[ { "title": "Retirement", "author": "Anne Bronte", "lines": [ "O, let me be alone a while,", "No human form is nigh.", "And may I sing and muse aloud,", "No mortal ear is by.", "Away! ye dreams of earthly bliss,", "Ye earthly cares begone:", "Depart! ye restless wandering thoughts,", "And let me be alone!", "", "One hour, my spirit, stretch thy wings,", "And quit this joyless sod,", "Bask in the sunshine of the sky,", "And be alone with God!" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Upon the Priory Grove, His Usual Retirement", "author": "Henry Vaughan", "lines": [ "Hail sacred shades! cool, leavy House!", "Chaste treasurer of all my vows,", "And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid", "My love's fair steps I first betrayed:", "Henceforth no melancholy flight,", "No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night,", "Disturb this air, no fatal throat", "Of raven, or owl, awake the note", "Of our laid echo, no voice dwell", "Within these leaves, but Philomel.", "The poisonous ivy here no more", "His false twists on the oak shall score,", "Only the woodbine here may twine", "As th'emblem of her love and mine;", "Th'amorous sun shall here convey", "His best beams, in thy shades to play;", "The active air, the gentlest showers", "Shall from his wings rain on thy flowers;", "And the moon from her dewy locks", "Shall deck thee with her brightest drops:", "What ever can a fancy move,", "Or feed the eye; be on this Grove;", "And when at last the winds and tears", "Of Heaven, with the consuming years,", "Shall these green curls bring to decay,", "And clothe thee in an aged gray:", "(If ought a lover can foresee;", "Or if we poets, prophets be)", "From hence transplant'd, thou shalt stand", "A fresh Grove in th'Elysian land;", "Where (most blest pair!) as here on earth", "Thou first didst eye our growth and birth;", "So there again, thou'lt see us move", "In our first innocence, and love:", "And in thy shades, as now, so then,", "We'll kiss, and smile, and walk again." ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "Retirement", "author": "Henry Vaughan", "lines": [ "Fresh fields and woods! the Earth's fair face,", "God's foot-stool, and man's dwelling-place.", "I ask not why the first Believer", "Did love to be a country liver?", "Who to secure pious content", "Did pitch by groves and wells his tent;", "Where he might view the boundless sky,", "And all those glorious lights on high;", "With flying meteors, mists and show'rs,", "Subjected hills, trees, meads and flow'rs;", "And ev'ry minute bless the King", "And wise Creator of each thing.", "I ask not why he did remove", "To happy Mamre's holy grove,", "Leaving the cities of the plain", "To Lot and his successless train?", "All various lusts in cities still", "Are found; they are the thrones of ill;", "The dismal sinks, where blood is spill'd,", "Cages with much uncleanness fill'd.", "But rural shades are the sweet fense", "Of piety and innocence.", "They are the Meek's calm region, where", "Angels descend and rule the sphere,", "Where heaven lies leiger, and the dove", "Duly as dew, comes from above.", "If Eden be on Earth at all,", "'Tis that, which we the country call." ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "On Retirement", "author": "Philip Freneau", "lines": [ "A HERMIT'S house beside a stream", " With forests planted round,", "Whatever it to you may seem", "More real happiness I deem", " Than if I were a monarch crowned.", "", "A cottage I could call my own", " Remote from domes of care;", "A little garden, walled with stone,", "The wall with ivy overgrown,", " A limpid fountain near,", "", "Would more substantial joys afford,", " More real bliss impart", "Than all the wealth that misers hoard,", "Than vanquished worlds, or worlds restored--", " Mere cankers of the heart!", "", "Vain, foolish man! how vast thy pride,", " How little can your wants supply!--", "'Tis surely wrong to grasp so wide--", "You act as if you only had", " To triumph--not to die!" ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Reflections On Having Left A Place Of Retirement", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Low was our pretty Cot : our tallest Rose", "Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear", "At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,", "The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air", "Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch", "Thick Jasmins twined : the little landscape round", "Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.", "It was a spot which you might aptly call", "The Valley of Seclusion ! Once I saw", "(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quiteness)", "A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by,", "Bristowa's citizen : methought, it calm'd", "His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse", "With wiser feelings : for he paus'd, and look'd", "With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around,", "Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz'd round again,", "And sigh'd, and said, it was a Blessйd Place.", "And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear", "Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note", "(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen", "Gleaming on sunny wings) in whisper'd tones", "I said to my Belovйd, `Such, sweet Girl !", "The inobtrusive song of Happiness,", "Unearthly minstrelsy ! then only heard", "When the Soul seeks to hear ; when all is hush'd,", "And the Heart listens !'", "", "[Image][Image][Image]But the time, when first", "From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount", "I climb'd with perilous toil and reach'd the top,", "Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak mount,", "The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep ;", "Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ;", "And river, now with bushy rocks o'er-brow'd,", "Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ;", "And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,", "And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire ;", "The Channel there, the Islands and white sails,", "Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless Ocean--", "It seem'd like Omnipresence ! God, methought,", "Had build him there a Temple : the whole World", "Seem'd imag'd in its vast circumference :", "No wish profan'd my overwhelmйd heart.", "Blest hour ! It was a luxury,--to be !", "", "Ah ! quiet Dell ! dear Cot, and Mount sublime !", "I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right,", "While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled,", "That I should dream away the entrusted hours", "On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart", "With feelings all too delicate for use ?", "Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye", "Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth :", "And he that works me good with unmov'd face,", "Does it but half : he chills me while he aids,", "My benefactor, not my brother man !", "Yet even this, this cold beneficience", "Praise, praise it, O my Soul ! oft as thou scann'st", "The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe !", "Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the Wretched,", "Nursing in some delicious solitude", "Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies !", "I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,", "Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight", "Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.", "", "Yet oft when after honourable toil", "Rests the tir'd mind, and waking loves to dream,", "My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot !", "Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose,", "And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.", "And I shall sigh fond wishes--sweet Abode !", "Ah !--had none greater ! And that all had such !", "It might be so--but the time is not yet.", "Speed it, O Father ! Let thy Kingdom come !" ], "linecount": "72" }, { "title": "Retirement", "author": "William Cowper", "lines": [ "Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,", "From strife and tumult far;", "From scenes where Satan wages still", "His most successful war.", "", "The calm retreat, the silent shade,", "With prayer and praise agree;", "And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made,", "For those who follow Thee.", "", "There if Thy Spirit touch the soul,", "And grace her mean abode,", "Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,", "She communes with her God!", "", "There like the nightingale she pours", "Her solitary lays;", "Nor asks a witness of her song,", "Nor thirsts for human praise.", "", "Author and Guardian of my life,", "Sweet source of light Divine,", "And, -- all harmonious names in one, --", "My Saviour! Thou art mine.", "", "What thanks I owe Thee, and what love,", "A boundless, endless store,", "Shall echo through the realms above,", "When time shall be no more." ], "linecount": "24" } ]