Science poems
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Sonnet III
© George Santayana
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine
By which alone the mortal heart is led
Unto the thinking of the thought divine.
The Gods Are Dead
© William Ernest Henley
The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?
Living at least in Lempriere undeleted,
The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,
Are one and all. I like to think, retreated
In some still land of lilacs and the rose.
The Unhappy Lot Of Mr. Knott
© James Russell Lowell
My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,
From business snug withdrawn,
Was much contented with a lot
That would contain a Tudor cot
'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot,
And twelve feet more of lawn.
Prose
© Stéphane Mallarme
Hyperbole! From my memory
Triumphantly cant you
Rise today, like sorcery
From an iron-bound book or two:
The Borough. Letter XXIV: Schools
© George Crabbe
pride, -
Their room, the sty in which th' assembly meet,
In the close lane behind the Northgate-street;
T'observe his vain attempts to keep the peace,
Till tolls the bell, and strife and troubles cease,
The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto V
© Richard Savage
My hermit thus. She beckons us away:
Oh, let us swift the high behest obey!
Pretence. Part II - The Library
© John Kenyon
From such a world, all touch, all ear, all eye,
What marvel, then, if proud Abstraction fly;
Amid Hercynian shades pursue his theme,
And leave the land of Locke to gold and steam?
The Task : Complete
© William Cowper
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
Confessio Amantis. Explicit Liber Septimus
© John Gower
Que favet ad vicium vetus hec modo regula confert,
Nec novus e contra qui docet ordo placet.
Cecus amor dudum nondum sua lumina cepit,
Quo Venus impositum devia fallit iter.
Carmen Seculare. For the Year 1700. To The King
© Matthew Prior
Thy elder Look, Great Janus, cast
Into the long Records of Ages past:
To the University of Cambridge
© Phillis Wheatley
While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
The muses promise to assist my pen;
Hunger
© Arthur Rimbaud
Beneath the bush a wolf will howl, Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl: Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered, Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge, Eats only flowers.
Let me sleep! Let me boil, On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil, And flow into Kendron.
The Library
© George Crabbe
When the sad soul, by care and grief oppress'd,
Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest;
An Invective Written By Mr. George Chapman Against Mr. Ben Jonson
© George Chapman
Great, learned, witty Ben, be pleased to light
The world with that three-forked fire; nor fright
The Door Of Humility
© Alfred Austin
ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;
The Dunciad: Book III.
© Alexander Pope
But in her Temple's last recess inclos'd,
On Dulness' lap th' Anointed head repos'd.
The School-Boy
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
So ran my lines, as pen and paper met,
The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette;
Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways
Full many a slipshod line, alas! betrays;
Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few
Have builded worse--a great deal--than they knew.
The Parish Register - Part I: Baptisms
© George Crabbe
floor.
Here his poor bird th' inhuman Cocker brings,
Arms his hard heel and clips his golden wings;
With spicy food th' impatient spirit feeds,
And shouts and curses as the battle bleeds.
Struck through the brain, deprived of both his
The Farewell
© Charles Churchill
_P_. Farewell to Europe, and at once farewell
To all the follies which in Europe dwell;
