Soul of Light

Do but look on her eyes, they do light     All that Love's world compriseth! Do but look on her hair, it is bright     As Love's star when it riseth! -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), The Triumph of Charis, from A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces

Flight of the Soul

Here at the fountain's sliding foot, Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide; -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Garden

Grace in Simplicity

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Still to Be Neat, from The Silent Woman

Resting Place

My fugitive years are all hasting away, And I must ere long lie as lowly as they, With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head, Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead. -William Cowper (1731-1800), The Poplar Field

Listen

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear     In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound     Shall pass into her face. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Lucy, Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

Let Me Woo Thee

Then, Julia, let me woo thee, Thus, thus to come unto me;     And when I shall meet     Thy silv'ry feet My soul I'll pour into thee. -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), The Night-Piece to Julia

Mountain Cheers

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the Echoes through the mountains song, The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,     And all the earth is gay         Land and sea     Give themselves up to jollity,         And with the heart of May     Doth every Beast keep holiday;--         Thou child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy! -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Recollection

The Rainbow comes and goes,     And lovely is the Rose,     The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare,     Waters on a starry night     Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Wanderer of Woods

If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft-- In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart-- How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,     How often has my spirit turned to thee! -William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, 1798

Shelter of Love

Far different these from every former scene, The cooling brook, the grassy vested green, The breezy covert of the warbling grove, That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. -Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774), The Deserted Village

Coming Home

Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew, And now in the grass behold they are laid, And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade. -William Cowper (1731-1800), The Poplar Field

Mind's Haven

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade, -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Garden

Flickering Companion

Methinks its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, everywhere Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Frost at Midnight

Secret of the Grove

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hill, and Groves, Forbode not any severing of our loves! -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Groves of Twilight

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King; -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), The Argument of His Book

Captive Light

If a star were confin'd into a tomb,     Her captive flames must needs burn there; But when the hand that locked her up, gives room,     She'll shine through all the sphere. -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), They Are All Gone into the World of Light

Fading Reality

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Suffusion of Light

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,     All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colours a suffusion from that light. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Dejection: An Ode

Edge of Doom

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. -William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds, Sonnet CXVI