But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
-John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892),
Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl
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Spirits of Light
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth; As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might Satiate the void circumference: then shrink Even to a point within our day and night; And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink, When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais |
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Silken Mystery
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode on a Grecian Urn |
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Burst of Life
Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean, A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais |
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Elfland
O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O, sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), The Splendor Falls |
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So Much Melody
In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody. Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions. She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering. A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned-- A cymbal crashed, And roraring horns. -Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955), Peter Quince at the Clavier |
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Being
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence is The Flower? |
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Happy Boughs
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode on a Grecian Urn |
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Melodious Green
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,-- That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to a Nightingale |
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Those who have gone before
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you waiting at that door. -Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), Up-Hill |
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Slumber
Pale, without name or number, In fruitless fields of corn, They bow themselves and slumber All night till light is born; And like a soul belated, In hell and heaven unmated, By cloud and mist abated Comes out of darkness morn. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), The Garden of Proserpine |
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Starry Heaven
If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"? -Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), Afterwards |
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Fading Splendor
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's
eyes, And all the Echoes whom their Sister's song Had held in holy silence, cried "Arise"; Swift as a thought by the snake Memory stung, From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais |
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Murmur in the Wind
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to Psyche |
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Fairy Seas
The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casement, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to a Nightingale |
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Ebb and Flow
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. -Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Dover Beach |
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I Hear
And I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core. -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), The Lake Isle of Innisfree |
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Quiet Shores
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, Till in the summer-land of dreams They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl |
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Unreflecting Love
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. -John Keats (1795-1821), When I Have Fears |
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Dark Sails
The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given. The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully afar! Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais |
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Lost Angel
Lost angel of a ruined paradise! She knew not 'twas her own,--as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais |
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Longing
I long for scenes where man has never trod, A place where woman never smiled or wept-- There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie, The grass below--above the vaulted sky. -John Clare (1793-1864), I am, written while he was confined in the General Lunatic Asylum in Northampton, where he spent about the last third of his life. |
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Mystic Tides
He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Paul Revere's Ride |