Fitness poems
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The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued)
© William Wordsworth
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving muchUnvisited, endeavour'd to retraceMy life through its first years, and measured backThe way I travell'd when I first beganTo love the woods and fields; the passion yetWas in its birth, sustain'd, as might befal,By nourishment that came unsought, for still,From week to week, from month to month, we liv'dA round of tumult: duly were our gamesProlong'd in summer till the day-light fail'd;No chair remain'd before the doors, the benchAnd threshold steps were empty; fast asleepThe Labourer, and the old Man who had sate,A later lingerer, yet the revelryContinued, and the loud uproar: at last,When all the ground was dark, and the huge cloudsWere edged with twinkling stars, to bed we went,With weary joints, and with a beating mind
Lines and Figures
© Charles Harpur
There is no curve of sea or sky,No turn of hill-top far defined,Without some fitness for the eye,Some meaning for the mind.
To the Countess of Bedford [To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to me ...]
© John Donne
To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to meWorst of spiritual vices, simony ;And not to have written then seems little lessThan worst of civil vices, thanklessness
Poetry
© Charles Harpur
RISING and setting suns of Liberty
Mountainous exploits and the wrecks thick strewn
A Book Of Strife In The Form Of The Diary Of An Old Soul - May
© George MacDonald
1.
WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing
To A Lady Who Spoke Slightingly Of Poets
© Washington Allston
Oh, censure not the Poet's art,
Nor think it chills the feeling heart
To love the gentle Muses.
Can that which in a stone or flower,
As if by transmigrating power,
His gen'rous soul infuses;
The Task: Book V. -- The Winter Morning Walk
© William Cowper
Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
The Meeting
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The elder folks shook hands at last,
Down seat by seat the signal passed.
The Garrison of Cape Ann
© John Greenleaf Whittier
From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span
Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann.
Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down,
And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing town.
Nature And the Book
© Alfred Austin
I closed the book. The summer shower
In smiling dimples ebbed away,
But still on leaf, and blade, and flower,
The fallen raindrops glistening lay.
Florio : A Tale, For Fine Gentleman And Fine Ladies. In Two Parts
© Hannah More
PART I.
Florio, a youth of gay renown,
A Memorial
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Oh, thicker, deeper, darker growing,
The solemn vista to the tomb
Must know henceforth another shadow,
And give another cypress room.
Life Is A Dream - Act I
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
THIS TRANSLATION
INTO ENGLISH IMITATIVE VERSE
OF
CALDERON'S MOST FAMOUS DRAMA,
A Wren's Nest
© William Wordsworth
AMONG the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little Wren's
In snugness may compare.
The Disciple
© George MacDonald
The times are changed, and gone the day
When the high heavenly land,
Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
And men could understand.
Wind-Clouds And Star-Drifts
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock,
Prey to the vulture of a vast desire
That feeds upon my life. I burst my bands
And steal a moment's freedom from the beak,
The clinging talons and the shadowing plumes;
Then comes the false enchantress, with her song;
Book Second [School-Time Continued]
© William Wordsworth
THUS far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace
Brahm
© Joseph Furphy
Our swarming brethren of the North
Whatever you may judge them worth
Sling Muck and Soogoo Ram,
Are fantoids like yourself and me,
Though differing somewhat in degree
Nothing exists but BRAHM.
