by Paul Keegan
Agreed it would not do at all;
And so, – I’m sorry for my brother! –
It’s settled that we’re not to call.
And there’s an Author, full of knowledge;
And there’s a Captain on half-pay;
And there’s a Baronet from college,
Who keeps a boy, and rides a bay;
And sweet Sir Marcus from the Shannon,
Fine specimen of brogue and bone;
And Doctor Calipee, the canon,
Who weighs, I fancy, twenty stone:
A maiden Lady is adorning
The faded front of Lily Hall: –
Upon my word, the first fine morning,
We’ll make a round, my dear, and call.
Alas! disturb not, maid and matron,
The swallow in my humble thatch;
Your son may find a better patron,
Your niece may meet a richer match:
I can’t afford to give a dinner,
I never was on Almack’s list;
And since I seldom rise a winner,
I never like to play at whist:
Unknown to me the stocks are falling;
Unwatched by me the glass may fall;
Let all the world pursue its calling, –
I’m not at home if people call.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 1830
So, we’ll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
(written 1817)
1831WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Past ruin’d Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades;
Verse calls them forth; ’tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.
Soon shall Oblivion’s deepening veil
Hide all the peopled hills you see,
The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
These many summers you and me.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR Dirce
Stand close around, ye Stygian set,
With Dirce in one boat conveyed!
Or Charon, seeing, may forget
That he is old and she a shade.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR On Seeing a Hair of Lucrezia Borgia
Borgia, thou once wert almost too august,
And high for adoration; – now thou’rt dust!
All that remains of thee these plaits infold –
Calm hair, meand’ring with pellucid gold!
1832GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON Lines on Hearing That Lady Byron was Ill
And thou wert sad – yet I was not with thee;
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that joy and health alone could be
Where I was not – and pain and sorrow here!
And is it thus? – it is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wreck’d heart lies cold,
While heaviness collects the shatter’d spoils.
It is not in the storm nor in the strife
We feel benumb’d, and wish to be no more,
But in the after-silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life.
I am too well avenged! – but ’twas my right;
Whate’er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
To be the Nemesis who should requite –
Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument.
Mercy is for the merciful! – if thou
Hast been of such, ’twill be accorded now.
Thy nights are banish’d from the realms of sleep! –
Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel
A hollow agony which will not heal,
For thou art pillow’d on a curse too deep;
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
The bitter harvest in a woe as real!
I have had many foes, but none like thee;
For ’gainst the rest myself I could defend,
And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
But thou in safe implacability
Hadst nought to dread – in thy own weakness shielded,
And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare –
And thus upon the World’s trust in thy truth –
And the wild fame of my ungovern’d youth –
On things that were not, and on things that are –
Even upon such a basis hast thou built
A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hew’d down, with an unsuspected sword,
Fame, peace, and hope – and all the better life
Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,
And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,
Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
For present anger, and for future gold –
And buying other’s grief at any price.
And thus once enter’d into crooked ways,
The early Truth, which was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee – but at times,
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
Deceit, averments incompatible,
Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
In Janus-spirits – the significant eye
Which learns to lie with silence – the pretext
Of Prudence, with advantages annex’d –
The acquiescence in all things which tend,
No matter how, to the desired end –
All found a place in thy philosophy.
The means were worthy, and the end is won –
I would not do by thee as thou hast done!
(written 1816)
1833HARTLEY COLERIDGE
Long time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I;
For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking,
I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran,
A rathe December blights my lagging May;
And still I am a child, tho’ I be old,
Time is my debtor for my years untold.
1834SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE The Knight’s Tomb
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O’Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be? –
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone, – and the birch in its stead is grown. –
The Knight’s bones are dust,
And his good sword rust; –
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
(written 1802)
JOHN CLARE The Nightingales Nest 1835
Up this green woodland ride lets softly rove
And list th
e nightingale – she dwelleth here
Hush let the wood gate softly clap – for fear
The noise may drive her from her home of love
For here Ive heard her many a merry year
At morn and eve nay all the live long day
As though she lived on song – this very spot
Just where that old mans beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours oer the road and stops the way
And where that child its blue bell flowers hath got
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails
There have I hunted like a very boy
Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorns
To find her nest and see her feed her young
And vainly did I many hours employ
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn
And where these crimping fern leaves ramp among
The hazels under boughs – Ive nestled down
And watched her while she sung – and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress than russet brown
Her wings would tremble in her extacy
And feathers stand on end as twere with joy
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out sobbing songs – the happiest part
Of summers fame she shared – for so to me
Did happy fancys shapen her employ
But if I touched a bush or scarcely stirred
All in a moment stopt – I watched in vain
The timid bird had left the hazel bush
And at a distance hid to sing again
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves
Rich extacy would pour its luscious stain
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs
For cares with him for half the year remain
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast
While nightingales to summers life belongs
And naked trees and winters nipping wrongs
Are strangers to her music and her rest
Her joys are evergreen her world is wide
– Hark there she is as usual lets be hush
For in this black thorn clump if rightly guest
Her curious house is hidden – part aside
These hazle branches in a gentle way
And stoop right cautious neath the rustling boughs
For we will have another search to day
And hunt this fern strown thorn clump round and round
And where this seeded wood grass idly bows
We’ll wade right through – it is a likely nook
In such like spots and often on the ground
Theyll build where rude boys never think to look
Aye as I live her secret nest is here
Upon this white thorn stulp – Ive searched about
For hours in vain – there put that bramble bye
Nay trample on its branshes and get near
How subtle is the bird she started out
And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh
Ere we were past the brambles and now near
Her nest she sudden stops – as choaking fear
That might betray her home so even now
Well leave it as we found it – safetys guard
Of pathless solitude shall keep it still
See there shes sitting on the old oak bough
Mute in her fears our presence doth retard
Her joys and doubt turns all her rapture chill
Sing on sweet bird may no worse hap befall
Thy visions then the fear that now decieves
We will not plunder music of its dower
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall
For melody seems hid in every flower
That blossoms near thy home – these harebells all
Seems bowing with the beautiful in song
And gaping cuckoo with its spotted leaves
Seems blushing of the singing it has heard
How curious is the nest no other bird
Uses such loose materials or weaves
Their dwellings in such spots – dead oaken leaves
Are placed without and velvet moss within
And little scraps of grass – and scant and spare
Of what seems scarce materials down and hair
For from mans haunts she seemeth nought to win
Yet nature is the builder and contrives
Homes for her childerns comfort even here
Where solitudes deciples spend their lives
Unseen save when a wanderer passes near
That loves such pleasant places – deep adown
The nest is made an hermits mossy cell
Snug lie her curious eggs in number five
Of deadend green or rather olive brown
And the old prickly thorn bush guards them well
And here well leave them still unknown to wrong
As the old woodlands legacy of song
JOHN CLARE The Sky Lark
The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road and spreading far and wide
Above the russet clods the corn is seen
Sprouting its spirey points of tender green
Where squats the hare to terrors wide awake
Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break
While neath the warm hedge boys stray far from home
To crop the early blossoms as they come
Where buttercups will make them eager run
Opening their golden caskets to the sun
To see who shall be first to pluck the prize
And from their hurry up the skylark flies
And oer her half formed nest with happy wings
Winnows the air – till in the clouds she sings
Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies
And drops and drops till in her nest she lies
Where boys unheeding past – neer dreaming then
That birds which flew so high – would drop agen
To nests upon the ground where any thing
May come at to destroy had they the wing
Like such a bird themselves would be too proud
And build on nothing but a passing cloud
As free from danger as the heavens are free
From pain and toil – there would they build and be
And sail about the world to scenes unheard
Of and unseen – O where they but a bird
So think they while they listen to its song
