Exempli Gratia: Classic Poetry

(1631) Il Penseroso
This is the companion piece to Milton's "L'Allegro".


Hence, vain deluding joys,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bestead,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail thou Goddess sage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended;
Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore;
His daughter she (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain). ... {excerpt}

(1631) L' ALLEGRO
This is the companion piece to Milton's "Il Penseroso".


Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven sings;
There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come thou Goddess fair and free,
In heav'n ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by Men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sager sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise; ... {excerpt}

from the American Review, December 1847

TO — — —.

ULALUME: A BALLAD


THE skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispèd and sere —
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir —
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul —
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll —
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole —
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere —
Our memories were treacherous and sere —
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year —
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber —
(Though once we had journeyed down here) —
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn —
As the star-dials hinted of morn —
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn —
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said — "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs —
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies —
To the Lethean peace of the skies —
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes —
Come up through the lair of the Lion
With Love in her luminous eyes."

[page 600:]

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said — "Sadly this star I mistrust —
Her pallor I strangely mistrust: —
Oh, hasten! — oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! — let us fly! — for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust —
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust —
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied — "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night: —
See! — it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright —
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom —
And conquered her scruples and gloom:
And we passed to the end of the vista,
And were stopped by the door of a tomb —
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said — "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied — "Ulalume — Ulalume —
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crispèd and sere —
As the leaves that were withering and sere,
And I cried — "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed — I journeyed down here —
That I brought a dread burden down here —
On this night of all nights in the year,
Oh, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber —
This misty mid region of Weir —
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Said we, then — the two, then — "Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls —
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls —
To bar up our way and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds —
From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds —
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls —
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

Often haue I heard that it is the property of some wo-
men, not only to emulate the virtues and perfections
of the rest, but also by all their powers of ill speaking,
to ecclipse the brightness of their deserved fame: now
contrary to this custome, which men I hope uniustly lay to (5)
their charge, I haue written this small volume, or little booke,
for the generall vse of all virtuous Ladies and Gentlewomen
of this kingdome; and in commendation of some particular
persons of our owne sexe, such as for the most part, are so well
knowne to my selfe, and others, that I dare undertake Fame (10)
dares not to call any better. And this haue I done, to make
knowne to the world, that all women deserue not to be blamed
though some forgetting they are women themselues, and in
danger to be condemned by the words of their owne mouthes,
fall into so great an errour, as to speake vnaduisedly against (15)
the rest of their sexe; which if it be true, I am persuaded they
can shew their owne imperfection in nothing more: and there-
fore could wish (for their owne ease, modesties, and credit) they
would referre such points of folly, to be practised by euell dispo-
sed men, who forgetting they were borne of women, nourished (20)
of women, and that if it were not by the means of women, they
would be quite extinguished out of the world: and a finall ende
of them all, doe like Vipers deface the wombes wherein they
were bred, onely to giue way and vtterance to their want of
discretion and goodnesse. Such as these, were they that disho- (25)
noured Christ his Apostles and Prophets, putting them to
shamefull deaths. Therefore, we are not to regard any imputa-
tions that they vndeseruedly lay upon us, no otherwise than
to make vse of them to our owne benefits, as spurres to ver-
tue, making vs flie all occasions that may colour their uniust (30)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron. 1788–1824

600. She walks in Beauty

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 mellow'd to that tender light 5
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face; 10
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, 15
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

From
Yet Other Twelve Wonders of the World



IV. The Lawyer


The Law my calling is, my robe, my tongue, my pen,
Wealth and opinion gaine, and make me Iudge of men.
The knowne dishonest cause, I neuer did defend,
Nor spun out sutes in length, but wisht and sought and end :
Nor counsell did bewray, nor of both parties take,
Nor euer tooke I fee for which I neuer spake.

VIII.

Labour and its Reward.

The Earl of Oxford to the Reader of Bedingfield’s Cardanus’s Comfort.

The labouring man that tills the fertile soil,
And reaps the harvest fruit, hath not indeed
The gain, but pain; and if for all his toil
He gets the straw, the lord will have the seed.
The manchet fine falls not unto his share;
On coarsest cheat his hungry stomach feeds.
The landlord doth possess the finest fare;
He pulls the flowers, he plucks but weeds.
The mason poor that builds the lordly halls,
Dwells not in them; they are for high degree;
His cottage is compact in paper walls,
And not with brick or stone, as others be.
The idle drone that lahours not at all,
Sucks up the sweet of honey from the bee;
Who worketh most to their share least doth fall,
With due desert reward will never be.
The swiftest hare unto the mastive slow
Oft-times doth fall, to him as for a prey;
The greyhound thereby doth miss his game we know
For which he made such speedy haste away.
So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden muse;
But those gain that, who on the work shall look,
And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose,
For he that beats the bush the bird not gets,
But who sits still and holdeth fast the nets.

{written 1576}

An older poetry thread. We should have started such long ago. Here is one that might sound quite familiar. I found it in an old anthology, Elizabethan Lyrics from the Original Texts, edited by Norman Ault first published in 1949:

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep little wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Care is heavy, therefor sleep you
You are care, and care must keep you.
Sleep little wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

attributed to Thomas Dekker c. 1600

Love (III) by George Herbert


Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack,
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack'd anything.

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and tast me meat:
So I did sit and eat.

They Flee From Me by Sir Thomas Wyatt


They fle from me, that sometyme did me seke
With naked fote, stalking in my chambre.
I have seen theirn gentill, tame, and meke,
That nowe are wyld, and do not remembre
That sometyme they put theimself in daunger
To take bred at my hand; and nowe they raunge
Besely seking with a continuell chaunge.

Thancked be fortune, it hath ben othrewise
Twenty tymes better; but ons, in speciall,
In thyn arraye, after a pleasaunt gyse,
When her lose gowne from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her armes long and small,
Therewith all swetely did me kysse,
And softely saide: "Dere hert, howe like you this?"

It was no dreme: I lay brode waking.
But all is torned, thorough my gentilnes,
Into a straunge fasshion of forsaking;
And I have leve to goo of her goodness,
And she also to use new fangilnes:
But syns that I so kyndely am served,
I would fain knowe what she hath deserved.

Thomas Dekker and Sir Thomas Wyatt, two great additions. This thread might be a useful place for members to post their favorites from former eras. The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer

PROLOGUE

Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury.

Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for the seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.
Bifil that in that seson, on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,

Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury, with ful devout corage,
At nyght were come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle

In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde. ... {excerpt}

Book III Part VII: Learn Music and Read the Poets


The Sirens were sea-monsters, who, with singing voice,

could restrain a ship’s course as they wished.

Ulysses, your body nearly melted hearing them,

while the wax filled your companions’ ears.

Song is a thing of grace: girls, learn to sing:

for many your voice is a better procuress than your looks.

And repeat what you just heard in the marble theatre,

and the latest songs played in the Egyptian style.

No woman taught under my control should fail to know

how to hold her lyre with the left hand, the plectrum with her right.

Thracian Orpheus, with his lute, moved animals and stones,

and Tartarus’s lake and Cerberus, the triple-headed hound.

At your song, Amphion, just avenger of your mother,

the stones obligingly made Thebes’s new walls.

Though dumb, a Dolphin’s thought to have responded

to a human voice, as the tale of Arion’s lyre noted.

And learn to sweep both hands across the genial harp

that too is suitable for our sweet fun.

Let Callimachus, be known to you, Coan Philetas

and the Teian Muse of old drunken Anacreon:

And let Sappho be yours (well what’s more wanton?),

Menander, whose master’s gulled by his Thracian slaves’ cunning.

and be able to recite tender Propertius’s song,

or some of yours Gallus or Tibullus:

and the high-flown speech of Varro’s fleece

of golden wool, Phrixus, your sister Helle’s lament:

and Aeneas the wanderer, the beginnings of mighty Rome,

than which there is no better known work in Latin.

And perhaps my name will be mingled with those,

my works not all given to Lethe’s streams:

and someone will say: ‘Read our master’s cultured song,

in which he teaches both the sexes: or choose

from the three books stamped with the title Amores,

that you recite softly with sweetly-teachable lips:

or let your voice sing those letters he composed, the Heroides:

he invented that form unknown to others.’

O grant it so, Phoebus! And, you, sacred powers of poetry,

great horned Bacchus, and the Nine goddesses!

{from Ovid, The Art of Love}

The Logicians Refuted

Logicians have but ill defined
As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove, with great precision,
With definition and division,
Homo est ratione praeditum;
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em,
And must, in spite of them, maintain,
That man and all his ways are vain;
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature;
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason, boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em.


Deus est anima brutorum.
Whoever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbour prosecute,
Bring action for assault or battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfined,
No politics disturb their mind;
They eat their meals, and take their sport
Nor know who's in or out at court.
They never to the levee go
To treat, as dearest friend, a foe:
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place:
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for Bob.[1]


Fraught with invective, they ne'er go
To folks at Paternoster Row.
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,
No pickpockets, or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds;
No single brute his fellow leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each other's throats for pay.
Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man, he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his lurking passion:
But, both in malice and grimaces,
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him, humbly cringing, wait
Upon the minister of state;
View him soon after to inferiors
Aping the conduct of superiors;
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators,
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their masters' manner still contract,
And footmen, lords and dukes can act.
Thus, at the court, both great and small
Behave alike, for all ape all.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/p.../19461734.html --
The Ultimate Literary Portrait


By Henrik Bering

Boswell's painterly masterpiece



--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Among the great encounters of literature, none ranks higher than the one that took place between James Boswell and

Samuel Johnson in Tom Davis’s bookstore in Russell Street, Covent Garden on Monday, May 16, 1763. Boswell, a 22-

year-old Scot with literary ambitions, had long been desiring to meet the great man of English letters, but without

success, and was sitting in the back parlor of the shop having tea when Johnson suddenly entered the store."

T H E
V A N I T Y
O F
H U M A N W I S H E S.
T H E
Tenth Satire of Juvenal,

IMITATED

By SAMUEL JOHNSON.

[image]

L O N D O N:
Printed for R. DODSLEY at Tully's Head in Pall-Mall,
and Sold by M. COOPER in Pater-noster Row.
___________________________
M.DCC.XLIX.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

T H E
T E N T H S A T I R E
O F
J U V E N A L.

ET Observation with extensive View,
Survey Mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife,
And watch the busy Scenes of crowded Life;
Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate,
O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate,
Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous Pride,
To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide;
As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude,
Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good.
How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice,
Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice,
How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd,
When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request.
Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th'afflictive Dart,
Each Gift of Nature, and each Grace of Art,
With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows,
With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath,
And restless Fire precipitates on Death.

{first stanza only}