Knowledge poems
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Prais'd be Diana's Fair and Harmless Light
© Ralegh Sir Walter
Prais'd be Diana's fair and harmless light;Prais'd be the dews wherewith she moists the ground;Prais'd be her beams, the glory of the night;Prais'd be her power by which all powers abound.
Making Quiltwork
© Ortiz Simon Joseph
Like the coat of many colors, the letters, scraps,all those odds and bits we live by, we have cometo know
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
© John Milton
PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad successThe Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope,So oft, and the perswasive RhetoricThat sleek't his tongue, and won so much on Eve,So little here, nay lost; but Eve was Eve,This far his over-match, who self deceiv'dAnd rash, before-hand had no better weigh'dThe strength he was to cope with, or his own:But as a man who had been matchless heldIn cunning, over-reach't where least he thought,To salve his credit, and for very spightStill will be tempting him who foyls him still,And never cease, though to his shame the more;Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr'd,Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;Or surging waves against a solid rock,Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew,Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end;So Satan, whom repulse upon repulseMet ever; and to shameful silence brought,Yet gives not o're though desperate of success,And his vain importunity pursues
Paradise Regain'd: Book II (1671)
© John Milton
MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'dAt Jordan with the Baptist, and had seenHim whom they heard so late expresly call'dJesus Messiah Son of God declar'd,And on that high Authority had believ'd,And with him talkt, and with him lodg'd, I meanAndrew and Simon, famous after knownWith others though in Holy Writ not nam'd,Now missing him thir joy so lately found,So lately found, and so abruptly gone,Began to doubt, and doubted many days,And as the days increas'd, increas'd thir doubt:Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,And for a time caught up to God, as onceMoses was in the Mount, and missing long;And the great Thisbite who on fiery wheelsRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come
Paradise Regain'd: Book I (1671)
© John Milton
I Who e're while the happy Garden sung,By one mans disobedience lost, now singRecover'd Paradise to all mankind,By one mans firm obedience fully tri'dThrough all temptation, and the Tempter foil'dIn all his wiles, defeated and repuls't,And Eden rais'd in the wast Wilderness
From Tamburlaine the Great, Part One ("Nature that framed us of four elements")
© Christopher Marlowe
Nature that framed us of four elements,Warring within our breast for regiment,Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:Our souls, whose faculties can comprehendThe wondrous architecture of the worldAnd measure every wandering planet's course,Still climbing after knowledge infiniteAnd always moving as the restless spheres,Wills us to wear ourselves and never restUntil we reach the ripest fruit of all,That perfect bliss and sole felicity,The sweet fruition of an earthly crown
The Sonnets of Ishtar
© Lodge George Cabot
I am the world's imperishable desire;Life is because I will, for hope of meLife is, nor all the dark depths of the seaCould quench mine eyes' light nor my body's fire
Figs
© David Herbert Lawrence
The proper way to eat a fig, in society,Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,And open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower.
Salve Deus Rex Iudæorum
© Lanyer Æmilia
Now Pontius Pilate is to judge the CauseOf faultlesse Jesus, who before him stands;Who neither hath offended Prince, nor Lawes,Although he now be brought in woefull bands:O noble Governour, make thou yet a pause,Doe not in innocent blood imbrue thy hands; But heare the words of thy most worthy wife, Who sends to thee, to beg her Sauiours life
An Agnostic Hymn
© Huxley Henrietta Anne Heathorn
Oh! not the unreasoning God for me,Foreseeing, knowing allThat in the wondrous world he madeHis creatures should befall.
