Details Title: 10 B Description: poems and shit Total Flash Cards: 73 Created: 05/20/2009 20:21:03		New Users: To study from this flashcard set, or to create your own your own study flash cards, REGISTER HERE. Existing Users: CLICK HERE. Additional English Flashcards
Cards in this set: Term I. ROM harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, "Arise, ye more than dead." Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obye. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man. II. What passion cannot music raise and quell? When Jubal struck the chorded shell, His listening brethren stood around, And, wondering, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound: Less than a God they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell, That spoke so sweetly, and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? III. The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms. The double, double, double beat Of the thundering drum Cries, hark! the foes come: Charge, charge! 'tis too late to retreat. IV. The soft complaining flute, In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers; Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. V. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame. VI. But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach, The sacred organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways To mend the choirs above. VII. Orpheus could lead the savage race; And trees uprooted left their place, Sequacious of the lyre: But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher; When to her organ vocal breath was given, An angel heard, and straight appeared, Mistaking earth for heaven. Grand Chorus As from the power of sacred lays The spheres began to move, And sung the great Creator's praise To all the bless'd above; So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky. Definition A song for St. Cecilia's Day DRYDEN Term Farewell, too little and too lately known, 2Whom I began to think and call my own; 3For sure our souls were near ally'd; and thine 4Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. 5One common note on either lyre did strike, 6And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike: 7To the same goal did both our studies drive, 8The last set out the soonest did arrive. 9Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, 10While his young friend perform'd and won the race. 11O early ripe! to thy abundant store 12What could advancing age have added more? 13It might (what nature never gives the young) 14Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. 15But satire needs not those, and wit will shine 16Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. 17A noble error, and but seldom made, 18When poets are by too much force betray'd. 19Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime 20Still show'd a quickness; and maturing time 21But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme. 22Once more, hail and farewell; farewell thou young, 23But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue; 24Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound; 25But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around. Definition To the Memory or Mr. Oldham DRYDEN Term As some brave admiral, in former war, Deprived of force, but pressed with courage still, Two rival fleets appearing from afar, Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill; From whence (with thoughts full of concern) he views [5] The wise and daring conduct of the fight, And each bold action to his mind renews His present glory, and his past delight; From his fierce eyes, flashes of rage he throws, As from black clouds when lightning breaks away, [10] Transported, thinks himself amidst his foes, And absent yet enjoys the bloody day; So when my days of impotence approach, And I'm by pox and wine's unlucky chance, Driven from the pleasing billows of debauch, [15] On the dull shore of lazy temperance, My pains at last some respite shall afford, Whilst I behold the battles you maintain, When fleets of glasses sail about the board, From whose broadsides volleys of wit shall rain. [20] Nor shall the sight of honourable scars, Which my too-forward valour did procure, Frighten new-listed soldiers from the wars. Past joys have more than paid what I endure. Should hopeful youths (worth being drunk) prove nice, [25] And from their fair inviters meanly shrink, 'Twould please the ghost of my departed vice, If at my counsel they repent and drink. Or should some cold-complexioned set forbid, With his dull morals, our night's brisk alarms, [30] I'll fire his blood by telling what I did, When I was strong and able to bear arms. I'll tell of whores attacked, their lords at home, Bawds' quarters beaten up, and fortress won, Windows demolished, watches overcome, [35] And handsome ills by my contrivance done. Nor shall our love-fits, Cloris, be forgot, When each the well-looked link-boy strove t'enjoy, And the best kiss was the deciding lot: Whether the boy fucked you, or I the boy. [40] With tales like these I will such heat inspire, As to important mischief shall incline. I'll make them long some ancient church to fire, And fear no lewdness they're called to by wine. Thus statesman-like, I'll saucily impose, [45] And safe from danger valiantly advise, Sheltered in impotence, urge you to blows, And being good for nothing else, be wise. Definition The Disabled Debauchee ROCHESTER Term Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms, I filled with love, and she all over charms; Both equally inspired with eager fire, Melting through kindness, flaming in desire. With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace, [5] She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face. Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed Swift orders that I should prepare to throw The all-dissolving thunderbolt below. [10] My fluttering soul, sprung with the painted kiss, Hangs hovering o'er her balmy brinks of bliss. But whilst her busy hand would guide that part Which should convey my soul up to her heart, In liquid raptures I dissolve all o'er, [15] Melt into sperm, and spend at every pore. A touch from any part of her had done't: Her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt. Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise, And from her body wipes the clammy joys, [20] When, with a thousand kisses wandering o'er My panting bosom, "Is there then no more?" She cries. "All this to love and rapture's due; Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?" But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive, [25] To show my wished obedience vainly strive: I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive. Eager desires confound my first intent, Succeeding shame does more success prevent, And rage at last confirms me impotent. [30] Ev'n her fair hand, which might bid heat return To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn, Applied to my dead cinder, warms no more Than fire to ashes could past flames restore. Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry, [35] A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie. This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried, With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed; Which nature still directed with such art That it through every cunt reached every heart — [40] Stiffly resolved, 'twould carelessly invade Woman or man, nor aught its fury stayed: Where'er it pierced, a cunt it found or made — Now languid lies in this unhappy hour, Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower. [45] Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame, False to my passion, fatal to my fame, Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove So true to lewdness, so untrue to love? What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore [50] Didst thou e'er fail in all thy life before? When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way, With what officious haste dost thou obey! Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets, [55] But if his king or country claim his aid, The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head; Ev'n so thy brutal valour is displayed, Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade, But when great Love the onset does command, [60] Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar'st not stand. Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most, Through all the town a common fucking-post, On whom each whore relieves her tingling cunt As hogs do rub themselves on gates and grunt, [65] May'st thou to ravenous chancres be a prey, Or in consuming weepings waste away; May strangury and stone thy days attend; May'st thou ne'er piss, who did refuse to spend When all my joys did on false thee depend. [70] And may ten thousand abler pricks agree To do the wronged Corinna right for thee. Definition The imperfect Enjoyment ROCHESTER Term Were I (who to my cost already am One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man) A spirit free to choose, for my own share, What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear, I'd be a dog, a monkey or a bear, 5 Or anything but that vain animal Who is so proud of being rational. brkThe senses are to gross, and he'll contrive A sixth, to contradict the other five, And before certain instinct, will prefer 10 Reason, which fifty times for one does err; Reason, an ignis fatuus in the mind, Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind, Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes Through error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes; 15 Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain; Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down Into doubt's boundless sea, where, like to drown, Books bear him up a while, and make him try 20 To swim with bladders of philosophy; In hopes still to o'ertake th' escaping light, The vapor dances in his dazzling sight Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night. Then old age and experience, hand in hand, 25 Lead him to death, and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong. Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies, Who was proud, so witty, and so wise. 30 brkPride dew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch, And made him veneture to be made a wretch. His wisdom did his happiness destroy, Aiming to know that world he should enjoy. And wit was his vain, frivolous pretense 35 Of pleasing others at his own expense, For wits are treated just like common whores: First they're enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors. The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains. 40 Women and men of wit are dangerous tools, And ever fatal to admiring fools: Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape, 'Tis not that they're belov'd, but fortunate, And therefore, hat they fear at heart, they hate. 45 brkBut now, methinks, some formal band and beard Takes me to task. Come on, sir; I'm prepared. brk"Then, by your favor, anything that's writ Against this gibing, jingling knack called wit Light me abundantly; but you take care 50 Upon this point, not to be too severe. Perhaps my muse were fitter for this part, For I profess I can be very smart On wit, which I abhor with all my heart. I long to lash it in some sharp essay, 55 But your grand indiscretion bids me stay And turns my tide of ink another way. brk"What rage ferments in your degenerate mind To make you rail at reason and mankind? Blest, glorious man! to whom alone kind heaven 60 An everlasting soul has freely given, Whom his great Maker took such care to make That from himself he did the image take And this fair frame in shining reason dressed To dignify his nature above beast; 65 Reason, by whose aspiring influence We take a flight beyond material sense Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce The flaming limits of the universe, Search heaven and hell, find out what's acted there, 70 And give the world true grounds of hope and fear." brkHold, mighty man, I cry, all this we know From the pathetic pen of Ingelo, From Patrick's Pilgrim, Sibbes' soliloquies, And 'tis this very reason I despise: 75 This supernatural gift, that makes a mite Think he's the image of the infinite, Comparing his short life, void of all rest, To the eternal and the ever blest; This busy, puzzling stirrer-up of doubt 80 That frames deep mysteries, then finds 'em out, Filling with frantic crowds of tinking fools Those reverend bedlams, colleges and schools; Borne on whose wings, each heavy sot can pierce The limits of the boundless universe; 85 So charming ointments make an old witch fly And bear a crippled carcass through the sky. 'Tis this exalted power, whose business lies In nonsense and impossibilities, This made a whimical philosopher 90 Before the spacious world, his tub prefer, And we have modern cloisterd coxcombs who Retire to think, 'cause they have nought to do. brkBut thoughts are given for action's government; Where action ceases, thought's impertinent. 95 Our sphere of action is life's happiness, And he who thinks beyond, thinks like an ass. Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh, I own right reason, which I would obey: That reason which distinguishes by sense 100 And gives us rules of good and ill from thence, That bounds desires with a reforming will To keep 'em more in vigor, not to kill. Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy, Renewing appetites yours would destroy. 105 My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat; Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat; Perversely, yours your appetite does mock: This asks for food, that answers, "What's o'clock?"" This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures: 110 'Tis not true reason I despise, but yours. brkThus I think reason righted, bur for man, I'll ne'er recant; defend him if you can. For all his pride and his philosophy, 'Tis evident beasts are, in their degree, 115 As wise at least, and better far than he. Those creatures are the wisest who attain, By surest means, the ends at which they aim. If therefore Jowler finds and kills his hares Better than Meres supplies committee chairs, 120 Though one's a statesman, th' other but a hound, Jowler, in justice, would be wiser found. brkYou see how far man's wisdom here extends; Look next if human nature makes amends: Whose principles most generous are, and just, 125 And to whose morals you would sooner trust. Be judge yourself, I'll bring it to the test: Which is the basest creature, man or beast? Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey, But savage man alone does man betray. 130 Pressed by necessity, they kill for food; Man undoes man to do himself no good. With teeth and claws by nature armed, they hunt Nature's allowance, to supply their want. But man, with smiles, embraces, frendship, praise, 135 Inhumanly his fellow's life betrays; With voluntary pains works his distress, Not through necessity, but wantonness. brkFor hunger or for love they fight or tear, Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear. 140 For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid, By fear to fear successively betrayed; Base fear, the source whence his best passions came: His boasted honor, and his dear-bought fame; That lust of power, to which he's a slave, 145 And for the which alone he dares be brave; To which his various projects are designed; Which makes him generous, affable, and kind; For which he takes such pains to be thought wise, And screws his actions in a forced disguise, 150 Leading a tedious life in misery Under laborious, mean hypocrisy. Look to the bottom of his vast design, Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join: The good he acts, the ill he does endure, 155 'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure. Merely for safety, after fame we thirst, For all me would be cowards if they durst. brkAnd honesty's against all common sense: Men must be knaves, 'tis in their own defence. 160 Mankind's dishonest, if you think it fair Amongst known cheats to play upon the square, You'll be undone. Nor can weak truth your reputation save: The knaves will all agree to call you knave. 165 Wronged shall he live, insulted o'er, oppressed, Who dares be less a villain than the rest. brkThus, sir, you see what human nature craves: Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves. The difference lies, as far as I can see, 170 Not in the thing itself, but the degree, And all the subject matter of debateIs only: Who's a knave of the first rate? brkAll this with indignation have I hurled At the pretending part of the proud world, 175 Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies Over their fellow slaves to tyrannize. brkBut if in Court so just a man there be (In Court a just man, yet unknown to me) 180 Who does his needful flattery direct, Not to oppress and ruin, but protect (Since flattery, which way soever laid, Is still a tax on that unhappy trade); If so upright a statesman you can find, 185 Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind, Who does his arts and policies apply To raise his country, not his family, Nor, whilst his pride owned avarice withstands, Receives close bribes through friends' corrupted hands - 190 brkIs there a churchman who on God relies; Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies? Not one blown up with vain prelatic pride, Who, for reproof of sins, does man deride; Whose envious heart makes preaching a pretense, 195 With his obstreperous, saucy eloquence, To chide at kings, and rail at men of sense; None of that sensual tribe whose talents lie In avarice, pride, sloth, and gluttony; Who hunt good livings, but abhor good lives; 200 Whose lust exalted to that height arrives They act adultery with their own wives, And ere a score of years completed be, Can from the lofty pulput proudly see Half a large parish their own progeny; Definition Satire against reason and mankind ROCHESTER Term Great Negative, how vainly wou'd the Wise, Enquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise, Didst thou not stand to point their dull Philosophies. Is, or is not, the Two great ends of Fate, And true, or false, the Subject of debate, That perfect, or destroy, the vast designs of Fate. When they have rack'd the Politicians Breast, Within thy Bosome, most securely rest, And when reduc'd to thee, are least unsafe, & best. But Nothing, why does something still permit, That Sacred Monarchs shou'd at Councel sit, With Persons highly thought, at best, for Nothing fit. Whil'st weighty Something modestly abstains, From Princes Coffers, and from States-Mens Brains, And Nothing there, like stately Nothing reigns. Nothing who dwellst with Fools, in grave disguise, For whom they Reverend shapes, & forms devise. Lawn-sleeves, & Furrs, & Gowns, when they like thee look wise. Definition Upon nothing ROCHESTER Term My Reconcilement to the Yahoo-kind in general might not be so difficult, if they would be content with those Vices and Follies only which Nature hath entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked at the Sight of a Lawyer, a Pick-pocket, a Colonel. . . . This is all according to the due Course of Things: But, when I behold a Lump of Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience; neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an Animal and such a Vice could tally together. Definition Part Four Gulliver's Travels: Yahoos and Houynahims SWIFT Term But Vengeance, Goddess never sleeping, Soon punish'd Strephon for his Peeping; His foul Imagination links Each Dame he sees with all her Stinks: And, if unsav'ry Odours fly, Conceives a Lady standing by: All Women his Description fits, And both Idea's jump like Wits: By vicious Fancy coupled fast, And still appearing in Contrast. I pity wretched Strephon blind to all the Charms of Female Kind; Should I the Queen of Love refuse, Because she rose from stinking Ooze? To him that looks behind the Scene, Satira's but some pocky Quean. When Celia in her Glory shows, If Strephon would but stop his Nose; (Who now so impiously blasphemes Her Ointments, Daubs, and Paints and Creams, Her Washes, Slops, and every Clout, With which he makes so foul a Rout;) He soon would learn to think like me, And bless his ravisht Sight to see Such Order from Confusion sprung, Such gaudy Tulips rais'd from Dung. Definition The lady's dressing Room SWIFT 1736 Term As Rochefoucault his Maxims drew From Nature, I believe 'em true: They argue no corrupted Mind In him; the Fault is in Mankind. This Maxim more than all the rest [5] Is thought too base for human Breast; "In all Distresses of our Friends We first consult our private Ends, "While Nature kindly bent to ease us, Points out some Circumstance to please us. [10] If this perhaps your Patience move Let Reason and Experience prove. We all behold with envious Eyes, Our Equal rais'd above our Size; Who wou'd not at a crowded Show, [15] Stand high himself, keep others low? I love my Friend as well as you, But would not have him stop my View; Then let him have the higher Post; I ask but for an Inch at most. [20] If in a Battle you should find, One, whom you love of all Mankind, Had some heroick Action done, A Champion kill'd, or Trophy won; Rather than thus be over-topt, [25] Would you not wish his Lawrels 3 cropt? Dear honest Ned is in the Gout, Lies rackt with Pain, and you without: 4 How patiently you hear him groan! How glad the Case is not your own! [30] What Poet would not grieve to see, His Brethren write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his Rivals all in Hell. Her End when Emulation misses, [35] She turns to Envy, Stings and Hisses: The strongest Friendship yields to Pride, Unless the Odds be on our Side. Vain human Kind! Fantastick Race! Thy various Follies, who can trace? [40] Self-love, Ambition, Envy, Pride, Their Empire in our Hearts divide: Give others Riches, Power, and Station, 'Tis all on me an Usurpation. I have no Title to aspire; [45] Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher. In Pope, 5 I cannot read a Line, But with a Sigh, I wish it mine: When he can in one Couplet fix More Sense than I can do in Six [50] It gives me such a jealous Fit, I cry, Pox take him, and his Wit. Why must I be outdone by Gay, In my own hum'rous biting Way? Arbuthnot 6 is no more my Friend, [55] Who dares to Irony pretend; Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it first, and shew'd its Use. St. John, as well as Pultney 7 knows, That I had some repute for Prose; [60] And till they drove me out of Date, Could maul a Minister of State: If they have mortify'd my Pride, And made me throw my Pen aside; If with such Talents Heav'n hath blest 'em [65] Have I not Reason to detest 'em? To all my Foes, dear Fortune, send Thy Gifts, but never to my Friend: I tamely can endure the first, But, this with Envy makes me burst. [70] Thus much may serve by way of Proem, 8 Proceed we therefore to our Poem. Definition Verses on the death of Dr. Swift SWIFT 1739 Term Canto I What dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs, 2 What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things, I sing — This Verse to C——, 3 Muse! is due; This, ev'n Belinda may vouchfafe to view: Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise, If She inspire, and He approve my Lays. Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle? Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd, Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? [1.10] And dwells such Rage in softest Bosoms then? And lodge such daring Souls in Little Men? Sol 4 thro' white Curtains shot a tim'rous Ray, And op'd those Eyes that must eclipse the Day; Now Lapdogs give themselves the rowzing Shake, And sleepless Lovers, just at Twelve, awake: Thrice rung the Bell, the Slipper knock'd the Ground, And the press'd Watch 5 return'd a silver Sound. Belinda still her downy Pillow prest, Her Guardian Sylph prolong'd the balmy Rest. [1.20] 'Twas he had summon'd to her silent Bed The Morning-Dream that hover'd o'er her Head. A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau, 6 (That ev'n in Slumber caus'd her Cheek to glow) Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay, And thus in Whispers said, or seem'd to say. Fairest of Mortals, thou distinguish'd Care Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air! If e'er one Vision touch'd thy infant Thought, Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught, [1.30] Of airy Elves by Moonlight Shadows seen, The silver Token, and the circled Green, Or Virgins visited by Angel-Pow'rs, With Golden Crowns and Wreaths of heav'nly Flowers, Hear and believe! thy own Importance know, Nor bound thy narrow Views to Things below. Some secret Truths from Learned Pride conceal'd, To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd: What tho' no Credit doubting Wits may give? 7 The Fair and Innocent shall still believe. [1.40] Know then, unnumbered Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower Sky; These, tho' unseen, are ever on the Wing, Hang o'er the Box, 8 and hover round the Ring. 9 Think what an Equipage 10 thou hast in Air, And view with scorn Two Pages and a Chair. 11 As now your own, our Beings were of old, And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous Mold; Thence, by a soft Transition, we repair 12 From earthly Vehicles to these of Air. [1.50] Think not, when Woman's transient Breath is fled, That all her Vanities at once are dead: Succeeding Vanities she still regards, And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the Cards. Her Joy in gilded Chariots, when alive, And Love of Ombre, 13 after Death survive. For when the Fair in all their Pride expire, To their first Elements the Souls retire: The Sprights of fiery Termagants 14 in Flame Mount up, and take a Salamander's 15 Name. [1.60] Soft yielding Minds to Water glide away, And sip with Nymphs, their Elemental Tea. The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of Mischief still on Earth to roam. The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the Fields of Air. Know farther yet; Whoever fair and chaste Rejects Mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd: For Spirits, freed from mortal Laws, with ease Assume what Sexes and what Shapes they please. [1.70] What guards the Purity of melting Maids, In Courtly Balls, and Midnight Masquerades, Safe from the treach'rous Friend, and daring Spark, 16 The Glance by Day, the Whisper in the Dark; When kind Occasion prompts their warm Desires, When Musick softens, and when Dancing fires? 'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know, Tho' Honour is the Word with Men below. Some Nymphs there are, too conscious of their Face, For Life predestin'd to the Gnomes Embrace. [1.80] These swell their Prospects and exalt their Pride, When Offers are disdain'd, and Love deny'd. Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant Brain; While Peers and Dukes, and all their sweeping Train, 17 And Garters, Stars, and Coronets 18 appear, And in soft Sounds, Your Grace 19 salutes their Ear. 'Tis these that early taint the Female Soul, Instruct the Eyes of young Coquettes to roll, Teach Infants Cheeks a bidden Blush 20 to know, And little Hearts to flutter at a Beau. [1.90] Oft when the World imagine Women stray, The Sylphs thro' mystick Mazes guide their Way, Thro' all the giddy Circle they pursue, And old Impertinence expel by new. What tender Maid but must a Victim fall To one Man's Treat, but for another's Ball? When Florio speaks, what Virgin could withstand, If gentle Damon did not squeeze her Hand? With varying Vanities, from ev'ry Part, They shift the moving Toyshop 21 of their Heart; [1.100] Where Wigs with Wigs, with Sword-knots Sword-knots strive, Beaus banish Beaus, and Coaches Coaches drive. 22 This erring Mortals Levity may call, Oh blind to Truth! the Sylphs contrive it all. Of these am I, who thy Protection claim, A watchful Sprite, and Ariel is my Name. Late, as I rang'd the Crystal Wilds of Air, In the clear Mirror 23 of thy ruling Star I saw, alas! some dread Event impend, E're to the Main this Morning Sun descend. [1.110] But Heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where: Warn'd by thy Sylph, oh Pious Maid beware! This to disclose is all thy Guardian can. Beware of all, but most beware of Man! He said; when Shock, 24 who thought she slept too long, Leapt up, and wak'd his Mistress with his Tongue. 'Twas then Belinda, if Report say true, Thy Eyes first open'd on a Billet-doux. 25 Wounds, Charms, and Ardors, were no sooner read, But all the Vision vanish'd from thy Head. [1.120] And now, unveil'd, the Toilet 26 stands display'd, Each Silver Vase in mystic Order laid. First, rob'd in White, the Nymph intent adores With Head uncover'd, the cosmetic Pow'rs. A heav'nly Image in the Glass appears, To that she bends, to that her Eyes she rears; Th' inferior Priestess, at her Altar's side, Trembling, begins the sacred Rites of Pride. Unnumber'd Treasures ope at once, and here The various Off'rings of the World appear; 27 [1.130] From each she nicely 28 culls with curious Toil, And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring Spoil. This Casket India's glowing Gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box. The Tortoise here and Elephant unite, Transform'd to Combs, the speckled and the white. Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows, Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux. Now awful 29 Beauty puts on all its Arms; The Fair each moment rises in her Charms, [1.140] Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace, And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face; Sees by Degrees a purer Blush arise, And keener Lightnings quicken in her Eyes. The busy Sylphs surround their darling Care; These set the Head, and those divide the Hair, Some fold the Sleeve, while others plait the Gown; And Betty's 30 prais'd for Labours not her own. Canto II Not with more Glories, in th' Etherial Plain, The Sun first rises o'er the purpled Main, Than issuing forth, the Rival of his Beams Lanch'd on the Bosom of the Silver Thames. Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone, But ev'ry Eye was fix'd on her alone. On her white Breast a sparkling Cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore. Her lively Looks a sprightly Mind disclose, Quick as her Eyes, and as unfix'd as those: [2.10] Favours to none, to all she Smiles extends, Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the Sun, her Eyes the Gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful Ease, and Sweetness void of Pride, Might hide her Faults, if Belles had faults to hide: If to her share some Female Errors fall, Look on her Face, and you'll forget 'em all. This Nymph, to the Destruction of Mankind, Nourish'd two Locks, which graceful hung behind [2.20] In equal Curls, and well conspir'd to deck With shining Ringlets her smooth Iv'ry Neck. Love in these Labyrinths his Slaves detains, And mighty Hearts are held in slender Chains. With hairy Sprindges 31 we the Birds betray, Slight Lines of Hair surprize the Finny Prey, Fair Tresses Man's Imperial Race insnare, And Beauty draws us with a single Hair. Th' Adventrous Baron the bright Locks admir'd, He saw, he wish'd, and to the Prize aspir'd: [2.30] Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way, By Force to ravish, or by Fraud betray; For when Success a Lover's Toil attends, Few ask, if Fraud or Force attain'd his Ends. For this, e're Phoebus rose, he had implor'd Propitious Heav'n, and ev'ry Pow'r ador'd, But chiefly Love — to Love an Altar built, Of twelve vast French Romances, neatly gilt. 32 There lay three Garters, half a Pair of Gloves; And all the Trophies of his former Loves. [2.40] With tender Billet-doux 33 he lights the Pyre, And breathes three am'rous Sighs to raise the Fire. Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent Eyes Soon to obtain, and long possess the Prize: The Pow'rs gave Ear, and granted half his Pray'r, The rest, the Winds dispers'd in empty Air. But now secure the painted Vessel glides, The Sun-beams trembling on the floating Tydes, While melting Musick steals upon the Sky, And soften'd Sounds along the Waters die. [2.50] Smooth flow the Waves, the Zephyrs 34 gently play, Belinda smil'd, and all the World was gay. All but the Sylph — With careful Thoughts opprest, Th' impending Woe sate heavy on his Breast. He summons strait his Denizens of Air; The lucid Squadrons round the Sails repair: Soft o'er the Shrouds Aerial Whispers breathe, That seem'd but Zephyrs to the Train beneath. Some to the Sun their Insect-Wings unfold, Waft on the Breeze, or sink in Clouds of Gold. [2.60] Transparent Forms, too fine for mortal Sight, Their fluid Bodies half dissolv'd in Light. Loose to the Wind their airy Garments flew, Thin glitt'ring Textures of the filmy Dew; Dipt in the richest Tincture of the Skies, Where Light disports in ever-mingling Dies, While ev'ry Beam new transient Colours flings, Colours that change whene'er they wave their Wings. Amid the Circle, on the gilded Mast, Superior by the Head, was Ariel plac'd; [2.70] His Purple Pinions 35 opening to the Sun, He rais'd his Azure Wand, and thus begun. Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your Chief give Ear, Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Dæmons hear! Ye know the Spheres and various Tasks assign'd, By Laws Eternal, to th' Aerial Kind. Some in the Fields of purest ’ther play, And bask and whiten in the Blaze of Day. Some guide the Course of wandring Orbs on high, Or roll the Planets thro' the boundless Sky. [2.80] Some less refin'd, beneath the Moon's pale Light Hover, and catch the shooting stars by Night; Or suck the Mists in grosser Air below, Or dip their Pinions in the painted Bow, Or brew fierce Tempests on the wintry Main, Or o'er the Glebe 36 distill the kindly Rain. Others on Earth o'er human Race preside, Watch all their Ways, and all their Actions guide: Of these the Chief the Care of Nations own, And guard with Arms Divine the British Throne. [2.90] Our humbler Province is to tend the Fair, Not a less pleasing, tho' less glorious Care. To save the Powder from too rude a Gale, Nor let th' imprison'd Essences exhale, To draw fresh Colours from the vernal Flow'rs, To steal from Rainbows ere they drop in Show'rs A brighter Wash; to curl their waving Hairs, Assist their Blushes, and inspire their Airs; Nay oft, in Dreams, Invention 37 we bestow, To change a Flounce, or add a Furbelo. 38 [2.100] This Day, black Omens threat the brightestFair That e'er deserv'd a watchful Spirit's Care; Some dire Disaster, or by Force, or Slight, But what, or where, the Fates have wrapt in Night. Whether the Nymph shall break Diana's Law, 39 Or some frail China Jar receive a Flaw, Or stain her Honour, or her new Brocade, Forget her Pray'rs, or miss a Masquerade, Or lose her Heart, or Necklace, at a Ball; Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall. [2.110] Haste then ye Spirits! to your Charge repair; The flutt'ring Fan be Zephyretta's Care; The Drops 40 to thee, Brillante, we consign; And Momentilla, let the Watch be thine; Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite Lock; Ariel himself shall be the Guard of Shock. To Fifty chosen Sylphs, of special Note, We trust th' important Charge, the Petticoat. 41 Oft have we known that sev'nfold Fence to fail; Tho' stiff with Hoops, and arm'd with Ribs of Whale. [2.120] Form a strong Line about the Silver Bound, And guard the wide Circumference around. Whatever spirit, careless of his Charge, His Post neglects, or leaves the Fair at large, Shall feel sharp Vengeance soon o'ertake his Sins, Be stopt in Vials, or transfixt with Pins. Or plung'd in Lakes of bitter Washes lie, Or wedg'd whole Ages in a Bodkin's Eye: 42 Gums and Pomatums 43 shall his Flight restrain, While clog'd he beats his silken Wings in vain; [2.130] Or Alom-Stypticks with contracting Power Shrink his thin Essence like a rivell'd Flower. Or as Ixion 44 fix'd, the Wretch shall feel The giddy Motion of the whirling Mill, In Fumes of burning Chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the Sea that froaths below! He spoke; the Spirits from the Sails descend; Some, Orb in Orb, around the Nymph extend, Some thrid the mazy Ringlets of her Hair, Some hang upon the Pendants of her Ear; [2.140] With beating Hearts the dire Event they wait, Anxious, and trembling for the Birth of Fate. Canto III Close by those Meads for ever crown'd with Flow'rs, Where Thames with Pride surveys his rising Tow'rs, There stands a Structure of Majestick Frame, Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its Name. Here Britain's Statesmen oft the Fall foredoom Of Foreign Tyrants, and of Nymphs at home; Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take — and sometimes Tea. 45 Hither the Heroes and the Nymphs resort, To taste awhile the Pleasures of a Court; [3.10] In various Talk th' instructive hours they past, Who gave the Ball, or paid the Visit last: One speaks the Glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian Screen. A third interprets Motions, Looks, and Eyes; At ev'ry Word a Reputation dies. Snuff, or the Fan, supply each Pause of Chat, With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that. Mean while declining from the Noon of Day, The Sun obliquely shoots his burning Ray; [3.20] The hungry Judges soon the Sentence sign, And Wretches hang that Jury-men may Dine; The Merchant from th' exchange 46 returns in Peace, And the long Labours of the Toilette cease— Belinda now, whom Thirst of Fame invites, Burns to encounter two adventrous Knights, At Ombre singly to decide their Doom; And swells her Breast with Conquests yet to come. Strait the three Bands prepare in Arms to join, Each Band the number of the Sacred Nine. 47 [3.30] Soon as she spreads her Hand, th' Aerial Guard Descend, and sit on each important Card, First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore, 48 Then each, according to the Rank they bore; For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient Race, Are, as when Women, wondrous fond of place. Behold, four Kings in Majesty rever'd, 49 With hoary Whiskers and a forky Beard; And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a Flow'r, Th' expressive Emblem of their softer Pow'r; [3.40] Four Knaves in Garbs succinct, 50 a trusty Band, Caps on their heads, and Halberds in their hand; And Particolour'd Troops, a shining Train, Draw forth to Combat on the Velvet Plain. The skilful Nymph reviews her Force withCare; Let Spades be Trumps, she said, and Trumps they were. Now move to War her Sable Matadores, In Show like Leaders of the swarthy Moors. Spadillio 51 first, unconquerable Lord! Led off two captive Trumps, and swept the Board. [3.50] As many more Manillio 52 forc'd to yield, And march'd a Victor from the verdant Field. Him Basto follow'd, but his Fate more hard Gain'd but one Trump and one Plebeian Card. With his broad Sabre next, a Chief in Years, The hoary Majesty of Spades appears; Puts forth one manly Leg, to sight reveal'd; The rest his many-colour'd Robe conceal'd. The Rebel-Knave, who dares his Prince engage, Proves the just Victim of his Royal Rage. [3.60] Ev'n mighty Pam 53 that Kings and Queens o'erthrow, And mow'd down Armies in the Fights of Lu, 54 Sad Chance of War! now, destitute of Aid, Falls undistinguish'd by the Victor Spade. Thus far both Armies to Belinda yield; Now to the Baron Fate inclines the Field. His warlike Amazon her Host invades, Th' Imperial Consort of the Crown of Spades. The Club's black Tyrant first her Victim dy'd, Spite of his haughty Mien, 55 and barb'rous Pride: [3.70] What boots 56 the Regal Circle on his Head, His Giant Limbs in State unwieldy spread? That long behind he trails his pompous Robe, And of all Monarchs only grasps the Globe? The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace; Th' embroider'd King who shows but half his Face, And his refulgent Queen, with Pow'rs combin'd, Of broken Troops an easie Conquest find. Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild Disorder seen, With Throngs promiscuous strow the level Green. [3.80] Thus when dispers'd a routed Army runs, Of Asia's Troops, and Africk's Sable Sons, With like Confusion different Nations fly, In various habits and of various Dye, The pierc'd Battalions dis-united fall, In Heaps on Heaps; one Fate o'erwhelms them all. The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily Arts, And wins (oh shameful Chance!) the Queen of Hearts. At this, the Blood the Virgin's Cheek forsook, A livid Paleness spreads o'er all her Look; [3.90] She sees, and trembles at th' approaching Ill, Just in the Jaws of Ruin, and Codille. 57 And now, (as oft in some distemper'd State) On one nice Trick depends the gen'ral Fate. An Ace of Hearts steps forth: The King unseen Lurk'd in her Hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen. He springs to Vengeance with an eager pace, And falls like Thunder on the prostrate Ace. The Nymph exulting fills with Shouts the Sky, The Walls, the Woods, and long Canals reply. [3.100] Oh thoughtless Mortals! ever blind to Fate, Too soon dejected, and too soon elate! Sudden these Honours shall be snatch'd away, And curs'd for ever this Victorious Day. For lo! the Board with Cups and Spoons is crown'd, The Berries crackle, and the Mill turns round. 58 On shining Altars of Japan 59 they raise The silver Lamp; the fiery Spirits blaze. From silver Spouts the grateful Liquors glide, And China's Earth receives the smoking Tyde. [3.110] At once they gratify their Scent and Taste, While frequent Cups prolong the rich Repast. Strait hover round the Fair her Airy Band; Some, as she sip'd, the fuming Liquor fann'd, Some o'er her Lap their careful Plumes display'd, Trembling, and conscious of the rich Brocade. Coffee, (which makes the Politician wise, And see thro' all things with his half shut Eyes) Sent up in Vapours to the Baron's Brain New Stratagems, the radiant Lock to gain. [3.120] Ah cease rash Youth! desist e'er 'tis too late, Fear the just Gods, and think of Scylla's Fate! 60 Chang'd to a Bird, and sent to flit in Air, She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd Hair! But when to Mischief Mortals bend their Will, How soon they find fit Instruments of Ill! Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting Grace A two-edg'd Weapon from her shining Case; So Ladies in Romance assist their Knight, Present the Spear, and arm him for the Fight. [3.130] He takes the Gift with rev'rence, and extends The little Engine on his Finger's Ends: This just behind Belinda's Neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant Steams she bends her Head: Swift to the Lock a thousand Sprights repair, A thousand Wings, by turns, blow back the Hair, And thrice they twitch'd the Diamond in her Ear, Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the Foe drew near. Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought The close Recesses of the Virgin's Thought; [3.140] As on the Nosegay in her Breast reclin'd, He watch'd th' Ideas rising in her Mind, Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her Art, An Earthly Lover lurking at her Heart. Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his Pow'r expir'd, Resign'd to Fate, and with a Sigh retir'd. The Peer now spreads the glitt'ring Forfex 61 wide, T'inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide. Ev'n then, before the fatal Engine clos'd, A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd; [3.150] Fate urg'd the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain, (But Airy Substance soon unites again) 62 The meeting Points that sacred Hair dissever From the fair Head, for ever and for ever! Then flash'd the living Lightnings from her Eyes, And Screams of Horror rend th' affrighted Skies. Not louder Shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast, When Husbands or when Lap-dogs breath their last, Or when rich China Vessels, fal'n from high, In glittring Dust and painted Fragments lie! [3.160] Let Wreaths of Triumph now my Temples twine, (The Victor cry'd) the glorious Prize is mine! While Fish in Streams, or Birds delight in Air, Or in a Coach and Six the British Fair, As long as Atalantis shall be read, 63 Or the small Pillow grace a Lady's Bed, While Visits shall be paid on solemn Days, When numerous Wax-lights in bright Order blaze, While Nymphs take Treats, or Assignations give, So long my Honour, Name, and Praise shall live! [3.170] What Time wou'd spare, from Steel receives its date, And Monuments, like Men, submit to Fate! Steel cou'd the Labour of the Gods destroy, And strike to Dust th' Imperial Tow'rs of Troy. Steel cou'd the Works of mortal Pride confound, And hew Triumphal Arches to the Ground. What Wonder then, fair Nymph! thy Hairs shou'd feel The conqu'ring Force of unresisted Steel? Canto IV But anxious Cares the pensive Nymph opprest, And secret Passions labour'd in her Breast. Not youthful Kings in Battel seiz'd alive, Not scornful Virgins who their Charms survive, Not ardent Lovers robb'd of all their Bliss, Not ancient Ladies when refus'd a Kiss, Not Tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, Not Cynthia when her Manteau's 64 pinn'd awry, E'er felt such Rage, Resentment and Despair, As Thou, sad Virgin! for thy ravish'd Hair. [4.10] For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew, And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dusky melancholy Spright, As ever sully'd the fair face of Light, Down to the Central Earth, his proper Scene, Repairs to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen. 65 Swift on his sooty Pinions flitts the Gnome, And in a Vapour reach'd the dismal Dome. 66 No cheerful Breeze this sullen Region knows, The dreaded East is all the Wind that blows. [4.20] Here, in a Grotto, sheltred close from Air, And screen'd in Shades from Day's detested Glare, She sighs for ever on her pensive Bed, Pain at her side, and Megrim 67 at her Head. Two Handmaids wait the Throne: Alike in Place, But diff'ring far in Figure and in Face. Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient Maid, Her wrinkled Form in Black and White array'd; With store of Pray'rs, for Mornings, Nights, and Noons, Her Hand is fill'd; her Bosom with Lampoons. 68 [4.30] There Affectation with a sickly Mien Shows in her Cheek the Roses of Eighteen, Practis'd to Lisp, and hang the Head aside, Faints into Airs, and languishes with Pride; On the rich Quilt sinks with becoming Woe, Wrapt in a Gown, for Sickness, and for Show. The Fair ones feel such Maladies as these, When each new Night-Dress gives a new Disease. A constant Vapour 69 o'er the Palace flies; Strange Phantoms rising as the Mists arise; [4.40] Dreadful, as Hermit's Dreams in haunted Shades, Or bright as Visions of expiring Maids. Now glaring Fiends, and Snakes on rolling Spires, Pale Spectres, gaping Tombs, and Purple Fires: Now Lakes of liquid Gold, Elysian 70 Scenes, And Crystal Domes, and Angels in Machines. Unnumber'd Throngs on ev'ry side are seen Of Bodies chang'd to various Forms by Spleen. Here living Teapots stand, one Arm held out, One bent; the Handle this, and that the Spout: [4.50] A Pipkin there like Homer's Tripod 71 walks; Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose Pie 72 talks; Men prove with Child, as pow'rful Fancy works, And Maids turn'd Bottels, call aloud for Corks. Safe past the Gnome thro' this fantastick Band, A Branch of healing Spleenwort in his hand. 73 Then thus addrest the Pow'r — Hail wayward Queen! Who rule the Sex 74 to Fifty from Fifteen, Parent of Vapors and of Female Wit, Who give th' Hysteric 75 or Poetic Fit, [4.60] On various Tempers act by various ways, Make some take Physick, others scribble Plays; Who cause the Proud their Visits to delay, And send the Godly in a Pett, 76 to pray. A Nymph there is, that all thy Pow'r disdains, And thousands more in equal Mirth maintains. But oh! if e'er thy Gnome could spoil a Grace, Or raise a Pimple on a beauteous Face, Like Citron-Waters 77 Matron's Cheeks inflame, Or change Complexions at a losing Game; [4.70] If e'er with airy Horns I planted Heads, 78 Or rumpled Petticoats, or tumbled Beds, Or caus'd Suspicion when no Soul was rude, Or discompos'd the Head-dress of a Prude, Or e'er to costive 79 Lap-Dog gave Disease, Which not the Tears of brightest Eyes could ease: Hear me, and touch Belinda with Chagrin; That single Act gives half the World the Spleen. The Goddess with a discontented Air Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his Pray'r. [4.80] A wondrous Bag with both her Hands she binds, Like that where once Ulysses held the Winds; 80 There she collects the Force of Female Lungs, Sighs, Sobs, and Passions, and the War of Tongues. A Vial next she fills with fainting Fears, Soft Sorrows, melting Griefs, and flowing Tears. The Gnome rejoicing bears her Gift away, Spreads his black Wings, and slowly mounts to Day. Sunk in Thalestris' 81 Arms the Nymph he found, Her Eyes dejected and her Hair unbound. [4.90] Full o'er their Heads the swelling Bag he rent, And all the Furies issued at the Vent. Belinda burns with more than mortal Ire, And fierce Thalestris fans the rising Fire. O wretched Maid! she spread her hands, and cry'd, (While Hampton's Ecchos, wretched Maid reply'd) Was it for this you took such constant Care The Bodkin, Comb, and Essence to prepare; For this your Locks in Paper-Durance 82 bound, For this with tort'ring Irons wreath'd around? [4.100] For this with Fillets 83 strain'd your tender Head, And bravely bore the double Loads of Lead? Gods! shall the Ravisher display your Hair, While the Fops envy, and the Ladies stare! Honour forbid! at whose unrival'd Shrine Ease, Pleasure, Virtue, All, our Sex resign. Methinks already I your Tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say, Already see you a degraded Toast, 84 And all your Honour in a Whisper lost! [4.110] How shall I, then, your helpless Fame defend? 'Twill then be Infamy to seem your Friend! And shall this Prize, th' inestimable Prize, Expos'd thro' Crystal to the gazing Eyes, And heighten'd by the Diamond's circling Rays, On that Rapacious Hand for ever blaze? Sooner shall Grass in Hide Park Circus grow, And Wits take Lodgings in the Sound of Bow; 85 Sooner let Earth, Air, Sea, to Chaos fall, Men, Monkies, Lap-dogs, Parrots, perish all! [4.120] She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, And bids her Beau demand the precious Hairs: (Sir Plume, of Amber Snuff-box justly vain, And the nice Conduct of a clouded Cane 86 ) With earnest Eyes, and round unthinking Face, He first the Snuff-box open'd, then the Case, And thus broke out — "My Lord, why, what the Devil? "Z—ds! 87 damn the Lock! 'fore Gad, you must be civil! "Plague on't! 'tis past a Jest — nay prithee, Pox! "Give her the Hair — he spoke, and rapp'd his Box. [4.130] It grieves me much (reply'd the Peer again) Who speaks so well shou'd ever speak in vain. But by this Lock, this sacred Lock I swear, (Which never more shall join its parted Hair, Which never more its Honours shall renew, Clipt from the lovely Head where late it grew) That while my Nostrils draw the vital Air, This Hand, which won it, shall for ever wear. He spoke, and speaking, in proud Triumph spread The long-contended Honours of her Head. [4.140] But Umbriel, hateful Gnome! forbears not so; He breaks the Vial whence the Sorrows flow. Then see! the Nymph in beauteous Grief appears, Her Eyes half languishing, half drown'd in Tears; On her heav'd Bosom hung her drooping Head, Which, with a Sigh, she rais'd; and thus she said. 88 For ever curs'd be this detested Day, Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite Curl away! Happy! ah ten times happy, had I been, If Hampton-Court these Eyes had never seen! [4.150] Yet am not I the first mistaken Maid, By Love of Courts to num'rous Ills betray'd. Oh had I rather un-admir'd remain'd In some lone Isle, or distant Northern Land; Where the gilt Chariot never marks the way, Where none learn Ombre, none e'er taste Bohea! 89 There kept my Charms conceal'd from mortal Eye, Like Roses that in Desarts bloom and die. What mov'd my Mind with youthful Lords to rome? O had I stay'd, and said my Pray'rs at home! [4.160] 'Twas this, the Morning Omens seem'd to tell; Thrice from my trembling hand the Patch-box fell; The tott'ring China shook without a Wind, Nay, Poll sate mute, and Shock was most Unkind! A Sylph too warn'd me of the Threats of Fate, In mystic Visions, now believ'd too late! See the poor Remnants of these slighted Hairs! My hands shall rend what ev'n thy Rapine spares: These, in two sable Ringlets taught to break, Once gave new Beauties to the snowie Neck. [4.170] The Sister-Lock now sits uncouth, alone, And in its Fellow's Fate foresees its own; Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal Sheers demands; And tempts once more thy sacrilegious Hands. Oh hadst thou, Cruel! been content to seize Hairs less in sight, or any Hairs but these! Canto V She said: the pitying Audience melt in Tears, But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's Ears. In vain Thalestris with Reproach assails, For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half to fixt the Trojan cou'd remain, While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. Then grave Clarissa 90 graceful wav'd her Fan; Silence ensu'd, and thus the Nymph began. Say, why are Beauties prais'd and honour'd most, The wise Man's Passion, and the vain Man's Toast? [5.10] Why deck'd with all that Land and Sea afford, Why Angels call'd, and Angel-like ador'd? Why round our Coaches crowd the white-glov'd Beaus, Why bows the Side-box from its inmost Rows? How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains, Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains: That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace, Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face! Oh! if to dance all Night, and dress all Day, Charm'd the Small-pox, or chas'd old Age away; [5.20] Who would not scorn what Huswife's Cares produce, Or who would learn one earthly Thing of Use? To patch, nay ogle, might become a Saint, Nor could it sure be such a Sin to paint. 91 But since, alas! frail Beauty must decay, Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey, Since paint'd, or not paint'd, all shall fade, And she who scorns a Man, must die a Maid; What then remains, but well our Pow'r to use, And keep good Humour still whate'er we lose? [5.30] And trust me, Dear! good Humour can prevail, When Airs, and Flights, and Screams, and Scolding fail. Beauties in vain their pretty Eyes may roll; Charms strike the Sight, but Merit wins the Soul. So spake the Dame, but no Applause ensu'd; Belinda frown'd, Thalestris call'd her Prude. To Arms, to Arms! the fierce Virago 92 cries, And swift as Lightning to the Combate flies. All side in Parties, and begin th' Attack; Fans clap, Silks russle, and tough Whalebones crack; [5.40] Heroes and Heroins Shouts confus'dly rise, And base, and treble Voices strike the Skies. No common Weapons in their Hands are found, Like Gods they fight, nor dread a mortal Wound. So when bold Homer makes the Gods engage, And heav'nly Breasts with human Passions rage; 'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms; 93 And all Olympus rings with loud Alarms. Jove's Thunder roars, Heav'n trembles all around; Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing Deeps resound; [5.50] Earth shakes her nodding Tow'rs, the Ground gives way; And the pale Ghosts start at the Flash of Day! Triumphant Umbriel on a Sconce's 94 Height Clapt his glad Wings, and sate to view the Fight, Propt on their Bodkin Spears, the Sprights survey The growing Combat, or assist the Fray. While thro' the Press enrag'd Thalestris flies, And scatters Deaths around from both her Eyes, A Beau and Witling perish'd in the Throng, One dy'd in Metaphor, and one in Song. [5.60] O cruel Nymph! a living Death I bear, Cry'd Dapperwit, and sunk beside his Chair. A mournful Glance Sir Fopling 95 upwards cast, Those Eyes are made so killing 96 — was his last: Thus on Meander's flow'ry Margin 97 lies Th' expiring Swan, and as he sings he dies. When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, Chloe stept in, and kill'd him with a Frown; She smil'd to see the doughty Hero slain, But at her Smile, the Beau reviv'd again. [5.70] Now Jove suspends his golden Scales in Air, Weighs the Mens Wits against the Lady's Hair; The doubtful Beam long nods from side to side; At length the Wits mount up, the Hairs subside. See fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, With more than usual Lightning in her Eyes; Nor fear'd the Chief th' unequal Fight to try, Who sought no more than on his Foe to die. 98 But this bold Lord, with manly Strength indu'd, She with one Finger and a Thumb subdu'd, [5.80] Just where the Breath of Life his Nostrils drew, A Charge of Snuff the wily Virgin threw; The Gnomes direct, to ev'ry Atome just, The pungent Grains of titillating Dust. Sudden, with starting Tears each Eye o'erflows, And the high Dome re-ecchoes to his Nose. Now meet thy Fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd, And drew a deadly Bodkin from her Side. (The same, his ancient Personage to deck, Her great great Grandsire wore about his Neck [5.90] In three Seal-Rings which after, melted down, Form'd a vast Buckle for his Widow's Gown: Her infant Grandame's Whistle next it grew, The Bells she gingled, and the Whistle blew; Then in a Bodkin grac'd her Mother's Hairs, Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) Boast not my Fall (he cry'd) insulting Foe! Thou by some other shalt be laid as low. Nor think, to die dejects my lofty Mind; All that I dread, is leaving you behind! [5.100] Rather than so, ah let me still survive, And burn in Cupid's Flames, — but burn alive. Restore the Lock! she cries; and all around Restore the Lock! the vaulted Roofs rebound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a Strain Roar'd for the Handkerchief that caus'd his Pain. But see how oft Ambitious Aims are cross'd, And Chiefs contend 'till all the Prize is lost! The Lock, obtain'd with Guilt, and kept with Pain, In ev'ry place is sought, but sought in vain: [5.110] With such a Prize no Mortal must be blest, So Heav'n decrees! with Heav'n who can contest? Some thought it mounted to the Lunar Sphere, Since all things lost on Earth, are treasur'd there. There Heroe's Wits are kept in pondrous Vases, And Beau's in Snuff-boxes and Tweezer-Cases. There broken Vows, and Death-bed Alms are found, And Lovers Hearts with Ends of Riband bound; The Courtiers Promises, and Sick Man's Pray'rs, The Smiles of Harlots, and the Tears of Heirs, [5.120] Cages for Gnats, and Chains to Yoak a Flea; Dry'd Butterflies, and Tomes of Casuistry. But trust the Muse — she saw it upward rise, Tho' mark'd by none but quick Poetic Eyes: (So Rome's great Founder to the Heav'ns withdrew, To Proculus alone confess'd in view. 99 ) A sudden Star, it shot thro' liquid Air, And drew behind a radiant Trail of Hair. Not Berenice's Locks 100 first rose so bright, The heav'ns bespangling with dishevel'd light. [5.130] The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, And pleas'd pursue its Progress thro' the Skies. This the Beau-monde shall from the Mall 101 survey, And hail with Musick its propitious Ray. This, the blest Lover shall for Venus take, And send up Vows from Rosamonda's Lake. 102 This Partridge 103 soon shall view in cloudless Skies, When next he looks thro' Galilæo's Eyes; And hence th' Egregious Wizard shall foredoom The Fate of Louis, and the Fall of Rome. 104 [5.140] Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn the ravish'd Hair Which adds new Glory to the shining Sphere! Not all the Tresses that fair Head can boast Shall draw such Envy as the Lock you lost. For, after all the Murders of your Eye, When, after Millions slain, your self shall die; When those fair Suns shall sett, as sett they must, And all those Tresses shall be laid in Dust; This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to Fame, And mid'st the Stars inscribe Belinda's Name! [5.150] Definition Rape of the Lock POPE Term 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) [70] His very minister who spied them first, (Some say his queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face? "Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang'rous things. [75] I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings; Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick; 'Tis nothing" — Nothing? if they bite and kick? Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass, That secret to each fool, that he's an ass: [80] The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?) The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I. You think this cruel? take it for a rule, No creature smarts so little as a fool. Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break, [85] Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, box, and gall'ry in convulsions hurl'd, Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world. Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew; [90] Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again; Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs; Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer, [95] Lost the arch'd eye-brow, or Parnassian sneer? And has not Colly still his Lord, and Whore? His butchers Henley, his Free-masons Moor? Does not one table Bavius still admit? Still to one Bishop Philips seem a Wit? [100] Still Sapho — "Hold! for God-sake — you'll offend: No names! — be calm! — learn prudence of a friend! I too could write, and I am twice as tall; But foes like these!" One flatt'rer's worse than all. Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right, [105] It is the slaver kills, and not the bite. A fool quite angry is quite innocent; Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent. One dedicates in high heroic prose, And ridicules beyond a hundred foes; [110] One from all Grubstreet will my fame defend, And, more abusive, calls himself my friend. This prints my Letters, that expects a bribe, And others roar aloud, "Subscribe, subscribe. Definition Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734) POPE Term MACHEATH. Dear Mrs. Coaxer, you are welcome. You look charmingly to-day. I hope you don't want the Repairs of Quality, and lay on Paint.--- -Dolly Trull! kiss me, you Slut; are you as amorous as ever, Hussy? You are always so taken up with stealing Hearts, that you don't allow yourself Time to steal anything else.----Ah Dolly, thou wilt ever be a Coquette!----Mrs. Vixen, I'm yours, I always lov'd a Woman of Wit and Spirit; they make charming Mistresses, but plaguey Wives.-- --Betty Doxy! Come hither, Hussy. Do you drink as hard as ever? You had better stick to good wholesom Beer; for in troth, Betty, Strong-Waters {57} will in time ruin your Constitution. You should leave those to your Betters.--What! and my pretty Jenny Diver too! As prim and demure as ever! There is not any Prude, though ever so high-bred, hath a more sanctify'd Look, with a more mischievous Heart. Ah! thou art a dear artful Hypocrite.----Mrs. Slammekin! as careless and genteel as ever! all you fine Ladies, who know your own Beauty, affect an Undress.----But see, here's Suky Tawdry come to contradict what I am saying. Everything she gets one way she lays out upon her Back. Why, Suky, you must keep at least a Dozen Talleymen {58}. Molly Brazen! [She kisses him.] That's well done. I love a free-hearted Wench. Thou hast a most agreeable Assurance, Girl, and art as willing as a Turtle.-----But hark! I hear Music. The Harper is at the Door. If Music be the Food of Love, play on {59}. Ere you seat yourselves, Ladies, what think you of a Dance? Come in. [Enter Harper.] Play the French Tune, that Mrs. Slammekin was so fond of. Definition the beggar's opera 1728 POPE Term 1Condemn'd to hope's delusive mine, 2 As on we toil from day to day, 3By sudden blasts, or slow decline, 4 Our social comforts drop away. 5Well tried through many a varying year, 6 See Levet to the grave descend; 7Officious, innocent, sincere, 8 Of ev'ry friendless name the friend. 9Yet still he fills affection's eye, 10 Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind; 11Nor, letter'd arrogance, deny 12 Thy praise to merit unrefin'd. 13When fainting nature call'd for aid, 14 And hov'ring death prepar'd the blow, 15His vig'rous remedy display'd 16 The pow'r of art without the show. 17In misery's darkest caverns known, 18 His useful care was ever nigh, 19Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, 20 And lonely want retir'd to die. 21No summons mock'd by chill delay, 22 No petty gain disdain'd by pride, 23The modest wants of ev'ry day 24 The toil of ev'ry day supplied. 25His virtues walk'd their narrow round, 26 Nor made a pause, nor left a void, 27And sure th' Eternal Master found 28 The single talent well employ'd. 29The busy day, the peaceful night, 30 Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; 31His frame was firm, his powers were bright, 32 Though now his eightieth year was nigh. 33Then with no throbbing fiery pain, 34 No cold gradations of decay, 35Death broke at once the vital chain, 36 And free'd his soul the nearest way. Definition on the death of dr. levett (1782) johnson Term That the highest degree of reverence should be paid to youth, and that nothing indecent should be suffered to approach their eyes or ears; are precepts extorted by sense and virtue from an ancient writer, by no means eminent for chastity of thought. The same kind, tho' not the same degree of caution, is required in every thing which is laid before them, to secure them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous combinations of images. In the romances formerly written, every transaction and sentiment was so remote from all that passes among men, that the reader was in very little danger of making any application to himself; the virtues and crimes were equally beyond his sphere of activity; and he amused himself with heroes and with traitors, deliverers and persecutors, as with beings of another species, whose actions were regulated upon motives of their own, and who had neither faults nor excellences in common with himself. But when an adventurer is levelled with th Definition The Rambler JOHNSON Term But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon certainty, never becomes infallible; and approbation, though long continued, may yet be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion; it is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of excellence Shakespeare has gained and kept the favour of his countrymen. Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight a-while, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth. Definition preface to shakespeare (1765) JOHNSON Term Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the watery glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's holy shade; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights the expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way. Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade, Ah, fields beloved in vain, Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales, that from ye blow, A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring. Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green The paths of pleasure trace, Who foremost now delight to cleave With pliant arm thy glassy wave? The captive linnet which enthrall? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball? Definition Ode on a distant prospect of eton college GRAY Term The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share, Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the Poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:- The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Definition Elegy written in a country churchyard 1751 GRAY Term TIGER, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies 5 Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 10 And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp 15 Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee? 20 Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Definition Tyger 1794 BLAKE Term Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life, and bid thee feed, By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee. He is called by thy name, For He calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild; He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Littl Definition The Lamb1794 BLAKE Term In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. The cut worm forgives the plow. Dip him in the river who loves water. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. Eternity is in love with the productions of time. The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure. All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap. Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth. No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. A dead body, revenges not injuries. The most sublime act is to set another before you. If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. Folly is the cloke of knavery. Shame is Prides cloke. Definition The marriage of Heaven and Hell 1793 BLAKE Term I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, An' never miss't! Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin, Baith snell an' keen! Definition TO a Mouse 1785 BURNS Term In Xanadu did Kubla Khan (1) A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, (2) the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, (3) Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! (4) A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently (5) was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer (6) In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian (7) maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, (8) And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. Definition Kubla Khan (1816) COLERIDGE Term The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ; The guests are met, the feast is set : May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, `There was a ship,' quoth he. `Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !' Eftsoons his hand dropt he. The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale. He holds him with his glittering eye-- The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child : The Mariner hath his will. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone : He cannot choose but hear ; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. `The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. Definition Rime of the Ancient Mariner 1799 COLERIDGE Term In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall, An old man dwells, a little man, - 'Tis said he once was tall. Full five-and-thirty years he lived A running huntsman merry; And still the centre of his cheek Is red as a ripe cherry. No man like him the horn could sound, And hill and valley rang with glee When Echo bandied, round and round, The halloo of Simon Lee. In those proud days, he little cared For husbandry or tillage; To blither tasks did Simon rouse The sleepers of the village. He all the country could outrun, Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the chase was done, He reeled, and was stone-blind. And still there's something in the world At which his heart rejoices; For when the chiming hounds are out, He dearly loves their voices! But, Oh the heavy change! -bereft Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see! Old Simon to the world is left In liveried poverty. His Master's dead, and no one now Dwells in the Hall of Ivor; Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; He is the sole survivor. Definition Simon Lee 1798 WORDSWORTH Term I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. Nature has connected itself to the speaker's soul, leading him to sadly consider "What man has made of man." Even as he does this, however, he takes in the beautiful scene that surrounds him: To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. Definition Lines written in early spring 1888 WORDSWORTH Term FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. -- Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened: -- that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, -- Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Definition Tintern Abbey 1798 WORDSWORTH Term I found a ball of grass among the hay And progged it as I passed and went away; And when I looked I fancied something stirred, And turned again and hoped to catch the bird— When out an old mouse bolted in the wheats With all her young ones hanging at her teats; She looked so odd and so grotesque to me, I ran and wondered what the thing could be, And pushed the knapweed bunches where I stood; Then the mouse hurried from the craking brood. The young ones squeaked, and as I went away She found her nest again among the hay. The water o'er the pebbles scarce could run And broad old cesspools glittered in the su Definition Mouse's Nest 1839 JOHN CLARE Term I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am! and live with shadows tost Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life nor joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best-- Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest. I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below--above the vaulted sky. Definition I AM 1800 John Clare Term Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 2 Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 3Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 4 A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 5What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 6 Of deities or mortals, or of both, 7 In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 8 What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 9What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 10 What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 11Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 12 Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 13Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, 14 Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: 15Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 16 Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 17 Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 18Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; 19 She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 20 For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 21Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 22 Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 23And, happy melodist, unwearied, 24 For ever piping songs for ever new; 25More happy love! more happy, happy love! 26 For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 27 For ever panting, and for ever young; 28All breathing human passion far above, 29 That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 30 A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 31Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 32 To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 33Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 34 And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 35What little town by river or sea shore, 36 Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 37 Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 38And, little town, thy streets for evermore 39 Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 40 Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 41O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 42 Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 43With forest branches and the trodden weed; 44 Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 45As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 46 When old age shall this generation waste, 47 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 48Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 49 "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all 50 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." Definition Ode on a Grecian Urn 1815 Term met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away". Definition Ozymandias 1815 SHELLEY Term n old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-- Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,-- Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-- A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-- An army, which liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-- Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; Religion Christless, Godless--a book sealed; A Senate,--Time's worst statute unrepealed,-- Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestous day. Definition England in 1819 (1815) SHELLEY Term I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! Definition Ode to the West Wind Shelley Term THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5 Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10 Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15 Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20 Definition Ode on a grecian urn 1819 KEATS Term MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5 But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10 O for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South! 15 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stainèd mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30 Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, 35 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45 White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50 Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55 To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod. 60 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that ofttimes hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70 Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep? 80 Definition Ode to a Nightengale 1819 KEATS Term 1. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 5 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, 10 For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15 Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20 Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Definition To Autumn 1819 KEATS Term It little profits that an idle king, 2By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 3Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 4Unequal laws unto a savage race, 5That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 6I cannot rest from travel: I will drink 7Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd 8Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 9That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when 10Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 11Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; 12For always roaming with a hungry heart 13Much have I seen and known; cities of men 14And manners, climates, councils, governments, 15Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; 16And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 17Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 18I am a part of all that I have met; 19Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 20Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 21For ever and forever when I move. 22How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 23To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 24As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 25Were all too little, and of one to me 26Little remains: but every hour is saved 27From that eternal silence, something more, 28A bringer of new things; and vile it were 29For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 30And this gray spirit yearning in desire 31To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 32Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 33 This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 34To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,-- 35Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 36This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 37A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 38Subdue them to the useful and the good. 39Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 40Of common duties, decent not to fail 41In offices of tenderness, and pay 42Meet adoration to my household gods, 43When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 44 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: 45There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, 46Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-- 47That ever with a frolic welcome took 48The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 49Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old; 50Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; 51Death closes all: but something ere the end, 52Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 53Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 54The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 55The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 56Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 57'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 58Push off, and sitting well in order smite 59The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 60To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 61Of all the western stars, until I die. 62It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 63It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 64And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 65Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 66We are not now that strength which in old days 67Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 68One equal temper of heroic hearts, 69Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 70To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Notes Definition ULysses 1842 TENNYSON Term Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn: 2Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. 3'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, 4Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; 5Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, 6And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 7Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, 8Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 9Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, 10Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 11Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime 12With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; 13When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; 14When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: 15When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; 16Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.-- 17In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; 18In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 19In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; 20In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. 21Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, 22And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. 23And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, 24Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." 25On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, 26As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. 27And she turn'd--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs-- 28All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes-- 29Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong"; 30Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long." 31Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; 32Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 33Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; 34Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. 35Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, 36And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring. 37Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, 38And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. 39O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! 40O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! 41Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, 42Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! 43Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline 44On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! 45Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day, 46What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. 47As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, 48And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. 49He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, 50Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. 51What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine. 52Go to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine. 53It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought: 54Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. 55He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand-- 56Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand! Definition Locksley Hall 1842 TENNYSON Term STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow. Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. Forgive what seem’d my sin in me; What seem’d my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee. Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise. Definition In memoriam AHH Tennyson Term he curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps "Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint "Must never hope to reproduce the faint "Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart how shall I say? too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men good! but thanked Somehow I know not how as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech which I have not to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this "Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, "Or there exceed the mark" and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and make excuse, E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! Definition My last Duchess 1842 Robert BROWNING Term DOES the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you waiting at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come. Definition Uphill 1878 ROSETTI Term Yea, once we had sight of another: but now she is queen, say these. 78Not as thine, not as thine was our mother, a blossom of flowering seas, 79Clothed round with the world's desire as with raiment, and fair as the foam, 80And fleeter than kindled fire, and a goddess, and mother of Rome. 81For thine came pale and a maiden, and sister to sorrow; but ours, 82Her deep hair heavily laden with odour and colour of flowers, 83White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame, 84Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name. 85For thine came weeping, a slave among slaves, and rejected; but she 86Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea. 87And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds and the viewless ways, 88And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays. 89Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wise that ye should not fall. 90Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all. 91But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end; 92Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. 93O daughter of earth, of my mother, her crown and blossom of birth, 94I am also, I also, thy brother; I go as I came unto earth. 95In the night where thine eyes are as moons are in heaven, the night where thou art, 96Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart, 97Where the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world, and the red rose is white, 98And the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night, 99And the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of Gods from afar 100Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star, 101In the sweet low light of thy face, under heavens untrod by the sun, 102Let my soul with their souls find place, and forget what is done and undone. 103Thou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath; 104Let these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death. 105Therefore now at thy feet I abide for a season in silence. I know 106I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so. 107For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; 108A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man. 109So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep. 110For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep. Definition Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation in Rome of the Christian Faith 1866 ALGERNON SWINEBURN Term The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. Definition God's Grandeur (1877) HOPKINS Term To Christ our Lord I caught this morning morning's minion, king- dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. Definition the windhover 1877 HOPKINS Term To a young child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sorrow's springs are the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for. Definition SPring and Fall 1880 HOPKINS Term 1No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, 2 More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. 3 Comforter, where, where is your comforting? 4Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? 5My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief- 6 Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old ánvil wínce and síng -- 7 Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling- 8Ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief." 9O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall 10 Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap 11May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small 12 Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, 13Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all 14 Life death does end and each day dies with sleep. Definition No worse there is none HOPKINS Term Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 2 With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. 3 Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must 4Disappointment all I endeavour end? 5Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 6 How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost 7 Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust 8Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, 9Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes 10 Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again 11With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes 12 Them; birds build -- but not I build; no, but strain, 13Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. 14 Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain. Definition Thou Art indeed just Lord HOPKINS Term I 1Only a man harrowing clods 2 In a slow silent walk 3With an old horse that stumbles and nods 4 Half asleep as they stalk. II 5Only thin smoke without flame 6 From the heaps of couch-grass; 7Yet this will go onward the same 8 Though Dynasties pass. III 9Yonder a maid and her wight 10 Come whispering by: 11War's annals will cloud into night 12 Ere their story die. Definition In Time of "The Breaking of Nations" HARDY Term That night your great guns, unawares, 2Shook all our coffins as we lay, 3And broke the chancel window-squares, 4We thought it was the Judgment-day 5And sat upright. While drearisome 6Arose the howl of wakened hounds: 7The mouse let fall the altar-crumb, 8The worms drew back into the mounds, 9The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No; 10It's gunnery practice out at sea 11Just as before you went below; 12The world is as it used to be: 13"All nations striving strong to make 14Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters 15They do no more for Christés sake 16Than you who are helpless in such matters. 17"That this is not the judgment-hour 18For some of them's a blessed thing, 19For if it were they'd have to scour 20Hell's floor for so much threatening .... 21"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when 22I blow the trumpet (if indeed 23I ever do; for you are men, 24And rest eternal sorely need)." 25So down we lay again. "I wonder, 26Will the world ever saner be," 27Said one, "than when He sent us under 28In our indifferent century!" 29And many a skeleton shook his head. 30"Instead of preaching forty year," 31My neighbour Parson Thirdly said, 32"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer." 33Again the guns disturbed the hour, 34Roaring their readiness to avenge, 35As far inland as Stourton Tower, 36And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge. Definition Channel Firing HARDY Term I 1 In a solitude of the sea 2 Deep from human vanity, 3And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. II 4 Steel chambers, late the pyres 5 Of her salamandrine fires, 6Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres. III 7 Over the mirrors meant 8 To glass the opulent 9The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent. IV 10 Jewels in joy designed 11 To ravish the sensuous mind 12Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind. V 13 Dim moon-eyed fishes near 14 Gaze at the gilded gear 15And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ... VI 16 Well: while was fashioning 17 This creature of cleaving wing, 18The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything VII 19 Prepared a sinister mate 20 For her -- so gaily great -- 21A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate. VIII 22 And as the smart ship grew 23 In stature, grace, and hue, 24In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too. IX 25 Alien they seemed to be; 26 No mortal eye could see 27The intimate welding of their later history, X 28 Or sign that they were bent 29 By paths coincident 30On being anon twin halves of one august event, XI 31 Till the Spinner of the Years 32 Said "Now!" And each one hears, 33And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres. Definition The convergence of the twain HARDY Term I leant upon a coppice gate 2 When Frost was spectre-gray, 3And Winter's dregs made desolate 4 The weakening eye of day. 5The tangled bine-stems scored the sky 6 Like strings of broken lyres, 7And all mankind that haunted nigh 8 Had sought their household fires. 9The land's sharp features seemed to be 10 The Century's corpse outleant, 11His crypt the cloudy canopy, 12 The wind his death-lament. 13The ancient pulse of germ and birth 14 Was shrunken hard and dry, 15And every spirit upon earth 16 Seemed fervourless as I. 17At once a voice arose among 18 The bleak twigs overhead 19In a full-hearted evensong 20 Of joy illimited; 21An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, 22 In blast-beruffled plume, 23Had chosen thus to fling his soul 24 Upon the growing gloom. 25So little cause for carolings 26 Of such ecstatic sound 27Was written on terrestrial things 28 Afar or nigh around, 29That I could think there trembled through 30 His happy good-night air 31Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew 32 And I was unaware. Definition Darkling Thrush HARDY Term I leant upon a coppice gate 2 When Frost was spectre-gray, 3And Winter's dregs made desolate 4 The weakening eye of day. 5The tangled bine-stems scored the sky 6 Like strings of broken lyres, 7And all mankind that haunted nigh 8 Had sought their household fires. 9The land's sharp features seemed to be 10 The Century's corpse outleant, 11His crypt the cloudy canopy, 12 The wind his death-lament. 13The ancient pulse of germ and birth 14 Was shrunken hard and dry, 15And every spirit upon earth 16 Seemed fervourless as I. 17At once a voice arose among 18 The bleak twigs overhead 19In a full-hearted evensong 20 Of joy illimited; 21An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, 22 In blast-beruffled plume, 23Had chosen thus to fling his soul 24 Upon the growing gloom. 25So little cause for carolings 26 Of such ecstatic sound 27Was written on terrestrial things 28 Afar or nigh around, 29That I could think there trembled through 30 His happy good-night air 31Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew 32 And I was unaware. Definition Loveliest of Trees AE Housman Term When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free." But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true. Definition When I was one and Twenty AE HOUSMAN Term They sing their dearest songs -- He, she, all of them -- yea, Treble and tenor and bass, And one to play; With the candles mooning each face.... Ah, no; the years O! How the sick leaves reel down in throngs! They clear the creeping moss -- Elders and juniors -- aye, Making the pathways neat And the garden gay; And they build a shady seat.... Ah, no; the years, the years; See, the white storm-birds wing across! They are blithely breakfasting all -- Men and maidens -- yea, Under the summer tree, With a glimpse of the bay, While pet fowl come to the knee.... Ah, no; the years O! And the rotten rose is ript from the wall. They change to a high new house, He, she, all of them -- aye, Clocks and carpets and chairs On the lawn all day, And brightest things that are theirs.... Ah, no; the years, the years; Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs. Definition during wind and rain HARDY Term I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. Definition The Lake Isle of Innisfree YEATS Term WHO GOES WITH FERGUS? WHO will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on hopes and fear no more. And no more turn aside and brood Upon love's bitter mystery; For Fergus rules the brazen cars, And rules the shadows of the wood, And the white breast of the dim sea And all dishevelled wandering stars. Definition Who goes with Fergus? YEATS Term The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt That must, as if it had not holy blood Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theatre business, management of men. I swear before the dawn comes round again I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt. Definition The Fascination of what's difficult YEATS Term Easter, 1916 BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our wingèd horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road, The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is Heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Definition Easter 1916 YEATS Term That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. Definition Sailing to Byzantium YEATS Term Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool, While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. O may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place. My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind? Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still. And may her bridegroom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree. Definition A Prayer for my Daughter YEATS Term I have heard that hysterical women say They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow. Of poets that are always gay, For everybody knows or else should know That if nothing drastic is done Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out. Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in Until the town lie beaten flat. All perform their tragic play, There struts Hamlet, there is Lear, That's Ophelia, that Cordelia; Yet they, should the last scene be there, The great stage curtain about to drop, If worthy their prominent part in the play, Do not break up their lines to weep. They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay; Gaiety transfiguring all that dread. All men have aimed at, found and lost; Black out; Heaven blazing into the head: Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages, And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages, It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce. On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,' Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back, Old civilisations put to the sword. Then they and their wisdom went to rack: No handiwork of Callimachus, Who handled marble as if it were bronze, Made draperies that seemed to rise When sea-wind swept the corner, stands; His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem Of a slender palm, stood but a day; All things fall and are built again, And those that build them again are gay. Two Chinamen, behind them a third, Are carved in lapis lazuli, Over them flies a long-legged bird, A symbol of longevity; The third, doubtless a serving-man, Carries a musical instrument. Every discoloration of the stone, Every accidental crack or dent, Seems a water-course or an avalanche, Or lofty slope where it still snows Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch Sweetens the little half-way house Those Chinamen climb towards, and I Delight to imagine them seated there; There, on the mountain and the sky, On all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; Accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. Definition Lapis Lazuli YEATS Term The Circus Animals' Desertion I I sought a theme and sought for it in vain, I sought it daily for six weeks or so. Maybe at last, being but a broken man, I must be satisfied with my heart, although Winter and summer till old age began My circus animals were all on show, Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot, Lion and woman and the Lord knows what. II What can I but enumerate old themes, First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams, Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose, Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems, That might adorn old songs or courtly shows; But what cared I that set him on to ride, I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride. And then a counter-truth filled out its play, 'The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it; She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away, But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it. I thought my dear must her own soul destroy So did fanaticism and hate enslave it, And this brought forth a dream and soon enough This dream itself had all my thought and love. And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea; Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said It was the dream itself enchanted me: Character isolated by a deed To engross the present and dominate memory. Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of. III Those masterful images because complete Grew in pure mind, but out of what began? A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can, Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart. Definition The Circus Animals Desertion YEATS Term Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral: But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful. Soul and body have no bounds: To lovers as they lie upon Her tolerant enchanted slope In their ordinary swoon, Grave the vision Venus sends Of supernatural sympathy, Universal love and hope; While an abstract insight wakes Among the glaciers and the rocks The hermit's carnal ecstasy. Certainty, fidelity On the stroke of midnight pass Like vibrations of a bell And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry: Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost. Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love. Definition Lullaby 1940 W.H. AUDEN Term I He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. But in the importance and noise of to-morrow When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse, And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed, And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom, A few thousand will think of this day As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. II You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth. III Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate; Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. Definition In memory of wb Yeats 1940 AUDEN Term I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; "I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work," And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame. Definition September 1 1939 w.h. auden Term She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities And ships upon untamed seas, But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead. A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood, Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood An unintelligible multitude, A million eyes, a million boots in line, Without expression, waiting for a sign. Out of the air a voice without a face Proved by statistics that some cause was just In tones as dry and level as the place: No one was cheered and nothing was discussed; Column by column in a cloud of dust They marched away enduring a belief Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief. She looked over his shoulder For ritual pieties, White flower-garlanded heifers, Libation and sacrifice, But there on the shining metal Where the altar should have been, She saw by his flickering forge-light Quite another scene. Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke) And sentries sweated for the day was hot: A crowd of ordinary decent folk Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke As three pale figures were led forth and bound To three posts driven upright in the ground. The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the same Lay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shame Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride And died as men before their bodies died. She looked over his shoulder For athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance Moving their sweet limbs Quick, quick, to music, But there on the shining shield His hands had set no dancing-floor But a weed-choked field. A ragged urchin, aimless and alone, Loitered about that vacancy; a bird Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone: That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third, Were axioms to him, who'd never heard Of any world where promises were kept, Or one could weep because another wept. The thin-lipped armorer, Hephaestos, hobbled away, Thetis of the shining breasts Cried out in dismay At what the god had wrought To please her son, the strong Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles Who would not live long. Definition The Shield of Achilles 1940 WH AUDEN Term When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives— Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if Anyone looked at me, forty years back, And thought, That’ll be the life; No God any more, or sweating in the dark About hell and that, or having to hide What you think of the priest. He And his lot will all go down the long slide Like free bloody birds. And immediately Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless. Definition High Windows LARKIN Term Groping back to bed after a piss I part thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness. Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky. There’s something laughable about this, The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart (Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below) High and preposterous and separate— Lozenge of love! Medallion of art! O wolves of memory! Immensements! No, One shivers slightly, looking up there. The hardness and the brightness and the plain Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare Is a reminder of the strength and pain Of being young; that it can’t come again, But is for others undiminished somewhere. Definition Sad Steps LARKIN Term They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were flicked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. Definition This be the verse LARKIN Term I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what’s really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible but how And where and when I shall myself die. Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse —The good not done, the love not given, time Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says No rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anaesthetic from which none come round. And so it stays just on the edge of vision, A small unfocused blur, a standing chill That slows each impulse down to indecision. Most things may never happen: this one will, And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, Have always known, know that we can’t escape, Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house. Definition Aubade LARKIN Term I shall not soon forget The greyish-yellow skin To which the face had set: Lids tights: nothing of his, No tremor from within, Played on the surfaces. He still found breath, and yet It was an obscure knack. I shall not soon forget The angle of his head, Arrested and reared back On the crisp field of bed, Back from what he could neither Accept, as one opposed, Nor, as a life-long breather, Consentingly let go, The tube his mouth enclosed In an astonished O. Definition Still Life Thom Gunn Term Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun. Under my window a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade, Just like his old man. My grandfather could cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner's bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, digging down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it. Definition Digging 1966 HEaney Term All I know is a door into the dark. Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting; Inside, the hammered anvil's short-pitched ring, The unpredictable fantail of sparks Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water. The anvil must be somewhere in the centre, Horned as a unicorn, at one end square, Set there immoveable: an altar Where he expends himself in shape and music. Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose, He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows; Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and a flick To beat real iron out, to work the bellows. Definition The Forge HEANEY Term The rain comes flapping through the yard like a tablecloth that she hand-embroidered. My mother has left it on the line. It is sodden with rain. The mushroom shed is windowless, wide, its high-stacked wooden trays hosed down with formaldehyde. And my father has opened the gates of Troy to that first load of horse manure. Barley straw. Gypsum. Dried blood. Ammonia. Wagon after wagon blusters in, a self-renewing gold-black dragon we push to the back of the mind. We have taken our pitchforks to the wind. All brought back to me that September evening fifteen years on. The pair of us tripping through Barnett's fair demesne like girls in long dresses after a hail-storm. We might have been thinking of the fire-bomb that sent Malone House sky-high and its priceless collection of linen sky-high. We might have wept with Elizabeth McCrum. We were thinking only of psilocybin. You sang of the maid you met on the dewy grass- And she stooped so low gave me to know it was mushrooms she was gathering O. He'll be wearing that same old donkey-jacket and the sawn-off waders. He carries a knife, two punnets, a bucket. He reaches far into his own shadow. We'll have taken him unawares and stand behind him, slightly to one side. He is one of those ancient warriors before the rising tide. He'll glance back from under his peaked cap without breaking rhythm: his coaxing a mushroom-a flat or a cup- the nick against his right thumb; the bucket then, the punnet left or right, and so on and so forth till kingdom come. We followed the overgrown tow-path by the Lagan. The sunset would deepen through cinnamon to aubergine, the wood-pigeon's concerto for oboe and strings, allegro, blowing your mind. And you were suddenly out my ken, hurtling towards the ever-receding ground, into the maw of a shimmering green-gold dragon. You discovered yourself in some outbuilding with your long-lost companion, me, though my head had grown into the head of a horse and shook its dirty-fair mane and spoke this verse: Come back to us. However cold and raw, your feet were always meant to negotiate terms with bare cement. Beyond this concrete wall is a wall of concrete and barbed wire. Your only hope is to come back. If sing you must, let your song tell of treading your own dung, let straw and dung give a spring to your step. If we never live to see the day we leap into our true domain, lie down with us now and wrap yourself in the soiled grey blanket of Irish rain that will, one day, bleach itself white. Lie down with us and wait. Definition milkweed and monarch 1983 MULDOON