Drawing Tears

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made Hell grant what love did seek; -John Milton (1608-1674), Il Penseroso

Sad Notes

Yet slower yet, oh faintly gentle springs: List to the heavy part the music bears,     "Woe weeps out her division when she sings." -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount, Keep Time with My Salt Tears, from Cynthia's Revels

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man     Down to a sunless sea. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Kubla Khan

Noble Rage

I envy not in any moods     The captive void of noble rage,     The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods; -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Momoriam A. H. H., 1850

Heaven's Flame

'Tis Madness to resist or blame The force of angry Heavens Flame; -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland

Departure

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:     Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art: I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;     It sinks, and I am ready to depart. -Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), I Strove with None, from The Last Fruit off an Old Tree

Silver Night

Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close:     Bless us then with wishèd sight,     Goddess excellently bright. -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Hymn to Diana, from Cynthia's Revels

One More Night

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love, And though the sager sort our deeds reprove, Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive Into their west, and straight again revive, But soon as once set is our little light, Then must we sleep one ever-during night. -Thomas Campion (1567-1620), My Sweetest Lesbia

Cloud City

Even so my son one early morn did shine With all-trimphant splendour on my brow; But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine, The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. -William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen, Sonnet XXXIII

Swift Tide

Thus from the sun my bottom steers, And my days' compass downward bears. Nor labour I to stem the tide, Through which to thee I swiftly glide. -Henry King (1592-1669), Exequy on His Wife

Hidden Brook

There in close covert by some brook, Where no profaner eye may look, Hide me from Day's garish eye, -John Milton (1608-1674), Il Penseroso

Yesterday's Smile

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,     Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today,     Tomorrow will be dying. -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Subtle Beauty

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Solitary Existence

What hallowed solitary ground did bear         So rare a flower, -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), The Night

Hidden Jewels

Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,     How can ye blume sae fair! How can ye chant, ye little birds,     And I sae fu' o' care! -Robert Burns (1759-1796), The Banks o' Doon

Soft Voice

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Music, When Soft Voices Die

Happy Together

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird     That sings beside thy mate; For sae I sat, and sae I sang,     And wist na o' my fate. -Robert Burns (1759-1796), The Banks o' Doon

Transient Beauty

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. -William Blake (1757-1827), Auguries of Innocence

Counting Time

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun, Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller's journey is done; -William Blake (1757-1827), Ah! Sun-Flower, from Songs of Experience

Fantasy Land

And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins & set them all free; Then down a green plain leaping, laughing they run, And wash in a river and shine in the sun. -William Blake (1757-1827), The Chimney Sweeper, from Songs of Innocence

There Was a Time

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, The earth and every common sight,         To me did seam     Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream; It is not now as it hath been of yore;--     Turn wheresoe'er I may,         By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Conjunction of Minds

Therefore the love which us doth bind, But fate so enviously debars, Is the conjunction of the mind, And opposition of the stars. -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Definition of Love

Beauty in the Beast

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea Whose action is no stronger than a flower? -William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Since Brass, nor Stone, Nor Earth, nor Boundless Sea, Sonnet LXV

Mortality

O how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays? -William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Since Brass, nor Stone, Nor Earth, nor Boundless Sea, Sonnet LXV

A Trance Sublime

Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, -Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mont Blanc, 1817

Ice City

Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; -Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mont Blanc, 1817

Gaze

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Cloud City

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,     Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those faint beams in which this hill is dressed,     After the sun's remove. -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), They Are All Gone into the World of Light

Moment of Truth

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien. -John Keats (1795-1821), Sonnets. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Blue Eyes

And all that's best of dark and bright     Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light     Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. -George Gordon Noel Byron 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), She Walks in Beauty

Birth of Soul

Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, fair luminous cloud         Enveloping the Earth-- And from the soul itself must there be sent     A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element! -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Dejection: An Ode

Rising Shroud

There is in God (some say) A deep, but dazling darkness; As men here Say it is late and dusky, because they             See not all clear; -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), The Night

Flight of Ecstasy

It was an Abyssinian maid,         And on her dulcimer she played,         Singing of Mount Abora.         Could I revive within me         Her symphony and song,         To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Kubla Khan

Shroud of Desire

Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow, Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. -William Blake (1757-1827), Ah! Sun-Flower, from Songs of Experience

Beckon

Let us go in; the fog is rising. -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Attributed last words. A Certain World

Tears from Heaven

He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend. -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, The Epitaph

Gone into the Light

They are all gone into the world of light!     And I alone sit lingering here; Their very memory is fair and bright,     And my sad thoughts doth clear. -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), Silex Scintillans (1655), They Are All Gone

I Saw Eternity

I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light.     All calm, as it was bright; And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,     Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world     And all her train were hurl'd. -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), Silex Scintillans (1655), The World

Dance of the Spirit

While all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1798

Meet Me by Moonlight

Meet Me by Moonlight Alone. -Joseph Augustine Wade (1796-1845), Title of Poem

Wonder Land

I thou be'st borne to strange sights,     Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights,     Till age snow white hairs on thee. -John Donne (1572-1631), Go and Catch a Falling Star

Falling Stars

When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? -William Blake (1757-1827), The Tyger

Endless Night

And, as a vapor or a drop of rain,     Once lost, can ne'er be found again,     So when or you or I are made     A fable, song, or fleeting shade,     All love, all liking, all delight     Lies drowned with us in endless night. -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), Corinna's Going a-Maying

Immortality

Lead me from the unreal to the real! Lead me from darkness to light! Lead me from death to immortality! -The Upanishads (800-500 B.C.), Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Light and Motion

But thou wilt never more appear Folded within my hemisphere: Since both thy light and motion Like a fled star is fall'n and gone; -Henry King (1592-1669), Exequy on His Wife

Midnight Reign

The dome where Pleasure holds here midnight reign, Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train: -Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774), The Deserted Village

Fleeing Light

But, O! as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. -John Milton (1608-1674), On His Deceased Wife

Majestic Silence

Earth has not anything to show more fair; Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Blooming Morn

Get up, get up for shame! The blooming morn Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.     See how Aurora throws her fair,     Fresh-quilted colors through the air. -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), Corinna's Going a-Maying

Young Light

And though the last lights off the black West went     Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), God's Grandeur

First Light

That age is best which is the first,     When youth and blood are warmer; -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Awakening

O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn, And the morn Rises from the slumberous mass. -William Blake (1757-1827), Hear the Voice of the Bard, from Songs of Experience

Never Part

I am content to live Divided, with but half a heart, Till we shall meet and never part. -Henry King (1592-1669), Exequy on His Wife

Dawn

"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

New Beginning

The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world! -Robert Browning, Pippa Passes, 1841

Impossibility

My love is of a birth as rare As 'tis for object strange and high; It was begotten by despair Upon impossibility. -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Definition of Love