1) Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT
FROST
Whose woods
these are I think I know.
His house is
in the village though;
He will not
see me stopping here
To watch his
woods fill up with snow.
My little
horse must think it queer
To stop
without a farmhouse near
Between the
woods and frozen lake
The darkest
evening of the year.
He gives his
harness bells a shake
To ask if
there is some mistake.
The only
other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind
and downy flake.
The woods
are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have
promises to keep,
And miles to
go before I sleep,
And miles to
go before I sleep.
2) Shine,
Perishing Republic
by Robinson
Jeffers
While this
America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest,
only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass
hardens,
I sadly
smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make
earth.
Out of the
mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
and home to
the mother.
You making
haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly
long or
suddenly
A mortal
splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine,
perishing republic.
But for my
children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening
center;
corruption
Never has
been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the
mountains.
And boys, be
in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable
master.
There is the
trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say –
God, when he
walked on earth.
3) Auguries of
Innocence
by William
Blake
To see a
World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven
in a Wild Flower,
Hold
Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity
in an hour.
A Robin Red
breast in a Cage
Puts all
Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house
fill'd with doves & Pigeons
Shudders
Hell thro' all its regions.
A dog
starv'd at his Master's Gate
Predicts the
ruin of the State.
A Horse
misus'd upon the Road
Calls to
Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry
of the hunted Hare
A fibre from
the Brain does tear.
A Skylark
wounded in the wing,
A Cherubim
does cease to sing.
The Game
Cock clipp'd and arm'd for fight
Does the
Rising Sun affright.
Every Wolf's
& Lion's howl
Raises from
Hell a Human Soul.
The wild
deer, wand'ring here & there,
Keeps the
Human Soul from Care.
The Lamb
misus'd breeds public strife
And yet
forgives the Butcher's Knife.
The Bat that
flits at close of Eve
Has left the
Brain that won't believe.
The Owl that
calls upon the Night
Speaks the
Unbeliever's fright.
He who shall
hurt the little Wren
Shall never
be belov'd by Men.
He who the
Ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never
be by Woman lov'd.
The wanton
Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel
the Spider's enmity.
He who
torments the Chafer's sprite
Weaves a
Bower in endless Night.
The
Catterpillar on the Leaf
Repeats to
thee thy Mother's grief.
Kill not the
Moth nor Butterfly,
For the Last
Judgement draweth nigh.
He who shall
train the Horse to War
Shall never
pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar's
Dog & Widow's Cat,
Feed them
& thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat
that sings his Summer's song
Poison gets
from Slander's tongue.
The poison
of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat
of Envy's Foot.
The poison
of the Honey Bee
Is the
Artist's Jealousy.
The Prince's
Robes & Beggars' Rags
Are
Toadstools on the Miser's Bags.
A truth
that's told with bad intent
Beats all
the Lies you can invent.
It is right
it should be so;
Man was made
for Joy & Woe;
And when
this we rightly know
Thro' the
World we safely go.
Joy &
Woe are woven fine,
A Clothing
for the Soul divine;
Under every
grief & pine
Runs a joy
with silken twine.
The Babe is
more than swadling Bands;
Throughout
all these Human Lands
Tools were
made, & born were hands,
Every Farmer
Understands.
Every Tear
from Every Eye
Becomes a
Babe in Eternity.
This is
caught by Females bright
And return'd
to its own delight.
The Bleat,
the Bark, Bellow & Roar
Are Waves
that Beat on Heaven's Shore.
The Babe
that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes
Revenge in realms of death.
The Beggar's
Rags, fluttering in Air,
Does to Rags
the Heavens tear.
The Soldier
arm'd with Sword & Gun,
Palsied
strikes the Summer's Sun.
The poor
Man's Farthing is worth more
Than all the
Gold on Afric's Shore.
One Mite
wrung from the Labrer's hands
Shall buy
& sell the Miser's lands:
Or, if
protected from on high,
Does that
whole Nation sell & buy.
He who mocks
the Infant's Faith
Shall be
mock'd in Age & Death.
He who shall
teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting
Grave shall ne'er get out.
He who
respects the Infant's faith
Triumph's
over Hell & Death.
The Child's
Toys & the Old Man's Reasons
Are the
Fruits of the Two seasons.
The
Questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never
know how to Reply.
He who
replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the
Light of Knowledge out.
The
Strongest Poison ever known
Came from
Caesar's Laurel Crown.
Nought can
deform the Human Race
Like the
Armour's iron brace.
When Gold
& Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful
Arts shall Envy Bow.
A Riddle or
the Cricket's Cry
Is to Doubt
a fit Reply.
The Emmet's
Inch & Eagle's Mile
Make Lame
Philosophy to smile.
He who
Doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe,
do what you Please.
If the Sun
& Moon should doubt
They'd
immediately Go out.
To be in a
Passion you Good may do,
But no Good
if a Passion is in you.
The Whore
& Gambler, by the State
Licenc'd,
build that Nation's Fate.
The Harlot's
cry from Street to Street
Shall weave
Old England's winding Sheet.
The Winner's
Shout, the Loser's Curse,
Dance before
dead England's Hearse.
Every Night
& every Morn
Some to
Misery are Born.
Every Morn
& every Night
Some are
Born to sweet Delight.
Some ar Born
to sweet Delight,
Some are
born to Endless Night.
We are led
to Believe a Lie
When we see
not Thro' the Eye
Which was
Born in a Night to Perish in a Night
When the
Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears
& God is Light
To those
poor Souls who dwell in the Night,
But does a
Human Form Display
To those who
Dwell in Realms of day.
4) America, A
Prophecy
by William
Blake
The shadowy
Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,
When
fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:
His food she
brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron:
Crown'd with
a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood;
A quiver
with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When
pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need!
Invulnerable
though naked, save where clouds roll round her loins
Their awful
folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;
For never
from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise,
But dumb
till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.
'Dark
Virgin,' said the hairy youth, 'thy father stern, abhorr'd,
Rivets my
tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an
Eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a Lion
Stalking
upon the mountains, and sometimes a Whale, I lash
The raging
fathomless abyss; anon a Serpent folding
Around the
pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs
On the
Canadian wilds I fold; feeble my spirit folds,
For chain'd
beneath I rend these caverns: when thou bringest food
I howl my
joy, and my red eyes seek to behold thy face--
In vain!
these clouds roll to and fro, and hide thee from my sight.'
Silent as
despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy
shoulders rend the links; free are the wrists of fire;
Round the
terrific loins he seiz'd the panting, struggling womb;
It joy'd:
she put aside her clouds and smiled her first-born smile,
As when a
black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.
Soon as she
saw the terrible boy, then burst the virgin cry:
'I know
thee, I have found thee, and I will not let thee go:
Thou art the
image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa,
And thou art
fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my
American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots
that writhe their arms into the nether deep.
I see a
Serpent in Canada who courts me to his love,
In Mexico an
Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a
Whale in the south-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what
limb-rending pains I feel! thy fire and my frost
Mingle in
howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent.
This is
eternal death, and this the torment long foretold.'
5) The Journey
by Mary
Oliver
One day you
finally knew
what you had
to do, and began,
though the
voices around you
kept
shouting
their bad
advice--
though the
whole house
began to
tremble
and you felt
the old tug
at your
ankles.
"Mend
my life!"
each voice
cried.
But you
didn't stop.
You knew
what you had to do,
though the
wind pried
with its
stiff fingers
at the very
foundations,
though their
melancholy
was
terrible.
It was
already late
enough, and
a wild night,
and the road
full of fallen
branches and
stones.
But little
by little,
as you left
their voices behind,
the stars
began to burn
through the
sheets of clouds,
and there
was a new voice
which you
slowly
recognized
as your own,
that kept
you company
as you
strode deeper and deeper
into the
world,
determined
to do
the only
thing you could do--
determined
to save
the only
life you could save.
6) Slough
by John
Betjeman
Come
friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit
for humans now,
There isn't
grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over,
Death!
Come, bombs
and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned,
bright canteens,
Tinned
fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned
minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the
mess they call a town-
A house for
ninety-seven down
And once a
week a half a crown
For twenty
years.
And get that
man with double chin
Who'll
always cheat and always win,
Who washes
his repulsive skin
In women's
tears:
And smash
his desk of polished oak
And smash
his hands so used to stroke
And stop his
boring dirty joke
And make him
yell.
But spare
the bald young clerks who add
The profits
of the stinking cad;
It's not
their fault that they are mad,
They've
tasted Hell.
It's not
their fault they do not know
The birdsong
from the radio,
It's not
their fault they often go
To
Maidenhead
And talk of
sport and makes of cars
In various
bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't
look up and see the stars
But belch
instead.
In
labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives
frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it
in synthetic air
And paint
their nails.
Come,
friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it
ready for the plough.
The cabbages
are coming now;
The earth
exhales.
7) THE DOUBLE
SHAME
by Stephen
Spender
You must
live through the time when everything hurts.
When the
space of ripe, loaded afternoon
Expands to a
landscape of white heat frozen
And trees
are weighed down with hearts of stone
And green
stares back where you stare alone,
And the
walking eyes throw flinty comments,
And the
words which carry most knives are the blind
Phrases
searching to be kind.
Solid and
usual objects are ghosts.
The
furniture carries great cargoes of memory,
The
staircase has corners which remember
As fire
blows most red in gusty embers,
And each
empty dress cuts out an image
In fur and
evening and summer and gold
Of her who
was different in each.
Pull down
the blind and lie on the bed
And clasp
the hour in the glass of one room
Against your
mouth like a crystal of doom.
Take up the
book and look at the letters
Hieroglyphs
on sand and as meaningless
Here birds
crossed once and cries were uttered
In a mist
where sight and sound are blurred.
For the
story of those who made mistakes,
Of one whose
happiness pierced like a star
Eludes and
evades between sentences
And the
letters break into eyes that read
What the
blood is now writing in your head
As though
the characters sought for some clue
To their
being so perfectly living and dead
In your
story, worse than theirs, but true.
Set in the
mind of their poet, they compare
Their tragic
bliss with your trivial despair
And they
have fingers which accuse
You of the
double way of shame.
At first you
did not love enough
And
afterwards you loved too much,
And you
lacked the confidence to choose.
And you have
only yourself to blame.
8) THE
HIPPOPOTAMUS
by T.S.
Eliot
HE
broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his
belly in the mud;
Although he
seems so firm to us
He is merely
flesh and blood.
Flesh-and-blood
is weak and frail,
Susceptible
to nervous shock;
While the
True Church can never fail
For it is
based upon a rock.
The hippo's
feeble steps may err
In
compassing material ends,
While the
True Church need never stir
To gather in
its dividends.
The 'potamus
can never reach
The mango on
the mango-tree;
But fruits
of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the
Church from over sea.
At mating
time the hippo's voice
Betrays
inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every
week we hear rejoice
The Church,
at being one with God.
The
hippopotamus's day
Is passed in
sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in
a mysterious way--
The Church
can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the
'potamus take wing
Ascending
from the damp savannas,
And quiring
angels round him sing
The praise
of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the
Lamb shall wash him clean
And him
shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the
saints he shall be seen
Performing
on a harp of gold.
He shall be
washed as white as snow,
By all the
martyr'd virgins kist,
While the
True Church remains below
Wrapt in the
old miasmal mist.
9) HYSTERIA
by: T.S.
Eliot
As she
laughed I was aware of becoming involved
in her
laughter and being part of it, until her
teeth were
only accidental stars with a talent
for
squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps,
inhaled at
each momentary recovery, lost finally
in the dark
caverns of her throat, bruised by
the ripple
of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter
with
trembling hands was hurriedly spreading
a pink and
white checked cloth over the rusty
green iron
table, saying: "If the lady and
gentleman
wish to take their tea in the garden,
if the lady
and gentleman wish to take their
tea in the
garden ..." I decided that if the
shaking of
her breasts could be stopped, some of
the
fragments of the afternoon might be collected,
and I
concentrated my attention with careful
subtlety to
this end.
10) Tidy
by Ralph
Angel
I miss you
too.
Something
old is broken,
nobody’s in
hell.
Sometimes I
kiss strangers,
sometimes no
one speaks.
Today in
fact
it’s
raining. I go out on the lawn.
It’s such a
tiny garden,
like a photo
of a pool.
I am cold,
are you?
Sometimes we
go dancing,
cars follow
us back home.
Today the
quiet
slams down
gently, like
drizzled
lightning,
leafless
trees.
It’s all so
tidy,
a fire in
the living room,
a rug from
Greece,
Persian rugs
and pillows,
and in the
kitchen,
the light
fogged with
windows.
