[ { "title": "Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation of the Christian", "author": "Algernon Charles Swinburne", "lines": [ "Vicisti, Galilæe", "I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;", "Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.", "Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;", "For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.", "Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove;", "But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.", "Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,", "A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?", "I am sick of singing; the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain", "To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain.", "For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath,", "We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death.", "O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day!", "From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say.", "New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods;", "They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods.", "But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare;", "Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were.", "Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof,", "Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love.", "I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace,", "Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease.", "Wilt thou take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take,", "The laurel, the palms and the paean, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake;", "Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath;", "And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death;", "All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre,", "Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire.", "More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things?", "Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings.", "A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may?", "For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day.", "And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears:", "Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years?", "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;", "We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.", "Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;", "But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.", "Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end;", "For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.", "Fate is a sea without shore, and the soul is a rock that abides;", "But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides.", "O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods!", "O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods!", "Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend,", "I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end.", "All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast", "Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past:", "Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates,", "Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits:", "Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings,", "And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things,", "White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled,", "Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world.", "The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away;", "In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey;", "In its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men's tears;", "With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years:", "With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour;", "And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour:", "And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be;", "And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea:", "And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air:", "And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare.", "Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods?", "Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods?", "All ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire shall ye pass and be past;", "Ye are Gods, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last.", "In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of things,", "Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget you for kings.", "Though the feet of thine high priests tread where thy lords and our forefathers trod,", "Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God,", "Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head,", "Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead.", "Of the maiden thy mother men sing as a goddess with grace clad around;", "Thou art throned where another was king; where another was queen she is crowned.", "Yea, once we had sight of another: but now she is queen, say these.", "Not as thine, not as thine was our mother, a blossom of flowering seas,", "Clothed round with the world's desire as with raiment, and fair as the foam,", "And fleeter than kindled fire, and a goddess, and mother of Rome.", "For thine came pale and a maiden, and sister to sorrow; but ours,", "Her deep hair heavily laden with odour and colour of flowers,", "White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame,", "Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name.", "For thine came weeping, a slave among slaves, and rejected; but she", "Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea.", "And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds and the viewless ways,", "And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays.", "Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wise that ye should not fall.", "Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all.", "But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end;", "Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.", "O daughter of earth, of my mother, her crown and blossom of birth,", "I am also, I also, thy brother; I go as I came unto earth.", "In the night where thine eyes are as moons are in heaven, the night where thou art,", "Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart,", "Where the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world, and the red rose is white,", "And the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night,", "And the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of Gods from afar", "Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star,", "In the sweet low light of thy face, under heavens untrod by the sun,", "Let my soul with their souls find place, and forget what is done and undone.", "Thou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath;", "Let these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death.", "Therefore now at thy feet I abide for a season in silence. I know", "I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep, even so.", "For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span;", "A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.", "So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep.", "For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep." ], "linecount": "111" }, { "title": "Hymn Of Man", "author": "Algernon Charles Swinburne", "lines": [ "In the grey beginning of years, in the twilight of things that began,", "The word of the earth in the ears of the world, was it God? was it man?", "The word of the earth to the spheres her sisters, the note of her song,", "The sound of her speech in the ears of the starry and sisterly throng,", "Was it praise or passion or prayer, was it love or devotion or dread,", "When the veils of the shining air first wrapt her jubilant head?", "When her eyes new-born of the night saw yet no star out of reach;", "When her maiden mouth was alight with the flame of musical speech;", "When her virgin feet were set on the terrible heavenly way,", "And her virginal lids were wet with the dew of the birth of the day:", "Eyes that had looked not on time, and ears that had heard not of death;", "Lips that had learnt not the rhyme of change and passionate breath,", "The rhythmic anguish of growth, and the motion of mutable things,", "Of love that longs and is loth, and plume-plucked hope without wings,", "Passions and pains without number, and life that runs and is lame,", "From slumber again to slumber, the same race set for the same,", "Where the runners outwear each other, but running with lampless hands", "No man takes light from his brother till blind at the goal he stands:", "Ah, did they know, did they dream of it, counting the cost and the worth?", "The ways of her days, did they seem then good to the new-souled earth?", "Did her heart rejoice, and the might of her spirit exult in her then,", "Child yet no child of the night, and motherless mother of men?", "Was it Love brake forth flower-fashion, a bird with gold on his wings,", "Lovely, her firstborn passion, and impulse of firstborn things?", "Was Love that nestling indeed that under the plumes of the night", "Was hatched and hidden as seed in the furrow, and brought forth bright?", "Was it Love lay shut in the shell world-shaped, having over him there", "Black world-wide wings that impel the might of the night through air?", "And bursting his shell as a bird, night shook through her sail-stretched vans,", "And her heart as a water was stirred, and its heat was the firstborn man's.", "For the waste of the dead void air took form of a world at birth,", "And the waters and firmaments were, and light, and the life-giving earth.", "The beautiful bird unbegotten that night brought forth without pain", "In the fathomless years forgotten whereover the dead gods reign,", "Was it love, life, godhead, or fate? we say the spirit is one", "That moved on the dark to create out of darkness the stars and the sun.", "Before the growth was the grower, and the seed ere the plant was sown;", "But what was seed of the sower? and the grain of him, whence was it grown?", "Foot after foot ye go back and travail and make yourselves mad;", "Blind feet that feel for the track where highway is none to be had.", "Therefore the God that ye make you is grievous, and gives not aid,", "Because it is but for your sake that the God of your making is made.", "Thou and I and he are not gods made men for a span,", "But God, if a God there be, is the substance of men which is man.", "Our lives are as pulses or pores of his manifold body and breath;", "As waves of his sea on the shores where birth is the beacon of death.", "We men, the multiform features of man, whatsoever we be,", "Recreate him of whom we are creatures, and all we only are he.", "Not each man of all men is God, but God is the fruit of the whole;", "Indivisible spirit and blood, indiscernible body from soul.", "Not men's but man's is the glory of godhead, the kingdom of time,", "The mountainous ages made hoary with snows for the spirit to climb.", "A God with the world inwound whose clay to his footsole clings;", "A manifold God fast-bound as with iron of adverse things.", "A soul that labours and lives, an emotion, a strenuous breath,", "From the flame that its own mouth gives reillumed, and refreshed with death.", "In the sea whereof centuries are waves the live God plunges and swims;", "His bed is in all men's graves, but the worm hath not hold on his limbs.", "Night puts out not his eyes, nor time sheds change on his head;", "With such fire as the stars of the skies are the roots of his heart are fed.", "Men are the thoughts passing through it, the veins that fulfil it with blood,", "With spirit of sense to renew it as springs fulfilling a flood.", "Men are the heartbeats of man, the plumes that feather his wings,", "Storm-worn, since being began, with the wind and thunder of things.", "Things are cruel and blind; their strength detains and deforms:", "And the wearying wings of the mind still beat up the stream of their storms.", "Still, as one swimming up stream, they strike out blind in the blast,", "In thunders of vision and dream, and lightnings of future and past.", "We are baffled and caught in the current and bruised upon edges of shoals;", "As weeds or as reeds in the torrent of things are the wind-shaken souls.", "Spirit by spirit goes under, a foam-bell's bubble of breath,", "That blows and opens in sunder and blurs not the mirror of death.", "For a worm or a thorn in his path is a man's soul quenched as a flame;", "For his lust of an hour or his wrath shall the worm and the man be the same.", "O God sore stricken of things! they have wrought him a raiment of pain;", "Can a God shut eyelids and wings at a touch on the nerves of the brain?", "O shamed and sorrowful God, whose force goes out at a blow!", "What world shall shake at his nod? at his coming what wilderness glow?", "What help in the work of his hands? what light in the track of his feet?", "His days are snowflakes or sands, with cold to consume him and heat.", "He is servant with Change for lord, and for wages he hath to his hire", "Folly and force, and a sword that devours, and a ravening fire.", "From the bed of his birth to his grave he is driven as a wind at their will;", "Lest Change bow down as his slave, and the storm and the sword be still;", "Lest earth spread open her wings to the sunward, and sing with the spheres;", "Lest man be master of things, to prevail on their forces and fears.", "By the spirit are things overcome; they are stark, and the spirit hath breath;", "It hath speech, and their forces are dumb; it is living, and things are of death.", "But they know not the spirit for master, they feel not force from above,", "While man makes love to disaster, and woos desolation with love.", "Yea, himself too hath made himself chains, and his own hands plucked out his eyes;", "For his own soul only constrains him, his own mouth only denies.", "The herds of kings and their hosts and the flocks of the high priests bow", "To a master whose face is a ghost's; O thou that wast God, is it thou?", "Thou madest man in the garden; thou temptedst man, and he fell;", "Thou gavest him poison and pardon for blood and burnt-offering to sell.", "Thou hast sealed thine elect to salvation, fast locked with faith for the key;", "Make now for thyself expiation, and be thine atonement for thee.", "Ah, thou that darkenest heaven--ah, thou that bringest a sword -", "By the crimes of thine hands unforgiven they beseech thee to hear them, O Lord.", "By the balefires of ages that burn for thine incense, by creed and by rood,", "By the famine and passion that yearn and that hunger to find of thee food,", "By the children that asked at thy throne of the priests that were fat with thine hire", "For bread, and thou gavest a stone; for light, and thou madest them fire;", "By the kiss of thy peace like a snake's kiss, that leaves the soul rotten at root;", "By the savours of gibbets and stakes thou hast planted to bear to thee fruit;", "By torture and terror and treason, that make to thee weapons and wings;", "By thy power upon men for a season, made out of the malice of things;", "O thou that hast built thee a shrine of the madness of man and his shame,", "And hast hung in the midst for a sign of his worship the lamp of thy name;", "That hast shown him for heaven in a vision a void world's shadow and shell,", "And hast fed thy delight and derision with fire of belief as of hell;", "That hast fleshed on the souls that believe thee the fang of the death-worm fear,", "With anguish of dreams to deceive them whose faith cries out in thine ear;", "By the face of the spirit confounded before thee and humbled in dust,", "By the dread wherewith life was astounded and shamed out of sense of its trust,", "By the scourges of doubt and repentance that fell on the soul at thy nod,", "Thou art judged, O judge, and the sentence is gone forth against thee, O God.", "Thy slave that slept is awake; thy slave but slept for a span;", "Yea, man thy slave shall unmake thee, who made thee lord over man.", "For his face is set to the east, his feet on the past and its dead;", "The sun rearisen is his priest, and the heat thereof hallows his head.", "His eyes take part in the morning; his spirit out-sounding the sea", "Asks no more witness or warning from temple or tripod or tree.", "He hath set the centuries at union; the night is afraid at his name;", "Equal with life, in communion with death, he hath found them the same.", "Past the wall unsurmounted that bars out our vision with iron and fire", "He hath sent forth his soul for the stars to comply with and suns to conspire.", "His thought takes flight for the centre wherethrough it hath part in the whole;", "The abysses forbid it not enter: the stars make room for the soul.", "Space is the soul's to inherit; the night is hers as the day;", "Lo, saith man, this is my spirit; how shall not the worlds make way?", "Space is thought's, and the wonders thereof, and the secret of space;", "Is thought not more than the thunders and lightnings? shall thought give place?", "Is the body not more than the vesture, the life not more than the meat?", "The will than the word or the gesture, the heart than the hands or the feet?", "Is the tongue not more than the speech is? the head not more than the crown?", "And if higher than is heaven be the reach of the soul, shall not heaven bow down?", "Time, father of life, and more great than the life it begat and began,", "Earth's keeper and heaven's and their fate, lives, thinks, and hath substance in man.", "Time's motion that throbs in his blood is the thought that gives heart to the skies,", "And the springs of the fire that is food to the sunbeams are light to his eyes.", "The minutes that beat with his heart are the words to which worlds keep chime,", "And the thought in his pulses is part of the blood and the spirit of time.", "He saith to the ages, Give; and his soul foregoes not her share;", "Who are ye that forbid him to live, and would feed him with heavenlier air?", "Will ye feed him with poisonous dust, and restore him with hemlock for drink,", "Till he yield you his soul up in trust, and have heart not to know or to think?", "He hath stirred him, and found out the flaw in his fetters, and cast them behind;", "His soul to his soul is a law, and his mind is a light to his mind.", "The seal of his knowledge is sure, the truth and his spirit are wed;", "Men perish, but man shall endure; lives die, but the life is not dead.", "He hath sight of the secrets of season, the roots of the years and the fruits;", "His soul is at one with the reason of things that is sap to the roots.", "He can hear in their changes a sound as the conscience of consonant spheres;", "He can see through the years flowing round him the law lying under the years.", "Who are ye that would bind him with curses and blind him with vapour of prayer?", "Your might is as night that disperses when light is alive in the air.", "The bow of your godhead is broken, the arm of your conquest is stayed;", "Though ye call down God to bear token, for fear of you none is afraid.", "Will ye turn back times, and the courses of stars, and the season of souls?", "Shall God's breath dry up the sources that feed time full as it rolls?", "Nay, cry on him then till he show you a sign, till he lift up a rod;", "Hath he made not the nations to know him of old if indeed he be God?", "Is no heat of him left in the ashes of thousands burnt up for his sake?", "Can prayer not rekindle the flashes that shone in his face from the stake?", "Cry aloud; for your God is a God and a Saviour; cry, make yourselves lean;", "Is he drunk or asleep, that the rod of his wrath is unfelt and unseen?", "Is the fire of his old loving-kindness gone out, that his pyres are acold?", "Hath he gazed on himself unto blindness, who made men blind to behold?", "Cry out, for his kingdom is shaken; cry out, for the people blaspheme;", "Cry aloud till his godhead awaken; what doth he to sleep and to dream?", "Cry, cut yourselves, gash you with knives and with scourges, heap on to you dust;", "Is his life but as other gods' lives? is not this the Lord God of your trust?", "Is not this the great God of your sires, that with souls and with bodies was fed,", "And the world was on flame with his fires? O fools, he was God, and is dead.", "He will hear not again the strong crying of earth in his ears as before,", "And the fume of his multitudes dying shall flatter his nostrils no more.", "By the spirit he ruled as his slave is he slain who was mighty to slay,", "And the stone that is sealed on his grave he shall rise not and roll not away.", "Yea, weep to him, lift up your hands; be your eyes as a fountain of tears;", "Where he stood there is nothing that stands; if he call, there is no man that hears.", "He hath doffed his king's raiment of lies now the wane of his kingdom is come;", "Ears hath he, and hears not; and eyes, and he sees not; and mouth, and is dumb.", "His red king's raiment is ripped from him naked, his staff broken down;", "And the signs of his empire are stripped from him shuddering; and where is his crown?", "And in vain by the wellsprings refrozen ye cry for the warmth of his sun -", "O God, the Lord God of thy chosen, thy will in thy kingdom be done.", "Kingdom and will hath he none in him left him, nor warmth in his breath;", "Till his corpse be cast out of the sun will ye know not the truth of his death?", "Surely, ye say, he is strong, though the times be against him and men;", "Yet a little, ye say, and how long, till he come to show judgment again?", "Shall God then die as the beasts die? who is it hath broken his rod?", "O God, Lord God of thy priests, rise up now and show thyself God.", "They cry out, thine elect, thine aspirants to heavenward, whose faith is as flame;", "O thou the Lord God of our tyrants, they call thee, their God, by thy name.", "By thy name that in hell-fire was written, and burned at the point of thy sword,", "Thou art smitten, thou God, thou art smitten; thy death is upon thee, O Lord.", "And the love-song of earth as thou diest resounds through the wind of her wings -", "Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is the master of things." ], "linecount": "200" }, { "title": "A Hymn to God the Father", "author": "Ben Jonson", "lines": [ "Hear me, O God!", "A broken heart", "Is my best part.", "Use still thy rod,", "That I may prove", "Therein thy Love.", "", "If thou hadst not", "Been stern to me,", "But left me free,", "I had forgot", "Myself and thee.", "", "For sin's so sweet,", "As minds ill-bent", "Rarely repent,", "Until they meet", "Their punishment.", "", "Who more can crave", "Than thou hast done?", "That gav'st a Son,", "To free a slave,", "First made of nought;", "With all since bought.", "", "Sin, Death, and Hell", "His glorious name", "Quite overcame,", "Yet I rebel", "And slight the same.", "", "But I'll come in", "Before my loss", "Me farther toss,", "As sure to win", "Under His cross." ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "A Hymn In Honour Of Beauty", "author": "Edmund Spenser", "lines": [ "Ah whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?", "What wontless fury dost thou now inspire", "Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?", "Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,", "Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,", "And up aloft above my strength dost raise", "The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.", "", "That as I erst in praise of thine own name,", "So now in honour of thy mother dear,", "An honourable hymn I eke should frame,", "And with the brightness of her beauty clear,", "The ravish'd hearts of gazeful men might rear", "To admiration of that heavenly light,", "From whence proceeds such soul-enchanting might.", "", "Thereto do thou, great goddess, queen of beauty,", "Mother of love, and of all world's delight,", "Without whose sovereign grace and kindly duty", "Nothing on earth seems fair to fleshly sight,", "Do thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light", "T' illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,", "And beautify this sacred hymn of thine:", "", "That both to thee, to whom I mean it most,", "And eke to her, whose fair immortal beam", "Hath darted fire into my feeble ghost,", "That now it wasted is with woes extreme,", "It may so please, that she at length will stream", "Some dew of grace into my withered heart,", "After long sorrow and consuming smart.", "", "WHAT time this world's great Workmaster did cast", "To make all things such as we now behold,", "It seems that he before his eyes had plac'd", "A goodly pattern, to whose perfect mould", "He fashion'd them as comely as he could;", "That now so fair and seemly they appear,", "As nought may be amended anywhere.", "", "That wondrous pattern, wheresoe'er it be,", "Whether in earth laid up in secret store,", "Or else in heaven, that no man may it see", "With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore,", "Is perfect Beauty, which all men adore;", "Whose face and feature doth so much excel", "All mortal sense, that none the same may tell.", "", "Thereof as every earthly thing partakes", "Or more or less, by influence divine,", "So it more fair accordingly it makes,", "And the gross matter of this earthly mine,", "Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refine,", "Doing away the dross which dims the light", "Of that fair beam which therein is empight.", "", "For, through infusion of celestial power,", "The duller earth it quick'neth with delight,", "And lifeful spirits privily doth pour", "Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight", "They seem to please. That is thy sovereign might,", "O Cyprian queen, which flowing from the beam", "Of thy bright star, thou into them dost stream.", "", "That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace", "To all things fair, that kindleth lively fire,", "Light of thy lamp, which, shining in the face,", "Thence to the soul darts amorous desire,", "And robs the hearts of those which it admire;", "Therewith thou pointest thy son's poison'd arrow,", "That wounds the life, and wastes the inmost marrow.", "", "How vainly then do idle wits invent,", "That beauty is nought else but mixture made", "Of colours fair, and goodly temp'rament", "Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade", "And pass away, like to a summer's shade;", "Or that it is but comely composition", "Of parts well measur'd, with meet disposition.", "", "Hath white and red in it such wondrous power,", "That it can pierce through th' eyes unto the heart,", "And therein stir such rage and restless stour,", "As nought but death can stint his dolour's smart?", "Or can proportion of the outward part", "Move such affection in the inward mind,", "That it can rob both sense and reason blind?", "", "Why do not then the blossoms of the field,", "Which are array'd with much more orient hue,", "And to the sense most dainty odours yield,", "Work like impression in the looker's view?", "Or why do not fair pictures like power shew,", "In which oft-times we nature see of art", "Excell'd, in perfect limning every part?", "", "But ah, believe me, there is more than so,", "That works such wonders in the minds of men;", "I, that have often prov'd, too well it know,", "And whoso list the like assays to ken,", "Shall find by trial, and confess it then,", "That beauty is not, as fond men misdeem,", "An outward shew of things, that only seem.", "", "For that same goodly hue of white and red,", "With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,", "And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread", "Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away", "To that they were, even to corrupted clay;", "That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright,", "Shall turn to dust; and lose their goodly light.", "", "But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray", "That light proceeds, which kindleth lovers' fire,", "Shall never be extinguish'd nor decay;", "But when the vital spirits do expire,", "Unto her native planet shall retire;", "For it is heavenly born and cannot die,", "Being a parcel of the purest sky.", "", "For when the soul, the which derived was,", "At first, out of that great immortal Spright,", "By whom all live to love, whilom did pass", "Down from the top of purest heaven's height", "To be embodied here, it then took light", "And lively spirits from that fairest star,", "Which lights the world forth from his fiery car.", "", "Which power retaining still or more or less,", "When she in fleshly seed is eft enraced,", "Through every part she doth the same impress,", "According as the heavens have her graced,", "And frames her house, in which she will be placed,", "Fit for herself, adorning it with spoil", "Of th' heavenly riches which she robb'd erewhile.", "", "Thereof it comes that these fair souls, which have", "The most resemblance of that heavenly light,", "Frame to themselves most beautiful and brave", "Their fleshly bower, most fit for their delight,", "And the gross matter by a sovereign might", "Tempers so trim, that it may well be seen", "A palace fit for such a virgin queen.", "", "So every spirit, as it is most pure,", "And hath in it the more of heavenly light,", "So it the fairer body doth procure", "To habit in, and it more fairly dight", "With cheerful grace and amiable sight.", "For of the soul the body form doth take:", "For soul is form, and doth the body make.", "", "Therefore wherever that thou dost behold", "A comely corpse, with beauty fair endued,", "Know this for certain, that the same doth hold", "A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed,", "Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed.", "For all that fair is, is by nature good;", "That is a sign to know the gentle blood.", "", "Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind", "Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,", "Either by chance, against the course of kind,", "Or through unaptness in the substance found,", "Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,", "That will not yield unto her form's direction,", "But is deform'd with some foul imperfection.", "", "And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue)", "That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born,", "Is foul abus'd, and that celestial hue,", "Which doth the world with her delight adorn,", "Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn,", "Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it,", "But every one doth seek but to deprave it.", "", "Yet nathëmore is that fair beauty's blame,", "But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:", "Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame", "May be corrupt, and wrested unto will:", "Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still,", "However flesh{\"e}s fault it filthy make;", "For things immortal no corruption take.", "", "But ye fair dames, the world's dear ornaments", "And lively images of heaven's light,", "Let not your beams with such disparagements", "Be dimm'd, and your bright glory dark'ned quite;", "But mindful still of your first country's sight,", "Do still preserve your first informed grace,", "Whose shadow yet shines in your beauteous face.", "", "Loathe that foul blot, that hellish firebrand,", "Disloyal lust, fair beauty's foulest blame,", "That base affections, which your ears would bland,", "Commend to you by love's abused name,", "But is indeed the bondslave of defame;", "Which will the garland of your glory mar,", "And quench the light of your bright shining star.", "", "But gentle Love, that loyal is and true,", "Will more illumine your resplendent ray,", "And add more brightness to your goodly hue,", "From light of his pure fire; which, by like way", "Kindled of yours, your likeness doth display;", "Like as two mirrors, by oppos'd reflection,", "Do both express the face's first impression.", "", "Therefore, to make your beauty more appear,", "It you behoves to love, and forth to lay", "That heavenly riches which in you ye bear,", "That men the more admire their fountain may;", "For else what booteth that celestial ray,", "If it in darkness be enshrined ever,", "That it of loving eyes be viewed never?", "", "But, in your choice of loves, this well advise,", "That likest to yourselves ye them select,", "The which your forms' first source may sympathize,", "And with like beauty's parts be inly deckt;", "For, if you loosely love without respect,", "It is no love, but a discordant war,", "Whose unlike parts amongst themselves do jar.", "", "For love is a celestial harmony", "Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,", "Which join together in sweet sympathy,", "To work each other's joy and true content,", "Which they have harbour'd since their first descent", "Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see", "And know each other here belov'd to be.", "", "Then wrong it were that any other twain", "Should in love's gentle band combined be", "But those whom Heaven did at first ordain,", "And made out of one mould the more t' agree;", "For all that like the beauty which they see,", "Straight do not love; for love is not so light", "As straight to burn at first beholder's sight.", "", "But they, which love indeed, look otherwise,", "With pure regard and spotless true intent,", "Drawing out of the object of their eyes", "A more refined form, which they present", "Unto their mind, void of all blemishment;", "Which it reducing to her first perfection,", "Beholdeth free from flesh's frail infection.", "", "And then conforming it unto the light,", "Which in itself it hath remaining still,", "Of that first Sun, yet sparkling in his sight,", "Thereof he fashions in his higher skill", "An heavenly beauty to his fancy's will;", "And it embracing in his mind entire,", "The mirror of his own thought doth admire.", "", "Which seeing now so inly fair to be,", "As outward it appeareth to the eye,", "And with his spirit's proportion to agree,", "He thereon fixeth all his fantasy,", "And fully setteth his felicity;", "Counting it fairer than it is indeed,", "And yet indeed her fairness doth exceed.", "", "For lovers' eyes more sharply sighted be", "Than other men's, and in dear love's delight", "See more than any other eyes can see,", "Through mutual receipt of beam{\"e}s bright,", "Which carry privy message to the spright,", "And to their eyes that inmost fair display,", "As plain as light discovers dawning day.", "", "Therein they see, through amorous eye-glances,", "Armies of loves still flying to and fro,", "Which dart at them their little fiery lances;", "Whom having wounded, back again they go,", "Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;", "Who, seeing her fair eyes' so sharp effect,", "Cures all their sorrows with one sweet aspect.", "", "In which how many wonders do they rede", "To their conceit, that others never see,", "Now of her smiles, with which their souls they feed,", "Like gods with nectar in their banquets free;", "Now of her looks, which like to cordials be;", "But when her words' embássade forth she sends,", "Lord, how sweet music that unto them lends.", "", "Sometimes upon her forehead they behold", "A thousand graces masking in delight;", "Sometimes within her eyelids they unfold", "Ten thousand sweet belgards, which to their sight", "Do seem like twinkling stars in frosty night;", "But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,", "So many millions of chaste pleasures play.", "", "All those, O Cytherea, and thousands more", "Thy handmaids be, which do on thee attend,", "To deck thy beauty with their dainties' store,", "That may it more to mortal eyes commend,", "And make it more admir'd of foe and friend:", "That in men's hearts thou may'st thy throne install,", "And spread thy lovely kingdom over all.", "", "Then Iö, triumph! O great Beauty's Queen,", "Advance the banner of thy conquest high,", "That all this world, the which thy vassals bene,", "May draw to thee, and with due fealty", "Adore the power of thy great majesty,", "Singing this hymn in honour of thy name,", "Compil'd by me, which thy poor liegeman am.", "", "In lieu whereof grant, O great sovereign,", "That she whose conquering beauty doth captive", "My trembling heart in her eternal chain,", "One drop of grace at length will to me give,", "That I her bounden thrall by her may live,", "And this same life, which first fro me she reaved,", "May owe to her, of whom I it received.", "", "And you, fair Venus' darling, my dear dread,", "Fresh flower of grace, great goddess of my life,", "When your fair eyes these fearful lines shall read,", "Deign to let fall one drop of due relief,", "That may recure my heart's long pining grief,", "And shew what wondrous power your beauty hath,", "That can restore a damned wight from death." ], "linecount": "287" }, { "title": "An Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty", "author": "Edmund Spenser", "lines": [ "Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought,", "Through contemplation of those goodly sights,", "And glorious images in heaven wrought,", "Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights", "Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights;", "I fain to tell the things that I behold,", "But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.", "", "Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Spright,", "From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow,", "To shed into my breast some sparkling light", "Of thine eternal truth, that I may show", "Some little beams to mortal eyes below", "Of that immortal beauty, there with thee,", "Which in my weak distraughted mind I see;", "", "That with the glory of so goodly sight", "The hearts of men, which fondly here admire", "Fair seeming shews, and feed on vain delight,", "Transported with celestial desire", "Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher,", "And learn to love, with zealous humble duty,", "Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty.", "", "Beginning then below, with th' easy view", "Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye,", "From thence to mount aloft, by order due,", "To contemplation of th' immortal sky;", "Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly,", "That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath,", "Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe.", "", "Then look, who list thy gazeful eyes to feed", "With sight of that is fair, look on the frame", "Of this wide universe, and therein reed", "The endless kinds of creatures which by name", "Thou canst not count, much less their natures aim;", "All which are made with wondrous wise respect,", "And all with admirable beauty deckt.", "", "First th' earth, on adamantine pillars founded,", "Amid the sea engirt with brazen bands;", "Then th' air still flitting, but yet firmly bounded", "On every side, with piles of flaming brands,", "Never consum'd, nor quench'd with mortal hands;", "And last, that mighty shining crystal wall,", "Wherewith he hath encompassed this All.", "", "By view whereof it plainly may appear,", "That still as every thing doth upward tend,", "And further is from earth, so still more clear", "And fair it grows, till to his perfect end", "Of purest beauty it at last ascend;", "Air more than water, fire much more than air,", "And heaven than fire, appears more pure and fair.", "", "Look thou no further, but affix thine eye", "On that bright, shiny, round, still moving mass,", "The house of blessed gods, which men call sky,", "All sow'd with glist'ring stars more thick than grass,", "Whereof each other doth in brightness pass,", "But those two most, which ruling night and day,", "As king and queen, the heavens' empire sway;", "", "And tell me then, what hast thou ever seen", "That to their beauty may compared be,", "Or can the sight that is most sharp and keen", "Endure their captain's flaming head to see?", "How much less those, much higher in degree,", "And so much fairer, and much more than these,", "As these are fairer than the land and seas?", "", "For far above these heavens, which here we see,", "Be others far exceeding these in light,", "Not bounded, not corrupt, as these same be,", "But infinite in largeness and in height,", "Unmoving, uncorrupt, and spotless bright,", "That need no sun t' illuminate their spheres,", "But their own native light far passing theirs.", "", "And as these heavens still by degrees arise,", "Until they come to their first Mover's bound,", "That in his mighty compass doth comprise,", "And carry all the rest with him around;", "So those likewise do by degrees redound,", "And rise more fair; till they at last arrive", "To the most fair, whereto they all do strive.", "", "Fair is the heaven where happy souls have place,", "In full enjoyment of felicity,", "Whence they do still behold the glorious face", "Of the divine eternal Majesty;", "More fair is that, where those Ideas on high", "Enranged be, which Plato so admired,", "And pure Intelligences from God inspired.", "", "Yet fairer is that heaven, in which do reign", "The sovereign Powers and mighty Potentates,", "Which in their high protections do contain", "All mortal princes and imperial states;", "And fairer yet, whereas the royal Seats", "And heavenly Dominations are set,", "From whom all earthly governance is fet.", "", "Yet far more fair be those bright Cherubins,", "Which all with golden wings are overdight,", "And those eternal burning Seraphins,", "Which from their faces dart out fiery light;", "Yet fairer than they both, and much more bright,", "Be th' Angels and Archangels, which attend", "On God's own person, without rest or end.", "", "These thus in fair each other far excelling,", "As to the highest they approach more near,", "Yet is that highest far beyond all telling,", "Fairer than all the rest which there appear,", "Though all their beauties join'd together were;", "How then can mortal tongue hope to express", "The image of such endless perfectness?", "", "Cease then, my tongue, and lend unto my mind", "Leave to bethink how great that beauty is,", "Whose utmost parts so beautiful I find;", "How much more those essential parts of his,", "His truth, his love, his wisdom, and his bliss,", "His grace, his doom, his mercy, and his might,", "By which he lends us of himself a sight.", "", "Those unto all he daily doth display,", "And shew himself in th' image of his grace,", "As in a looking-glass, through which he may", "Be seen of all his creatures vile and base,", "That are unable else to see his face,", "His glorious face which glistereth else so bright,", "That th' Angels selves cannot endure his sight.", "", "But we, frail wights, whose sight cannot sustain", "The sun's bright beams when he on us doth shine,", "But that their points rebutted back again", "Are dull'd, how can we see with feeble eyne", "The glory of that Majesty Divine,", "In sight of whom both sun and moon are dark,", "Compared to his least resplendent spark?", "", "The means, therefore, which unto us is lent", "Him to behold, is on his works to look,", "Which he hath made in beauty excellent,", "And in the same, as in a brazen book,", "To read enregister'd in every nook", "His goodness, which his beauty doth declare;", "For all that's good is beautiful and fair.", "", "Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,", "To imp the wings of thy high-flying mind,", "Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,", "From this dark world, whose damps the soul so blind,", "And, like the native brood of eagles' kind,", "On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes,", "Clear'd from gross mists of frail infirmities.", "", "Humbled with fear and awful reverence,", "Before the footstool of his majesty", "Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence,", "Ne dare look up with corruptible eye", "On the dread face of that great Deity,", "For fear, lest if he chance to look on thee,", "Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be.", "", "But lowly fall before his mercy seat,", "Close covered with the Lamb's integrity", "From the just wrath of his avengeful threat", "That sits upon the righteous throne on high;", "His throne is built upon eternity,", "More firm and durable than steel or brass,", "Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass.", "", "His sceptre is the rod of righteousness,", "With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust,", "And the great Dragon strongly doth repress,", "Under the rigour of his judgement just;", "His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,", "From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright", "That all about him sheddeth glorious light:", "", "Light far exceeding that bright blazing spark", "Which darted is from Titan's flaming head,", "That with his beams enlumineth the dark", "And dampish air, whereby all things are read;", "Whose nature yet so much is marvelled", "Of mortal wits, that it doth much amaze", "The greatest wizards which thereon do gaze.", "", "But that immortal light, which there doth shine,", "Is many thousand times more bright, more clear,", "More excellent, more glorious, more divine,", "Through which to God all mortal actions here,", "And even the thoughts of men, do plain appear;", "For from th' eternal truth it doth proceed,", "Through heavenly virtue which her beams do breed.", "", "With the great glory of that wondrous light", "His throne is all encompassed around,", "And hid in his own brightness from the sight", "Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound;", "And underneath his feet are to be found", "Thunder and lightning and tempestuous fire,", "The instruments of his avenging ire.", "", "There in his bosom Sapience doth sit,", "The sovereign darling of the Deity,", "Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit", "For so great power and peerless majesty,", "And all with gems and jewels gorgeously", "Adorn'd, that brighter than the stars appear,", "And make her native brightness seem more clear.", "", "And on her head a crown of purest gold", "Is set, in sign of highest sovereignty;", "And in her hand a sceptre she doth hold,", "With which she rules the house of God on high,", "And manageth the ever-moving sky,", "And in the same these lower creatures all", "Subjected to her power imperial.", "", "Both heaven and earth obey unto her will,", "And all the creatures which they both contain;", "For of her fullness which the world doth fill", "They all partake, and do in state remain", "As their great Maker did at first ordain,", "Through observation of her high behest,", "By which they first were made, and still increast.", "", "The fairness of her face no tongue can tell;", "For she the daughters of all women's race,", "And angels eke, in beauty doth excel,", "Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face,", "And more increas'd by her own goodly grace,", "That it doth far exceed all human thought,", "Ne can on earth compared be to aught.", "", "Ne could that painter (had he lived yet)", "Which pictured Venus with so curious quill,", "That all posterity admired it,", "Have portray'd this, for all his mast'ring skill;", "Ne she herself, had she remained still,", "And were as fair as fabling wits do feign,", "Could once come near this beauty sovereign.", "", "But had those wits, the wonders of their days,", "Or that sweet Teian poet, which did spend", "His plenteous vein in setting forth her praise,", "Seen but a glimpse of this which I pretend,", "How wondrously would he her face commend,", "Above that idol of his feigning thought,", "That all the world should with his rhymes be fraught.", "", "How then dare I, the novice of his art,", "Presume to picture so divine a wight,", "Or hope t' express her least perfection's part,", "Whose beauty fills the heavens with her light,", "And darks the earth with shadow of her sight?", "Ah, gentle Muse, thou art too weak and faint", "The portrait of so heavenly hue to paint.", "", "Let angels, which her goodly face behold", "And see at will, her sovereign praises sing,", "And those most sacred mysteries unfold", "Of that fair love of mighty heaven's King;", "Enough is me t' admire so heavenly thing,", "And being thus with her huge love possest,", "In th' only wonder of herself to rest.", "", "But whoso may, thrice happy man him hold,", "Of all on earth whom God so much doth grace", "And lets his own beloved to behold;", "For in the view of her celestial face", "All joy, all bliss, all happiness, have place;", "Ne aught on earth can want unto the wight", "Who of herself can win the wishful sight.", "", "For she, out of her secret treasury,", "Plenty of riches forth on him will pour,", "Even heavenly riches, which there hidden lie", "Within the closet of her chastest bower,", "Th' eternal portion of her precious dower,", "Which mighty God hath given to her free,", "And to all those which thereof worthy be.", "", "None thereof worthy be, but those whom she", "Vouchsafeth to her presence to receive,", "And letteth them her lovely face to see,", "Whereof such wondrous pleasures they conceive,", "And sweet contentment, that it doth bereave", "Their soul of sense, through infinite delight,", "And them transport from flesh into the spright.", "", "In which they see such admirable things,", "As carries them into an ecstasy,", "And hear such heavenly notes, and carollings", "Of God's high praise, that fills the brazen sky;", "And feel such joy and pleasure inwardly,", "That maketh them all worldly cares forget,", "And only think on that before them set.", "", "Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense,", "Or idle thought of earthly things, remain;", "But all that erst seem'd sweet seems now offence,", "And all that pleased erst now seems to pain;", "Their joy, their comfort, their desire, their gain,", "Is fixed all on that which now they see;", "All other sights but feigned shadows be.", "", "And that fair lamp, which useth to inflame", "The hearts of men with self-consuming fire", "Thenceforth seems foul, and full of sinful blame;", "And all that pomp to which proud minds aspire", "By name of honour, and so much desire,", "Seems to them baseness, and all riches dross,", "And all mirth sadness, and all lucre loss.", "", "So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,", "And senses fraught with such satiety,", "That in nought else on earth they can delight,", "But in th' aspect of that felicity,", "Which they have written in their inward eye;", "On which they feed, and in their fastened mind", "All happy joy and full contentment find.", "", "Ah, then, my hungry soul, which long hast fed", "On idle fancies of thy foolish thought,", "And, with false beauty's flatt'ring bait misled,", "Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought,", "Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought", "But late repentance through thy follies prief;", "Ah cease to gaze on matter of thy grief:", "", "And look at last up to that sovereign light,", "From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs,", "That kindleth love in every godly sprite,", "Even the love of God, which loathing brings", "Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things;", "With whose sweet pleasures being so possest,", "Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest." ], "linecount": "301" }, { "title": "A Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty", "author": "Edmund Spenser", "lines": [ "Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought,", "Through contemplation of those goodly sights,", "And glorious images in heaven wrought,", "Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights", "Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights;", "I fain to tell the things that I behold,", "But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.", "", "Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Spright,", "From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow,", "To shed into my breast some sparkling light", "Of thine eternal truth, that I may show", "Some little beams to mortal eyes below", "Of that immortal beauty, there with thee,", "Which in my weak distraughted mind I see;", "", "That with the glory of so goodly sight", "The hearts of men, which fondly here admire", "Fair seeming shews, and feed on vain delight,", "Transported with celestial desire", "Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher,", "And learn to love, with zealous humble duty,", "Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty.", "", "Beginning then below, with th' easy view", "Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye,", "From thence to mount aloft, by order due,", "To contemplation of th' immortal sky;", "Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly,", "That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath,", "Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe.", "", "Then look, who list thy gazeful eyes to feed", "With sight of that is fair, look on the frame", "Of this wide universe, and therein reed", "The endless kinds of creatures which by name", "Thou canst not count, much less their natures aim;", "All which are made with wondrous wise respect,", "And all with admirable beauty deckt.", "", "First th' earth, on adamantine pillars founded,", "Amid the sea engirt with brazen bands;", "Then th' air still flitting, but yet firmly bounded", "On every side, with piles of flaming brands,", "Never consum'd, nor quench'd with mortal hands;", "And last, that mighty shining crystal wall,", "Wherewith he hath encompassed this All.", "", "By view whereof it plainly may appear,", "That still as every thing doth upward tend,", "And further is from earth, so still more clear", "And fair it grows, till to his perfect end", "Of purest beauty it at last ascend;", "Air more than water, fire much more than air,", "And heaven than fire, appears more pure and fair.", "", "Look thou no further, but affix thine eye", "On that bright, shiny, round, still moving mass,", "The house of blessed gods, which men call sky,", "All sow'd with glist'ring stars more thick than grass,", "Whereof each other doth in brightness pass,", "But those two most, which ruling night and day,", "As king and queen, the heavens' empire sway;", "", "And tell me then, what hast thou ever seen", "That to their beauty may compared be,", "Or can the sight that is most sharp and keen", "Endure their captain's flaming head to see?", "How much less those, much higher in degree,", "And so much fairer, and much more than these,", "As these are fairer than the land and seas?", "", "For far above these heavens, which here we see,", "Be others far exceeding these in light,", "Not bounded, not corrupt, as these same be,", "But infinite in largeness and in height,", "Unmoving, uncorrupt, and spotless bright,", "That need no sun t' illuminate their spheres,", "But their own native light far passing theirs.", "", "And as these heavens still by degrees arise,", "Until they come to their first Mover's bound,", "That in his mighty compass doth comprise,", "And carry all the rest with him around;", "So those likewise do by degrees redound,", "And rise more fair; till they at last arrive", "To the most fair, whereto they all do strive.", "", "Fair is the heaven where happy souls have place,", "In full enjoyment of felicity,", "Whence they do still behold the glorious face", "Of the divine eternal Majesty;", "More fair is that, where those Ideas on high", "Enranged be, which Plato so admired,", "And pure Intelligences from God inspired.", "", "Yet fairer is that heaven, in which do reign", "The sovereign Powers and mighty Potentates,", "Which in their high protections do contain", "All mortal princes and imperial states;", "And fairer yet, whereas the royal Seats", "And heavenly Dominations are set,", "From whom all earthly governance is fet.", "", "Yet far more fair be those bright Cherubins,", "Which all with golden wings are overdight,", "And those eternal burning Seraphins,", "Which from their faces dart out fiery light;", "Yet fairer than they both, and much more bright,", "Be th' Angels and Archangels, which attend", "On God's own person, without rest or end.", "", "These thus in fair each other far excelling,", "As to the highest they approach more near,", "Yet is that highest far beyond all telling,", "Fairer than all the rest which there appear,", "Though all their beauties join'd together were;", "How then can mortal tongue hope to express", "The image of such endless perfectness?", "", "Cease then, my tongue, and lend unto my mind", "Leave to bethink how great that beauty is,", "Whose utmost parts so beautiful I find;", "How much more those essential parts of his,", "His truth, his love, his wisdom, and his bliss,", "His grace, his doom, his mercy, and his might,", "By which he lends us of himself a sight.", "", "Those unto all he daily doth display,", "And shew himself in th' image of his grace,", "As in a looking-glass, through which he may", "Be seen of all his creatures vile and base,", "That are unable else to see his face,", "His glorious face which glistereth else so bright,", "That th' Angels selves cannot endure his sight.", "", "But we, frail wights, whose sight cannot sustain", "The sun's bright beams when he on us doth shine,", "But that their points rebutted back again", "Are dull'd, how can we see with feeble eyne", "The glory of that Majesty Divine,", "In sight of whom both sun and moon are dark,", "Compared to his least resplendent spark?", "", "The means, therefore, which unto us is lent", "Him to behold, is on his works to look,", "Which he hath made in beauty excellent,", "And in the same, as in a brazen book,", "To read enregister'd in every nook", "His goodness, which his beauty doth declare;", "For all that's good is beautiful and fair.", "", "Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,", "To imp the wings of thy high-flying mind,", "Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,", "From this dark world, whose damps the soul so blind,", "And, like the native brood of eagles' kind,", "On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes,", "Clear'd from gross mists of frail infirmities.", "", "Humbled with fear and awful reverence,", "Before the footstool of his majesty", "Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence,", "Ne dare look up with corruptible eye", "On the dread face of that great Deity,", "For fear, lest if he chance to look on thee,", "Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be.", "", "But lowly fall before his mercy seat,", "Close covered with the Lamb's integrity", "From the just wrath of his avengeful threat", "That sits upon the righteous throne on high;", "His throne is built upon eternity,", "More firm and durable than steel or brass,", "Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass.", "", "His sceptre is the rod of righteousness,", "With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust,", "And the great Dragon strongly doth repress,", "Under the rigour of his judgement just;", "His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,", "From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright", "That all about him sheddeth glorious light:", "", "Light far exceeding that bright blazing spark", "Which darted is from Titan's flaming head,", "That with his beams enlumineth the dark", "And dampish air, whereby all things are read;", "Whose nature yet so much is marvelled", "Of mortal wits, that it doth much amaze", "The greatest wizards which thereon do gaze.", "", "But that immortal light, which there doth shine,", "Is many thousand times more bright, more clear,", "More excellent, more glorious, more divine,", "Through which to God all mortal actions here,", "And even the thoughts of men, do plain appear;", "For from th' eternal truth it doth proceed,", "Through heavenly virtue which her beams do breed.", "", "With the great glory of that wondrous light", "His throne is all encompassed around,", "And hid in his own brightness from the sight", "Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound;", "And underneath his feet are to be found", "Thunder and lightning and tempestuous fire,", "The instruments of his avenging ire.", "", "There in his bosom Sapience doth sit,", "The sovereign darling of the Deity,", "Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit", "For so great power and peerless majesty,", "And all with gems and jewels gorgeously", "Adorn'd, that brighter than the stars appear,", "And make her native brightness seem more clear.", "", "And on her head a crown of purest gold", "Is set, in sign of highest sovereignty;", "And in her hand a sceptre she doth hold,", "With which she rules the house of God on high,", "And manageth the ever-moving sky,", "And in the same these lower creatures all", "Subjected to her power imperial.", "", "Both heaven and earth obey unto her will,", "And all the creatures which they both contain;", "For of her fullness which the world doth fill", "They all partake, and do in state remain", "As their great Maker did at first ordain,", "Through observation of her high behest,", "By which they first were made, and still increast.", "", "The fairness of her face no tongue can tell;", "For she the daughters of all women's race,", "And angels eke, in beauty doth excel,", "Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face,", "And more increas'd by her own goodly grace,", "That it doth far exceed all human thought,", "Ne can on earth compared be to aught.", "", "Ne could that painter (had he lived yet)", "Which pictured Venus with so curious quill,", "That all posterity admired it,", "Have portray'd this, for all his mast'ring skill;", "Ne she herself, had she remained still,", "And were as fair as fabling wits do feign,", "Could once come near this beauty sovereign.", "", "But had those wits, the wonders of their days,", "Or that sweet Teian poet, which did spend", "His plenteous vein in setting forth her praise,", "Seen but a glimpse of this which I pretend,", "How wondrously would he her face commend,", "Above that idol of his feigning thought,", "That all the world should with his rhymes be fraught.", "", "How then dare I, the novice of his art,", "Presume to picture so divine a wight,", "Or hope t' express her least perfection's part,", "Whose beauty fills the heavens with her light,", "And darks the earth with shadow of her sight?", "Ah, gentle Muse, thou art too weak and faint", "The portrait of so heavenly hue to paint.", "", "Let angels, which her goodly face behold", "And see at will, her sovereign praises sing,", "And those most sacred mysteries unfold", "Of that fair love of mighty heaven's King;", "Enough is me t' admire so heavenly thing,", "And being thus with her huge love possest,", "In th' only wonder of herself to rest.", "", "But whoso may, thrice happy man him hold,", "Of all on earth whom God so much doth grace", "And lets his own beloved to behold;", "For in the view of her celestial face", "All joy, all bliss, all happiness, have place;", "Ne aught on earth can want unto the wight", "Who of herself can win the wishful sight.", "", "For she, out of her secret treasury,", "Plenty of riches forth on him will pour,", "Even heavenly riches, which there hidden lie", "Within the closet of her chastest bower,", "Th' eternal portion of her precious dower,", "Which mighty God hath given to her free,", "And to all those which thereof worthy be.", "", "None thereof worthy be, but those whom she", "Vouchsafeth to her presence to receive,", "And letteth them her lovely face to see,", "Whereof such wondrous pleasures they conceive,", "And sweet contentment, that it doth bereave", "Their soul of sense, through infinite delight,", "And them transport from flesh into the spright.", "", "In which they see such admirable things,", "As carries them into an ecstasy,", "And hear such heavenly notes, and carollings", "Of God's high praise, that fills the brazen sky;", "And feel such joy and pleasure inwardly,", "That maketh them all worldly cares forget,", "And only think on that before them set.", "", "Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense,", "Or idle thought of earthly things, remain;", "But all that erst seem'd sweet seems now offence,", "And all that pleased erst now seems to pain;", "Their joy, their comfort, their desire, their gain,", "Is fixed all on that which now they see;", "All other sights but feigned shadows be.", "", "And that fair lamp, which useth to inflame", "The hearts of men with self-consuming fire", "Thenceforth seems foul, and full of sinful blame;", "And all that pomp to which proud minds aspire", "By name of honour, and so much desire,", "Seems to them baseness, and all riches dross,", "And all mirth sadness, and all lucre loss.", "", "So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,", "And senses fraught with such satiety,", "That in nought else on earth they can delight,", "But in th' aspect of that felicity,", "Which they have written in their inward eye;", "On which they feed, and in their fastened mind", "All happy joy and full contentment find.", "", "Ah, then, my hungry soul, which long hast fed", "On idle fancies of thy foolish thought,", "And, with false beauty's flatt'ring bait misled,", "Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought,", "Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought", "But late repentance through thy follies prief;", "Ah cease to gaze on matter of thy grief:", "", "And look at last up to that sovereign light,", "From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs,", "That kindleth love in every godly sprite,", "Even the love of God, which loathing brings", "Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things;", "With whose sweet pleasures being so possest,", "Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest." ], "linecount": "301" }, { "title": "An Hymn In Honour Of Beauty", "author": "Edmund Spenser", "lines": [ "AH whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?", "What wontless fury dost thou now inspire", "Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?", "Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,", "Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,", "And up aloft above my strength dost raise", "The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.", "", "That as I erst in praise of thine own name,", "So now in honour of thy mother dear,", "An honourable hymn I eke should frame,", "And with the brightness of her beauty clear,", "The ravish'd hearts of gazeful men might rear", "To admiration of that heavenly light,", "From whence proceeds such soul-enchanting might.", "", "Thereto do thou, great goddess, queen of beauty,", "Mother of love, and of all world's delight,", "Without whose sovereign grace and kindly duty", "Nothing on earth seems fair to fleshly sight,", "Do thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light", "T' illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,", "And beautify this sacred hymn of thine:", "", "That both to thee, to whom I mean it most,", "And eke to her, whose fair immortal beam", "Hath darted fire into my feeble ghost,", "That now it wasted is with woes extreme,", "It may so please, that she at length will stream", "Some dew of grace into my withered heart,", "After long sorrow and consuming smart.", "", "WHAT time this world's great Workmaster did cast", "To make all things such as we now behold,", "It seems that he before his eyes had plac'd", "A goodly pattern, to whose perfect mould", "He fashion'd them as comely as he could;", "That now so fair and seemly they appear,", "As nought may be amended anywhere.", "", "That wondrous pattern, wheresoe'er it be,", "Whether in earth laid up in secret store,", "Or else in heaven, that no man may it see", "With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore,", "Is perfect Beauty, which all men adore;", "Whose face and feature doth so much excel", "All mortal sense, that none the same may tell.", "", "Thereof as every earthly thing partakes", "Or more or less, by influence divine,", "So it more fair accordingly it makes,", "And the gross matter of this earthly mine,", "Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refine,", "Doing away the dross which dims the light", "Of that fair beam which therein is empight.", "", "For, through infusion of celestial power,", "The duller earth it quick'neth with delight,", "And lifeful spirits privily doth pour", "Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight", "They seem to please. That is thy sovereign might,", "O Cyprian queen, which flowing from the beam", "Of thy bright star, thou into them dost stream.", "", "That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace", "To all things fair, that kindleth lively fire,", "Light of thy lamp, which, shining in the face,", "Thence to the soul darts amorous desire,", "And robs the hearts of those which it admire;", "Therewith thou pointest thy son's poison'd arrow,", "That wounds the life, and wastes the inmost marrow.", "", "How vainly then do idle wits invent,", "That beauty is nought else but mixture made", "Of colours fair, and goodly temp'rament", "Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade", "And pass away, like to a summer's shade;", "Or that it is but comely composition", "Of parts well measur'd, with meet disposition.", "", "Hath white and red in it such wondrous power,", "That it can pierce through th' eyes unto the heart,", "And therein stir such rage and restless stour,", "As nought but death can stint his dolour's smart?", "Or can proportion of the outward part", "Move such affection in the inward mind,", "That it can rob both sense and reason blind?", "", "Why do not then the blossoms of the field,", "Which are array'd with much more orient hue,", "And to the sense most dainty odours yield,", "Work like impression in the looker's view?", "Or why do not fair pictures like power shew,", "In which oft-times we nature see of art", "Excell'd, in perfect limning every part?", "", "But ah, believe me, there is more than so,", "That works such wonders in the minds of men;", "I, that have often prov'd, too well it know,", "And whoso list the like assays to ken,", "Shall find by trial, and confess it then,", "That beauty is not, as fond men misdeem,", "An outward shew of things, that only seem.", "", "For that same goodly hue of white and red,", "With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,", "And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread", "Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away", "To that they were, even to corrupted clay;", "That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright,", "Shall turn to dust; and lose their goodly light.", "", "But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray", "That light proceeds, which kindleth lovers' fire,", "Shall never be extinguish'd nor decay;", "But when the vital spirits do expire,", "Unto her native planet shall retire;", "For it is heavenly born and cannot die,", "Being a parcel of the purest sky.", "", "For when the soul, the which derived was,", "At first, out of that great immortal Spright,", "By whom all live to love, whilom did pass", "Down from the top of purest heaven's height", "To be embodied here, it then took light", "And lively spirits from that fairest star,", "Which lights the world forth from his fiery car.", "", "Which power retaining still or more or less,", "When she in fleshly seed is eft enraced,", "Through every part she doth the same impress,", "According as the heavens have her graced,", "And frames her house, in which she will be placed,", "Fit for herself, adorning it with spoil", "Of th' heavenly riches which she robb'd erewhile.", "", "Thereof it comes that these fair souls, which have", "The most resemblance of that heavenly light,", "Frame to themselves most beautiful and brave", "Their fleshly bower, most fit for their delight,", "And the gross matter by a sovereign might", "Tempers so trim, that it may well be seen", "A palace fit for such a virgin queen.", "", "So every spirit, as it is most pure,", "And hath in it the more of heavenly light,", "So it the fairer body doth procure", "To habit in, and it more fairly dight", "With cheerful grace and amiable sight.", "For of the soul the body form doth take:", "For soul is form, and doth the body make.", "", "Therefore wherever that thou dost behold", "A comely corpse, with beauty fair endued,", "Know this for certain, that the same doth hold", "A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed,", "Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed.", "For all that fair is, is by nature good;", "That is a sign to know the gentle blood.", "", "Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind", "Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,", "Either by chance, against the course of kind,", "Or through unaptness in the substance found,", "Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,", "That will not yield unto her form's direction,", "But is deform'd with some foul imperfection.", "", "And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue)", "That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born,", "Is foul abus'd, and that celestial hue,", "Which doth the world with her delight adorn,", "Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn,", "Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it,", "But every one doth seek but to deprave it.", "", "Yet nathëmore is that fair beauty's blame,", "But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:", "Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame", "May be corrupt, and wrested unto will:", "Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still,", "However flesh{\"e}s fault it filthy make;", "For things immortal no corruption take.", "", "But ye fair dames, the world's dear ornaments", "And lively images of heaven's light,", "Let not your beams with such disparagements", "Be dimm'd, and your bright glory dark'ned quite;", "But mindful still of your first country's sight,", "Do still preserve your first informed grace,", "Whose shadow yet shines in your beauteous face.", "", "Loathe that foul blot, that hellish firebrand,", "Disloyal lust, fair beauty's foulest blame,", "That base affections, which your ears would bland,", "Commend to you by love's abused name,", "But is indeed the bondslave of defame;", "Which will the garland of your glory mar,", "And quench the light of your bright shining star.", "", "But gentle Love, that loyal is and true,", "Will more illumine your resplendent ray,", "And add more brightness to your goodly hue,", "From light of his pure fire; which, by like way", "Kindled of yours, your likeness doth display;", "Like as two mirrors, by oppos'd reflection,", "Do both express the face's first impression.", "", "Therefore, to make your beauty more appear,", "It you behoves to love, and forth to lay", "That heavenly riches which in you ye bear,", "That men the more admire their fountain may;", "For else what booteth that celestial ray,", "If it in darkness be enshrined ever,", "That it of loving eyes be viewed never?", "", "But, in your choice of loves, this well advise,", "That likest to yourselves ye them select,", "The which your forms' first source may sympathize,", "And with like beauty's parts be inly deckt;", "For, if you loosely love without respect,", "It is no love, but a discordant war,", "Whose unlike parts amongst themselves do jar.", "", "For love is a celestial harmony", "Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,", "Which join together in sweet sympathy,", "To work each other's joy and true content,", "Which they have harbour'd since their first descent", "Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see", "And know each other here belov'd to be.", "", "Then wrong it were that any other twain", "Should in love's gentle band combined be", "But those whom Heaven did at first ordain,", "And made out of one mould the more t' agree;", "For all that like the beauty which they see,", "Straight do not love; for love is not so light", "As straight to burn at first beholder's sight.", "", "But they, which love indeed, look otherwise,", "With pure regard and spotless true intent,", "Drawing out of the object of their eyes", "A more refined form, which they present", "Unto their mind, void of all blemishment;", "Which it reducing to her first perfection,", "Beholdeth free from flesh's frail infection.", "", "And then conforming it unto the light,", "Which in itself it hath remaining still,", "Of that first Sun, yet sparkling in his sight,", "Thereof he fashions in his higher skill", "An heavenly beauty to his fancy's will;", "And it embracing in his mind entire,", "The mirror of his own thought doth admire.", "", "Which seeing now so inly fair to be,", "As outward it appeareth to the eye,", "And with his spirit's proportion to agree,", "He thereon fixeth all his fantasy,", "And fully setteth his felicity;", "Counting it fairer than it is indeed,", "And yet indeed her fairness doth exceed.", "", "For lovers' eyes more sharply sighted be", "Than other men's, and in dear love's delight", "See more than any other eyes can see,", "Through mutual receipt of beam{\"e}s bright,", "Which carry privy message to the spright,", "And to their eyes that inmost fair display,", "As plain as light discovers dawning day.", "", "Therein they see, through amorous eye-glances,", "Armies of loves still flying to and fro,", "Which dart at them their little fiery lances;", "Whom having wounded, back again they go,", "Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;", "Who, seeing her fair eyes' so sharp effect,", "Cures all their sorrows with one sweet aspect.", "", "In which how many wonders do they rede", "To their conceit, that others never see,", "Now of her smiles, with which their souls they feed,", "Like gods with nectar in their banquets free;", "Now of her looks, which like to cordials be;", "But when her words' embássade forth she sends,", "Lord, how sweet music that unto them lends.", "", "Sometimes upon her forehead they behold", "A thousand graces masking in delight;", "Sometimes within her eyelids they unfold", "Ten thousand sweet belgards, which to their sight", "Do seem like twinkling stars in frosty night;", "But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,", "So many millions of chaste pleasures play.", "", "All those, O Cytherea, and thousands more", "Thy handmaids be, which do on thee attend,", "To deck thy beauty with their dainties' store,", "That may it more to mortal eyes commend,", "And make it more admir'd of foe and friend:", "That in men's hearts thou may'st thy throne install,", "And spread thy lovely kingdom over all.", "", "Then Iö, triumph! O great Beauty's Queen,", "Advance the banner of thy conquest high,", "That all this world, the which thy vassals bene,", "May draw to thee, and with due fealty", "Adore the power of thy great majesty,", "Singing this hymn in honour of thy name,", "Compil'd by me, which thy poor liegeman am.", "", "In lieu whereof grant, O great sovereign,", "That she whose conquering beauty doth captive", "My trembling heart in her eternal chain,", "One drop of grace at length will to me give,", "That I her bounden thrall by her may live,", "And this same life, which first fro me she reaved,", "May owe to her, of whom I it received.", "", "And you, fair Venus' darling, my dear dread,", "Fresh flower of grace, great goddess of my life,", "When your fair eyes these fearful lines shall read,", "Deign to let fall one drop of due relief,", "That may recure my heart's long pining grief,", "And shew what wondrous power your beauty hath,", "That can restore a damned wight from death." ], "linecount": "287" }, { "title": "Hymn 151", "author": "Isaac Watts", "lines": [ "Prophecy and inspiration.", "", "'Twas by an order from the Lord", "The ancient prophets spoke his word;", "His Spirit did their tongues inspire,", "And warmed their hearts with heav'nly fire.", "", "The works and wonders which they wrought", "Confirmed the messages they brought;", "The prophet's pen succeeds his breath,", "To save the holy words from death.", "", "Great God, mine eyes with pleasure look", "On the dear volume of thy book;", "There my Redeemer's face I see,", "And read his name who died for me.", "", "Let the false raptures of the mind", "Be lost, and vanish in the wind;", "Here I can fix my hope secure;", "This is thy word, and must endure." ], "linecount": "17" }, { "title": "Hymn 52", "author": "Isaac Watts", "lines": [ "Baptism.", "", "Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38.", "", "'Twas the commission of our Lord,", "\"Go teach the nations, and baptize:\"", "The nations have received the word", "Since he ascended to the skies.", "", "He sits upon th' eternal hills,", "With grace and pardon in his hands;", "And sends his cov'nant with the seals,", "To bless the distant British lands.", "", "\"Repent, and be baptized,\" he saith,", "For the remission of your sins:\"", "And thus our sense assists our faith,", "And shows us what his gospel means.", "", "Our souls he washes in his blood,", "As water makes the body clean;", "And the good Spirit from our God", "Descends like purifying rain.", "", "Thus we engage ourselves to thee,", "And seal our cov'nant with the Lord;", "O may the great eternal Three", "In heav'n our solemn vows record!" ], "linecount": "22" }, { "title": "Hymn 122", "author": "Isaac Watts", "lines": [ "Believers buried with Christ in baptism.", "", "Rom. 6:3,4,etc.", "", "Do we not know that solemn word,", "That we are buried with the Lord,", "Baptized into his death, and then", "Put off the body of our sin?", "", "Our souls receive diviner breath,", "Raised from corruption, guilt, and death;", "So from the grave did Christ arise,", "And lives to God above the skies.", "", "No more let sin or Satan reign", "Over our mortal flesh again;", "The various lusts we served before", "Shall have dominion now no more." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Hymn 121", "author": "Isaac Watts", "lines": [ "Children devoted to God. [For those who practise infant Baptism.]", "", "Gen. 17:7,10; Acts 16:14,15,33.", "", "Thus saith the mercy of the Lord,", "\"I'll be a God to thee;", "I'll bless thy num'rous race, and they", "Shall be a seed for me.\"", "", "Abram believed the promised grace,", "And gave his sons to God;", "But water seals the blessing now,", "That once was sealed with blood.", "", "Thus Lydia sanctified her house,", "When she received the word;", "Thus the believing jailer gave", "His household to the Lord.", "", "Thus later saints, eternal King!", "Thine ancient truth embrace;", "To thee their infant offspring bring,", "And humbly claim the grace." ], "linecount": "18" }, { "title": "A Hymn To God The Father", "author": "John Donne", "lines": [ "Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,", "Which is my sin, though it were done before?", "Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run,", "And do run still, though still I do deplore?", "When thou hast done, thou hast not done,", "For I have more.", "", "Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I have won", "Others to sin? and made my sin their door?", "Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun", "A year or two, but wallowed in a score?", "When thou hast done, thou hast not done,", "For I have more.", "", "I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun", "My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;", "Swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son", "Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore;", "And, having done that, thou hast done,", "I fear no more." ], "linecount": "18" }, { "title": "An Hymn To Humanity (To S.P.G. Esp)", "author": "Phillis Wheatley", "lines": [ "O! for this dark terrestrial ball", "Forsakes his azure-paved hall", " A prince of heav'nly birth!", "Divine Humanity behold,", "What wonders rise, what charms unfold", " At his descent to earth!", "", "II.", "", "The bosoms of the great and good", "With wonder and delight he view'd,", " And fix'd his empire there:", "Him, close compressing to his breast,", "The sire of gods and men address'd,", " \"My son, my heav'nly fair!", "", "III.", "", "\"Descend to earth, there place thy throne;", "\"To succour man's afflicted son", " \"Each human heart inspire:", "\"To act in bounties unconfin'd", "\"Enlarge the close contracted mind,", " \"And fill it with thy fire.\"", "", "IV.", "", "Quick as the word, with swift career", "He wings his course from star to star,", " And leaves the bright abode.", "The Virtue did his charms impart;", "Their G——! then thy raptur'd heart", " Perceiv'd the rushing God:", "", "V.", "", "For when thy pitying eye did see", "The languid muse in low degree,", " Then, then at thy desire", "Descended the celestial nine;", "O'er me methought they deign'd to shine,", "And deign'd to string my lyre.", "", "VI.", "", "Can Afric's muse forgetful prove?", "Or can such friendship fail to move", " A tender human heart?", "Immortal Friendship laurel-crown'd", "The smiling Graces all surround", " With ev'ry heav'nly Art." ], "linecount": "41" }, { "title": "A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa", "author": "Richard Crashaw", "lines": [ "LOVE, thou are absolute, sole Lord", "Of life and death. To prove the word,", "We'll now appeal to none of all", "Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,", "Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down", "With strong arms their triumphant crown:", "Such as could with lusty breath", "Speak loud, unto the face of death,", "Their great Lord's glorious name; to none", "Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne", "For love at large to fill. Spare blood and sweat:", "We'll see Him take a private seat,", "And make His mansion in the mild", "And milky soul of a soft child.", "Scarce has she learnt to lisp a name", "Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame", "Life should so long play with that breath", "Which spent can buy so brave a death.", "She never undertook to know", "What death with love should have to do.", "Nor has she e'er yet understood", "Why, to show love, she should shed blood;", "Yet, though she cannot tell you why,", "She can love, and she can die.", "Scarce has she blood enough to make", "A guilty sword blush for her sake;", "Yet has a heart dares hope to prove", "How much less strong is death than love....", "", "Since 'tis not to be had at home,", "She'll travel for a martyrdom.", "No home for her, confesses she,", "But where she may a martyr be.", "She'll to the Moors, and trade with them", "For this unvalued diadem;", "She offers them her dearest breath,", "With Christ's name in 't, in charge for death:", "She'll bargain with them, and will give", "Them God, and teach them how to live", "In Him; or, if they this deny,", "For Him she'll teach them how to die.", "So shall she leave amongst them sown", "Her Lord's blood, or at least her own.", "", "Farewell then, all the world, adieu!", "Teresa is no more for you.", "Farewell all pleasures, sports, and joys,", "Never till now esteemed toys!", "", "Farewell whatever dear may be--", "Mother's arms, or father's knee!", "Farewell house, and farewell home!", "She 's for the Moors and Martyrdom.", "", "Sweet, not so fast; lo! thy fair spouse,", "Whom thou seek'st with so swift vows,", "Calls thee back, and bids thee come", "T' embrace a milder martyrdom....", "", "O how oft shalt thou complain", "Of a sweet and subtle pain!", "Of intolerable joys!", "Of a death, in which who dies", "Loves his death, and dies again,", "And would for ever so be slain;", "And lives and dies, and knows not why", "To live, but that he still may die!", "How kindly will thy gentle heart", "Kiss the sweetly-killing dart!", "And close in his embraces keep", "Those delicious wounds, that weep", "Balsam, to heal themselves with thus,", "When these thy deaths, so numerous,", "Shall all at once die into one,", "And melt thy soul's sweet mansion;", "Like a soft lump of incense, hasted", "By too hot a fire, and wasted", "Into perfuming clouds, so fast", "Shalt thou exhale to heaven at last", "In a resolving sigh, and then,--", "O what? Ask not the tongues of men.", "", "Angels cannot tell; suffice,", "Thyself shalt feel thine own full joys,", "And hold them fast for ever there.", "So soon as thou shalt first appear,", "The moon of maiden stars, thy white", "Mistress, attended by such bright", "Souls as thy shining self, shall come,", "And in her first ranks make thee room;", "Where, 'mongst her snowy family,", "Immortal welcomes wait for thee.", "O what delight, when she shall stand", "And teach thy lips heaven, with her hand,", "On which thou now may'st to thy wishes", "Heap up thy consecrated kisses!", "What joy shall seize thy soul, when she,", "Bending her blessed eyes on thee,", "Those second smiles of heaven, shall dart", "Her mild rays through thy melting heart!", "", "Angels, thy old friends, there shall greet thee,", "Glad at their own home now to meet thee.", "All thy good works which went before,", "And waited for thee at the door,", "Shall own thee there; and all in one", "Weave a constellation", "Of crowns, with which the King, thy spouse,", "Shall build up thy triumphant brows.", "All thy old woes shall now smile on thee,", "And thy pains sit bright upon thee:", "All thy sorrows here shall shine,", "And thy sufferings be divine.", "Tears shall take comfort, and turn gems,", "And wrongs repent to diadems.", "Even thy deaths shall live, and new", "Dress the soul which late they slew.", "Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scars", "As keep account of the Lamb's wars.", "", "Those rare works, where thou shalt leave writ", "Love's noble history, with wit", "Taught thee by none but Him, while here", "They feed our souls, shall clothe thine there.", "Each heavenly word by whose hid flame", "Our hard hearts shall strike fire, the same", "Shall flourish on thy brows, and be", "Both fire to us and flame to thee;", "Whose light shall live bright in thy face", "By glory, in our hearts by grace.", "Thou shalt look round about, and see", "Thousands of crown'd souls throng to be", "Themselves thy crown, sons of thy vows,", "The virgin-births with which thy spouse", "Made fruitful thy fair soul; go now,", "And with them all about thee bow", "To Him; put on, He'll say, put on,", "My rosy Love, that thy rich zone,", "Sparkling with the sacred flames", "Of thousand souls, whose happy names", "Heaven keeps upon thy score: thy bright", "Life brought them first to kiss the light", "That kindled them to stars; and so", "Thou with the Lamb, thy Lord, shalt go.", "And, wheresoe'er He sets His white", "Steps, walk with Him those ways of light,", "Which who in death would live to see,", "Must learn in life to die like thee." ], "linecount": "140" }, { "title": "The Waltz: An Apostrophic Hymn. by Horace Hornem, Esq", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ " \"Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi,", " Exercet DIANA choros.\"", "", " VIRGIL, 'Æn'. i. 502.", "", " \"Such on Eurotas's banks, or Cynthus's height,", " Diana seems: and so she charms the sight,", " When in the dance the graceful goddess leads", " The quire of nymphs, and overtops their heads.\"", "", " DRYDEN'S _Virgil_.", "", "Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms", "Are now extended up from legs to arms;", "Terpsichore!--too long misdeemed a maid--", "Reproachful term--bestowed but to upbraid--", "Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,", "The least a Vestal of the Virgin Nine.", "Far be from thee and thine the name of Prude:", "Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, unsubdued;", "Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,", "If but thy coats are reasonably high!", "Thy breast--if bare enough--requires no shield;", "Dance forth--_sans armour_ thou shalt take the field", "And own--impregnable to _most_ assaults,", "Thy not too lawfully begotten \"Waltz.\"", "", " Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar,", "The whiskered votary of Waltz and War,", "His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;", "A sight unmatched since Orpheus and his brutes:", "Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz!--beneath whose banners", "A modern hero fought for modish manners;", "On Hounslow's heath to rival Wellesley's fame,", "Cocked, fired, and missed his man--but gained his aim;", "Hail, moving muse! to whom the fair one's breast", "Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.", "Oh! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz,", "The latter's loyalty, the former's wits,", "To \"energise the object I pursue,\"", "And give both Belial and his Dance their due!", "", " Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine", "(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),", "Long be thine import from all duty free,", "And Hock itself be less esteemed than thee;", "In some few qualities alike--for Hock", "Improves our cellar--_thou_ our living stock.", "The head to Hock belongs--thy subtler art", "Intoxicates alone the heedless heart:", "Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims,", "And wakes to Wantonness the willing limbs.", "", " Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,", "As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,", "Ere cursed Confederation made thee France's,", "And only left us thy d--d debts and dances!", "Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,", "We bless thee still--George the Third is left!", "Of kings the best--and last, not least in worth,", "For graciously begetting George the Fourth.", "To Germany, and Highnesses serene,", "Who owe us millions--don't we owe the Queen?", "To Germany, what owe we not besides?", "So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;", "Who paid for vulgar, with her royal blood,", "Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud:", "Who sent us--so be pardoned all her faults--", "A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen--and Waltz.", "", " But peace to her--her Emperor and Diet,", "Though now transferred to Buonapartè's \"fiat!\"", "Back to my theme--O muse of Motion! say,", "How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?", "", " Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,", "From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had _mails_),", "Ere yet unlucky Fame--compelled to creep", "To snowy Gottenburg-was chilled to sleep;", "Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,", "Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;", "While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,", "Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend,", "She came--Waltz came--and with her certain sets", "Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes;", "Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,", "Which _Moniteur_ nor _Morning Post_ can match", "And--almost crushed beneath the glorious news--", "Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's;", "One envoy's letters, six composer's airs,", "And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs:", "Meiners' four volumes upon Womankind,", "Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;", "Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,", "Of Heynè, such as should not sink the packet.", "", " Fraught with this cargo--and her fairest freight,", "Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a Mate,", "The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,", "And round her flocked the daughters of the land.", "Not decent David, when, before the ark,", "His grand _Pas-seul_ excited some remark;", "Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought", "The knight's _Fandango_ friskier than it ought;", "Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,", "Her nimble feet danced off another's head;", "Not Cleopatra on her Galley's Deck,", "Displayed so much of _leg_ or more of _neck_,", "Than Thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the Moon", "Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!", "", " To You, ye husbands of ten years! whose brows", "Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse;", "To you of nine years less, who only bear", "The budding sprouts of those that you _shall_ wear,", "With added ornaments around them rolled", "Of native brass, or law-awarded gold;", "To You, ye Matrons, ever on the watch", "To mar a son's, or make a daughter's match;", "To You, ye children of--whom chance accords--", "_Always_ the Ladies, and _sometimes_ their Lords;", "To You, ye single gentlemen, who seek", "Torments for life, or pleasures for a week;", "As Love or Hymen your endeavours guide,", "To gain your own, or snatch another's bride;--", "To one and all the lovely Stranger came,", "And every Ball-room echoes with her name.", "", " Endearing Waltz!--to thy more melting tune", "Bow Irish Jig, and ancient Rigadoon.", "Scotch reels, avaunt! and Country-dance forego", "Your future claims to each fantastic toe!", "Waltz--Waltz alone--both legs and arms demands,", "Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;", "Hands which may freely range in public sight", "Where ne'er before--but--pray \"put out the light.\"", "Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier", "Shines much too far--or I am much too near;", "And true, though strange--Waltz whispers this remark,", "\"My slippery steps are safest in the dark!\"", "But here the Muse with due decorum halts,", "And lends her longest petticoat to \"Waltz.\"", "", " Observant Travellers of every time!", "Ye Quartos published upon every clime!", "0 say, shall dull _Romaika's_ heavy round,", "_Fandango's_ wriggle, or _Bolero's_ bound;", "Can Egypt's _Almas_ -tantalising group--", "Columbia's caperers to the warlike Whoop--", "Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn", "With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be born?", "Ah, no! from Morier's pages down to Galt's,", "Each tourist pens a paragraph for \"Waltz.\"", "", " Shades of those Belles whose reign began of yore,", "With George the Third's--and ended long before!--", "Though in your daughters' daughters yet you thrive,", "Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!", "Back to the Ball-room speed your spectred host,", "Fool's Paradise is dull to that you lost.", "No treacherous powder bids Conjecture quake;", "No stiff-starched stays make meddling fingers ache;", "(Transferred to those ambiguous things that ape", "Goats in their visage, women in their shape;)", "No damsel faints when rather closely pressed,", "But more caressing seems when most caressed;", "Superfluous Hartshorn, and reviving Salts,", "Both banished by the sovereign cordial \"Waltz.\"", "", " Seductive Waltz!--though on thy native shore", "Even Werter's self proclaimed thee half a whore;", "Werter--to decent vice though much inclined,", "Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind--", "Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,", "Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;", "The fashion hails--from Countesses to Queens,", "And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;", "Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,", "And turns--if nothing else--at least our _heads_;", "With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,", "And cockney's practise what they can't pronounce.", "Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,", "And Rhyme finds partner Rhyme in praise of \"Waltz!\"", "Blest was the time Waltz chose for her _début_!", "The Court, the Regent, like herself were new;", "New face for friends, for foes some new rewards;", "New ornaments for black-and royal Guards;", "New laws to hang the rogues that roared for bread;", "New coins (most new) to follow those that fled;", "New victories--nor can we prize them less,", "Though Jenky wonders at his own success;", "New wars, because the old succeed so well,", "That most survivors envy those who fell;", "New mistresses--no, old--and yet 'tis true,", "Though they be _old_, the _thing_ is something new;", "Each new, quite new--(except some ancient tricks),", "New white-sticks--gold-sticks--broom-sticks--_all new sticks_!", "With vests or ribands--decked alike in hue,", "New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue:", "So saith the Muse: my----, what say you?", "Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain", "Her new preferments in this novel reign;", "Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;", "Hoops are _ more_, and petticoats _not much_;", "Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her stays,", "And tell-tale powder--all have had their days.", "The Ball begins--the honours of the house", "First duly done by daughter or by spouse,", "Some Potentate--or royal or serene--", "With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Gloster's mien,", "Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush", "Might once have been mistaken for a blush.", "From where the garb just leaves the bosom free,", "That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;", "Round all the confines of the yielded waist,", "The strangest hand may wander undisplaced:", "The lady's in return may grasp as much", "As princely paunches offer to her touch.", "Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip", "One hand reposing on the royal hip!", "The other to the shoulder no less royal", "Ascending with affection truly loyal!", "Thus front to front the partners move or stand,", "The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;", "And all in turn may follow in their rank,", "The Earl of--Asterisk--and Lady--Blank;", "Sir--Such-a-one--with those of fashion's host,", "For whose blest surnames--vide \"Morning Post.\"", "(Or if for that impartial print too late,", "Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date)--", "Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,", "The genial contact gently undergo;", "Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,", "If \"nothing follows all this palming work?\"", "True, honest Mirza!--you may trust my rhyme--", "Something does follow at a fitter time;", "The breast thus publicly resigned to man,", "In private may resist him--if it can.", "", " O ye who loved our Grandmothers of yore,", "Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more!", "And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will", "It is to love the lovely beldames still!", "Thou Ghost of Queensberry! whose judging Sprite", "Satan may spare to peep a single night,", "Pronounce--if ever in your days of bliss", "Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;", "To teach the young ideas how to rise,", "Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;", "Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,", "With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled flame,", "For prurient Nature still will storm the breast--", "_Who_, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?", "", " But ye--who never felt a single thought", "For what our Morals are to be, or ought;", "Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,", "Say--would you make those beauties quite so cheap?", "Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,", "Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,", "Where were the rapture then to clasp the form", "From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?", "At once Love's most endearing thought resign,", "To press the hand so pressed by none but thine;", "To gaze upon that eye which never met", "Another's ardent look without regret;", "Approach the lip which all, without restraint,", "Come near enough--if not to touch--to taint;", "If such thou lovest--love her then no more,", "Or give--like her--caresses to a score;", "Her Mind with these is gone, and with it go", "The little left behind it to bestow.", "", " Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?", "Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.", "Terpsichore forgive!--at every Ball", "My wife _now_ waltzes--and my daughters _shall_;", "_My_ son--(or stop--'tis needless to inquire--", "These little accidents should ne'er transpire;", "Some ages hence our genealogic tree", "Will wear as green a bough for him as me)--", "Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends", "Grandsons for me--in heirs to all his friends." ], "linecount": "265" }, { "title": "Hymn To The Penates", "author": "Robert Southey", "lines": [ "Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strain", "Ere PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wall", "I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,", "When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,", "Make melancholy music. One Song more!", "PENATES! hear me! for to you I hymn", "The votive lay. Whether, as sages deem,", "Ye dwell in the inmost Heaven, the COUNSELLORS", "Of JOVE; or if, SUPREME OF DEITIES,", "All things are yours, and in your holy train", "JOVE proudly ranks, and JUNO, white arm'd Queen.", "", "And wisest of Immortals, aweful Maid", "ATHENIAN PALLAS. Venerable Powers!", "Hearken your hymn of praise! tho' from your rites", "Estranged, and exiled from your altars long,", "I have not ceased to love you, HOUSEHOLD GODS!", "In many a long and melancholy hour", "Of solitude and sorrow, has my heart", "With earnest longings prayed to rest at length", "Beside your hallowed hearth--for PEACE is there!", "", "Yes I have loved you long. I call on you", "Yourselves to witness with what holy joy,", "Shunning the polished mob of human kind,", "I have retired to watch your lonely fires", "And commune with myself. Delightful hours", "That gave mysterious pleasure, made me know", "All the recesses of my wayward heart,", "Taught me to cherish with devoutest care", "Its strange unworldly feelings, taught me too", "The best of lessons--to respect myself!", "", "Nor have I ever ceas'd to reverence you", "DOMESTIC DEITIES! from the first dawn", "Of reason, thro' the adventurous paths of youth", "Even to this better day, when on mine ear", "The uproar of contending nations sounds,", "But like the passing wind--and wakes no pulse", "To tumult. When a child--(for still I love", "To dwell with fondness on my childish years,", "Even as that Persian favorite would retire", "From the court's dangerous pageantry and pomp,", "To gaze upon his shepherd garb, and weep,", "Rememb'ring humble happiness.) When first", "A little one, I left my father's home,", "I can remember the first grief I felt,", "And the first painful smile that cloathed my front", "With feelings not its own: sadly at night", "I sat me down beside a stranger's hearth;", "And when the lingering hour of rest was come,", "First wet with tears my pillow. As I grew", "In years and knowledge, and the course of Time", "Developed the young feelings of my heart,", "When most I loved in solitude to rove", "Amid the woodland gloom; or where the rocks", "Darken'd old Avon's stream, in the ivied cave", "Recluse to sit and brood the future song,", "Yet not the less, PENATES, loved I then", "Your altars, not the less at evening hour", "Delighted by the well-trimm'd fire to sit,", "Absorbed in many a dear deceitful dream", "Of visionary joys: deceitful dreams--", "Not wholly vain--for painting purest joys,", "They form'd to Fancy's mould her votary's heart.", "", "By Cherwell's sedgey side, and in the meads", "Where Isis in her calm clear stream reflects", "The willow's bending boughs, at earliest dawn", "In the noon-tide hour, and when the night-mists rose,", "I have remembered you: and when the noise", "Of loud intemperance on my lonely ear", "Burst with loud tumult, as recluse I sat,", "Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeemed", "From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness,", "I blest you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! because I loved", "Your peaceful altars and serener rites.", "Nor did I cease to reverence you, when driven", "Amid the jarring crowd, an unfit man", "To mingle with the world; still, still my heart", "Sighed for your sanctuary, and inly pined;", "And loathing human converse, I have strayed", "Where o'er the sea-beach chilly howl'd the blast,", "And gaz'd upon the world of waves, and wished", "That I were far beyond the Atlantic deep,", "In woodland haunts--a sojourner with PEACE.", "", "Not idly fabled they the Bards inspired,", "Who peopled Earth with Deities. They trod", "The wood with reverence where the DRYADS dwelt;", "At day's dim dawn or evening's misty hour", "They saw the OREADS on their mountain haunts.", "And felt their holy influence, nor impure", "Of thought--or ever with polluted hands", "Touched they without a prayer the NAIAD'S spring;", "Yet was their influence transient; such brief awe", "Inspiring as the thunder's long loud peal", "Strikes to the feeble spirit. HOUSEHOLD GODS,", "Not such your empire! in your votaries' breasts", "No momentary impulse ye awake--", "Nor fleeting like their local energies,", "The deep devotion that your fanes impart.", "O ye whom YOUTH has wilder'd on your way,", "Or VICE with fair-mask'd foulness, or the lure", "Of FAME that calls ye to her crowded paths", "With FOLLY's rattle, to your HOUSEHOLD GODS", "Return! for not in VICE's gay abodes,", "Not in the unquiet unsafe halls of FAME", "Does HAPPINESS abide! O ye who weep", "Much for the many miseries of Mankind,", "More for their vices, ye whose honest eyes", "Frown on OPPRESSION,--ye whose honest hearts", "Beat high when FREEDOM sounds her dread tocsin;--", "O ye who quit the path of peaceful life", "Crusading for mankind--a spaniel race", "That lick the hand that beats them, or tear all", "Alike in frenzy--to your HOUSEHOLD GODS", "Return, for by their altars VIRTUE dwells", "And HAPPINESS with her; for by their fires", "TRANQUILLITY in no unsocial mood", "Sits silent, listening to the pattering shower;", "For, so SUSPICION sleep not at the gate", "Of WISDOM,--FALSEHOOD shall not enter there.", "", "As on the height of some huge eminence,", "Reach'd with long labour, the way-faring man", "Pauses awhile, and gazing o'er the plain", "With many a sore step travelled, turns him then", "Serious to contemplate the onward road,", "And calls to mind the comforts of his home,", "And sighs that he has left them, and resolves", "To stray no more: I on my way of life", "Muse thus PENATES, and with firmest faith", "Devote myself to you. I will not quit", "To mingle with the mob your calm abodes,", "Where, by the evening hearth CONTENTMENT sits", "And hears the cricket chirp; where LOVE delights", "To dwell, and on your altars lays his torch", "That burns with no extinguishable flame.", "", "Hear me ye POWERS benignant! there is one", "Must be mine inmate--for I may not chuse", "But love him. He is one whom many wrongs", "Have sicken'd of the world. There was a time", "When he would weep to hear of wickedness", "And wonder at the tale; when for the opprest", "He felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor", "A good man's honest anger. His quick eye", "Betray'd each rising feeling, every thought", "Leapt to his tongue. When first among mankind", "He mingled, by himself he judged of them,", "And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,", "And took them to his bosom. FALSEHOOD met", "Her unsuspecting victim, fair of front,", "And lovely as Apega's sculptured form,", "Like that false image caught his warm embrace", "And gored his open breast. The reptile race", "Clung round his bosom, and with viper folds", "Encircling, stung the fool who fostered them.", "His mother was SIMPLICITY, his sire", "BENEVOLENCE; in earlier days he bore", "His father's name; the world who injured him", "Call him MISANTHROPY. I may not chuse", "But love him, HOUSEHOLD GODS! for we were nurst", "In the same school.", "", "PENATES! some there are", "Who say, that not in the inmost heaven ye dwell,", "Gazing with eye remote on all the ways", "Of man, his GUARDIAN GODS; wiselier they deem", "A dearer interest to the human race", "Links you, yourselves the SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.", "No mortal eye may pierce the invisible world,", "No light of human reason penetrate", "That depth where Truth lies hid. Yet to this faith", "My heart with instant sympathy assents;", "And I would judge all systems and all faiths", "By that best touchstone, from whose test DECEIT", "Shrinks like the Arch-Fiend at Ithuriel's spear,", "And SOPHISTRY'S gay glittering bubble bursts,", "As at the spousals of the Nereid's son,", "When that false Florimel, by her prototype", "Display'd in rivalry, with all her charms", "Dissolved away.", "", "Nor can the halls of Heaven", "Give to the human soul such kindred joy,", "As hovering o'er its earthly haunts it feels,", "When with the breeze it wantons round the brow", "Of one beloved on earth; or when at night", "In dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYS", "And JOYS that are no more, Or when, perchance", "With power permitted to alleviate ill", "And fit the sufferer for the coming woe,", "Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fills", "The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines", "For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart", "The balm of resignation, and inspires", "With heavenly hope. Even as a Child delights", "To visit day by day the favorite plant", "His hand has sown, to mark its gradual growth,", "And watch all anxious for the promised flower;", "Thus to the blessed spirit, in innocence", "And pure affections like a little child,", "Sweet will it be to hover o'er the friends", "Beloved; then sweetest if, as Duty prompts,", "With earthly care we in their breasts have sown", "The seeds of Truth and Virtue, holy flowers", "Whose odour reacheth Heaven.", "", "When my sick Heart,", "(Sick with hope long delayed, than, which no care", "Presses the crush'd heart heavier from itself", "Seeks the best comfort, often have I deemed", "That thou didst witness every inmost thought", "SEWARD! my dear dead friend! for not in vain,", "Oh early summon'd in thy heavenly course!", "Was thy brief sojourn here: me didst thou leave", "With strengthen'd step to follow the right path", "Till we shall meet again. Meantime I soothe", "The deep regret of Nature, with belief,", "My EDMUND! that thine eye's celestial ken", "Pervades me now, marking no mean joy", "The movements of the heart that loved thee well!", "", "Such feelings Nature prompts, and hence your rites", "DOMESTIC GODS! arose. When for his son", "With ceaseless grief Syrophanes bewail'd,", "Mourning his age left childless, and his wealth", "Heapt for an alien, he with fixed eye", "Still on the imaged marble of the dead", "Dwelt, pampering sorrow. Thither from his wrath", "A safe asylum, fled the offending slave,", "And garlanded the statue and implored", "His young lost Lord to save: Remembrance then", "Softened the father, and he loved to see", "The votive wreath renewed, and the rich smoke", "Curl from the costly censer slow and sweet.", "From Egypt soon the sorrow-soothing rites", "Divulging spread; before your idol forms", "By every hearth the blinded Pagan knelt,", "Pouring his prayers to these, and offering there", "Vain sacrifice or impious, and sometimes", "With human blood your sanctuary defil'd:", "Till the first BRUTUS, tyrant-conquering chief,", "Arose; he first the impious rites put down,", "He fitliest, who for FREEDOM lived and died,", "The friend of humankind. Then did your feasts", "Frequent recur and blameless; and when came", "The solemn festival, whose happiest rites", "Emblem'd EQUALITY, the holiest truth!", "Crown'd with gay garlands were your statues seen,", "To you the fragrant censer smok'd, to you", "The rich libation flow'd: vain sacrifice!", "For nor the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine.", "Ye ask, PENATES! nor the altar cleans'd", "With many a mystic form; ye ask the heart", "Made pure, and by domestic Peace and Love", "Hallowed to you.", "", "Hearken your hymn of praise,", "PENATES! to your shrines I come for rest,", "There only to be found. Often at eve,", "Amid my wanderings I have seen far off", "The lonely light that spake of comfort there,", "It told my heart of many a joy of home,", "And my poor heart was sad. When I have gazed", "From some high eminence on goodly vales", "And cots and villages embower'd below,", "The thought would rise that all to me was strange", "Amid the scene so fair, nor one small spot", "Where my tir'd mind might rest and call it home,", "There is a magic in that little word;", "It is a mystic circle that surrounds", "Comforts and Virtues never known beyond", "The hallowed limit. Often has my heart", "Ached for that quiet haven; haven'd now,", "I think of those in this world's wilderness", "Who wander on and find no home of rest", "Till to the grave they go! them POVERTY", "Hollow-eyed fiend, the child of WEALTH and POWER,", "Bad offspring of worse parents, aye afflicts,", "Cankering with her foul mildews the chill'd heart--", "Them WANT with scorpion scourge drives to the den", "Of GUILT--them SLAUGHTER with the price of death", "Buys for her raven brood. Oh not on them", "GOD OF ETERNAL JUSTICE! not on them", "Let fall thy thunder!", "", "HOUSEHOLD DEITIES!", "Then only shall be Happiness on earth", "When Man shall feel your sacred power, and love", "Your tranquil joys; then shall the city stand", "A huge void sepulchre, and rising fair", "Amid the ruins of the palace pile", "The Olive grow, there shall the TREE OF PEACE", "Strike its roots deep and flourish. This the state", "Shall bless the race redeemed of Man, when WEALTH", "And POWER and all their hideous progeny", "Shall sink annihilate, and all mankind", "Live in the equal brotherhood of LOVE.", "Heart-calming hope and sure! for hitherward", "Tend all the tumults of the troubled world,", "Its woes, its wisdom, and its wickedness", "Alike: so he hath will'd whose will is just.", "", "Meantime, all hoping and expecting all", "In patient faith, to you, DOMESTIC GODS!", "I come, studious of other lore than song,", "Of my past years the solace and support:", "Yet shall my Heart remember the past years", "With honest pride, trusting that not in vain", "Lives the pure song of LIBERTY and TRUTH." ], "linecount": "299" }, { "title": "A Hymn for Christmas Day", "author": "Thomas Chatterton", "lines": [ "Almighty Framer of the Skies!", "O let our pure devotion rise,", "Like Incense in thy Sight!", "Wrapt in impenetrable Shade", "The Texture of our Souls were made", "Till thy Command gave light.", "The Sun of Glory gleam'd the Ray,", "Refin'd the Darkness into Day,", "And bid the Vapours fly;", "Impell'd by his eternal Love", "He left his Palaces above", "To cheer our gloomy Sky.", "", "How shall we celebrate the day,", "When God appeared in mortal clay,", "The mark of worldly scorn;", "When the Archangel's heavenly Lays,", "Attempted the Redeemer's Praise", "And hail'd Salvation's Morn!", "", "", "A Humble Form the Godhead wore,", "The Pains of Poverty he bore,", "To gaudy Pomp unknown;", "Tho' in a human walk he trod", "Still was the Man Almighty God", "In Glory all his own.", "", "Despis'd, oppress'd, the Godhead bears", "The Torments of this Vale of tears;", "Nor bade his Vengeance rise;", "He saw the Creatures he had made,", "Revile his Power, his Peace invade;", "He saw with Mercy's Eyes.", "", "How shall we celebrate his Name,", "Who groan'd beneath a Life of shame", "In all Afflictions tried!", "The Soul is raptured to concieve", "A Truth, which Being must believe,", "The God Eternal died.", "", "My Soul exert thy Powers, adore,", "Upon Devotion's plumage sar", "To celebrate the Day;", "The God from whom Creation sprung", "Shall animate my grateful Tongue;", "From him I'll catch the Lay!" ], "linecount": "42" }, { "title": "Hymn To Death", "author": "William Cullen Bryant", "lines": [ "Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart", "Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem", "My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--", "I would take up the hymn to Death, and say", "To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee", "And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow", "They place an iron crown, and call thee king", "Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world,", "Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,", "The loved, the good--that breath'st upon the lights", "Of virtue set along the vale of life,", "And they go out in darkness. I am come,", "Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers,", "Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear", "From the beginning. I am come to speak", "Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept", "Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again:", "And thou from some I love wilt take a life", "Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell", "Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee", "In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,", "Meet is it that my voice should utter forth", "", "Thy nobler triumphs: I will teach the world", "To thank thee.--Who are thine accusers?--Who?", "The living!--they who never felt thy power,", "And know thee not. The curses of the wretch", "Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand", "Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,", "Are writ among thy praises. But the good--", "Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace,", "Upbraid the gentle violence that took off", "His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell?", "Raise then the Hymn to Death. Deliverer!", "God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed", "And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,", "The conqueror of nations, walks the world,", "And it is changed beneath his feet, and all", "Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm--", "Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart", "Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand", "Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp,", "And the strong links of that tremendous chain", "That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break", "Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.", "Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes", "Gather within their ancient bounds again.", "Else had the mighty of the olden time,", "Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned", "His birth from Lybian Ammon, smote even now", "The nations with a rod of iron, and driven", "Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge,", "In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know", "", "No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose", "Only to lay the sufferer asleep,", "Where he who made him wretched troubles not", "His rest--thou dost strike down his tyrant too.", "Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge", "Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold.", "Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible", "And old idolatries; from the proud fanes", "Each to his grave their priests go out, till none", "Is left to teach their worship; then the fires", "Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss", "O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images", "Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns,", "Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds", "Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he", "Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all", "The laws that God or man has made, and round", "Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,--", "Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven,", "And celebrates his shame in open day,", "Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off", "The horrible example. Touched by thine,", "The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold", "Wrong from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer,", "Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble", "Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed", "And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame", "Blasted before his own foul calumnies,", "Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold", "His conscience to preserve a worthless life,", "", "Even while he hugs himself on his escape,", "Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,", "Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time", "For parley--nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.", "Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long", "Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,", "Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,", "And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life", "Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,", "And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,", "And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand", "Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,", "And he is warned, and fears to step aside.", "Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime", "Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand", "Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully", "Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts", "Drink up the ebbing spirit--then the hard", "Of heart and violent of hand restores", "The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.", "Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck", "The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,", "Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,", "And give it up; the felon's latest breath", "Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;", "The slanderer, horror smitten, and in tears,", "Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged", "To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make", "Thy penitent victim utter to the air", "The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,", "", "And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour", "Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.", "Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found", "On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee,", "Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth", "Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile", "For ages, while each passing year had brought", "Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world", "With their abominations; while its tribes,", "Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled,", "Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice", "Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs", "Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn:", "But thou, the great reformer of the world,", "Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud", "In their green pupilage, their lore half learned--", "Ere guilt has quite o'errun the simple heart", "God gave them at their birth, and blotted out", "His image. Thou dost mark them, flushed with hope,", "As on the threshold of their vast designs", "Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down.", "", "Alas, I little thought that the stern power", "Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus", "Before the strain was ended. It must cease--", "For he is in his grave who taught my youth", "The art of verse, and in the bud of life", "Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off", "Untimely! when thy reason in its strength,", "Ripened by years of toil and studious search", "", "And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught", "Thy hand to practise best the lenient art", "To which thou gavest thy laborious days.", "And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth", "Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes", "And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill", "Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale", "When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou", "Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have", "To offer at thy grave--this--and the hope", "To copy thy example, and to leave", "A name of which the wretched shall not think", "As of an enemy's, whom they forgive", "As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou", "Whose early guidance trained my infant steps--", "Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep", "Of death is over, and a happier life", "Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.", "Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt", "Has wearied Heaven for vengeance--he who bears", "False witness--he who takes the orphan's bread,", "And robs the widow--he who spreads abroad", "Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,", "Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look", "On what is written, yet I blot not out", "The desultory numbers--let them stand.", "The record of an idle revery." ], "linecount": "168" }, { "title": "Nature's Hymn to the Deity", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "All nature owns with one accord", "The great and universal Lord:", "The sun proclaims him through the day,", "The moon when daylight drops away,", "The very darkness smiles to wear", "The stars that show us God is there,", "On moonlight seas soft gleams the sky", "And \"God is with us\" waves reply.", "", "Winds breathe from God's abode \"we come,\"", "Storms louder own God is their home,", "And thunder yet with louder call,", "Sounds \"God is mightiest over all\";", "Till earth right loath the proof to miss", "Echoes triumphantly \"He is,\"", "And air and ocean makes reply,", "God reigns on earth, in air and sky.", "", "All nature owns with one accord", "The great and universal Lord:", "Insect and bird and tree and flower--", "The witnesses of every hour--", "Are pregnant with his prophesy", "And \"God is with us\" all reply.", "The first link in the mighty plan", "Is still--and all upbraideth man." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Hymn to Mercury", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER.", "", "Sing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,", "The Herald-child, king of Arcadia", "And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love", "Having been interwoven, modest May", "Bore Heaven's dread Supreme. An antique grove", "Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay", "In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men,", "And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.", "", "Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling,", "And Heaven's tenth moon chronicled her relief,", "She gave to light a babe all babes excelling,", "A schemer subtle beyond all belief;", "A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,", "A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief,", "Who 'mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve,", "And other glorious actions to achieve.", "", "The babe was born at the first peep of day;", "He began playing on the lyre at noon,", "And the same evening did he steal away", "Apollo's herds;--the fourth day of the moon", "On which him bore the venerable May,", "From her immortal limbs he leaped full soon,", "Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep,", "But out to seek Apollo's herds would creep.", "", "Out of the lofty cavern wandering", "He found a tortoise, and cried out--'A treasure!'", "(For Mercury first made the tortoise sing)", "The beast before the portal at his leisure", "The flowery herbage was depasturing,", "Moving his feet in a deliberate measure", "Over the turf. Jove's profitable son", "Eying him laughed, and laughing thus begun:--", "", "'A useful godsend are you to me now,", "King of the dance, companion of the feast,", "Lovely in all your nature! Welcome, you", "Excellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain-beast,", "Got you that speckled shell? Thus much I know,", "You must come home with me and be my guest;", "You will give joy to me, and I will do", "All that is in my power to honour you.", "", "'Better to be at home than out of door,", "So come with me; and though it has been said", "That you alive defend from magic power,", "I know you will sing sweetly when you're dead.'", "Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore,", "Lifting it from the grass on which it fed", "And grasping it in his delighted hold,", "His treasured prize into the cavern old.", "", "Then scooping with a chisel of gray steel,", "He bored the life and soul out of the beast.--", "Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal", "Darts through the tumult of a human breast", "Which thronging cares annoy--not swifter wheel", "The flashes of its torture and unrest", "Out of the dizzy eyes--than Maia's son", "All that he did devise hath featly done.", "", "...", "And through the tortoise's hard stony skin", "At proper distances small holes he made,", "And fastened the cut stems of reeds within,", "And with a piece of leather overlaid", "The open space and fixed the cubits in,", "Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched o'er all", "Symphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical.", "", "When he had wrought the lovely instrument,", "He tried the chords, and made division meet,", "Preluding with the plectrum, and there went", "Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet", "Of mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent", "A strain of unpremeditated wit", "Joyous and wild and wanton--such you may", "Hear among revellers on a holiday.", "", "He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal", "Dallied in love not quite legitimate;", "And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal,", "And naming his own name, did celebrate;", "His mother's cave and servant maids he planned all", "In plastic verse, her household stuff and state,", "Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,--", "But singing, he conceived another plan.", "", "...", "Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat,", "He in his sacred crib deposited", "The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet", "Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain's head,", "Revolving in his mind some subtle feat", "Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might", "Devise in the lone season of dun night.", "", "Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has", "Driven steeds and chariot--the child meanwhile strode", "O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows,", "Where the immortal oxen of the God", "Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows,", "And safely stalled in a remote abode.--", "The archer Argicide, elate and proud,", "Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.", "", "He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way,", "But, being ever mindful of his craft,", "Backward and forward drove he them astray,", "So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft;", "His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray,", "And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft", "Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs,", "And bound them in a lump with withy twigs.", "", "And on his feet he tied these sandals light,", "The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray", "His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight,", "Like a man hastening on some distant way,", "He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight;", "But an old man perceived the infant pass", "Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass.", "", "The old man stood dressing his sunny vine:", "'Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder!", "You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine", "Methinks even you must grow a little older:", "Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine,", "As you would 'scape what might appal a bolder--", "Seeing, see not--and hearing, hear not--and--", "If you have understanding--understand.'", "", "So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast;", "O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell,", "And flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed;", "Till the black night divine, which favouring fell", "Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast", "Wakened the world to work, and from her cell", "Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime", "Into her watch-tower just began to climb.", "", "Now to Alpheus he had driven all", "The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun;", "They came unwearied to the lofty stall", "And to the water-troughs which ever run", "Through the fresh fields--and when with rushgrass tall,", "Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one", "Had pastured been, the great God made them move", "Towards the stall in a collected drove.", "", "A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped,", "And having soon conceived the mystery", "Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped", "The bark, and rubbed them in his palms;--on high", "Suddenly forth the burning vapour leaped", "And the divine child saw delightedly.--", "Mercury first found out for human weal", "Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.", "", "And fine dry logs and roots innumerous", "He gathered in a delve upon the ground--", "And kindled them--and instantaneous", "The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around:", "And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus", "Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound,", "Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud,", "Close to the fire--such might was in the God.", "", "And on the earth upon their backs he threw", "The panting beasts, and rolled them o'er and o'er,", "And bored their lives out. Without more ado", "He cut up fat and flesh, and down before", "The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two,", "Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore", "Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done", "He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.", "", "We mortals let an ox grow old, and then", "Cut it up after long consideration,--", "But joyous-minded Hermes from the glen", "Drew the fat spoils to the more open station", "Of a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when", "He had by lot assigned to each a ration", "Of the twelve Gods, his mind became aware", "Of all the joys which in religion are.", "", "For the sweet savour of the roasted meat", "Tempted him though immortal. Natheless", "He checked his haughty will and did not eat,", "Though what it cost him words can scarce express,", "And every wish to put such morsels sweet", "Down his most sacred throat, he did repress;", "But soon within the lofty portalled stall", "He placed the fat and flesh and bones and all.", "", "And every trace of the fresh butchery", "And cooking, the God soon made disappear,", "As if it all had vanished through the sky;", "He burned the hoofs and horns and head and hair,--", "The insatiate fire devoured them hungrily;--", "And when he saw that everything was clear,", "He quenched the coal, and trampled the black dust,", "And in the stream his bloody sandals tossed.", "", "All night he worked in the serene moonshine--", "But when the light of day was spread abroad", "He sought his natal mountain-peaks divine.", "On his long wandering, neither Man nor God", "Had met him, since he killed Apollo's kine,", "Nor house-dog had barked at him on his road;", "Now he obliquely through the keyhole passed,", "Like a thin mist, or an autumnal blast.", "", "Right through the temple of the spacious cave", "He went with soft light feet--as if his tread", "Fell not on earth; no sound their falling gave;", "Then to his cradle he crept quick, and spread", "The swaddling-clothes about him; and the knave", "Lay playing with the covering of the bed", "With his left hand about his knees--the right", "Held his beloved tortoise-lyre tight.", "", "There he lay innocent as a new-born child,", "As gossips say; but though he was a God,", "The Goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled,", "Knew all that he had done being abroad:", "'Whence come you, and from what adventure wild,", "You cunning rogue, and where have you abode", "All the long night, clothed in your impudence?", "What have you done since you departed hence?", "", "'Apollo soon will pass within this gate", "And bind your tender body in a chain", "Inextricably tight, and fast as fate,", "Unless you can delude the God again,", "Even when within his arms--ah, runagate!", "A pretty torment both for Gods and Men", "Your father made when he made you!'--'Dear mother,'", "Replied sly Hermes, 'wherefore scold and bother?", "", "'As if I were like other babes as old,", "And understood nothing of what is what;", "And cared at all to hear my mother scold.", "I in my subtle brain a scheme have got,", "Which whilst the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled", "Will profit you and me--nor shall our lot", "Be as you counsel, without gifts or food,", "To spend our lives in this obscure abode.", "", "29", "'But we will leave this shadow-peopled cave", "And live among the Gods, and pass each day", "In high communion, sharing what they have", "Of profuse wealth and unexhausted prey;", "And from the portion which my father gave", "To Phoebus, I will snatch my share away,", "Which if my father will not--natheless I,", "Who am the king of robbers, can but try.", "", "'And, if Latona's son should find me out,", "I'll countermine him by a deeper plan;", "I'll pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout,", "And sack the fane of everything I can--", "Caldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt,", "Each golden cup and polished brazen pan,", "All the wrought tapestries and garments gay.'--", "So they together talked;--meanwhile the Day", "", "Aethereal born arose out of the flood", "Of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men.", "Apollo passed toward the sacred wood,", "Which from the inmost depths of its green glen", "Echoes the voice of Neptune,--and there stood", "On the same spot in green Onchestus then", "That same old animal, the vine-dresser,", "Who was employed hedging his vineyard there.", "", "Latona's glorious Son began:--'I pray", "Tell, ancient hedger of Onchestus green,", "Whether a drove of kine has passed this way,", "All heifers with crooked horns? for they have been", "Stolen from the herd in high Pieria,", "Where a black bull was fed apart, between", "Two woody mountains in a neighbouring glen,", "And four fierce dogs watched there, unanimous as men.", "", "'And what is strange, the author of this theft", "Has stolen the fatted heifers every one,", "But the four dogs and the black bull are left:--", "Stolen they were last night at set of sun,", "Of their soft beds and their sweet food bereft.--", "Now tell me, man born ere the world begun,", "Have you seen any one pass with the cows?'--", "To whom the man of overhanging brows:", "", "'My friend, it would require no common skill", "Justly to speak of everything I see:", "On various purposes of good or ill", "Many pass by my vineyard,--and to me", "'Tis difficult to know the invisible", "Thoughts, which in all those many minds may be:--", "Thus much alone I certainly can say,", "I tilled these vines till the decline of day,", "", "'And then I thought I saw, but dare not speak", "With certainty of such a wondrous thing,", "A child, who could not have been born a week,", "Those fair-horned cattle closely following,", "And in his hand he held a polished stick:", "And, as on purpose, he walked wavering", "From one side to the other of the road,", "And with his face opposed the steps he trod.'", "", "Apollo hearing this, passed quickly on--", "No winged omen could have shown more clear", "That the deceiver was his father's son.", "So the God wraps a purple atmosphere", "Around his shoulders, and like fire is gone", "To famous Pylos, seeking his kine there,", "And found their track and his, yet hardly cold,", "And cried--'What wonder do mine eyes behold!", "", "'Here are the footsteps of the horned herd", "Turned back towards their fields of asphodel;--", "But THESE are not the tracks of beast or bird,", "Gray wolf, or bear, or lion of the dell,", "Or maned Centaur--sand was never stirred", "By man or woman thus! Inexplicable!", "Who with unwearied feet could e'er impress", "The sand with such enormous vestiges?", "", "'That was most strange--but this is stranger still!'", "Thus having said, Phoebus impetuously", "Sought high Cyllene's forest-cinctured hill,", "And the deep cavern where dark shadows lie,", "And where the ambrosial nymph with happy will", "Bore the Saturnian's love-child, Mercury--", "And a delightful odour from the dew", "Of the hill pastures, at his coming, flew.", "", "And Phoebus stooped under the craggy roof", "Arched over the dark cavern:--Maia's child", "Perceived that he came angry, far aloof,", "About the cows of which he had been beguiled;", "And over him the fine and fragrant woof", "Of his ambrosial swaddling-clothes he piled--", "As among fire-brands lies a burning spark", "Covered, beneath the ashes cold and dark.", "", "There, like an infant who had sucked his fill", "And now was newly washed and put to bed,", "Awake, but courting sleep with weary will,", "And gathered in a lump, hands, feet, and head,", "He lay, and his beloved tortoise still", "He grasped and held under his shoulder-blade.", "Phoebus the lovely mountain-goddess knew,", "Not less her subtle, swindling baby, who", "", "Lay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook", "Of the ample cavern, for his kine, Apollo", "Looked sharp; and when he saw them not, he took", "The glittering key, and opened three great hollow", "Recesses in the rock--where many a nook", "Was filled with the sweet food immortals swallow,", "And mighty heaps of silver and of gold", "Were piled within--a wonder to behold!", "", "And white and silver robes, all overwrought", "With cunning workmanship of tracery sweet--", "Except among the Gods there can be nought", "In the wide world to be compared with it.", "Latona's offspring, after having sought", "His herds in every corner, thus did greet", "Great Hermes:--'Little cradled rogue, declare", "Of my illustrious heifers, where they are!", "", "'Speak quickly! or a quarrel between us", "Must rise, and the event will be, that I", "Shall hurl you into dismal Tartarus,", "In fiery gloom to dwell eternally;", "Nor shall your father nor your mother loose", "The bars of that black dungeon--utterly", "You shall be cast out from the light of day,", "To rule the ghosts of men, unblessed as they.", "", "To whom thus Hermes slily answered:--'Son", "Of great Latona, what a speech is this!", "Why come you here to ask me what is done", "With the wild oxen which it seems you miss?", "I have not seen them, nor from any one", "Have heard a word of the whole business;", "If you should promise an immense reward,", "I could not tell more than you now have heard.", "", "'An ox-stealer should be both tall and strong,", "And I am but a little new-born thing,", "Who, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:--", "My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling", "The cradle-clothes about me all day long,--", "Or half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing,", "And to be washed in water clean and warm,", "And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm.", "", "'O, let not e'er this quarrel be averred!", "The astounded Gods would laugh at you, if e'er", "You should allege a story so absurd", "As that a new-born infant forth could fare", "Out of his home after a savage herd.", "I was born yesterday--my small feet are", "Too tender for the roads so hard and rough:--", "And if you think that this is not enough,", "", "I swear a great oath, by my father's head,", "That I stole not your cows, and that I know", "Of no one else, who might, or could, or did.--", "Whatever things cows are, I do not know,", "For I have only heard the name.'--This said", "He winked as fast as could be, and his brow", "Was wrinkled, and a whistle loud gave he,", "Like one who hears some strange absurdity.", "", "Apollo gently smiled and said:--'Ay, ay,--", "You cunning little rascal, you will bore", "Many a rich man's house, and your array", "Of thieves will lay their siege before his door,", "Silent as night, in night; and many a day", "In the wild glens rough shepherds will deplore", "That you or yours, having an appetite,", "Met with their cattle, comrade of the night!", "", "'And this among the Gods shall be your gift,", "To be considered as the lord of those", "Who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop-lift;--", "But now if you would not your last sleep doze;", "Crawl out!'--Thus saying, Phoebus did uplift", "The subtle infant in his swaddling clothes,", "And in his arms, according to his wont,", "A scheme devised the illustrious Argiphont.", "", "...", "...", "And sneezed and shuddered--Phoebus on the grass", "Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed", "He did perform--eager although to pass,", "Apollo darted from his mighty mind", "Towards the subtle babe the following scoff:--", "'Do not imagine this will get you off,", "", "'You little swaddled child of Jove and May!", "And seized him:--'By this omen I shall trace", "My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.'--", "Cyllenian Hermes from the grassy place,", "Like one in earnest haste to get away,", "Rose, and with hands lifted towards his face", "Round both his ears up from his shoulders drew", "His swaddling clothes, and--'What mean you to do", "", "'With me, you unkind God?'--said Mercury:", "'Is it about these cows you tease me so?", "I wish the race of cows were perished!--I", "Stole not your cows--I do not even know", "What things cows are. Alas! I well may sigh", "That since I came into this world of woe,", "I should have ever heard the name of one--", "But I appeal to the Saturnian's throne.'", "", "Thus Phoebus and the vagrant Mercury", "Talked without coming to an explanation,", "With adverse purpose. As for Phoebus, he", "Sought not revenge, but only information,", "And Hermes tried with lies and roguery", "To cheat Apollo.--But when no evasion", "Served--for the cunning one his match had found--", "He paced on first over the sandy ground.", "", "...", "He of the Silver Bow the child of Jove", "Followed behind, till to their heavenly Sire", "Came both his children, beautiful as Love,", "And from his equal balance did require", "A judgement in the cause wherein they strove.", "O'er odorous Olympus and its snows", "A murmuring tumult as they came arose,--", "", "And from the folded depths of the great Hill,", "While Hermes and Apollo reverent stood", "Before Jove's throne, the indestructible", "Immortals rushed in mighty multitude;", "And whilst their seats in order due they fill,", "The lofty Thunderer in a careless mood", "To Phoebus said:--'Whence drive you this sweet prey,", "This herald-baby, born but yesterday?--", "", "'A most important subject, trifler, this", "To lay before the Gods!'--'Nay, Father, nay,", "When you have understood the business,", "Say not that I alone am fond of prey.", "I found this little boy in a recess", "Under Cyllene's mountains far away--", "A manifest and most apparent thief,", "A scandalmonger beyond all belief.", "", "'I never saw his like either in Heaven", "Or upon earth for knavery or craft:--", "Out of the field my cattle yester-even,", "By the low shore on which the loud sea laughed,", "He right down to the river-ford had driven;", "And mere astonishment would make you daft", "To see the double kind of footsteps strange", "He has impressed wherever he did range.", "", "'The cattle's track on the black dust, full well", "Is evident, as if they went towards", "The place from which they came--that asphodel", "Meadow, in which I feed my many herds,--", "HIS steps were most incomprehensible--", "I know not how I can describe in words", "Those tracks--he could have gone along the sands", "Neither upon his feet nor on his hands;--", "", "'He must have had some other stranger mode", "Of moving on: those vestiges immense,", "Far as I traced them on the sandy road,", "Seemed like the trail of oak-toppings:--but thence", "No mark nor track denoting where they trod", "The hard ground gave:--but, working at his fence,", "A mortal hedger saw him as he passed", "To Pylos, with the cows, in fiery haste.", "", "'I found that in the dark he quietly", "Had sacrificed some cows, and before light", "Had thrown the ashes all dispersedly", "About the road--then, still as gloomy night,", "Had crept into his cradle, either eye", "Rubbing, and cogitating some new sleight.", "No eagle could have seen him as he lay", "Hid in his cavern from the peering day.", "", "'I taxed him with the fact, when he averred", "Most solemnly that he did neither see", "Nor even had in any manner heard", "Of my lost cows, whatever things cows be;", "Nor could he tell, though offered a reward,", "Not even who could tell of them to me.'", "So speaking, Phoebus sate; and Hermes then", "Addressed the Supreme Lord of Gods and Men:--", "", "'Great Father, you know clearly beforehand", "That all which I shall say to you is sooth;", "I am a most veracious person, and", "Totally unacquainted with untruth.", "At sunrise Phoebus came, but with no band", "Of Gods to bear him witness, in great wrath,", "To my abode, seeking his heifers there,", "And saying that I must show him where they are,", "", "'Or he would hurl me down the dark abyss.", "I know that every Apollonian limb", "Is clothed with speed and might and manliness,", "As a green bank with flowers--but unlike him", "I was born yesterday, and you may guess", "He well knew this when he indulged the whim", "Of bullying a poor little new-born thing", "That slept, and never thought of cow-driving.", "", "'Am I like a strong fellow who steals kine?", "Believe me, dearest Father--such you are--", "This driving of the herds is none of mine;", "Across my threshold did I wander ne'er,", "So may I thrive! I reverence the divine", "Sun and the Gods, and I love you, and care", "Even for this hard accuser--who must know", "I am as innocent as they or you.", "", "'I swear by these most gloriously-wrought portals", "(It is, you will allow, an oath of might)", "Through which the multitude of the Immortals", "Pass and repass forever, day and night,", "Devising schemes for the affairs of mortals--", "I am guiltless; and I will requite,", "Although mine enemy be great and strong,", "His cruel threat--do thou defend the young!'", "", "So speaking, the Cyllenian Argiphont", "Winked, as if now his adversary was fitted:--", "And Jupiter, according to his wont,", "Laughed heartily to hear the subtle-witted", "Infant give such a plausible account,", "And every word a lie. But he remitted", "Judgement at present--and his exhortation", "Was, to compose the affair by arbitration.", "", "And they by mighty Jupiter were bidden", "To go forth with a single purpose both,", "Neither the other chiding nor yet chidden:", "And Mercury with innocence and truth", "To lead the way, and show where he had hidden", "The mighty heifers.--Hermes, nothing loth,", "Obeyed the Aegis-bearer's will--for he", "Is able to persuade all easily.", "", "These lovely children of Heaven's highest Lord", "Hastened to Pylos and the pastures wide", "And lofty stalls by the Alphean ford,", "Where wealth in the mute night is multiplied", "With silent growth. Whilst Hermes drove the herd", "Out of the stony cavern, Phoebus spied", "The hides of those the little babe had slain,", "Stretched on the precipice above the plain.", "", "'How was it possible,' then Phoebus said,", "'That you, a little child, born yesterday,", "A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed,", "Could two prodigious heifers ever flay?", "Even I myself may well hereafter dread", "Your prowess, offspring of Cyllenian May,", "When you grow strong and tall.'--He spoke, and bound", "Stiff withy bands the infant's wrists around.", "", "He might as well have bound the oxen wild;", "The withy bands, though starkly interknit,", "Fell at the feet of the immortal child,", "Loosened by some device of his quick wit.", "Phoebus perceived himself again beguiled,", "And stared--while Hermes sought some hole or pit,", "Looking askance and winking fast as thought,", "Where he might hide himself and not be caught.", "", "Sudden he changed his plan, and with strange skill", "Subdued the strong Latonian, by the might", "Of winning music, to his mightier will;", "His left hand held the lyre, and in his right", "The plectrum struck the chords--unconquerable", "Up from beneath his hand in circling flight", "The gathering music rose--and sweet as Love", "The penetrating notes did live and move", "", "Within the heart of great Apollo--he", "Listened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure.", "Close to his side stood harping fearlessly", "The unabashed boy; and to the measure", "Of the sweet lyre, there followed loud and free", "His joyous voice; for he unlocked the treasure", "Of his deep song, illustrating the birth", "Of the bright Gods, and the dark desert Earth:", "", "And how to the Immortals every one", "A portion was assigned of all that is;", "But chief Mnemosyne did Maia's son", "Clothe in the light of his loud melodies;--", "And, as each God was born or had begun,", "He in their order due and fit degrees", "Sung of his birth and being--and did move", "Apollo to unutterable love.", "", "These words were winged with his swift delight:", "'You heifer-stealing schemer, well do you", "Deserve that fifty oxen should requite", "Such minstrelsies as I have heard even now.", "Comrade of feasts, little contriving wight,", "One of your secrets I would gladly know,", "Whether the glorious power you now show forth", "Was folded up within you at your birth,", "", "'Or whether mortal taught or God inspired", "The power of unpremeditated song?", "Many divinest sounds have I admired,", "The Olympian Gods and mortal men among;", "But such a strain of wondrous, strange, untired,", "And soul-awakening music, sweet and strong,", "Yet did I never hear except from thee,", "Offspring of May, impostor Mercury!", "", "'What Muse, what skill, what unimagined use,", "What exercise of subtlest art, has given", "Thy songs such power?--for those who hear may choose", "From three, the choicest of the gifts of Heaven,", "Delight, and love, and sleep,--sweet sleep, whose dews", "Are sweeter than the balmy tears of even:--", "And I, who speak this praise, am that Apollo", "Whom the Olympian Muses ever follow:", "", "'And their delight is dance, and the blithe noise", "Of song and overflowing poesy;", "And sweet, even as desire, the liquid voice", "Of pipes, that fills the clear air thrillingly;", "But never did my inmost soul rejoice", "In this dear work of youthful revelry", "As now. I wonder at thee, son of Jove;", "Thy harpings and thy song are soft as love.", "", "'Now since thou hast, although so very small,", "Science of arts so glorious, thus I swear,--", "And let this cornel javelin, keen and tall,", "Witness between us what I promise here,--", "That I will lead thee to the Olympian Hall,", "Honoured and mighty, with thy mother dear,", "And many glorious gifts in joy will give thee,", "And even at the end will ne'er deceive thee.'", "", "To whom thus Mercury with prudent speech:--", "'Wisely hast thou inquired of my skill:", "I envy thee no thing I know to teach", "Even this day:--for both in word and will", "I would be gentle with thee; thou canst reach", "All things in thy wise spirit, and thy sill", "Is highest in Heaven among the sons of Jove,", "Who loves thee in the fulness of his love.", "", "'The Counsellor Supreme has given to thee", "Divinest gifts, out of the amplitude", "Of his profuse exhaustless treasury;", "By thee, 'tis said, the depths are understood", "Of his far voice; by thee the mystery", "Of all oracular fates,--and the dread mood", "Of the diviner is breathed up; even I--", "A child--perceive thy might and majesty.", "", "'Thou canst seek out and compass all that wit", "Can find or teach;--yet since thou wilt, come take", "The lyre--be mine the glory giving it--", "Strike the sweet chords, and sing aloud, and wake", "Thy joyous pleasure out of many a fit", "Of tranced sound--and with fleet fingers make", "Thy liquid-voiced comrade talk with thee,--", "It can talk measured music eloquently.", "", "'Then bear it boldly to the revel loud,", "Love-wakening dance, or feast of solemn state,", "A joy by night or day--for those endowed", "With art and wisdom who interrogate", "It teaches, babbling in delightful mood", "All things which make the spirit most elate,", "Soothing the mind with sweet familiar play,", "Chasing the heavy shadows of dismay.", "", "'To those who are unskilled in its sweet tongue,", "Though they should question most impetuously", "Its hidden soul, it gossips something wrong--", "Some senseless and impertinent reply.", "But thou who art as wise as thou art strong", "Canst compass all that thou desirest. I", "Present thee with this music-flowing shell,", "Knowing thou canst interrogate it well.", "", "'And let us two henceforth together feed,", "On this green mountain-slope and pastoral plain,", "The herds in litigation--they will breed", "Quickly enough to recompense our pain,", "If to the bulls and cows we take good heed;--", "And thou, though somewhat over fond of gain,", "Grudge me not half the profit.'--Having spoke,", "The shell he proffered, and Apollo took;", "", "And gave him in return the glittering lash,", "Installing him as herdsman;--from the look", "Of Mercury then laughed a joyous flash.", "And then Apollo with the plectrum strook", "The chords, and from beneath his hands a crash", "Of mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook", "The soul with sweetness, and like an adept", "His sweeter voice a just accordance kept.", "", "The herd went wandering o'er the divine mead,", "Whilst these most beautiful Sons of Jupiter", "Won their swift way up to the snowy head", "Of white Olympus, with the joyous lyre", "Soothing their journey; and their father dread", "Gathered them both into familiar", "Affection sweet,--and then, and now, and ever,", "Hermes must love Him of the Golden Quiver,", "", "To whom he gave the lyre that sweetly sounded,", "Which skilfully he held and played thereon.", "He piped the while, and far and wide rebounded", "The echo of his pipings; every one", "Of the Olympians sat with joy astounded;", "While he conceived another piece of fun,", "One of his old tricks--which the God of Day", "Perceiving, said:--'I fear thee, Son of May;--", "", "'I fear thee and thy sly chameleon spirit,", "Lest thou should steal my lyre and crooked bow;", "This glory and power thou dost from Jove inherit,", "To teach all craft upon the earth below;", "Thieves love and worship thee--it is thy merit", "To make all mortal business ebb and flow", "By roguery:--now, Hermes, if you dare", "By sacred Styx a mighty oath to swear", "", "'That you will never rob me, you will do", "A thing extremely pleasing to my heart.'", "Then Mercury swore by the Stygian dew,", "That he would never steal his bow or dart,", "Or lay his hands on what to him was due,", "Or ever would employ his powerful art", "Against his Pythian fane. Then Phoebus swore", "There was no God or Man whom he loved more.", "", "'And I will give thee as a good-will token,", "The beautiful wand of wealth and happiness;", "A perfect three-leaved rod of gold unbroken,", "Whose magic will thy footsteps ever bless;", "And whatsoever by Jove's voice is spoken", "Of earthly or divine from its recess,", "It, like a loving soul, to thee will speak,", "And more than this, do thou forbear to seek.", "", "'For, dearest child, the divinations high", "Which thou requirest, 'tis unlawful ever", "That thou, or any other deity", "Should understand--and vain were the endeavour;", "For they are hidden in Jove's mind, and I,", "In trust of them, have sworn that I would never", "Betray the counsels of Jove's inmost will", "To any God--the oath was terrible.", "", "'Then, golden-wanded brother, ask me not", "To speak the fates by Jupiter designed;", "But be it mine to tell their various lot", "To the unnumbered tribes of human-kind.", "Let good to these, and ill to those be wrought", "As I dispense--but he who comes consigned", "By voice and wings of perfect augury", "To my great shrine, shall find avail in me.", "", "'Him will I not deceive, but will assist;", "But he who comes relying on such birds", "As chatter vainly, who would strain and twist", "The purpose of the Gods with idle words,", "And deems their knowledge light, he shall have missed", "His road--whilst I among my other hoards", "His gifts deposit. Yet, O son of May,", "I have another wondrous thing to say.", "", "'There are three Fates, three virgin Sisters, who", "Rejoicing in their wind-outspeeding wings,", "Their heads with flour snowed over white and new,", "Sit in a vale round which Parnassus flings", "Its circling skirts--from these I have learned true", "Vaticinations of remotest things.", "My father cared not. Whilst they search out dooms,", "They sit apart and feed on honeycombs.", "", "'They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow", "Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter", "With earnest willingness the truth they know;", "But if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter", "All plausible delusions;--these to you", "I give;--if you inquire, they will not stutter;", "Delight your own soul with them:--any man", "You would instruct may profit if he can.", "", "'Take these and the fierce oxen, Maia's child--", "O'er many a horse and toil-enduring mule,", "O'er jagged-jawed lions, and the wild", "White-tusked boars, o'er all, by field or pool,", "Of cattle which the mighty Mother mild", "Nourishes in her bosom, thou shalt rule--", "Thou dost alone the veil from death uplift--", "Thou givest not--yet this is a great gift.'", "", "Thus King Apollo loved the child of May", "In truth, and Jove covered their love with joy.", "Hermes with Gods and Men even from that day", "Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy,", "And little profit, going far astray", "Through the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy,", "Of Jove and Maia sprung,--never by me,", "Nor thou, nor other songs, shall unremembered be." ], "linecount": "777" }, { "title": "Stanza From a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Tremble, Kings despised of man!", "Ye traitors to your Country,", "Tremble! Your parricidal plan", "At length shall meet its destiny...", "We all are soldiers fit to fight,", "But if we sink in glory's night", "Our mother Earth will give ye new", "The brilliant pathway to pursue", "Which leads to Death or Victory..." ], "linecount": "9" }, { "title": "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "The awful shadow of some unseen Power", "Floats though unseen among us,--visiting", "This various world with as inconstant wing", "As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,--", "Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,", "It visits with inconstant glance", "Each human heart and countenance;", "Like hues and harmonies of evening,--", "Like clouds in starlight widely spread,--", "Like memory of music fled,--", "Like aught that for its grace may be", "Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.", "", "Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate", "With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon", "Of human thought or form,--where art thou gone?", "Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,", "This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?", "Ask why the sunlight not for ever", "Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,", "Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,", "Why fear and dream and death and birth", "Cast on the daylight of this earth", "Such gloom,--why man has such a scope", "For love and hate, despondency and hope?", "", "No voice from some sublimer world hath ever", "To sage or poet these responses given--", "Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven.", "Remain the records of their vain endeavour,", "Frail spells--whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,", "From all we hear and all we see,", "Doubt, chance, and mutability.", "Thy light alone--like mist o'er mountains driven,", "Or music by the night-wind sent", "Through strings of some still instrument,", "Or moonlight on a midnight stream,", "Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.", "", "Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart", "And come, for some uncertain moments lent.", "Man were immortal, and omnipotent,", "Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,", "Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.", "Thou messenger of sympathies,", "That wax and wane in lovers' eyes--", "Thou--that to human thought art nourishment,", "Like darkness to a dying flame!", "Depart not as thy shadow came", "Depart not--lest the grave should be,", "Like life and fear, a dark reality.", "", "While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped", "Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,", "And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing", "Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.", "I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;", "I was not heard--I saw them not--", "When musing deeply on the lot", "Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing", "All vital things that wake to bring", "News of birds and blossoming,--", "Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;", "I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!", "", "I vowed that I would dedicate my powers", "To thee and thine--have I not kept the vow?", "With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now", "I call the phantoms of a thousand hours", "Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers", "Of studious zeal or love's delight", "Outwatched with me the envious night--", "They know that never joy illumed my brow", "Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free", "This world from its dark slavery,", "That thou--O awful LOVELINESS,", "Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.", "", "The day becomes more solemn and serene", "When noon is past--there is a harmony", "In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,", "Which through the summer is not heard or seen,", "As if it could not be, as if it had not been!", "Thus let thy power, which like the truth", "Of nature on my passive youth", "Descended, to my onward life supply", "Its calm--to one who worships thee,", "And every form containing thee,", "Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind", "To fear himself, and love all human kind." ], "linecount": "84" }, { "title": "Hymn of Apollo", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,", "Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries", "From the broad moonlight of the sky,", "Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,--", "Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,", "Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.", "", "Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,", "I walk over the mountains and the waves,", "Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;", "My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves", "Are filled with my bright presence, and the air", "Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.", "", "The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill", "Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;", "All men who do or even imagine ill", "Fly me, and from the glory of my ray", "Good minds and open actions take new might,", "Until diminished by the reign of Night.", "", "I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers", "With their aethereal colours; the moon's globe", "And the pure stars in their eternal bowers", "Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;", "Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine", "Are portions of one power, which is mine.", "", "I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,", "Then with unwilling steps I wander down", "Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;", "For grief that I depart they weep and frown:", "What look is more delightful than the smile", "With which I soothe them from the western isle?", "", "I am the eye with which the Universe", "Beholds itself and knows itself divine;", "All harmony of instrument or verse,", "All prophecy, all medicine is mine,", "All light of art or nature;--to my song", "Victory and praise in its own right belong." ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "Hymn of Pan", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "From the forests and highlands", "We come, we come;", "From the river-girt islands,", "Where loud waves are dumb", "Listening to my sweet pipings.", "The wind in the reeds and the rushes,", "The bees on the bells of thyme,", "The birds on the myrtle bushes,", "The cicale above in the lime,", "And the lizards below in the grass,", "Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,", "Listening to my sweet pipings.", "", "Liquid Peneus was flowing,", "And all dark Tempe lay", "In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing", "The light of the dying day,", "Speeded by my sweet pipings.", "The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,", "And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,", "To the edge of the moist river-lawns,", "And the brink of the dewy caves,", "And all that did then attend and follow,", "Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,", "With envy of my sweet pipings.", "", "I sang of the dancing stars,", "I sang of the daedal Earth,", "And of Heaven--and the giant wars,", "And Love, and Death, and Birth,--", "And then I changed my pipings,--", "Singing how down the vale of Maenalus", "I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed.", "Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!", "It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:", "All wept, as I think both ye now would,", "If envy or age had not frozen your blood,", "At the sorrow of my sweet pipings." ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "Homer's Hymn to Castor and Pollux", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Ye wild-eyed Muses, sing the Twins of Jove,", "Whom the fair-ankled Leda, mixed in love", "With mighty Saturn's Heaven-obscuring Child,", "On Taygetus, that lofty mountain wild,", "Brought forth in joy: mild Pollux, void of blame,", "And steed-subduing Castor, heirs of fame.", "These are the Powers who earth-born mortals save", "And ships, whose flight is swift along the wave.", "When wintry tempests o'er the savage sea", "Are raging, and the sailors tremblingly", "Call on the Twins of Jove with prayer and vow,", "Gathered in fear upon the lofty prow,", "And sacrifice with snow-white lambs,--the wind", "And the huge billow bursting close behind,", "Even then beneath the weltering waters bear", "The staggering ship--they suddenly appear,", "On yellow wings rushing athwart the sky,", "And lull the blasts in mute tranquillity,", "And strew the waves on the white Ocean's bed,", "Fair omen of the voyage; from toil and dread", "The sailors rest, rejoicing in the sight,", "And plough the quiet sea in safe delight." ], "linecount": "22" }, { "title": "Homer's Hymn to the Moon", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody,", "Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy", "Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth,", "From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth,", "Far light is scattered--boundless glory springs;", "Where'er she spreads her many-beaming wings", "The lampless air glows round her golden crown.", "", "But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone", "Under the sea, her beams within abide,", "Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean's tide,", "Clothing her form in garments glittering far,", "And having yoked to her immortal car", "The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high", "Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky", "A western Crescent, borne impetuously.", "Then is made full the circle of her light,", "And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright", "Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then,", "A wonder and a sign to mortal men.", "", "The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power", "Mingled in love and sleep--to whom she bore", "Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare", "Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are.", "", "Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity,", "Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee", "My song beginning, by its music sweet", "Shall make immortal many a glorious feat", "Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well", "Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell." ], "linecount": "29" }, { "title": "Homer's Hymn to the Sun", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more", "To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour;", "Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth", "Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth;", "Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair", "Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear", "A race of loveliest children; the young Morn,", "Whose arms are like twin roses newly born,", "The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun,", "Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run", "Unconquerably, illuming the abodes", "Of mortal Men and the eternal Gods.", "", "Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes,", "Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise", "And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light;", "His countenance, with radiant glory bright,", "Beneath his graceful locks far shines around,", "And the light vest with which his limbs are bound,", "Of woof aethereal delicately twined,", "Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind.", "His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West;", "Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest,", "And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he", "Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Homer's Hymn to the Earth: Mother of All", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "O universal Mother, who dost keep", "From everlasting thy foundations deep,", "Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!", "All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,", "All things that fly, or on the ground divine", "Live, move, and there are nourished--these are thine;", "These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee", "Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree", "Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!", "", "The life of mortal men beneath thy sway", "Is held; thy power both gives and takes away!", "Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish;", "All things unstinted round them grow and flourish.", "For them, endures the life-sustaining field", "Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield", "Large increase, and their house with wealth is filled.", "Such honoured dwell in cities fair and free,", "The homes of lovely women, prosperously;", "Their sons exult in youth's new budding gladness,", "And their fresh daughters free from care or sadness,", "With bloom-inwoven dance and happy song,", "On the soft flowers the meadow-grass among,", "Leap round them sporting--such delights by thee", "Are given, rich Power, revered Divinity.", "", "Mother of gods, thou Wife of starry Heaven,", "Farewell! be thou propitious, and be given", "A happy life for this brief melody,", "Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be." ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "Homer's Hymn to Minerva", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,", "Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,", "Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid,", "Revered and mighty; from his awful head", "Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed,", "Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed", "The everlasting Gods that Shape to see,", "Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously", "Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;", "Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move", "Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;", "Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;", "And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high", "In purple billows, the tide suddenly", "Stood still, and great Hyperion's son long time", "Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,", "Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw", "The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.", "Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,", "Nor thine nor others' praise shall unremembered be." ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Homer's Hymn to Venus", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "[VERSES 1-55, WITH SOME OMISSIONS.]", "", "Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite,", "Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight", "Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings", "Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things", "That fleet along the air, or whom the sea,", "Or earth, with her maternal ministry,", "Nourish innumerable, thy delight", "All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite!", "Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:--", "Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well", "Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame", "Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame.", "Diana ... golden-shafted queen,", "Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green", "Of the wild woods, the bow, the...", "And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit", "Of beasts among waste mountains,--such delight", "Is hers, and men who know and do the right.", "Nor Saturn's first-born daughter, Vesta chaste,", "Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last,", "Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove;", "But sternly she refused the ills of Love,", "And by her mighty Father's head she swore", "An oath not unperformed, that evermore", "A virgin she would live mid deities", "Divine: her father, for such gentle ties", "Renounced, gave glorious gifts--thus in his hall", "She sits and feeds luxuriously. O'er all", "In every fane, her honours first arise", "From men--the eldest of Divinities.", "", "These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives,", "But none beside escape, so well she weaves", "Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods", "Who live secure in their unseen abodes.", "She won the soul of him whose fierce delight", "Is thunder--first in glory and in might.", "And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving,", "With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving,", "Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair,", "Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare.", "but in return,", "In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken,", "That by her own enchantments overtaken,", "She might, no more from human union free,", "Burn for a nursling of mortality.", "For once amid the assembled Deities,", "The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes", "", "Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile,", "And boasting said, that she, secure the while,", "Could bring at Will to the assembled Gods", "The mortal tenants of earth's dark abodes,", "And mortal offspring from a deathless stem", "She could produce in scorn and spite of them.", "Therefore he poured desire into her breast", "Of young Anchises,", "Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains", "Of the wide Ida's many-folded mountains,--", "Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung", "Like wasting fire her senses wild among." ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "Hymn", "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", "lines": [ "At morn--at noon--at twilight dim--", "Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!", "In joy and wo--in good and ill--", "Mother of God, be with me still!", "When the Hours flew brightly by,", "And not a cloud obscured the sky,", "My soul, lest it should truant be,", "Thy grace did guide to thine and thee", "Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast", "Darkly my Present and my Past,", "Let my future radiant shine", "With sweet hopes of thee and thine!" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Hymn To Aristogeiton And Harmodius", "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", "lines": [ "Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal,", " Like those champions devoted and brave,", "When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,", " And to Athens deliverance gave.", "", "Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam", " In the joy breathing isles of the blest;", "Where the mighty of old have their home--", " Where Achilles and Diomed rest.", "", "In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,", " Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,", "When he made at the tutelar shrine", " A libation of Tyranny's blood.", "", "Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!", " Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!", "Endless ages shall cherish your fame,", " Embalmed in their echoing songs!" ], "linecount": "16" } ]