Embracing Light

But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowèd roof, With antic pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim, religious light. -John Milton (1608-1674), Il Penseroso

Guiding Light

O take fast hold; let that light be thy guide -Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Leave Me, O Love, Which Reachest But to Dust

Angelic Light

And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), She Was a Phatom of Delight

A Far Away Place

And we agreed to get up early To make our way to the place I have described to you. -Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400), The Canterbury Tales

Holding the Wind

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. -Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), Whoso List to Hunt

Glow in the Heart

As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, -Robert Southwell (c.1561-1595), The Burning Babe

Dark Secret Love

O Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. -William Blake (1757-1827), The Sick Rose, from Songs of Experience

Embracing Cloud

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, And never wake to feel the day's disdain. -Samuel Daniel (1562-1619), Care-Charmer Sleep, Son of the Sable Night

Pilgrims

There came at night into that lodging-place Twenty-nine in a group Of sundry people, by chance fallen Into fellowship, and they were all pilgrims Wanting to ride toward Canterbury. -Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400), The Canterbury Tales

First Splendor

Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! -William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Weighty Soul

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Rebekah

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty,     Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,     Wi' murd'ring pattle! -Robert Burns (1759-1796), To a Mouse on Turning Her up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785

Signal Tree

"One morn I missed him, on the customed hill, Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Hunter's Return

So when the Falcon high     Falls heavy from the Sky, She, having kill'd, no more does search, But on the next green Bow to pearch; -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers

Previous Life

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,     Hath had elsewhere its setting,         And cometh from afar:     Not in entire forgetfulness,     And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

First Snow

Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow     Before the soil hath smutch'd it? -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), The Triumph of Charis, from A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces

Pensive Rain

But when chill blustering winds or driving rain Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut     That from the mountain's side     Views wilds and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all     Thy dewy fingers draw     The gradual dusky veil. -William Collins (1721-1759), Ode to Evening

Melodious Flow

And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. -Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Beams of Delight

How sweet I roam'd from field to field And tasted all the summer's pride, Till I the Prince of Love beheld Who in the sunny beams did glide! -William Blake (1757-1827), How Sweet I Roam'd from Field to Field

Trembling Air

Calm was the day, and through the trembling air Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play, A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair; -Edmund Spenser (c.1552-1599), Prothalamion

Rejoice

"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear, The cloud will vanish; we shall hear his voice, Saying, `Come out from the grove, my love & care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.'" -William Blake (1757-1827), The Little Black Boy

Secluded Journey

Five years have passed; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a sweet inland murmur.--Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, Which on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusions; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

Forms Revealed

'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal, But the sweet theft to reveal: To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been. -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Come, My Celia, Let Us Prove, from Volpone

Shroud

But strength alone though of the Muses born Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchers Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. -John Keats (1795-1821), Sleep and Poetry

Celestial Fire

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Spent Light

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,     The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run,     And nearer he's to setting. -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Evening Bed

Thou Fair-haired Angel of the Evening, Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed! Smile on our loves; and while thou drawest the Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes -William Blake (1757-1827), To the Evening Star