Reported Missing
John Bayliss

With broken wing they limped across the sky
caught in late sunlight, with their gunner dead,
one engine gone,- the type was out-of-date, -
blood on the fuselage turning brown from red:

Knew it was finished, looking at the sea
which shone back patterns in kaleidoscope
knew that their shadow would meet them by the way,
close and catch at them, drown their single hope:

Sat in this tattered scarecrow of the sky
hearing it cough, the great plane catching
now the first dark clouds upon her wing-base, -
patching the great tear in evening mockery.

So two men waited, saw the third dead face,
and wondered when the wind would let them die.

 

To His Mistress, Objecting to Him Neither Toying nor Talking. Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play

Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.

You blame me, too, because I can't devise

some sport to please those babies in your eyes;-

By Love's religion, I must here confess it,

The most I love, is when I least express it.

Small griefs find tongues; full casks are ever found

To give, if any, yet but little sound.

Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,

That chiding streams betray small depth below.

So when love speechless is, she doth express

A depth of love, and that depth bottomless.

Now, since my love is tongue less, know me such,

Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much.

'The Sun has long been Set'

William Wordsworth

The sun has long been set,

The stars are out by twos and threes,

The little birds are piping yet

Among the bushes and trees;

There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,

And a far-off wind that rushes,

And a sound of water that gushes,

And the cuckoo's sovereign cry

Fills all the hollow of the sky.

Who would "go parading"

In London, "and masquerading,"

On such a night of June

With that beautiful soft half-moon,

And all these innocent blisses?

On such a night as this is!

Written in my country garden in spring
Wang Wei

On my roof spring pigeons call
And round the village almond trees bloom white
Men take axes to cut the high branches
Shoulder hoes to inspect the conduits
Returning swallows know their old nests
The old resident scans the new calendar
About to drink I suddenly hold my hand
With a pang for a friend on a far journey.

The Fighting Téméraire
Henry Newbolt

It was eight bells ringing,
For the morning watch was done,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they polished every gun.
It was eight bells ringing,
And the gunner's lads were singing,
For the ship she rode a-swinging,
As they polished every gun.

Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
Oh! to hear the round shot biting,
Téméraire! Téméraire!

Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
And to hear the round shot biting,
For we're all in love with fighting
On the fighting Téméraire.

It was noontide ringing,
And the battle just begun,
When the ship her way was winging,
As they loaded every gun.
It was noontide ringing,
When the ship her way was winging,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they loaded every gun.

There'll be many grim and gory,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
There'll be few to tell the story,
Téméraire! Téméraire!

There'll be many grim and gory,
There'll be few to tell the story,
But we'll all be one in glory
With the Fighting Téméraire.

There's a far bell ringing
At the setting of the sun,
And a phantom voice is singing
Of the great days done.
There's a far bell ringing,
And a phantom voice is singing
Of renown for ever clinging
To the great days done.

Now the sunset breezes shiver,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
And she's fading down the river,
Téméraire! Téméraire!

Now the sunset breezes shiver,
And she's fading down the river,
But in England's song for ever
She's the Fighting Téméraire.

Glimpses
John Banister Tabb

As one who in the hush of twilight hears
The pausing pulse of Nature, when the Light
Commingles in the dim mysterious rite
Of Darkness with the mutual pledge of tears,
Till soft, anon, one timorous star appears,
Pale-budding as the earliest blossom white
That comes in Winter's livery bedight,
To hide the gifts of genial Spring she bears-

So, unto me- what time the mysteries
Of consciousness and slumber weave a dream
And pause above it with abated breath,
Like intervals in music- lights arise,
Beyond prophetic Nature's farthest gleam,
That teach me half the mystery of Death.

'For All We Have And Are'

               1914

Rudyard Kipling

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and take the war.

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away,

In wantonness o'erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day

But steel and fire and stone!

     Though all we knew depart,

     The old Commandments stand:—

     "In courage keep your heart,

     In strength lift up your hand."

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old:—

"No law except the Sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled."

Once more it knits mankind,

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight,

The ages' slow-bought gain,

They shrivelled in a night.

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

     Though all we made depart,

     The old Commandments stand:—

     "In patience keep your heart,

     In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hope or lies

Shall bring us to our goal,

But iron sacrifice

Of body, will, and soul.

There is but one task for all—

One life for each to give.

What stands if Freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

In The Highlands

Robert Louis Stevenson

In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
        And the young fair maidens
                Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
        Her more lovely music
                Broods and dies—

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
        And the low green meadows
                Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
        Lo, the valley hollow
                Lamp-bestarr'd!

O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
        Through the trance of silence,
                Quiet breath!
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
        Only winds and rivers,
                Life and death.

To The Evening Star
William Blake

Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and, while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro' the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

Paradise Lost
John Collings Squire (Sir)

What hues the sunlight had, how rich the shadows were,
The blue and tangled shadows dropped from the crusted branches
Of the warped apple-trees upon the orchard grass.

How heavenly pure the blue of two smooth eggs that lay
Light on the rounded mud that lined the thrush’s nest:
And what a deep delight the spots that speckled them.

And that small tinkling stream that ran from hedge to hedge,
Shadowed over by the trees and glinting in the sunbeams,
How clear the water was, how flat the beds of sand
With travelling bubbles mirrored, each one a golden world
To my enchanted eyes. Then earth was new to me.

But now I walk this earth as it were a lumber room,
And sometimes live a week, seeing nothing but mere herbs,
Mere stones, mere passing birds: nor look at anything
Long enough to feel its conscious calm assault:
The strength of it, the word, the royal heart of it.

Childhood will not return; but have I not the will
To strain my turbid mind that soils all outer things,
And, open again to all the miracles of light,
To see the world with the eyes of a blind man gaining sight?

Come Sleep
John Fletcher

Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving
Lock me in delight a while;
Let some pleasing dreams beguile
All my fancies; that from thence
I may feel an influence,
All my powers of care bereaving!

Though but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy!
We that suffer long annoy
Are contented with a thought
Through an idle fancy wrought:
Oh, let my joys have some abiding!

Ploughing in the Mist
Andrew Young

Pulling the shoulder-sack
Closer about his neck and back,
He called out to his team
That stamped off dragging the weigh-beam;
And as he gripped the stilts and steered
They plunged in mist and disappeared,
Fading so fast away
They seemed on a long journey gone,
Not to return that day;
But while I waited on
The jingle of loose links I caught,
And suddenly on the hill-rise,
Pale phantoms of the mist at first,
Man and his horses burst
As though before my eyes
Creation had been wrought.

The Folly of being Comforted
W. B. Yeats

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
“Your well beloved’s hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise,
Though now it’s hard, till trouble is at an end;
And so be patient, be wise and patient, friend.”
But heart, there is no comfort, not a grain;
Time can but make her beauty over again,
Because of that great nobleness of hers;
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways,
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.
O heart! O heart! if she’d but turn her head,
You’d know the folly of being comforted.

The Stars
Andrew Young

The stars rushed forth tonight
Fast on the faltering light;
So thick those stars did lie
No room was left for sky;
And to my upturned stare
A snow-storm filled the air.

Stars lay like yellow pollen
That from a flower has fallen;
And single stars I saw
Crossing themselves in awe;
Some stars in sudden fear
Fell like a falling tear.
 
What is the eye of man,
This little star that can
See all those stars at once,
Multitudinous suns,
Making of them a wind
That blows across the mind?
 
If eye can nothing see
But what is part of me,
I ask and ask again
With a persuasive pain,
What thing, O God, am I,
this Mote and mystery?

Wisdom
W. B. Yeats

THE true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeller;
Swept the Sawdust from the floor
Of that working-carpenter.
Miracle had its playtime where
In damask clothed and on a seat
Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded,
His majestic Mother sat
Stitching at a purple hoarded
That He might be nobly breeched
In starry towers of Babylon
Noah's freshet never reached.
King Abundance got Him on
Innocence; and Wisdom He.
That cognomen sounded best
Considering what wild infancy
Drove horror from His Mother's breast.                         

And There was a Great Calm
Thomas Hardy

There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,
And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,
Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,
Among the young, among the weak and old,
And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”

Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught
Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,
Philosophies that sages long had taught,
And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,
And “Hell!” and “Shell!” were yapped at Lovingkindness

 

The feeble folk at home had grown full-used

To 'dug-outs', 'snipers', 'Huns', from the war-adept

In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;

To day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused-

To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.

 

Waking to wish existence timeless, null,

Sirius they watched above where armies fell;

He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull

Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull

Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.

 

So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly

Were dead and damned, there sounded 'War is done!'

One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,

'Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,

And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?'

 

Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance

To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,

As they had raised it through the four years’ dance

Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;

And murmured, 'Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?'

 

Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,

The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.

One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot

And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, 'What?

Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?'

 

Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the grey,

No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,

No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;

Worn horses mused: 'We are not whipped to-day;'

No weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.

 

Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;

There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;

Some could, some could not, shake off misery:

The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!'

And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?'

 

 

 

Autumn by the Sea
John Galsworthy

We'll hear the murmur of the swell,
And touch the driftwood, grey,
And with our quickened senses smell
The sea-flowers all the day.

We'll watch the hills, the pastures brown,
The trees of changing hue,
Till evening's ice comes stealing down
From those high fields of blue.

And far the crimson sun-god sails
Away in sunset cloak;
And gentle heat's gold pathway fails
In autumn's opal smoke.

And then we'll watch the bright half-moon—
Slow-spinning in the sky,
And trace the dark flight—all too soon—
Of land-birds wheeling by.

Through all the night of stars we'll touch
The quietude of things,
And gain brief freedom from the clutch
Of life's encompassings.

The Secret Joy
Mary Webb

Face to face with the sunflower,
Cheek to cheek with the rose,
We follow a secret highway
Hardly a traveller knows.
The gold that lies in the folded bloom
Is all our wealth;
We eat of the heart of the forest
With innocent stealth.
We know the ancient roads
in the leaf of a nettle,
And bathe in the blue profound
Of a speedwell petal.

Distant View of the Ching Mountains
Chiang Yen

On the cold frontier no shadow to be seen
The autumn sun lets fall a pale radiance
A mournful wind dishevels the thick forests
The clouds are red, the river rising cold.

'The autumn sun lets fall a pale radiance.'
Wang Wei

The great void, the cool sky is calm
Crystal brilliance, the white sun is autumn
The round light contains all things
And its broken image enters the quiet stream
Far up and uniting with the blue depths
Away and down floating with the river plain
The shades at noon make all the trees distinct
The slanting light falls on the high houses
Sung u climbed up and resented it
Chang Heng looked into the distance and grieved
But if that last glow can be trusted
Will those paths in the clouds be sad, sad?

Wild Roses
Ronald Campbell Macfie

Wild roses hidden in the hedge
Surrender to the lips of June;
White lilies cloistered in the sedge
Permit the kisses of the moon.

And oh, my heart desires your love,
As never June desires a rose,
And never the pale moon above
Such longing for a lily knows.

And yet your love I vainly seek,
Unto my love no love replies,
No blush gives answer in your cheek,
No passion lightens in your eyes.

Ardent as June I watch and wait,
Pale as the moon I pace your sky;
O Lady be compassionate,
And kiss and love me, or I die.

Love Me
Ronald Campbell Macfie

How long did the sun's round passionate mouth
Kiss that rose's lips, I wonder?
How long did the amorous wind from the south
Try to press her petals asunder?

How long did the honey-bee flit to and fro
Ere she threw her red vest apart,
And showed a glory of gold and snow
Hoarded beside her heart?

Longer far have I yearned for your love,
And flown round your folded blossom.
Will pity or passion never move
The proud disdain of thy bosom?

Love me! I loved thee long ago:
Love me! the land is sunny
Love me! look, how the roses blow
And the bees are gathering honey!

L'ENVOI
(Departmental Ditties)
Rudyard Kipling

The smoke upon your Altar dies,
The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
Has flown away.
What profit then to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?

'We know the shrine is void,' they said,
'The Goddess flown -
'Yet wreaths on the altar laid -
'The Altar-Stone
'Is black with fumes of sacrifice,
'Albeit She has fled our eyes.

'For, it may be, if still we sing
'And tend the Shrine,
'Some Deity on wandering wing
'May there incline;
'And, finding all in order meet,
'Stay while we worship at Her feet.'

Beeny Cliff
Thomas Hardy

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.

-Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?

What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is-elsewhere-whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.                         

Crumbs of Comfort
Felix Dennis

How many crumbs of comfort - oaf!
Do men require to bake a loaf?
How many draughts of wine, my dear,
Will drown a fire and dry a tear?
For think of this - the rich can never know
Who loves them for their wit or for their gold;
And if men reap but what they sow,
Yet gold grows cold as bones grow old.
Keep friendships, then, in good repair,
We none of us have friends to spare -
And in the end,
Your one true friend
Is gold beyond compare.

Now that the Sky and the Earth and the Wind are Silent
Francesco Petrarch

Now that the sky and the earth and the wind are silent
and the wild creatures and the birds are reined in sleep,
Night leads its starry chariot in its round,
and the sea without a wave lies in its bed,
I look, think, burn, weep: and she who destroys me
is always before my eyes to my sweet distress:
war is my state, filled with grief and anger,
and only in thinking of her do I find peace.
So from one pure living fountain
flow the sweet and bitter which I drink:
one hand alone heals me and pierces me:
and so that my ordeal may not reach haven,
I am born and die a thousand times a day,
I am so far from my salvation.

Little Gidding  (part only)
T. S. Eliot

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?

If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city--
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

Song of the Chattahoochee
Sidney Lanier

Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried Abide, abide,
The wilful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay,
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.
High o'er the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.
And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone
-Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst-
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call-
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.

Young Fellow My Lad
Robert William Service

"Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad,
On this glittering morn of May?"
"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad;
They're looking for men, they say."
"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad;
You aren't obliged to go."
"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad,
And ever so strong, you know."

"So you're off to France, Young Fellow My Lad,
And you're looking so fit and bright."
"I'm terribly sorry to leave you, Dad,
But I feel that I'm doing right."
"God bless you and keep you, Young Fellow My Lad,
You're all of my life, you know."
"Don't worry. I'll soon be back, dear Dad,
And I'm awfully proud to go.

"Why don't you write, Young Fellow My Lad?
I watch for the post each day;
And I miss you so, and I'm awfully sad,
And it's months since you went away.
And I've had the fire in the parlour lit,
And I'm keeping it burning bright
Till my boy comes home; and here I sit
Into the quiet night."

"What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad?
No letter again to-day.
Why did the postman look so sad,
And sigh as he turned away?
I hear them tell that we've gained new ground,
But a terrible price we've paid:
God grant, my boy, that you're safe and sound;
But oh I'm afraid, afraid."

"They've told me the truth, Young Fellow My Lad:
You'll never come back again:
(OH GOD! THE DREAMS AND THE DREAMS I'VE HAD,
AND THE HOPES I'VE NURSED IN VAIN!)
For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad,
And you proved in the cruel test
Of the screaming shell and the battle hell
That my boy was one of the best.

"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,
In the gleam of the evening star,
In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,
In all sweet things that are.
And you'll never die, my wonderful boy,
While life is noble and true;
For all our beauty and hope and joy
We will owe to our lads like you."

A Summer's Day Michael Drayton (1563–1631) CLEAR had the day been from the dawn,
All chequer’d was the sky,
The clouds, like scarfs of cobweb lawn,
Veil’d heaven’s most glorious eye.
The wind had no more strength than this,
—That leisurely it blew—
To make one leaf the next to kiss
That closely by it grew.
The rills, that on the pebbles play’d,
Might now be heard at will;
This world the only music made,
Else everything was still.
The flowers, like brave embroider’d girls,
Look’d as they most desired
To see whose head with orient pearls
Most curiously was tyred.
And to itself the subtle air
Such sovereignty assumes,
That it receiv’d too large a share
From Nature’s rich perfumes.

Martins: September
Walter de la Mare

At secret daybreak they had met —
Chill mist beneath the welling light
Screening the marshes green and wet —
An ardent legion wild for flight.

Each preened and sleeked an arrowlike wing;
Their eager throats with lapsing cries
Praising whatever fate might bring —
Cold wave, or Africa's paradise.

Unventured, trackless leagues of air,
England's sweet summer narrowing on,
Her lovely pastures: nought their care —
Only this ardour to be gone.

A tiny, elflike, ecstatic host ...
And 'neath them, on the highway's crust,
Like some small mute belated ghost,
A sparrow pecking in the dust.

Autumnal Threads
Mary Leapor - 1722-1746
(Mary earned her living as a kitchen maid and died of measles aged 24)

'Twas when the fields had shed their golden grain
And burning suns had scar'd the russet plain;
No more the rose or hyacinth were seen,
Nor yellow cowslip on the tufted green:
But the rude thistle rear'd its hoary crown,
And the ripe nettle shew'd an irksome brown.
In mournful plight the tarnish'd groves appear,
And nature weeps for the declining year:
The sun, too quickly, reach'd the western sky,
And rising vapours hid his ev'ning eye:
Autumnal threads around the branches flew,
While the dry stubble drank the falling dew.

An Epistle to a Lady
Mary Leapor

In vain, dear Madam, yes in vain you strive;
Alas! to make your luckless Mira thrive,
For Tycho and Copernicus agree,
No golden Planet bent its Rays on me.

'Tis twenty Winters, if it is no more;
To speak the Truth it may be Twenty four.
As many Springs their 'pointed Space have run,
Since Mira's Eyes first open'd on the Sun.
'Twas when the Flocks on slabby Hillocks lie,
And the cold Fishes rule the wat'ry Sky:
But tho these Eyes the learned Page explore,
And turn the pond'rous Volumes o'er and o'er,
I find no Comfort from their Systems flow,
But am dejected more as more I know.
Hope shines a while, but like a Vapour flies,
(The Fate of all the Curious and the Wise)
For, Ah! cold Saturn triumph'd on that Day,
And frowning Sol deny'd his golden Ray.

You see I'm learned, and I shew't the more,
That none may wonder when they find me poor.
Yet Mira dreams, as slumbring Poets may,
And rolls in Treasures till the breaking Day:
While Books and Pictures in bright Order rise,
And painted Parlours swim before her Eyes:
Till the shrill Clock impertinently rings,
And the soft Visions move their shining Wings:
Then Mira wakes,-- her Pictures are no more,
And through her Fingers slides the vanish'd Ore.
Convinc'd too soon, her Eye unwilling falls
On the blue Curtains and the dusty Walls:
She wakes, alas! to Business and to Woes,
To sweep her Kitchen, and to mend her Clothes.

But see pale Sickness with her languid Eyes,
At whose Appearance all Delusion flies:
The World recedes, its Vanities decline,
Clorinda's Features seem as faint as mine!
Gay Robes no more the aching Sight admires,
Wit grates the Ear, and melting Music tires:
Its wonted pleasures with each sense decay,
Books please no more, and paintings fade away,
The sliding Joys in misty Vapours end:
Yet let me still, Ah! let me grasp a Friend:
And when each Joy, when each lov'd Object flies,
Be you the last that leaves my closing Eyes.

But how will this dismantl'd Soul appear,
When stripp'd of all it lately held so dear,
Forc'd from its Prison of expiring Clay,
Afraid and shiv'ring at the doubtful Way.

Yet did these Eyes a dying Parent see,
Loos'd from all Cares except a Thought for me,
Without a Tear resign her short'ning Breath,
And dauntless meet the ling'ring Stroke of Death.
Then at th' Almighty's Sentence shall I mourn:
"Of Dust thou art, to Dust shalt thou return."
Or shall I wish to stretch the Line of Fate,
That the dull Years may bear a longer Date,
To share the Follies of succeeding Times
With more Vexations and with deeper Crimes:
Ah no -- tho' Heav'n brings near the final Day,
For such a Life I will not, dare not pray;
But let the Tear for future Mercy flow,
And fall resign'd beneath the mighty Blow.
Nor I alone -- for through the spacious Ball,
With me will Numbers of all Ages fall:
And the same Day that Mira yields her Breath,
Thousands may enter through the Gates of Death.                         

Sunday Morning
Louis McNeice

Down the road someone is practising scales,
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car
For this is Sunday morning, Fate's great bazaar;
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,

And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.

But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Open its eight bells out, skulls' mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.