125 Exquisite Poems & Lyrics



001 The Second Coming – W.B. YEATS

002 She walks in beauty – George Gordon BYRON

003 Invictus – William Ernest HENLEY

004 Macbeth, Act I, Scene 5 - SHAKESPEARE

005 Do not go gentle – Dylan THOMAS

006 Funeral Blues – W.H. AUDEN

007 Ozymandias – Percy Bysshe SHELLEY

008 Safe In Their Alabaster Chambers –E.DICKINSON

009 Kubla Khan – Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE

010 In Flanders Fields – John MCCRAE

011 I am! – John CLARE

012 I wandered lonely as a Cloud- W. WORDSWORTH

013 Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1 - SHAKESPEARE

014 Endymion – John KEATS

015 Stopping by Woods – Robert FROST

016 Jerusalem – William BLAKE

017 Ode on Solitude – Alexander POPE

018 If – Rudyard KIPLING

019 The Passionate Shepherd – C. MARLOWE

020 Remember – Christina ROSSETTI

021 Requiescat – Oscar WILDE

022 I shall not cry return – Ellen M.H. GATES

023 Death, be not proud – John DONNE

024 The Eagle – Alfred TENNYSON

025 To Celia – Ben JONSON

026 How do I love thee – E. BARRETT BROWNING

027 Sea Fever – John MASEFIELD

028 Shropshire Lad XL - A.E. HOUSMAN

029 The Raven – Edgar Alan POE

030 One Day I wrote her name - Edmund SPENSER

031 And Death shall have no Dominion – D. THOMAS

032 The Song of Wandering Aengus – W.B. YEATS

033 Grass – Carl SANDBURG

034 Mending Wall – Robert FROST

035 When I have fears – John KEATS

036 Worn Out - Elizabeth SIDDAL

037 Guilt – John BETJEMAN

038 No man is an island – John DONNE

039 How sweet I roamed – William BLAKE

040 An Indian Love Song – Sarojini NAIDU

041 Ode tot he West Wind – Percy Bysshe SHELLEY

042 Give me the splendid silent sun - Walt WHITMAN

043 The Wreck of the Deutschland – G.M. HOPKINS

044 Four Quartets III – T.S. ELIOT

045 They have no Song – George MEREDITH

046 When I consider how my light – John MILTON

047 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner-S.T. COLERIDGE

048 And the days are not full enough – Ezra POUND

049 The Splendor Falls – Alfred TENNYSON

050 I shall not care – Sara TEASDALE

051 Elegy written in a Country Churchyard – T. GRAY

052 We wear the Mask – Paul Laurence DUNBAR

053 The Call of the Wild – Robert SERVICE

054 What lips my lips have kissed - Edna S.V. MILLAY

055 Dover Beach – Matthew ARNOLD

056 Annie’s Song – John DENVER

057 My heart leaps up – William WORDSWORTH

058 The Abortion – Anne SEXTON

059 Where the Sidewalk ends – Shell SILVERSTEIN

060 The Future – Leonard COHEN

061 The Garden of Proserpine - A.C. SWINBURNE

062 Tarantella – Hilaire BELLOC

063 The Man who sold the World – David BOWIE

064 Porphyria’s Lover – Robert BROWNING



065 Like a Rolling Stone – Bob DYLAN

066 Vitae summa – Ernest DOWSON

067 Death – Emily DICKINSON

068 Days – Ralph Waldo EMERSON

069 I, Too, Sing America – Langston HUGHES

070 Alone – Edgar Alan POE

071 Morning has broken – Eleanor FARJEON

072 Cherry-ripe – Thomas CAMPION

073 The Sound of Silence – Paul SIMON

074 Lullaby – W.H. AUDEN

075 I do not love thee – Caroline NORTON

076 Yesterday – Paul MCCARTNEY

077 Phenomenal Woman - ANGELOU

078 The Gates of Damascus – James Elroy FLECKER

079 The New Colossus – Emma LAZARUS

080 Danny Boy - Frederic WEATHERLEY

081 Come, Heavy Sleep – DOWLAND/Elizab. Courtiers

082 Sweet Dreams – Annie LENNOX

083 Elegy for Jane – Theodore ROETHKE

084 Sudden Light – Dante ROSSETTI

085 To his coy mistress – Andrew MARVELL

086 Paul Revere’s Ride – Henry W. LONGFELLOW

087 The Taxi – Amy LOWELL

088 Her Eyes – Conrad AIKEN

089 See it through – Edgar Albert GUEST

090 Kashmir – Robert PLANT

091 Captain! My Captain! – Walt WHITMAN

092 Cassilda’s Song – Robert W. CHAMBERS

093 The Jabberwocky – Lewis CAROLL

094 The Leaden-eyed – Vachel LINDSAY

095 To my dear and loving husband –Anne BRADSTREET

096 Words – Neil YOUNG

097 Imagine – John LENNON

098 The Soldier – Rupert BROOKE

099 Stand by me – Charles Albert TINDLEY

100 Beds are burning – Peter GARETT

101 In a Garden by Moonlight – Thomas Lovell BEDDOES

102 Dust in the Wind – Kerry LIVGREN

103 Luke Havergal - Edwin Arlington ROBINSON

104 With Esther – Wilfrid Scawen BLUNT

105 The Ancient Track – H.P. LOVECRAFT

106 Death ain’t nothing - Donte COLLINS

107 Sympathy for the Devil – Mick JAGGER

108 The Garden of the Prophet – Khalil GIBRAN

109 The Night Before – Lee HAZLEWOOD

110 A Song of Enchantment – Walter DE LA MARE

111 I will not let thee go – Robert BRIDGES

112 Ecce Homo – David GASCOYNE

113 The Rapture – Thomas CAREW

114 Ballad of a Crystal Man - DONOVAN

115 The Nymph’s Reply – Walter RALEIGH

116 Goodnight Saigon – Billy JOEL

117 Are you loving enough? – Ella WHEELER-WILCOX

118 The weakness in me – Joan ARMATRADING

119 As we are so wonderfully – Kenneth PATCHEN

120 Lady d’Arbanville – Cat STEVENS

121 All that is gold does not glitter – J.R.R. TOLKIEN

122 An answer to – G.K. CHESTERTON

123 The Weeping Song – Nick CAVE

124 A Red, Red Rose – Robert BURNS

125 She’s not there – Rod ARGENT





001. The Second Coming W.B. YEATS


Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.


The darkness drops again but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?



002. She walks in beauty – George Gordon BYRON


She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!


003. Invictus – William Ernest HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.


004. Macbeth, Act I, Scene 5 William SHAKESPEARE


Lady Macbeth:


The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry ‘Hold, hold!’



005. Do not go gentle into that good night Dylan THOMAS


Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


006. Funeral Blues – W.H. AUDEN


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



007. Ozymandias Percy Bysshe SHELLEY


I met a Traveler from an antique land,
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


008. Safe in their alabaster chambers – Emily DICKINSON

Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine ;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear ;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence,—
Ah, what sagacity perished here !

Grand go the years in the crescent above them ;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.


009. Kubla KHAN Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE


…..
Or, a vision in a dream.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!


The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

…..


010 – In Flanders Fields John MCCRAE



In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below


We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.



011. I Am! John CLARE


By John Clare

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?

My friends forsake me like a memory lost.

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,

Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.

And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd


Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dream,

Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,

But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem

And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best

Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.


I long for scenes where man has never trod,

For scenes where woman never smiled or wept;

There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept

Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,

The grass below; above the vaulted sky.


012. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud / The Daffodils – William WORDSWORTH


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 daffodils;

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.



013. Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1 – William SHAKESPEARE
…..
Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;

And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,

Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one halfworld

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate’s offerings, and wither’d murder,

Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.

With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

…..


014. Endymion - John KEATS


BOOK I


A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
…..


015. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert FROST


Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.


He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.


The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.



016. Jerusalem William BLAKE


And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon Englands mountains green:

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands pleasant pastures seen!


And did the Countenance Divine,

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?


Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!


I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant Land.



017. Ode on Solitude Alexander POPE


Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.


Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.


Blest, who can unconcernedly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,


Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

Together mixed; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.


Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.



018. If - Rudyard KIPLING


If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!


019. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Christopher MARLOWE


Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.


And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow Rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.


And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;


A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;


A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.


The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.



020. Remember Christina ROSSETTI

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.



021. Requiescat Oscar WILDE


Requiescat

Tread lightly, she is near

Under the snow,

Speak gently, she can hear

The daisies grow.


All her bright golden hair

Tarnished with rust,

She that was young and fair

Fallen to dust.


Lily-like, white as snow,

She hardly knew

She was a woman, so

Sweetly she grew.


Coffin-board, heavy stone,

Lie on her breast,

I vex my heart alone

She is at rest.


Peace, Peace, she cannot hear

Lyre or sonnet,

All my life’s buried here,

Heap earth upon it.



022. I Shall Not Cry Return - Ellen MH. GATES


I Shall not cry Return! Return!

— Nor weep my years away;

But just as long as sunsets burn,

— And dawns make no delay,

I shall be lonesome — I shall miss

Your hand, your voice, your smile, your kiss.


Not often shall I speak your name,

— For what would strangers care

That once a sudden tempest came

— And swept my gardens bare,

And then you passed, and in your place

Stood Silence with her lifted face.


Not always shall this parting be,

— For though I travel slow,

I, too, may claim eternity

— And find the way you go;

And so I do my task and wait

The opening of the outer gate.


023. Death, be not proud - John DONNE


Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.



024.The Eagle Alfred TENNYSON


He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.


The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.



025 – To Celia Ben JONSON


Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I’ll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.


I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee.




026. How do I love thee / Sonnet 43 E. BARRETT BROWNING


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.