as e’er God with his image blest;
the friend of man, the friend of truth,
the friend of age, and guide of youth:
few hearts like his, with virtue warmed,
few heads with knowledge so informed:
if there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
if there is none, he made the best of this.
Inconstancy in love3
Let not Woman e’er complain
of inconstancy in love;
let not Woman e’er complain
fickle Man is apt to rove:
look abroad thro’ Nature’s range,
nature’s mighty Law is change,
ladies, would it not seem strange
man should then a monster prove!
Mark the winds, and mark the skies,
ocean’s ebb, and ocean’s flow,
sun and moon but set to rise,
round and round the seasons go.
Why then ask of silly Man
to oppose great Nature’s plan?
We’ll be constant while we can—
you can be no more, you know.
To A Louse1 ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY’S BONNET AT CHURCH
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
owre gauze and lace;
tho’ faith, I fear ye dine but sparely
on sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
detested, shunned by saunt an’ sinner,
how daur ye set your fit upon her,
sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
on some poor body.
Swith, in some beggar’s haffet sQuattle;
there ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle
wi’ ither kindred, jumpin cattle,
in shoals and nations;
whare horn or bane ne’er daur unsettle
your thick plantations.
Now haud ye there, ye’re out o’ sight,
below the fatt’rels, snug an’ tight;
na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right
till ye’ve got on it,
the vera tapmost, towering height
O’ Miss’s bonnet.
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
as plump an’ grey as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie ye sic a hearty dose o’t,
wad dress your droddum!
I wad na been surprised to spy
you on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
on’s wyliecoat;
but Miss’s fine Lunardi!—fie!
How daur ye do’t?
O Jenny, dinna toss your head,
an’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
the blastie’s makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
are notice takin!
O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
to see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free
us an’ foolish notion:
what airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
and ev’n Devotion!
To A Mountain Daisy1 ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow’r,
thou’s met me in an evil hour;
for I maun crush amang the stoure
thy slender stem:
to spare thee now is past my pow’r,
thou bonie gem.
Alas! it’s no thy neebor sweet,
the bonie lark, companion meet,
bending thee ’mang the dewy wheat,
wi’ spreckled breast!
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
the purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
upon thy early, humble birth;
yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
amid the storm,
scarce reared above the parent-earth
thy tender form.
The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,
high shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield;
but thou, beneath the random bield
O’ clod or stane,
adorns the histie stibble-field,
unseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
thy snawy bosom sunward spread,
thou lifts thy unassuming head
in humble guise;
but now the share uptears thy bed,
and low thou lies!
Such is the fate of artless Maid,
sweet flow’ret of the rural shade!
By love’s simplicity betrayed,
and guileless trust,
till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
low i’ the dust.
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
on Life’s rough ocean luckless starred!
Unskillful he to note the card
of prudent lore,
till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
and whelm him o’er!
Such fate to suffering worth is giv’n,
who long with wants and woes has striv’n,
by human pride or cunning driv’n
to mis’ry’s brink,
till wrenched of ev’ry stay but Heav’n,
he, ruined, sink!
Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate,
that fate is thine—no distant date;
stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate,
full on thy bloom,
till crushed beneath the furrow’s weight,
shall be thy doom!
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud1
I wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o’er vales and hills,
when all at once I saw a crowd,
a host, of golden daffodil;
beside the lake, beneath the trees,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the milky way,
they stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
a poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed and gazed but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:
for oft, when on my couch I lie
in vacant or in pensive mood,
they flash upon that inward eye
which is the bliss of solitude;
and then my heart with pleasure fills,
and dances with the daffodils.
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room1
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
and hermits are contented with their cells;
and students with their pensive citadels;
maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
high as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
in truth the prison, into which we doom
ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
in sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
should find brief solace there, as I have found.
The Solitary Reaper2
Behold her, single in th
e field,
yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
and sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
is overflowing with the sound.
No nightingale did ever chaunt
more welcome notes to weary bands
of travelers in some shady haunt,
among Arabian sands;
a voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
in spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
breaking the silence of the seas
among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
for old, unhappy, far-off things,
and battles long ago;
or is it some more humble lay,
familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
that has been, and may be again?
Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang
as if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
and o’er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still;
and, as I mounted up the hill,
the music in my heart I bore
long after it was heard no more.
We are Seven1
A simple child,
that lightly draws its breath,
and feels its life in every limb,
what should it know of death?
I met a little cottage girl:
she was eight years old she said;
her hair was thick with many a curl
that clustered round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
and she was wildly clad:
her eyes were fair, and very fair;
—her beauty made me glad.
“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
how many may you be?”
“How many? Seven in all,” she said
and wondering looked at me.
“And where are they? I pray you tell.”
she answered, “Seven are we;
and two of us at Conway dwell,
and two are gone to sea.
“Two of us in the church-yard lie,
my sister and my brother;
and, in the church-yard cottage, I
dwell near them with my mother.”
“You say that two at Conway dwell,
and two are gone to sea,
yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,
sweet Maid, how this may be.”
Then did the little Maid reply,
“Seven boys and girls are we;
two of us in the church-yard lie,
beneath the church-yard tree.”
“You run about, my little Maid,
your limbs they are alive;
if two are in the church-yard laid,
then ye are only five.”
“Their graves are green,
they may be seen,”
the little Maid replied,
“twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,
and they are side by side.
My stockings there I often knit,
my kerchief there I hem;
and there upon the ground I sit,
and sing a song to them.
And often after sunset, Sir,
when it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
and eat my supper there.
The first that died was sister Jane;
in bed she moaning lay,
till God released her of her pain;
and then she went away.
So in the church-yard she was laid;
and, when the grass was dry,
together round her grave we played,
my brother John and I.
And when the ground was white with snow,
and I could run and slide,
my brother John was forced to go,
and he lies by her side.”
“How many are you, then,” said I,
“if they two are in heaven?”
Quick was the little Maid’s reply,
“O Master, we are seven.”
“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”
‘T was throwing words away; for still
the little Maid would have her will,
and said, “Nay, we are seven!”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner1
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
and he stoppeth one of three.
“By thy long beard and glittering eye,
now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
and I am next of kin;
the guests are met, the feast is set:
may’st hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship,’ quoth he.
“Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
the Wedding-Guest stood still,
and listens like a three years’ child:
the Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
he cannot choose but hear;
and thus spake on that ancient man,
the bright-eyed Mariner.
“The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,
merrily did we drop
below the kirk, below the hill,
below the lighthouse top.
The Sun came up upon the left,
out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
went down into the sea.
Higher and higher every day,
till over the mast at noon—’
the Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
for he heard the loud bassoon.
The bride hath paced into the hall,
red as a rose is she;
nodding their heads before her goes
the merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
yet he cannot choose but hear;
and thus spake on that ancient man,
the bright-eyed Mariner.
‘And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
was tyrannous and strong:
he struck with his o’ertaking wings,
and chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
as who pursued with yell and blow
still treads the shadow of his foe,
and forward bends his head,
the ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
the southward aye we fled.
And now there came both mist and snow,
and it grew wondrous cold:
and ice, mast-high, came floating by,
as green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy cliffs
did send a dismal sheen:
nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
the ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
the ice was all around:
it cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
like noises in a swound!
At length did cross an Albatross,
thorough the fog it came;
as if it had been a Christian soul,
we hailed it in God’s name.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
and round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
the helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
the Albatross did
follow,
and every day, for food or play,
came to the mariner’s hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
it perched for vespers nine;
whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
glimmered the white Moon-shine.’
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
from the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
PART II
The Sun now rose upon the right:
out of the sea came he,
still hid in mist, and on the left
went down into the sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
but no sweet bird did follow,
nor any day for food or play came
to the mariners’ hollo!
And I had done an hellish thing,
and it would work ’em woe:
for all averred, I had killed the bird
that made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay,
that made the breeze to blow!
Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
the glorious Sun uprist:
then all averred, I had killed the bird
that brought the fog and mist.
‘Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
that bring the fog and mist.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
the furrow followed free;
we were the first that ever burst
into that silent sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
‘twas sad as sad could be;
and we did speak only to break
the silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
the bloody Sun, at noon,
right up above the mast did stand,
no bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
we stuck, nor breath nor motion;
as idle as a painted ship
upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
and all the boards did shrink;
water, water, every where,
nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
the death-fires danced at night;
the water, like a witch’s oils,
burnt green, and blue and white.
And some in dreams assurëd were
of the Spirit that plagued us so;
nine fathom deep he had followed us
from the land of mist and snow.
The Giant Book of Poetry (2006) Page 6
