The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  Might see it from the mossy shore

  Dissevered, float upon the lake,

  Float with its crest of trees adorned

  On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

  Food, shelter, safety, there they find;

  There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;

  There insects live their lives – and die:

  A peopled world it is, in size a tiny room.

  And thus through many seasons’ space

  This little island may survive,

  But nature (though we mark her not)

  Will take away, may cease to give.

  Perchance when you are wandering forth

  Upon some vacant sunny day

  Without an object, hope, or fear,

  Thither your eyes may turn – the isle is passed away,

  Buried beneath the glittering lake,

  Its place no longer to be found.

  Yet the lost fragments shall remain

  To fertilize some other ground.

  (1842)

  LAETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON Lines of Life

  Orphan in my first years, I early learnt

  To make my heart suffice itself, and seek

  Support and sympathy in its own depths.

  Well, read my cheek, and watch my eye, –

  Too strictly school’d are they,

  One secret of my soul to show,

  One hidden thought betray.

  I never knew the time my heart

  Look’d freely from my brow;

  It once was check’d by timidness,

  ’Tis taught by caution now.

  I live among the cold, the false,

  And I must seem like them;

  And such I am, for I am false

  As those I most condemn.

  I teach my lip its sweetest smile,

  My tongue its softest tone;

  I borrow others’ likeness, till

  Almost I lose my own.

  I pass through flattery’s gilded sieve,

  Whatever I would say;

  In social life, all, like the blind,

  Must learn to feel their way.

  I check my thoughts like curbed steeds

  That struggle with the rein;

  I bid my feelings sleep, like wrecks

  In the unfathom’d main.

  I hear them speak of love, the deep,

  The true, and mock the name;

  Mock at all high and early truth,

  And I too do the same.

  I hear them tell some touching tale,

  I swallow down the tear;

  I hear them name some generous deed,

  And I have learnt to sneer.

  I hear the spiritual, the kind,

  The pure, but named in mirth;

  Till all of good, ay, even hope,

  Seems exiled from our earth.

  And one fear, withering ridicule,

  Is all that I can dread;

  A sword hung by a single hair

  For ever o’er the head.

  We bow to a most servile faith,

  In a most servile fear;

  While none among us dares to say

  What none will choose to hear.

  And if we dream of loftier thoughts,

  In weakness they are gone;

  And indolence and vanity

  Rivet our fetters on.

  Surely I was not born for this!

  I feel a loftier mood

  Of generous impulse, high resolve,

  Steal o’er my solitude!

  I gaze upon the thousand stars

  That fill the midnight sky;

  And wish, so passionately wish,

  A light like theirs on high.

  I have such eagerness of hope

  To benefit my kind;

  And feel as if immortal power

  Were given to my mind.

  I think on that eternal fame,

  The sun of earthly gloom,

  Which makes the gloriousness of death,

  The future of the tomb –

  That earthly future, the faint sign

  Of a more heavenly one;

  – A step, a word, a voice, a look, –

  Alas! my dream is done.

  And earth, and earth’s debasing stain,

  Again is on my soul;

  And I am but a nameless part

  Of a most worthless whole.

  Why write I this? because my heart

  Towards the future springs,

  That future where it loves to soar

  On more than eagle wings.

  The present, it is but a speck

  In that eternal time,

  In which my lost hopes find a home,

  My spirit knows its clime.

  Oh! not myself, – for what am I? –

  The worthless and the weak,

  Whose every thought of self should raise

  A blush to burn my cheek.

  But song has touch’d my lips with fire,

  And made my heart a shrine;

  For what, although alloy’d, debased,

  Is in itself divine.

  I am myself but a vile link

  Amid life’s weary chain;

  But I have spoken hallow’d words,

  Oh do not say in vain!

  My first, my last, my only wish,

  Say will my charmed chords

  Wake to the morning light of fame,

  And breathe again my words?

  Will the young maiden, when her tears

  Alone in moonlight shine –

  Tears for the absent and the loved –

  Murmur some song of mine?

  Will the pale youth by his dim lamp,

  Himself a dying flame,

  From many an antique scroll beside,

  Choose that which bears my name?

  Let music make less terrible

  The silence of the dead;

  I care not, so my spirit last

  Long after life has fled.

  LAETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON Revenge

  Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair,

  And gaze upon her smile;

  Seem as you drank the very air

  Her breath perfumed the while:

  And wake for her the gifted line,

  That wild and witching lay,

  And swear your heart is as a shrine,

  That only owns her sway.

  ’Tis well: I am revenged at last, –

  Mark you that scornful cheek, –

  The eye averted as you pass’d,

  Spoke more than words could speak.

  Ay, now by all the bitter tears

  That I have shed for thee, –

  The racking doubts, the burning fears, –

  Avenged they well may be –

  By the nights pass’d in sleepless care,

  The days of endless woe;

  All that you taught my heart to bear,

  All that yourself will know.

  I would not wish to see you laid

  Within an early tomb;

  I should forget how you betray’d,

  And only weep your doom:

  But this is fitting punishment,

  To live and love in vain, –

  Oh my wrung heart, be thou content,

  And feed upon his pain.

  Go thou and watch her lightest sigh, –

  Thine own it will not be;

  And bask beneath her sunny eye, –

  It will not turn on thee.

  ’Tis well: the rack, the chain, the wheel,

  Far better had’st thou proved;

  Ev’n I could almost pity feel,

  For thou art not beloved.

  THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK The War-Song of Dinas Vawr

  The mountain sheep are sweeter,

  But the valley sheep are fatter;

  We therefore deem’d it meeter

  To carry off the latter.

  We made an expedition;

  We met a host and quell’d
it;

  We forced a strong position,

  And kill’d the men who held it.

  On Dyfed’s richest valley,

  Where herds of kine were browsing,

  We made a mighty sally,

  To furnish our carousing.

  Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;

  We met them, and o’erthrew them:

  They struggled hard to beat us;

  But we conquer’d them, and slew them.

  As we drove our prize at leisure,

  The king march’d forth to catch us:

  His rage surpass’d all measure,

  But his people could not match us.

  He fled to his hall-pillars;

  And, ere our force we led off,

  Some sack’d his house and cellars,

  While others cut his head off.

  We there, in strife bewild’ring,

  Spilt blood enough to swim in:

  We orphan’d many children,

  And widow’d many women.

  The eagles and the ravens

  We glutted with our foemen:

  The heroes and the cravens,

  The spearmen and the bowmen.

  We brought away from battle,

  And much their land bemoan’d them,

  Two thousand head of cattle,

  And the head of him who owned them:

  Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,

  His head was borne before us;

  His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,

  And his overthrow, our chorus.

  WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED Arrivals at a Watering-Place

  SCENE – A Conversazione at Lady Crumpton’s. – Whist and weariness, Caricatures and Chinese Puzzle. – Young Ladies making tea, and Young Gentlemen making the agreeable. – The Stable-Boy handing rout-cakes. – Music expressive of there being nothing to do.

  I play a spade: – Such strange new faces

  Are flocking in from near and far:

  Such frights – Miss Dobbs holds all the aces, –

  One can’t imagine who they are!

  The Lodgings at enormous prices,

  New Donkeys, and another fly;

  And Madame Bonbon out of ices,

  Although we’re scarcely in July:

  We’re quite as sociable as any,

  But our old horse can scarcely crawl;

  And really where there are so many,

  We can’t tell where we ought to call.

  Pray who has seen the odd old fellow

  Who took the Doctor’s house last week? –

  A pretty chariot, – livery yellow,

  Almost as yellow as his cheek:

  A widower, sixty-five, and surly,

  And stiffer than a poplar-tree;

  Drinks rum and water, gets up early

  To dip his carcass in the sea:

  He’s always in a monstrous hurry,

  And always talking of Bengal;

  They say his cook makes noble curry; –

  I think, Louisa, we should call.

  And so Miss Jones, the mantua-maker,

  Has let her cottage on the hill? –

  The drollest man, a sugar-baker, –

  Last year imported from the till:

  Prates of his ’orses and his ’oney,

  Is quite in love with fields and farms;

  A horrid Vandal, – but his money

  Will buy a glorious coat of arms;

  Old Clyster makes him take the waters;

  Some say he means to give a ball;

  And after all, with thirteen daughters,

  I think, Sir Thomas, you might call.

  That poor young man! – I’m sure and certain

  Despair is making up his shroud:

  He walks all night beneath the curtain

  Of the dim sky and murky cloud:

  Draws landscapes, – throws such mournful glances! –

  Writes verses, – has such splendid eyes;

  An ugly name, – but Laura fancies

  He’s some great person in disguise! –

  And since his dress is all the fashion,

  And since he’s very dark and tall,

  I think that, out of pure compassion,

  I’ll get Papa to go and call.

  So Lord St Ives is occupying

  The whole of Mr Ford’s Hotel;

  Last Saturday his man was trying

  A little nag I want to sell.

  He brought a lady in the carriage;

  Blue eyes, – eighteen, or thereabouts; –

  Of course, you know, we hope it’s marriage!

  But yet the femme de chambre doubts.

  She look’d so pensive when we met her;

  Poor thing! and such a charming shawl! –

  Well! till we understand it better,

  It’s quite impossible to call!

  Old Mr Fund, the London banker,

  Arrived to-day at Premium Court;

  I would not, for the world, cast anchor

  In such a horrid dangerous port;

  Such dust and rubbish, lath and plaster, –

  (Contractors play the meanest tricks) –

  The roof’s as crazy as its master,

  And he was born in fifty-six:

  Stairs creaking – cracks in every landing, –

  The colonnade is sure to fall; –

  We shan’t find post or pillar standing,

  Unless we make great haste to call.

  Who was that sweetest of sweet creatures,

  Last Sunday, in the Rector’s seat?

  The finest shape, – the loveliest features, –

  I never saw such tiny feet.

  My brother, – (this is quite between us)

  Poor Arthur, – ’twas a sad affair!

  Love at first sight, – she’s quite a Venus, –

  But then she’s poorer far than fair:

  And so my father and my mother