May and the Poets / Leigh Hunt

from To May

May and the Poets

    There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior,
May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May’s in all the Italian books;

She has old and modern nooks
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
In happy places they call shelves,
And will rise and dress your rooms
With a drapery thick with blooms.

    Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
May’s at home, and with me still;
But come rather, thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.

~~
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
from Poetical Works, 1857

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Leigh Hunt biography

"May and the Poets" read courtesy Ear Read This.

A Day in Spring / Richard Westall (XIV)

A Day in Spring

XIV

Through the garden now we'll range;
View its sweets and mark their change;
Beauteous fav'rites of a day!
Oh! how sweet the breath of May!
Oh! how rich her form appears,
Bounteous smiling thro' her tears,
As the day-star riding high,
Clears the lately clouded sky!
— Never let my banks be free,
From the flaunting piony;
Or the flower that bears the name
Of the never dying flame;
Or the tulip's pencil'd bell,
Or the pink, with spicy smell:
While beside them lovely grows
Flora's pride, the mossy rose,
And the lily's breast of snow
Blends the heaven-tinctur'd glow:
Let the hollyhock be nigh,
Deeply steep'd in purple dye;
I delight to see him drest
In his dark imperial vest,
Branching wide, and waving loose,
Drunk he seems with Tyrian juice.

~~

Read the rest of the poem here

Richard Westall (1765-1836)

from A Day in Spring, and other poems, 1808

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Westell biography

Love's Philosophy / Percy Bysshe Shelley

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river
   And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
   With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
   All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
   Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
   And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
   If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
   If thou kiss not me?

~~
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), 1819
from Posthumous Poems, 1824

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Percy Bysshe Shelley biography

Valentine's Day on The Penny Blog

"Love's Philosophy" read by Iain Batchelor. Courtesy Live Canon Poetry.

January, 1795 / Perdita

January, 1795

Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious;
Courtiers cringing and voracious;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses;
Theatres, and meeting-houses;
Balls, where simp’ring misses languish;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing;
Commerce drooping, credit failing;
Placemen mocking subjects loyal;
Separations, weddings royal.

Authors who can’t earn a dinner;
Many a subtle rogue a winner;
Fugitives for shelter seeking;
Misers hoarding, tradesmen breaking.

Taste and talents quite deserted;
All the laws of truth perverted;
Arrogance o’er merit soaring;
Merit silently deploring.

Ladies gambling night and morning;
Fools the works of genius scorning;
Ancient dames for girls mistaken,
Youthful damsels quite forsaken.

Some in luxury delighting;
More in talking than in fighting;
Lovers old, and beaux decrepid;
Lordlings empty and insipid.

Poets, painters, and musicians;
Lawyers, doctors, politicians:
Pamphlets, newspapers, and odes,
Seeking fame by diff’rent roads.

Gallant souls with empty purses;
Gen’rals only fit for nurses;
School-boys, smit with martial spirit,
Taking place of vet’ran merit.

Honest men who can’t get places,
Knaves who shew unblushing faces;
Ruin hasten’d, peace retarded;
Candor spurn’d, and art rewarded.

~~
Perdita  (Mary Robinson) (1758-1800)
from Poetical Works, 1824

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Perdita biography

When the World is Burning / Ebenezer Jones

When the World is Burning

When the world is burning,
Fired within, yet turning
  Round with face unscathed;
Ere fierce flames, uprushing,
O'er all lands leap, crushing,    
  Till earth fall, fire-swathed;
Up amidst the meadows,
Gently through the shadows,
  Gentle flames will glide,
Small, and blue, and golden.
Though by bard beholden,
When in calm dreams folden,—
  Calm his dreams will bide.

Where the dance is sweeping,
Through the greensward peeping,
  Shall the soft lights start;
Laughing maids, unstaying,
Deeming it trick-playing,
High their robes upswaying,
  O'er the lights shall dart;
And the woodland haunter
Shall not cease to saunter
  When, far down some glade,
Of the great world's burning,
One soft flame upturning
Seems, to his discerning,
  Crocus in the shade.

~~
Ebenezer Jones (1820-1860)
from the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ebenezer Jones biography

"When the World is Burning" read by Nigel Verney.

Rock Me to Sleep / Elizabeth Akers Allen

Rock Me to Sleep

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;–   
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,–   
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,–
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,–
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;–
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I tonight for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;–
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,–   
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;–   
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;–
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;–   
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

~~
Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832-1911)

from Poems, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

Elizabeth Akers Allen biography

Good King Wenceslas / John Mason Neale

Good King Wenceslas

Good King Wenceslas look’d out,
    On the Feast of Stephen;
When the snow lay round about,
    Deep, and crisp, and even:
Brightly shone the moon that night,
    Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
    Gath’ring winter fuel.

“Hither page and stand by me,
    If thou know’st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
    Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence.
    Underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
    By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh,and bring me wine,
    Bring me pine-logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine,
    When we bear them thither.”
Page and monarch forth they went,
    Forth they went together;
Through the rude wind’s wild lament,
    And the bitter weather.

“Sire, the night is darker now,
    And the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know now how,
    I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, good my page;
    Tread thou in them boldly;
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
    Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod,
    Where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
    Which the Saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
    Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
    Shall yourselves find blessing.

~~
John Mason Neale (1818-1866)
from Carols for Christmas-Tide, 1853

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

John Mason Neale biography

"Good King Wenceslas" performed by the Skydiggers.