Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (252 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back
From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used to lie;
He has gather’d the bones for his o’ergrown whelp to crack;
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die.
Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip,
295
And curse me the British vermin, the rat;
I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship,
But I knows that he lies and listens mute
In an ancient mansion’s crannies and holes:
Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it,
300
Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls!
It is all used up for that.
Tell him now; she is standing here at my head;
Not beautiful now, not even kind;
He may take her now; for she never speaks her mind,
305
But is ever the one thing silent here.
She is not of us, as I divine;
She comes from another stiller world of the dead,
Stiller, not fairer than mine.
But I know where a garden grows,
310
Fairer than aught in the world beside,
All made up of the lily and rose
That blow by night, when the season is good,
To the sound of dancing music and flutes:
It is only flowers, they had no fruits,
315
And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood;
For the keeper was one, so full of pride,
He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride;
For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes,
Would he have had that hole in his side?
320
But what will the old man say?
He laid a cruel snare in a pit
To catch a friend of mine one stormy day;
Yet now I could even weep to think of it;
For what will the old man say
325
When he comes to the second corpse in the pit?
Friend, to be struck by the public foe,
Then to strike him and lay him low,
That were a public merit, far,
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin;
330
But the red life spilt for a private blow —
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war
Are scarcely even akin.
O me, why have they not buried me deep enough?
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough,
335
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?
Maybe still I am but half-dead;
Then I cannot be wholly dumb:
I will cry to the steps above my head,
And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come
340
To bury me, bury me
Deeper, ever so little deeper.
Thro’ cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear,
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing:
345
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year
When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs,
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer
And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns
Over Orion’s grave low down in the west,
350
That like a silent lightning under the stars
She seem’d to divide in a dream from a band of the blest,
And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars —
“And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest,
Knowing I tarry for thee,” and pointed to Mars,
355
As he glow’d like a ruddy shield on the Lion’s breast.
And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight
To have look’d, tho’ but in a dream, upon eyes so fair,
That had been in a weary world my one thing bright;
And it was but a dream, yet it lighten’d my despair
360
When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right,
That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain’s one sole God be the millionaire:
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace
365
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase,
Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore,
And the cobweb woven across the cannon’s throat
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.
370
And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew,
“It is time, it is time, O passionate heart,” said I
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true),
“It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye,
That old hysterical mock-disease should die.”
375
And I stood on a giant deck and mix’d my breath
With a loyal people shouting a battle-cry,
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.
Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims
380
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold,
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames,
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;
And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll’d!
Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
385
For those that are crush’d in the clash of jarring claims,
Yet God’s just wrath shall be wreak’d on a giant liar;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,
And noble thought be freer under the sun,
390
And the heart of a people beat with one desire;
For the peace, that I deem’d no peace, is over and done,
And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep,
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.
395
Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind
It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill;
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
400
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign’d.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
SUNSET and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
5
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
10
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
15
When I have crossed the bar.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
ŒNONE sat within the cave from out
Whose ivy-matted mouth she used to gaze
Down at the Troad; but the goodly view
Was now one blank, and all the serpent vines
Which on the touch of heavenly feet had risen,
And gliding thro’ the branches over-bower’d
The naked Three, were wither’d long ago,
And thro’ the sunless winter morning-mist
In silence wept upon the flowerless earth.
And while she stared at those dead cords that ran
Dark thro’ the mist, and linking tree to tree,
But once were gayer than a dawning sky
With many a pendent bell and fragrant star,
Her Past became her Present, and she saw
Him, climbing toward her with the golden fruit,
Him, happy to be chosen judge of Gods,
Her husband in the flush of youth and dawn,
Paris, himself as beauteous as a God.
Anon from out the long ravine below,
She heard a wailing cry, that seem’d at first
Thin as the bat like shrillings of the Dead
When driven to Hades, but, in coming near,
Across the downward thunder of the brook
Sounded ‘Œnone’; and on a sudden he,
Paris, no longer beauteous as a God,
Struck by a poison’d arrow in the fight,
Lame, crooked, reeling, livid, thro’ the mist
Rose, like the wraith of his dead self, and moan’d
‘Œnone,
my
Œnone, while we dwelt
Together in this valley — happy then —
Too happy had I died within thine arms,
Before the feud of Gods had marr’d our peace,
And sunder’d each from each. I am dying now
Pierced by a poison’d dart. Save me. Thou knowest,
Taught by some God, whatever herb or balm
May clear the blood from poison, and thy fame
Is blown thro’ all the Troad, and to thee
The shepherd brings his adder-bitten lamb,
The wounded warrior climbs from Troy to thee.
My life and death are in thy hand. The Gods
Avenge on stony hearts a fruitless prayer
For pity. Let me owe my life to thee.
I wrought thee bitter wrong, but thou forgive,
Forget it. Man is but the slave of Fate.
Œnone, by thy love which once was mine,
Help, heal me. I am poison’d to the heart.’
‘And I to mine’ she said ‘ Adulterer,
Go back to thine adulteress and die!’
He groan’d, he turn’d, and in the mist at once
Became a shadow, sank and disappear’d,
But, ere the mountain rolls into the plain,
Fell headlong dead; and of the shepherds one
Their oldest, and the same who first had found
Paris, a naked babe, among the woods
Of Ida, following lighted on him there,
And shouted, and the shepherds heard and came.
One raised the Prince, one sleek’d the squalid hair,
One kiss’d his hand, another closed his eyes,
And then, remembering the gay playmate rear’d
Among them, and forgetful of the man,
Whose crime had half unpeopled Ilion, these
All that day long labour’d, hewing the pines,
And built their shepherd-prince a funeral pile;
And, while the star of eve was drawing light
From the dead sun, kindled the pyre, and all
Stood round it, hush’d, or calling on his name.
But when the white fog vanish’d like a ghost
Before the day, and every topmost pine
Spired into bluest heaven, still in her cave,
Amazed, and ever seeming stared upon
By ghastlier than the Gorgon head, a face, —
His
face deform’d by lurid blotch and blain —
There, like a creature frozen to the heart
Beyond all hope of warmth, Œnone sat
Not moving, till in front of that ravine
Which drowsed in gloom, self-darken’d from the west,
The sunset blazed along the wall of Troy.
Then her head sank, she slept, and thro’ her dream
A ghostly murmur floated, ‘Come to me,
Œnone! I can wrong thee now no more,
Œnone, my Œnone,’ and the dream
Wail’d in her, when she woke beneath the stars.
What star eould burn so low? not Ilion yet.
What light was there? She rose and slowly down,
By the long torrent’s ever-deepen’d roar,
Paced, following, as in trance, the silent cry.
She waked a bird of prey that scream’d and past
She roused a snake that hissing writhed away;
A panther sprang across her path, she heard
The shriek of some lost life among the pines,
But when she gain’d the broader vale, and saw
The ring of faces redden’d by the flames
Enfolding that dark body which had lain
Of old in her embrace, paused — and then ask’d
Falteringly, ‘Who lies on yonder pyre?’
But every man was mute for reverence.
Then moving quickly forward till the heat
Smote on her brow, she lifted up a voice
Of shrill command, ‘Who burns upon the pyre?’
Whereon their oldest and their boldest said,
‘He, whom thou wouldst not heal!’ and all at once
The morning light of happy marriage broke
Thro’ all the clouded years of widowhood,
And muffling up her comely head, and crying
‘Husband!’ she leapt upon the funeral pile,
And mixt herself with
him
and past in fire.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
