The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

Rather than pace up and down

  Any longer London town?

  II

  Who’d have guessed it from his lip

  Or his brow’s accustomed bearing,

  On the night he thus took ship

  Or started landward? – little caring

  For us, it seems, who supped together

  (Friends of his too, I remember)

  And walked home through the merry weather,

  The snowiest in all December.

  I left his arm that night myself

  For what’s-his-name’s, the new prose-poet

  Who wrote the book there, on the shelf –

  How, forsooth, was I to know it

  If Waring meant to glide away

  Like a ghost at break of day?

  Never looked he half so gay!

  III

  He was prouder than the devil:

  How he must have cursed our revel!

  Ay and many other meetings,

  Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,

  As up and down he paced this London,

  With no work done, but great works undone,

  Where scarce twenty knew his name.

  Why not, then, have earlier spoken,

  Written, bustled? Who’s to blame

  If your silence kept unbroken?

  ‘True, but there were sundry jottings,

  Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings,

  Certain first steps were achieved

  Already which’ – (is that your meaning?)

  ‘Had well borne out whoe’er believed

  In more to come!’ But who goes gleaning

  Hedgeside chance-blades, while full-sheaved

  Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o’erweening

  Pride alone, puts forth such claims

  O’er the day’s distinguished names.

  (… )

  II

  I

  ‘When I last saw Waring…‘

  (How all turned to him who spoke!

  You saw Waring? Truth or joke?

  In land-travel or sea-faring?)

  II

  ‘We were sailing by Trieste

  Where a day or two we harboured:

  A sunset was in the West,

  When, looking over the vessel’s side,

  One of our company espied

  A sudden speck to larboard.

  And as a sea-duck flies and swims

  At once, so came the light craft up,

  With its sole lateen sail that trims

  And turns (the water round its rims

  Dancing, as round a sinking cup)

  And by us like a fish it curled,

  And drew itself up close beside,

  Its great sail on the instant furled,

  And o’er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,

  (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar’s)

  “Buy wine of us, you English Brig?

  Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?

  A pilot for you to Trieste?

  Without one, look you ne’er so big,

  They’ll never let you up the bay!

  We natives should know best.”

  I turned, and “just those fellows’ way,”

  Our captain said, “The ’long-shore thieves

  Are laughing at us in their sleeves.”

  III

  ‘In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;

  And one, half-hidden by his side

  Under the furled sail, soon I spied,

  With great grass hat and kerchief black,

  Who looked up with his kingly throat,

  Said somewhat, while the other shook

  His hair back from his eyes to look

  Their longest at us; then the boat,

  I know not how, turned sharply round,

  Laying her whole side on the sea

  As a leaping fish does; from the lee

  Into the weather, cut somehow

  Her sparkling path beneath our bow

  And so went off, as with a bound,

  Into the rosy and golden half

  0’ the sky, to overtake the sun

  And reach the shore, like the sea-calf

  Its singing cave; yet I caught one

  Glance ere away the boat quite passed,

  And neither time nor toil could mar

  Those features: so I saw the last

  Of Waring!’ – You? Oh, never star

  Was lost here but it rose afar!

  Look East, where whole new thousands are!

  In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON Ulysses

  It little profits that an idle king,

  By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

  Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole

  Unequal laws unto a savage race,

  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

  I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

  Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed

  Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those

  That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

  Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

  Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

  For always roaming with a hungry heart

  Much have I seen and known; cities of men

  And manners, climates, councils, governments,

  Myself not least, but honoured of them all;

  And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

  I am a part of all that I have met;

  Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

  Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

  For ever and for ever when I move.

  How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

  To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

  As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life

  Were all too little, and of one to me

  Little remains: but every hour is saved

  From that eternal silence, something more,

  A bringer of new things; and vile it were

  For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

  And this gray spirit yearning in desire

  To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

  Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

  This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

  To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle –

  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

  This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

  A rugged people, and through soft degrees

  Subdue them to the useful and the good.

  Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

  Of common duties, decent not to fail

  In offices of tenderness, and pay

  Meet adoration to my household gods,

  When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

  There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

  There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,

  Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me –

  That ever with a frolic welcome took

  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

  Free hearts, free foreheads – you and I are old;

  Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

  Death closes all: but something ere the end,

  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

  ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

  Push off, and sitting well in order smite

  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

  Of all the western stars, until I die.

  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

&
nbsp; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

  Though much is taken, much abides; and though

  We are not now that strength which in old days

  Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

  One equal temper of heroic hearts,

  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

  ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Grief

  I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

  That only men incredulous of despair,

  Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

  Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access

  Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,

  In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare

  Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare

  Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express

  Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death –

  Most like a monumental statue set

  In everlasting watch and moveless woe

  Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

  Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:

  If it could weep, it could arise and go.

  1844WILLIAM BARNES The Clote

  (Water-Lily)

  O zummer clote! when the brook’s a-glidèn

  So slow an’ smooth down his zedgy bed,

  Upon thy broad leaves so seäfe a-ridèn

  The water’s top wi’ thy yollow head,

  By alder’s heads, O,

  An’ bulrush beds, O,

  Thou then dost float, goolden zummer clote!

  The grey-bough’d withy’s a-leänèn lowly

  Above the water thy leaves do hide;

  The bendèn bulrush, a-swaÿèn slowly,

  Do skirt in zummer thy river’s zide;

  An’ perch in shoals, O,

  Do vill the holes, O,

  Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote!

  Oh! when thy brook-drinkèn flow’r’s a-blowèn,

  The burnèn zummer’s a-zettèn in;

  The time o’ greenness, the time o’ mowèn,

  When in the haÿ-vield, wi’ zunburnt skin,

  The vo’k do drink, O,

  Upon the brink, O,

  Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote!

  Wi’ eärms a-spreadèn, an’ cheäks a-blowèn,

  How proud wer I when I vu’st could zwim

  Athirt the pleäce where thou bist a-growèn,

  Wi’ thy long more vrom the bottom dim;

  While cows, knee-high, O,

  In brook, wer nigh, O,

  Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote!

  Ov all the brooks drough the meads a-windèn,

  Ov all the meäds by a river’s brim,

  There’s nwone so feäir o’ my own heart’s vindèn,

  As where the maïdens do zee thee zwim,

  An’ stan’ to teäke, O,

  Wi’ long-stemm’d reäke, O,

  Thy flow’r afloat, goolden zummer clote!

  WILLIAM WORDSWORTH The Simplon Pass 1845

  —Brook and road

  Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass,

  And with them did we journey several hours

  At a slow step. The immeasurable height

  Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,

  The stationary blasts of waterfalls,

  And in the narrow rent, at every turn,

  Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn,

  The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,

  The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,

  Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside

  As if a voice were in them, the sick sight

  And giddy prospect of the raving stream,

  The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,

  Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light –

  Were all like workings of one mind, the features

  Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,

  Characters of the great Apocalypse,

  The types and symbols of Eternity,

  Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.

  (written? 1804)

  THOMAS HOOD Stanzas

  Farewell, Life! My senses swim;

  And the world is growing dim;

  Thronging shadows cloud the light,

  Like the advent of the night, –

  Colder, colder, colder still

  Upward steals a vapour chill –

  Strong the earthy odour grows –

  I smell the Mould above the Rose!

  Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!

  Strength returns, and hope revives;

  Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn

  Fly like shadows at the morn, –

  O’er the earth there comes a bloom –

  Sunny light for sullen gloom,

  Warm perfume for vapour cold –

  I smell the Rose above the Mould!

  ROBERT BROWNING The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church

  Rome, 15 –

  Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

  Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

  Nephews – sons mine… ah God, I know not! Well –

  She, men would have to be your mother once,

  Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

  What’s done is done, and she is dead beside,

  Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,

  And as she died so must we die ourselves,

  And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream.

  Life, how and what is it? As here I lie

  In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,

  Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask

  ‘Do I live, am I dead?’ Peace, peace seems all.

  Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;

  And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought

  With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:

  – Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;

  Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South

  He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!

  Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence

  One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side,

  And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,

  And up into the airy dome where live