designed by the author and built by his brother, Henry. With the exceptions of seasonal stays in London and occasional excursions abroad, his Bockhampton home, "a modest house, providing neither more nor less than the accommodation ... needed" (as Michael Millgate describes it in his biography of the author) was his home for the rest of his life.

    After giving up the novel, Hardy brought out a first group of Wessex poems, some of which had been composed 30 years before. During the remainder of his life, Hardy continued to publish several collections of poems. "Hardy, in fact, was the ideal poet of a generation. He was the most passionate and the most learned of them all. He had the luck, singular in poets, of being able to achieve a competence other than by poetry and then devote the ending years of his life to his beloved verses." (Ford Madox Ford in The March of Literature, 1938) Hardy's gigantic panorama of the Napoleonic Wars, THE DYNASTS, composed between 1903 and 1908, was mostly in blank verse. Hardy succeeded on the death of his friend George Meredith to the presidency of the Society of Authors in 1909. King George V conferred on him the Order of Merit and he received in 1912 the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature.

    Hardy kept to his marriage with Emma Gifford although it was unhappy and he had - or he imagined he had - affairs with other women passing briefly through his life. Emma Hardy died in 1912 and in 1914 Hardy married his secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale, a woman in her 30's, almost 40 years younger than he. From 1920 through 1927 Hardy worked on his autobiography, which was disguised as the work of Florence Hardy. It appeared in two volumes (1928 and 1930). Hardy's last book published in his lifetime was HUMAN SHOWS, FAR PHANTASIES, SONGS AND TRIFLES (1925). WINTER WORDS IN VARIOUS MOODS AND METRES appeared posthumously in 1928.

    Hardy died in Dorchester, Dorset, on January 11, 1928. His ashes were cremated in Dorchester and buried with impressive ceremonies in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. According to a literary anecdote his heart was to be buried in Stinsford, his birthplace, and all went according to plan, until a cat belonging to the poet's sister snatched the heart off the kitchen, where it was temporarily kept, and disappeared into the woods with it.

    The center of Hardy's novels was the rather desolate and history-freighted countryside around Dorchester. His novels bravely challenged many of the sexual and religious conventions of the Victorian age, and dared to present a bleak view into human nature. In the early 1860s, after the appearance Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), Hardy's faith was still unshaken, but he soon adopted the mechanical-determinist view of nature's cruelty, reflected in the inevitably tragic and self-destructive fates of his characters. In his poems Hardy depicted rural life without sentimentality - his mood was often stoically hopeless. "Though he was a modern, even a revolutionary writer in his time, most of us read him now as a lyrical pastoralist. It may be a sign of the times that some of us take his books to bed, as if even his pessimistic vision was one that enabled us to sleep soundly." (Anatole Broyard in New York Times, May 12, 1982)
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Because I Could Not Stop For Death
    ------------------------------------------- by Emily Dickinson

    Because I could not stop for Death--
    He kindly stopped for me--
    The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
    And Immortality.


    We slowly drove--He knew no haste
    And I had put away
    My labor and my leisure too,
    For His Civility--

    We passed the School, where Children strove
    At Recess--in the Ring--
    We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
    We passed the Setting Sun--

    Or rather--He passed us--
    The Dews drew quivering and chill--
    For only Gossamer, my Gown--
    My Tippet--only Tulle--

    We paused before a House that seemed
    A Swelling of the Ground--
    The Roof was scarcely visible--
    The Cornice--in the Ground--

    Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet
    Feels shorter than the Day
    I first surmised the Horses' Heads
    Were toward Eternity--

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Hope you enjoy this one. Got to run now , busy , busy man I be.. -Tyr
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 07-02-2015 at 06:24 PM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    A poem on divine revelation
    by Hugh Henry Brackenridge
    This is a day of happiness, sweet peace,
    And heavenly sunshine; upon which conven'd
    In full assembly fair, once more we view,
    And hail with voice expressive of the heart,
    Patrons and sons of this illustrious hall.
    This hall more worthy of its rising fame
    Than hall on mountain or romantic hill,
    Where Druid bards sang to the hero's praise,
    While round their woods and barren heaths was heard
    The shrill calm echo of th' enchanting shell.
    Than all those halls and lordly palaces
    Where in the days of chivalry, each knight,
    And baron brave in military pride
    Shone in the brass and burning steel of war;
    For in this hall more worthy of a strain
    No envious sound forbidding peace is heard,
    Fierce song of battle kindling martial rage
    And desp'rate purpose in heroic minds:
    But sacred truth fair science and each grace
    Of virtue born; health, elegance and ease
    And temp'rate mirth in social intercourse
    Convey rich pleasure to the mind; and oft
    The sacred muse in heaven-breathing song
    Doth wrap the soul in extasy divine,
    Inspiring joy and sentiment which not
    The tale of war or song of Druids gave.
    The song of Druids or the tale of war
    With martial vigour every breast inspir'd,
    With valour fierce and love of deathless fame;
    But here a rich and splendid throng conven'd
    From many a distant city and fair town,
    Or rural seat by shore or mountain-stream,
    Breathe joy and blessing to the human race,
    Give countenance to arts themselves have known,
    Inspire the love of heights themselves have reach'd,
    Of noble science to enlarge the mind,
    Of truth and virtue to adorn the soul,
    And make the human nature grow divine.


    Oh could the muse on this auspicious day
    Begin a song of more majestic sound,
    Or touch the lyre on some sublimer key,
    Meet entertainment for the noble mind.
    How shall the muse from this poetic bow'r
    So long remov'd, and from this happy hill,
    Where ev'ry grace and ev'ry virtue dwells,
    And where the springs of knowledge and of thought
    In riv'lets clear and gushing streams flow down
    Attempt a strain? How sing in rapture high
    Or touch in vari'd melody the lyre
    The lyre so long neglected and each strain
    Unmeditated, and long since forgot?
    But yet constrain'd on this occasion sweet
    To this fam'd hall and this assembly fair
    With comely presence honouring the day,
    She fain would pay a tributary strain.
    A purer strain though not of equal praise
    To that which Fingal heard when Ossian sung
    With voice high rais'd in Selma hall of shells;
    Or that which Pindar on th' Elean plain,
    Sang with immortal skill and voice divine,
    When native Thebes and ev'ry Grecian state
    Pour'd forth her sons in rapid chariot race,
    To shun the goal and reach the glorious palm.
    He sang the pride of some ambitious chief,
    For olive crowns and wreaths of glory won;
    I sing the rise of that all glorious light,
    Whose sacred dawn the aged fathers saw
    By faith's clear eye, through many a cloud obscure
    And heavy mist between: they saw it beam
    From Judah's royal tribe, they saw it shine
    O'er Judah's happy land, and bade the hills,
    The rocky hills and barren vallies smile,
    The desert blossom and the wilds rejoice.


    This is that light and revelation pure,
    Which Jacob saw and in prophetic view,
    Did hail its author from the skies, and bade
    The sceptre wait with sov'reignty and sway
    On Judah's hand till Shiloh came. That light
    Which Beor's son in clearer vision saw,
    Its beams sore piercing his malignant eye;
    But yet constrain'd by the eternal truth
    Confess'd its origin and hail'd its rise,
    Fresh as a star from Judah's sacred line.
    This, Amos' son touch'd with seraphic fire
    In after times beheld. He saw it beam
    From Judah's royal tribe; he saw it shine
    O'er Judah's happy land, and bade the hills,
    The rocky hills and barren vallies smile,
    The desert blossom and the wilds rejoice.


    This is that light which purifies the soul,
    From mist obscure, of envy, hate, and pride;
    Bids love celestial in the bosom glow,
    Fresh kindling up the intellectual eye
    Of faith divine, in beatific view
    Of that high glory and seraphic bliss,
    Which he who reigns invisible, shall give
    To wait on virtue in the realms of day.


    This is that light which from remotest times
    Shone to the just; gave sweet serenity,
    And sunshine to the soul, of each wise sage,
    Fam'd patriarch, and holy man of God,
    Who in the infancy of time did walk
    With step unerring, through those dreary shades,
    Which veil'd the world e'er yet the golden sun
    Of revelation beam'd. Seth, Enos, and
    The family of him preserv'd from death
    By flood of waters. Abram and that swain
    Who erst exil'd in Midian did sing
    The world from chaos rising, and the birth
    Of various nature in the earth, or sea,
    Or element of air, or heav'n above.


    This is that light which on fair Zion hill
    Descending gradual, in full radiance beam'd
    O'er Canaan's happy land. Her fav'rite seers
    Had intercourse divine with this pure source,
    And oft from them a stream of light did flow,
    To each adjoining vale and desert plain,
    Lost in the umbrage of dark heathen shades.
    'Twas at this stream the fabling poets drank
    And sang how heav'n and earth from chaos rose;
    'Twas at this stream the wiser sages drank
    And straightway knew the soul immortal lives
    Beyond the grave and all the wrecks of time.


    From Judah's sacred hills a partial ray
    Extraneous, visited and cheer'd the gloom
    Spread o'er the shaded earth; yet more than half
    In superstition and the dreams of night
    Each hoary sage by long experience wise,
    And high philosopher of learning fam'd
    Lay buried deep shut from the light of day.
    Shut from the light of revelation clear
    In devious path they wandered oft,
    Nor could strong reason with the partial beam
    Of revelation, wholly dissipate
    The midnight horrors of so dark an age.
    Vain were their searches, and their reason vain,
    Else whence the visionary tales receiv'd,
    Of num'rous deities in earth, or heav'n
    Or sea, or river, or the shades profound
    Of Erebus, dark kingdom of the dead.
    Weak deities of fabled origin
    From king or hero, to the skies advanc'd
    For sanguinary appetite, and skill
    In cruel feats of arms, and tyranny
    O'er ev'ry right, and privilege of man.
    Vain were their searches, and their reason vain,
    Else whence the sculptur'd image of a god,
    And marble bust ador'd as deity,
    Altar and hecatomb prepar'd for these,
    Or human sacrifice when hecatomb
    Consum'd in vain with ceremony dire,
    And rites abhorr'd, denied the wish'd success.
    Reason is dark, else why heroic deem'd
    Fell suicide, as if 'twere fortitude
    And higher merit to recede from life,
    Shunning the ills of poverty, or pain,
    Or wasting sickness, or the victor's sword,
    Than to support with patience fully tried
    As Job, thence equall'd with him in renown.


    Shut from the light of revelation clear
    The world lay hid in shades, and reason's lamp
    Serv'd but to show how dark it was; but now
    The joyous time with hasty steps advanc'd,
    When truth no more should with a partial ray
    Shine on the shaded earth; now on swift wings
    The rosy hours brought on in beauty mild,
    The day-spring from on high, and from the top
    Of some fair mount Chaldean shepherds view
    That orient star which Beor's son beheld,
    From Aram east, and mark'd its lucid ray,
    Shedding sweet influence on Judah's land.
    Now o'er the plain of Bethl'em to the swains
    Who kept their flocks beneath the dews of night,
    A light appears expressive of that day
    More general, which o'er the shaded earth
    Breaks forth, and in the radiance of whose beams,
    The humble shepherd, and the river-swain
    By Jordan stream, or Galilea's lake,
    Can see each truth and paradox explain'd,
    Which not each wise philosopher of Greece,
    Could tell, nor sage of India, nor the sons
    Of Zoroaster, in deep secrets skill'd.


    Such light on Canaan shone but not confin'd
    With partial ray to Judah's favour'd land,
    Each vale and region to the utmost bound
    Of habitable earth, distant or nigh
    Soon finds a gleam of this celestial day:
    Fam'd Persia's mountains and rough Bactria's woods
    And Media's vales and Shinar's distant plain:
    The Lybian desert near Cyrene smiles
    And Ethiopia hails it to her shores.
    Arabia drinks the lustre of its ray
    Than fountain sweeter, or the cooling brook
    Which laves her burning sands; than stream long sought
    Through desert flowing and the scorched plain
    To Sheba's troop or Tema's caravan.


    Egypt beholds the dawn of this fair morn
    And boasts her rites mysterious no more;
    Her hidden learning wrapt in symbols strange
    Of hieroglyphic character, engrav'd
    On marble pillar, or the mountain rock,
    Or pyramid enduring many an age.
    She now receives asserted and explain'd
    That holy law, which on mount Sinai writ
    By God's own finger, and to Moses giv'n,
    And to the chosen seed, a rule of life.
    And strict obedience due; but now once more
    Grav'd on the living tablet of the heart,
    And deep impress'd by energy divine,
    Is legible through an eternal age.


    North of Judea now this day appears
    On Syria west, and in each city fair
    Full many a church of noble fame doth rise.
    In Antioch the seat of Syrian kings,
    And old Damascus, where Hazael reign'd.
    Now Cappadocia Mithridates' realm,
    And poison-bearing Pontus, whose deep shades
    Were shades of death, admit the light of truth.
    In Asia less seven luminaries rise,
    Bright lights, which with celestial vigour burn,
    And give the day in fullest glory round.
    There Symrna shines, and Thyatira there,
    There Ephesus a sister light appears,
    And Pergamus with kindred glory burns:
    She burns enkindled with a purer flame
    Than Troy of old, when Grecian kings combin'd
    Had set her gates on fire: The Hellespont
    And all th' Egean sea shone to the blaze.


    But now more west the gracious day serene
    On Athens rising, throws a dark eclipse
    On that high learning by her sages taught,
    In each high school of philosophic fame;
    Vain wisdom, useless sophistry condemn'd,
    As ignorance and foolishness of men.
    Let her philosophers debate no more
    In the Lyceum, or the Stoics porch,
    Holding high converse, but in error lost
    Of pain, and happiness, and fate supreme.
    Fair truth from heav'n draws all their reas'ning high
    In captive chains bound at her chariot wheels.


    Now Rome imperial, mistress of the world
    Drinks the pure lustre of the orient ray
    Assuaging her fierce thirst of bloody war,
    Dominion boundless, victory and fame;
    Each bold centurion, and each prætor finds
    A nobler empire to subdue themselves.


    From Rome the mistress of the world in peace,
    Far to the north the golden light ascends;
    To Gaul and Britain and the utmost bound
    Of Thule famous in poetic song,
    Victorious there where not Rome's consuls brave,
    Heroes, or conquering armies, ever came.
    Far in the artic skies a light is seen,
    Unlike that sun, which shall ere long retreat,
    And leave their hills one half the year in shades.
    Or that Aurora which the sailor sees
    Beneath the pole in dancing beams of light,
    Playing its gambols on the northern hills.
    That light is vain and gives no genial heat,
    To warm the tenants of those frozen climes,
    Or give that heav'nly vigour to the soul,
    Which truth divine and revelation brings;
    And but for which each heart must still remain,
    Hard as the rock on Scandanavia's shore,
    Cold as the ice which bridges up her streams,
    Fierce as the storm which tempests all her waves.


    Thus in its dawn did sacred truth prevail,
    In either hemisphere from north to south,
    From east to west through the long tract of day.
    From Shinar's plain to Thule's utmost isle,
    From Persia's bay to Scandanavia's shores.
    Cheer'd by its ray now ev'ry valley smiles,
    And ev'ry lawn smote by its morning beam.
    Now ev'ry hill reflects a purer ray,
    Than when Aurora paints his woods in gold,
    Or when the sun first in the orient sky,
    Sets thick with gems the dewy mountain's brow.


    The earth perceives a sov'reign virtue shed
    And from each cave, and midnight haunt retires
    Dark superstition, with her vot'ries skill'd,
    In potent charm, or spell of magic pow'r;
    In augury, by voice, or flight of birds,
    Or boding sign at morn, or noon, or eve,
    Portent and prodigy and omen dire.
    Each oracle by Demon, or the craft
    Of priests, made vocal, can declare no more
    Of high renown, and victory secure,
    To kings low prostrate at their bloody shrines.
    No more with vain uncertainty perplex
    Mistaken worshippers, or give unseen
    Response ambiguous in some mystic sound,
    And hollow murmer from the dark recess.
    No more of Lybian Jove; Dodona's oaks,
    In sacred grove give prophecy no more.
    Th' infernal deities retire abash'd,
    Our God himself on earth begins his reign;
    Pure revelation beams on ev'ry land,
    On ev'ry heart exerts a sov'reign sway,
    And makes the human nature grow divine.


    Now hideous war forgets one half her rage,
    And smoothes her visage horible to view.
    Celestial graces better sooth the soul,
    Than vocal music, or the charming sound
    Of harp or lyre. More than the golden lyre
    Which Orpheus tun'd in melancholy notes,
    Which almost pierc'd the dull cold ear of death,
    And mov'd the grave to give him back his bride.


    Peace with the graces and fair science now
    Wait on the gospel car; science improv'd
    Puts on a fairer dress; a fairer form
    Now ev'ry art assumes; bold eloquence
    Moves in a higher sphere than senates grave,
    Or mix'd assembly, or the hall of kings,
    Which erst with pompous panegyric rung.
    Vain words and soothing flattery she hates,
    And feigned tears, and tongue which silver-tipt
    Moves in the cause of wickedness and pride.
    She mourns not that fair liberty depress'd
    Which kings tyrannic can extort, but that
    Pure freedom of the soul to truth divine
    Which first indulg'd her and with envious hand
    Pluck'd thence, left hideous slavery behind.
    She weeps not loss of property on earth,
    Nor stirs the multitude to dire revenge
    With headlong violence, but soothes the soul
    To harmony and peace, bids them aspire
    With emulation and pure zeal of heart,
    To that high glory in the world unseen,
    And crown celestial, which pure virtue gives.


    Thus eloquence and poesy divine
    A nobler range of sentiment receive;
    Life brought to view and immortality,
    A recent world through which bold fancy roves,
    And gives new magic to the pow'r of song;
    For where the streams of revelation flow
    Unknown to bards of Helicon, or those
    Who on the top of Pindus, or the banks
    Of Arethusa and Eurotas stray'd,
    The poet drinks, and glorying in new strength,
    Soars high in rapture of sublimer strains;
    Such as that prophet sang who tun'd his harp
    On Zion hill and with seraphic praise
    In psalm and sacred ode by Siloa's brook,
    Drew HIS attention who first touch'd the soul
    With taste of harmony, and bade the spheres
    Move in rich measure to the songs on high.
    Fill'd with this spirit poesy no more
    Adorns that vain mythology believ'd,
    By rude barbarian, and no more receives,
    The tale traditional, and hymn profane,
    Sung by high genius, basely prostitute.
    New strains are heard, such as first in the morn
    Of time, were sung by the angelic choirs,
    When rising from chaotic state the earth
    Orbicular was seen, and over head
    The blazing sun, moon, planet, and each light
    That gilds the firmament, rush'd into view.


    Thus did the sun of revelation shine
    Full on the earth, and grateful were its beams:
    Its beams were grateful to the chosen seed,
    To all whose works were worthy of the day.
    But creatures lucifuge, whose ways were dark,
    Ere this in shades of paganism hid,
    Did vent their poison, and malignant breath,
    To stain the splendour of the light divine,
    Which pierc'd their cells and brought their deeds to view
    Num'rous combin'd of ev'ry tongue and tribe,
    Made battle proud, and impious war brought on,
    Against the chosen sanctified by light.
    Riches and pow'r leagu'd in their train were seen,
    Sword, famine, flames and death before them prey'd.
    Those faithful found, who undismay'd did bear
    A noble evidence to truth, were slain.
    Why should I sing of these or here record,
    As if 'twere praise, in poesy or song,
    Or sculptur'd stone, to eternize the names,
    Which writ elsewhere in the fair book of life,
    Shall live unsullied when each strain shall die:
    Shall undefac'd remain when sculptur'd stone,
    And monument, and bust, and storied urn
    Perpetuates its sage and king no more.


    The pow'r of torture and reproach was vain,
    But what not torture or reproach could do,
    Dark superstition did in part effect.
    That superstition, which saint John beheld,
    Rise in thick darkness from th' infernal lake.
    Locust and scorpion in the smoke ascend,
    False teacher, heretic, and Antichrist.
    The noon day sun is dark'ned in the sky,
    The moon forbears to give her wonted light.
    Full many a century the darkness rul'd,
    With heavier gloom than once on Egypt came,
    Save that on some lone coast, or desert isle,
    Where sep'rate far a chosen spirit dwelt,
    A Goshen shone, with partial-streaming ray.
    Night on the one side settles dark; on Rome,
    It settles dark, and ev'ry land more west
    Is wrapt in shades. Night on the east comes down
    With gloom Tartarean, and in part it rose
    From Tartary beneath the dusky pole.
    The ruthless Turk, and Saracen in arms,
    O'er-run the land the gospel once illum'd;
    The holy land Judea once so nam'd,
    And Syria west where many churches rose.
    Those golden luminaries are remov'd,
    Which once in Asia shone. Athens no more
    For truth and learning fam'd. Corinth obscur'd,
    Ionia mourns through all her sea-girt isles.


    But yet once more the light of truth shall shine
    In this obscure sojourn; shall shoot its beam
    In morning beauty mild, o'er hill and dale.
    See in Bohemia and the lands more west
    The heavenly ray of revelation shines,
    Fresh kindling up true love and purest zeal.


    Britannia next beholds the risen day
    In reformation bright; cheerful she hails
    It from her snow-white cliffs, and bids her sons,
    Rise from the mist of popery obscure.
    Her worthier sons, whom not Rome's pontiff high,
    Nor king with arbitrary sway could move.
    Those mightier who with constancy untam'd,
    Did quench the violence of fire, at death
    Did smile, and maugre ev'ry pain, of bond,
    Cold dark imprisonment, and scourge severe,
    By hell-born popery devis'd, held fast
    The Christian hope firm anchor of the soul.
    Or those who shunning that fell rage of war,
    And persecution dire, when civil pow'r,
    Leagu'd in with sacerdotal sway triumph'd,
    O'er ev'ry conscience, and the lives of men,
    Did brave th' Atlantic deep and through its storms
    Sought these Americ shores: these happier shores
    Where birds of calm delight to play, where not
    Rome's pontiff high, nor arbitrary king,
    Leagu'd in with sacerdotal sway are known.
    But peace and freedom link'd together dwell,
    And reformation in full glory shines.
    Oh for a muse of more exalted wing,
    To celebrate those men who planted first
    The christian church in these remotest lands;
    From those high plains where spreads a colony,
    Gen'rous and free, from Massachusett-shores,
    To the cold lakes margin'd with snow: from that
    Long dreary tract of shady woods and hills,
    Where Hudson's icy stream rolls his cold wave,
    To those more sunny bowers where zephyrs breath,
    And round which flow in circling current swift
    The Delaware and Susquehannah streams.
    Thence to those smiling plains where Chesapeak
    Spreads her maternal arms, encompassing
    In soft embrace, full many a settlement,
    Where opulence, with hospitality,
    And polish'd manners, and the living plant
    Of science blooming, sets their glory high [1].
    Thence to Virginia, sister colony,
    Lib'ral in sentiment, and breathing high,
    The noble ardour of the freeborn soul.
    To Carolina thence, and that warm clime
    Where Georgia south in summer heat complains,
    And distant thence towards the burning line.


    These men deserve our song, and those who still,
    With industry severe, and steady aim
    Diffuse the light in this late dreary land,
    In whose lone wastes and solitudes forlorn,
    Death long sat brooding with his raven wing.
    Who many 'a structure of great fame have rais'd,
    College, and school, upon th' Atlantic coast,
    Or inland town, through ev'ry province wide,
    Which rising up like pyramids of fire,
    Give light and glory to the western world.


    These men we honour, and their names shall last
    Sweet in the mouths and memory of men;
    Or if vain man unconscious of their worth,
    Refuse a tear when in some lonely vale
    He sees those faithful laid; each breeze shall sigh,
    Each passing gale shall mourn, each tree shall bend
    Its heavy head, in sorrow o'er their tombs,
    And some sad stream run ever weeping by.
    Weep not O stream, nor mourn thou passing gale,
    Beneath those grassy tombs their bodies lie,
    But they have risen from each labour bere
    To make their entrance on a nobler stage.
    What though with us they walk the humble vale
    Of indigence severe, with want oppress'd?
    Riches belong not to their family,
    Nor sloth luxurious nor the pride of kings;
    But truth meek-ey'd and warm benevolence
    Wisdom's high breeding in her sons rever'd
    Bespeaks them each the children[2] of a king.
    The christian truth of origin divine,
    Grows not beneath the shade of civil pow'r,
    Riches or wealth accompanied with pride;
    Nor shall it bloom transplanted to that soil,
    Where persecution, in malignant streams,
    Flows out to water it; black streams and foul
    Which from the lake of Tartarus break forth,
    The sickly tide of Acheron which flows,
    With putrid waves through the infernal shades.
    This plant of heaven loves the gentle beams,
    Of truth and meekness, and the kindly dew
    Which fell on Zion hill; it loves the care
    Of humble shepherds, and the rural swain,
    And tended by their hands it flourishes
    With fruit and blossoms, and soon gives a shade,
    Beneath which ev'ry traveller shall rest,
    Safe from the burning east-wind and the sun.
    A vernal shade not with'ring like the gourd
    Of him who warned Nineveh, but like
    The aged oaks immortal on the plain
    Of Kadesh, or tall cedars on the hill
    Of Lebanon, and Hermon's shady top.


    High is their fame through each succeeding age
    Who build the walls of Zion upon earth.
    Let mighty kings and potentates combine,
    To raise a pyramid, which neither storm,
    Nor sea indignant, nor the raging fire,
    Nor time can waste, or from firm basis move.
    Or let them strive by counsel or by arms,
    To fix a throne, and in imperial sway,
    Build up a kingdom shadowing the earth,
    Unmov'd by thunder or impetuous storm
    Of civil war, dark treason, or the shock
    Of hostile nations, in dire league combin'd.
    They build a kingdom of a nobler date,
    Who build the kingdom of the Saviour God.
    This, not descending rain, nor mighty storm,
    Nor sea indignant, nor the raging fire,
    Nor time shall waste, or from firm basis move.
    Rounded on earth its head doth reach the skies,
    Secure from thunder, and impetuous storm,
    Of civil war, dark treason, or the shock
    Of hostile nations in dire league combin'd.
    This still shall flourish and survive the date,
    Of each wide state and empire of the earth
    Which yet shall rise, as now of those which once
    From richest Asia or from Europe spread
    On mighty base and shaded half the world.
    Great Babylon which vex'd the chosen seed,
    And by whose streams the captive Hebrews sat,
    In desolation lies, and Syria west,
    Where the Seleucidæ did fix their throne,
    Loud-thund'ring thence o'er Judah's spoiled land,
    Boasts her proud rule no more. Rome pagan next,
    The raging furnace where the saints were tried,
    No more enslaves mankind. Rome papal too
    Contracts her reign and speaks proud things no more.
    The throne of Ottoman is made to shake,
    The Russian thund'ring to his firmest seat;
    Another age shall see his empire fall.
    Yet in the east the light of truth shall shine,
    And like the sun returning after storms
    Which long had raged through a sunless sky,
    Shall beam beningly on forsaken lands.
    The day serene once more on Zion hill
    Descending gradual, shall in radiance beam
    On Canaan's happy land. Her fav'rite seers
    Have intercourse divine with this pure source;
    Perennial thence rich streams of light shall flow,
    To each adjoining vale and desert plain
    Lost in the umbrage of dark heathen shades.
    The gospel light shall gloriously survive
    The wasting blaze of ev'ry baser fire.
    The fire of Vesta, an eternal fire,
    So falsely call'd and kept alive at Rome;
    Sepulchral lamp in burial place of kings,
    Burn'd unconsum'd for many ages down;
    But yet not Vesta's fire eternal call'd
    And kept alive at Rome, nor burning lamp
    Hid in sepulchral monument of kings,
    Shall bear an equal date with that true light,
    Which shone from earth to heav'n, and which shall shine
    Up through eternity, and be the light
    Of heav'n, the new Jerusalem above.
    This light from heav'n shall yet illume the earth
    And give its beams to each benighted land
    Now with new glory lighted up again.
    Then ruthless Turk and Saracen shall know
    The fallacies of him Medina bred,
    And whose vain tomb, in Mecca they adore.
    Then Jews shall view the great Messiah come,
    And each rent tribe in caravan by land,
    Or ship by sea, shall visit Palestine
    Thrice holy then, with vile Idolatry
    No more defil'd, altar on mountain head,
    Green shady hill, or idol of the grove.
    For there a light appears, with which compar'd,
    That was a twilight shed by rite obscure,
    And ceremony dark and sacrifice
    Dimly significant of things to come.
    Blest with this light no more they deviate
    In out-way path; distinguished no more
    By school or sect, Essene or Saducee,
    Cairite or Scribe of Pharisaic mould.
    Jew and Samaritan debate no more,
    Whether on Gerizim or Zion hill
    They shall bow down. Above Moriah's mount
    Each eye is raised to him, whose temple is
    Th' infinitude of space, whom earth, sea, sky
    And heav'n itself cannot contain. No more
    The noise of battle shall be heard, or shout
    Of war by heathen princes wag'd; There's nought
    Shall injure or destroy; they shall not hurt
    In all my holy mountain saith the Lord.
    The earth in peace and ev'ry shadow fled,
    Bespeaks Emmanuel's happy reign when Jew,
    And kindred Gentile shall no more contend,
    Save in the holier strife of hymn and song,
    To him who leads captive captivity,
    Who shall collect the sons of Jacob's line,
    And bring the fulness of the Gentiles in.
    Thrice happy day when Gentiles are brought in
    Complete and full; when with its genial beams
    The day shall break on each benighted land
    Which yet in darkness and in vision lies:
    On Scythia and Tartary's bleak hills;
    On mount Imaus, and Hyrcanian cliffs
    Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales;
    Japan and China, and the sea-girt isles
    The ancient Ophir deem'd; for there rich gems
    And diamond pearl, and purest gold is found.


    Thrice happy day when this whole earth shall feel
    The sacred ray of revelation shed,
    Far to the west, through each remotest land
    With equal glory rivalling the day
    Pour'd on the east. When these Americ shores
    Shall far and wide be light, and heav'nly day
    Shall in full glory rise on many a reign,
    Kingdom and empire bending to the south,
    And nation touching the Pacific shore.
    When Christian churches shall adorn the streams
    Which now unheeded flow with current swift
    Circling the hills, where fiercest beasts of prey,
    Panther and wolf in nightly concert howl.
    The Indian sage from superstition freed,
    Be taught a nobler heav'n than cloud-topt-hill,
    Or sep'rate island in the wat'ry waste.
    The aged Sachem fix his moving tribe,
    And grow humane now taught the arts of peace.
    In human sacrifice delight no more,
    Mad cantico or savage feast of war.
    Such scenes of fierce barbarity no more
    Be perpetrated there, but truth divine
    Shine on the earth in one long cloudless day,
    Till that last hour which shuts the scene of things,
    When this pure light shall claim its native skies;
    When the pure stream of revelation shall,
    With refluent current visit its first hills:
    There shall it mix with that crystalline wave,
    Which laves the walls of Paradise on high,
    And from beneath the seat of God doth spring.
    This is that river from whose sacred head
    The sanctified in golden arms draw light,
    On either side of which that tree doth grow
    Which yields immortal fruit, and in whose shade
    If shade were needed there, the rapt shall sing,
    In varied melody to harp and lyre,
    The sacred song of Moses and the Lamb:
    Eternity's high arches ring; 'Tis heard
    Through both infinitudes of space and time.


    Thus have I sung to this high-favour'd bow'r,
    And sacred shades which taught me first to sing,
    With grateful mind a tributary strain.
    Sweet grove no more I visit you, no more
    Beneath your shades shall meditate my lay.
    Adieu ye lawns and thou fair hill adieu,
    And you O shepherds, and ye graces fair
    With comely presence honouring the day,
    Far hence I go to some sequest'red vale
    By woody hill or shady mountain side,
    Where far from converse and the social band,
    My days shall pass inglorious away: [3]
    But this shall be my exultation still
    My chiefest merit and my only joy,
    That when the hunter on some western hill,
    Or furzy glade shall see my grassy tomb,
    And know the stream which mourns unheeded by,
    He for a moment shall repress his step,
    And say, There lies a Son of Nassau-Hall.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    William Ernest Henley (August 23, 1849 - July 11, 1903) was a British poet, critic and editor.
    Henley was born in Gloucester and educated at the Crypt Grammar School. The school was a poor relation of the Cathedral School, and Henley indicated its shortcomings in his article (Pall Mall Magazine, Nov. 1900) on T. E. Brown the poet, who was headmaster there for a brief period. Brown's appointment was a stroke of luck for Henley, for whom it represented a first acquaintance with a man of genius. "He was singularly kind to me at a moment when I needed kindness even more than I needed encouragement." Brown did him the essential service of lending him books. Henley was no classical scholar, but his knowledge and love of literature were vital.
    After suffering tuberculosis as a boy, he found himself, in 1874, aged twenty-five, an inmate of the hospital at Edinburgh. From there he sent to the Cornhill Magazine where he wrote poems in irregular rhythms, describing with poignant force his experiences in hospital. Leslie Stephen, then editor, visited his contributor in hospital and took Robert Louis Stevenson, another recruit of the Cornhill, with him. The meeting between Stevenson and Henley, and the friendship of which it was the beginning, form one of the best-known episodes in English literature (see Stevenson's letter to Mrs Sitwell, Jan. 1875, and Henley's poems "An Apparition" and "Envoy to Charles Baxter").

    In 1877 Henley went to London and began his editorial career by editing London, a journal written for the sake of its contributors rather than the public. Among other distinctions it first gave to the world The New Arabian Nights of Stevenson. Henley himself contributed a series of verses chiefly in old French forms. He had been writing poetry since 1872, but (so he told the world in his “ advertisement” to his collected Poems, 1898) he “found himself about 1877 so utterly unmarketable that he had to own himself beaten in art and to addict himself to journalism for the next ten years.” When London folded, he edited the Magazine of Art from 1882 to 1886. At the end of that period he came into the public eye as a poet. In 1887 Gleeson White made for the popular series of Canterbury Poets (edited by William Sharp) a selection of poems in old French forms. In his selection Gleeson White included many pieces from London, and only after completing the selection did he discover that the verses were all by Henley. In the following year, HB Donkin in his volume Voluntaries, written for an East End hospital, included Henley's unrhymed rhythms quintessentializing the poet's memories of the old Edinburgh Infirmary. Alfred Nutt read these, and asked for more; and in 1888 his firm published A Book of Verse.
    Henley was by this time well known within a restricted literary circle, and the publication of this volume determined his fame as a poet, which rapidly outgrew these limits, two new editions of the volume being printed within three years. In this same year (1888) Fitzroy Bell started the Scots Observer in Edinburgh, with Henley as literary editor, and early in 1889 Bell left the conduct of the paper to him. It was a weekly review on the lines of the old Saturday Review, but inspired in every paragraph by the vigorous and combative personality of the editor. It was transferred to London as the National Observer, and remained under Henley's editorship until 1893. Though, as Henley confessed, the paper had almost as many writers as readers, and its fame was mainly confined to the literary class, it was a lively and influential feature of the literary life of its time. Henley had the editor's great gift of discerning promise, and the "Men of the Scots Observer," as Henley affectionately and characteristically called his band of contributors, in most instances justified his insight. The paper found utterance for the growing imperialism of its day, and among other services to literature gave to the world Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Between the Dusk of a Summer Night
    by William Ernest Henley

    Between the dusk of a summer night
    And the dawn of a summer day,
    We caught at a mood as it passed in flight,
    And we bade it stoop and stay.
    And what with the dawn of night began
    With the dusk of day was done;
    For that is the way of woman and man,
    When a hazard has made them one.
    Arc upon arc, from shade to shine,
    The World went thundering free;
    And what was his errand but hers and mine --
    The lords of him, I and she?
    O, it's die we must, but it's live we can,
    And the marvel of earth and sun
    Is all for the joy of woman and man
    And the longing that makes them one
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    "Go, lovely Rose"

    BY EDMUND WALLER

    Go, lovely Rose—
    Tell her that wastes her time and me,
    That now she knows,
    When I resemble her to thee,
    How sweet and fair she seems to be.

    Tell her that’s young,
    And shuns to have her graces spied,
    That hadst thou sprung
    In deserts where no men abide,
    Thou must have uncommended died.

    Small is the worth
    Of beauty from the light retired:
    Bid her come forth,
    Suffer herself to be desired,
    And not blush so to be admired.

    Then die—that she
    The common fate of all things rare
    May read in thee;
    How small a part of time they share
    That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    To Mr. Vaughan, Silurist on His Poems
    by Katherine Philips


    Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
    Got an antipathy to wit and sence,
    And hug'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
    'Twas good -- affection to be ignorant;
    Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen
    I had converted, or excuseless been:
    For each birth of thy muse to after-times
    Shall expatiate for all this age's crimes.
    First shines the Armoret, twice crown'd by thee,
    Once by they Love, next by Poetry;
    Where thou the best of Unions dost dispence:
    Truth cloth'd in wit, and Love in innocence.
    So that the muddyest Lovers may learn here,
    No fountains can be sweet that are not clear.
    Then Juvenall reviv'd by thee declares
    How flat man's Joys are, and how mean his cares;
    And generously upbraids the world that they
    Should such a value for their ruine pay.
    But when thy sacred muse diverts her quill,
    The Lantskip to design of Zion-Hill;32
    As nothing else was worthy her or thee,
    So we admire almost t'Idolatry.
    What savage brest would not be rapt to find
    Such Jewells insuch Cabinets enshrind'?
    Thou (fill'd with joys too great to see or count)
    Descend'st from thence like Moses from the Mount,
    And with a candid, yet unquestioned aw,
    Restorlst the Golden Age when Verse was Law.
    Instructing us, thou so secur'st thy fame,
    That nothing can distrub it but my name;
    Nay I have hoped that standing so near thine
    'Twill lose its drosse, and by degrees refine ...
    "Live, till the disabused world consent
    All truths of use, or strength, or ornament,
    Are with such harmony by thee displaid,
    As the whole world was first by number made
    And from the charming rigour thy Muse brings
    Learn there's no pleasure but in serious things.

    ---------------------------------------------------

    Katherine Fowler was born on New Year's day, 1631 in London, England. Her father, John Fowler, was a Presbyterian merchant. Katherine was educated at one of the Hackney boarding-schools, where she became fluent in several languages. After the death of John Fowler, Katherine's mother married a Welshman, Hector Philips, and, in 1647, at the age of sixteen, Katherine was married to fifty-four-year old James Philips, Hector's son by his first wife.

    In spite of the difference in their ages, there appears to have been little conflict between Katherine and James. What division there was, was political in nature: she was a Royalist; he supported Oliver Cromwell. This difference in their views is recorded in Katherine's poetry. However, James continued to reside on the coast of Wales, while his wife spent much of her time in London. He encouraged her literary activities and left her largely to her own devices.

    Her time was not idly spent. Besides bearing two children (a son, Hector, who lived only forty days, and a daughter, Katherine, who lived to be married), Philips founded The Society of Friendship, wrote some hundred and sixteen poems, completed five verse translations, and translated two plays by Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) from the French. The earlier of these dramatic translations, a rendering of Pompey, was produced in 1663, the first play by a woman to be performed on the London stage. It was also performed, to great acclaim, in Dublin in the same year. The later translation, Horace, was not finished in her lifetime. Sir John Denham (1615 - 1669) completed her work, and the play was produced in 1668.

    The Society of Friendship (1651-1661) was a semi-literary correspondence circle composed primarily of women, though men were also involved. The membership, however, is somewhat in question, as its members took pseudonyms from Classical literature (Katherine Philips, for instance, took the name Orinda, to which other members appended the accolade "Matchless." It is as "Matchless Orinda" that Philips is most often known, as this was her usual signature.) Poet Henry Vaughan (1622-1695) was probably a member, and in some degree a personal friend to Philips. It was as a preface to his poems that hers were first published, in 1651. (The only other publication of Philips' work in her lifetime was an unauthorized edition in 1664).

    More important are the female members of the circle, especially Anne Owen, known in Philips's poems as Lucasia. Fully half of Philips's poetry is dedicated to this woman; the two seem to have been lovers in an emotional, if not in a physical, sense for about ten years. Also significant as correspondents and lovers and Mary Awbrey (Rosania) and Elizabeth Boyle (Celimena). Boyle's relationship with Philips, however, was cut short by Philips' death in 1664. These loves are prominent in Philips's poetry. Because she used the language of courtly love to describe her relationships, their extent and nature are not entirely certain, but the love between these women was most likely platonic. Philips remarked at time that love between women was pure, uncorrupted by the sexual. The poetry does not overtly suggest physical relationships. In fact, Philips' contemporaries often praised her modest, properly feminine subject matter.

    Katherine Philips died of smallpox June 22, 1664, in London. She was thirty-three years old. Her death was mourned in verse by the metaphysical poet Abraham Cowley. The first authorized collection of her verse was not published until 1667. A century and a half later, the Romantic poet John Keats admired her work in a letter to a friend.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------

    Just found this amazing poetess this morn. This poem struck me as a great one to post here.
    Shows the brilliance of female poets . That women can think deeply and write as well as any man can.-Tyr
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 06-20-2015 at 09:26 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    BY GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE
    TRANSLATED BY DONALD REVELL


    Mirabeau Bridge



    Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away
    And lovers
    Must I be reminded
    Joy came always after pain


    The night is a clock chiming
    The days go by not I


    We're face to face and hand in hand
    While under the bridges
    Of embrace expire
    Eternal tired tidal eyes


    The night is a clock chiming
    The days go by not I


    Love elapses like the river
    Love goes by
    Poor life is indolent
    And expectation always violent


    The night is a clock chiming
    The days go by not I


    The days and equally the weeks elapse
    The past remains the past
    Love remains lost
    Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away


    The night is a clock chiming
    The days go by not I
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This one is very deep, like the rivers waters, the past flow and past lost love.
    I can quite easily relate to this great poem by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE...... --Tyr
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    The Sun Rising
    ******************************** by John Donne
    Busy old fool, unruly sun,
    Why dost thou thus,
    Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
    Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
    Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
    Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
    Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices;
    Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
    Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

    Thy beams so reverend and strong
    Why shouldst thou think?
    I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink
    But that I would not lose her sight so long:
    If her eyes have not blinded thine,
    Look, and, tomorrow late, tell me
    Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
    Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
    And thou shalt hear 'All here in one bed lay'.

    She is all states, and all princes I;
    Nothing else is.
    Princes do but play us; compared to this,
    All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
    Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
    In that the world's contracted thus;
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
    To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
    Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
    This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.


    ------------------------------------------------------------------

    John Donne was born in London into an old Roman Catholic family at a time when anti-Catholic feeling in England was near its height. He was educated at home by Catholic tutors. He attended both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, as well as Lincoln's Inn as a trainee lawyer, he never took any academic degrees and never practised law. In 1593 his younger brother Henry died in prison after being arrested for harbouring a priest. Somewhere around this time Donne renounced his faith. He read enormously in divinity, medicine, law and the classics and wrote to display his learning and wit. In 1598 he was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton and sat in Elizabeth's last parliament. In 1601 he secretly married seventeen-year-old Ann More, Lady Egerton's niece. Sir George More had Donne imprisoned for a brief period and dismissed from his post. The next fourteen years were marked by his attempts to live down his shame, and to try to make a living to support his growing family, but depending largely on the charity of friends and his wife's relations.

    On the suggestion of James I who approved of the anti-Catholic sentiments of Pseudo-Martyr (1610), Donne took orders in 1615. In due course he was appointed Reader in Divinity at Lincoln's Inn and was deemed a great preacher. His wife died in 1617 aged thirty-three after giving birth to their twelfth child. In 1618 he went as chaplain to the Earl of Doncaster in his embassy to the German princes. His 'Hymn to Christ at the Author's Last Going into Germany', written before the journey, is full of the apprehension of death. In 1621 he was made Dean of St Paul's. His private devotions were published in 1624 and he continued to write sacred poetry almost up to his death. Towards the end of his life he became obsessed with death and preached what was called his own funeral sermon just a few weeks before he died.

    The influence of his poetic style was widely felt in the sixteenth century. He tangibly influenced Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and others, and is deemed the greatest of what John Dryden and Samuel Johnson called the 'metaphysical poets'.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I am currently keeping a running list of 20 poets to read and study. As I drop one poet off the list I pick another poet up.
    This is my newest choice to read and study.
    This guy was a genius that influenced many Famous poets born long after he was passed on.. Tyr
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Poem by Robert Nehls



    LIFE'S STORIES

    His eyes are dark, but, there's still a spark.
    There are canyons in his face.
    His lungs are gone and it won't be long,
    'Till his heart can't keep the pace.
    He's lived three lives, had his share of wives.
    The decades have been nine.
    There's a soul to bare, with a joy to share.
    And he always says, "I'm fine."

    He's a wise old man and the whole damn clan,
    Likes to hear him tell his tales.
    He remembers when as a boy of ten,
    He was raising up the sails,
    Of his father's boat and he'll always gloat,
    "It was hard work for a boy."
    "Hell, it was hard for men, but I'd go again,
    Just to feel that youthful joy."

    With dreams to follow and pride to swallow,
    He reached for life with lust.
    Following his heart, met his first sweetheart,
    On the street he calls, "False Trust."
    After one short week, they were heard to speak,
    "Until death do us part."
    Then, the next two years, thunder, lightning, tears.
    And she left with his torn heart.

    Lost in grief a while, it was hard to smile.
    And he wore his armor well.
    Heartless, hurt and laden, but a fair young maiden
    Put him under her sweet spell.
    Speaking of her dreams, and the gold dust streams
    Sparkled in her clear blue eyes.
    Making his blood stir, and he followed her
    To the land of pastel skies.

    Bitter cold up there, but he didn't care.
    She could make the hard ice melt.
    Then his heart returned, and a fire burned.
    True love was what he felt.
    She could feel it to and the fever grew,
    Like the child in her womb.
    But, a family was not meant to be.
    And her corpse became it's tomb.

    His whole world shattered and nothing mattered.
    Streams and canyons echoed pain.
    Cursing God and man for the evil plan,
    That was driving him insane.
    Wandering aimlessly in the open sea,
    Of demented souls that quit.
    Two long years go by, and he can't deny,
    He remembers none of it.

    Then at twenty five, well, he comes alive,
    And decides to live once more.
    Like a broken spell, he walks out of hell,
    Passing through life's open door.
    Everyone there knows where the story goes,
    And the old man kind of grins.
    With a little wink, he begins to think,
    This is where my life begins.

    There was gold out there and he didn't care,
    What it took to make it his.
    "I'll be rich one day," he was heard to say,
    "And that's just the way it is."
    Well, he mucked and slaved but he never caved,
    So the gold gave up the fight.
    There were nuggets found measured by the pound;
    Bringing golden dreams in sight.

    Just a vagabond who was rich beyond,
    The means of any king.
    He was young with health and he bathed in wealth,
    As the girls began to cling.
    Well, he played the field, but he wouldn't yield,
    To the pressures of the heart.
    There were memories, love was some disease,
    That could tear a soul apart.

    He was rich it's true, but he also knew,
    That you can't buy happiness.
    So, he headed down to his old home town,
    To what? He could only guess.
    It was strange to see the old filigree,
    Pressed in frames upon the wall.
    Faces lost somehow to the years that now,
    Drift into his heart's recall.

    Seven years had passed since his father last,
    Took a breath upon this earth.
    Mother held him tight and to his delight,
    He began to feel his worth.
    No conditions there, love was everywhere,
    Riches far beyond the gold.
    So, he bought some land, and he took the hand,
    Of fate with a life to mold.

    Was a big barn dance, when another chance,
    At true love was brought his way.
    With her skin so fair, and her golden hair,
    He was drawn to Jenny Mae.
    Dancing close all night and to his delight,
    She allowed a little kiss.
    When he dreamed of her, the thought would occur.
    There was too much there to miss.

    He was ready then, his heart soared again,
    And he longed to tie the knot.
    Down upon his knee with a marriage plea,
    A sweet wife was what he got.
    Life brought so much joy when their baby boy,
    Had been born out on the farm.
    And eventually it was them plus three.
    Fate had swung it's loving arm.

    There were ups and downs, but the world goes round,
    With reunions every year.
    And he swells with pride as he holds his bride,
    Sitting next to him it's clear,
    That we may grow old, but there's always gold,
    To share when love abounds.
    Laughter all about, life that seems to shout,
    Love's the greatest of all sounds.

    Tell us more, they say, right up 'till today;
    He's reminded where they were.
    He includes them all in his tale as tall,
    As an ancient Douglas fir.
    Jenny holds his hand, ah, this life's so grand.
    And the old man kind of grins.
    With a little wink, he begins to think.
    This is where my life begins.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Those Winter Sundays
    ---------------------------by Robert Hayden


    Sundays too my father got up early
    And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
    then with cracked hands that ached
    from labor in the weekday weather made
    banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

    I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
    When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
    and slowly I would rise and dress,
    fearing the chronic angers of that house,

    Speaking indifferently to him,
    who had driven out the cold
    and polished my good shoes as well.
    What did I know, what did I know
    of love's austere and lonely offices?
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    My father did the same and did so with pure love and gentleness. I remember my Dad wearing shoes with holes in the bottom an extra year so we kids could have our new shoes for school. Shaving with no shave cream, going without a heavy winter coat, eating last if any food was left to it, etc. . More sacrifices he made but that only matters to we that benefited, we few that remember what he did as he was old and in bad health.
    Truth is a true father love his children just as much as any mother ever has. I know I do... --Tyr

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    A double presentation today...Tyr

    To Nature
    --------------------------- by Samuel Coleridge


    It may indeed be fantasy when I
    Essay to draw from all created things
    Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
    And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
    Lessons of love and earnest piety.
    So let it be; and if the wide world rings
    In mock of this belief, it brings
    Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
    So will I build my altar in the fields,
    And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
    And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
    Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
    Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
    Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 07-18-2015 at 09:40 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Sonnet 02: Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied
    --------------------------------------------------------by Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
    Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
    I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
    I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
    The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
    And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
    But last year's bitter loving must remain
    Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide

    There are a hundred places where I fear
    To go,—so with his memory they brim
    And entering with relief some quiet place
    Where never fell his foot or shone his face
    I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
    And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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