Twilight
By W—ll—m C—wp—r.
'Tis evening. See with its resorting throng
Rude Carfax teems, and waistcoats, visited
With too-familiar elbow, swell the curse
Vortiginous. The boating man returns,
His rawness growing with experience—
Strange union! and directs the optic glass
Not unresponsive to Jemima's charms,
Who wheels obdurate, in his mimic chaise
Perambulant, the child. The gouty cit,
Asthmatical, with elevated cane
Pursues the unregarding tram, as one
Who, having heard a hurdy-gurdy, girds
His loins and hunts the hurdy-gurdy-man,
Blaspheming. Now the clangorous bell proclaims
The Times or Chronicle, and Rauca screams
The latest horrid murder in the ear
Of nervous dons expectant of the urn
And mild domestic muffin.
To the Parks
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Why This Volume Is So Thin
In youth I dreamed, as other youths have dreamt,
Of love, and thrummed an amateur guitar
To verses of my own,—a stout attempt
To hold communion with the Evening Star
I wrote a sonnet, rhymed it, made it scan.
Ah me! how trippingly those last lines ran.—
O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend
O'er Helen's bosom in the tranced west,
To match the hours heave by upon her breast,
And at her parted lip for dreams attend—
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deemed,
Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?
For weeks I thought these lines remarkable;
For weeks I put on airs and called myself
A bard: till on a day, as it befell,
I took a small green Moxon from the shelf
At random, opened at a casual place,
And found my young illusions face to face
With this:—'Still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair Love's ripening breast
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Upon Eckington Bridge, River Avon
O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm
Of green days telling with a quiet beat-
O wave into the sunset flowing calm!
O tirèd lark descending on the wheat!
Lies it all peace beyond the western fold
Where now the lingering shepherd sees his star
Rise upon Malvern? Paints an Age of Gold
Yon cloud with prophecies of linkèd ease-
Lulling this Land, with hills drawn up like knees,
To drowse beside her implements of war?
Man shall outlast his battles. They have swept
Avon from Naseby Field to Savern Ham;
And Evesham's dedicated stones have stepp'd
Down to the dust with Montfort's oriflamme.
Nor the red tear nor the reflected tower
Abides; but yet these elegant grooves remain,
Worn in the sandstone parapet hour by hour
By labouring bargemen where they shifted ropes;
E'en so shall men turn back from violent hopes
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Exmoor Verses
I. VASHTI'S SONG
Over the rim of the Moor,
And under the starry sky,
Two men came to my door
And rested them thereby.
Beneath the bough and the star,
In a whispering foreign tongue,
They talked of a land afar
And the merry days so young!
Beneath the dawn and the bough
I heard them arise and go:
And my heart it is aching now
For the more it will never know.
Why did they two depart
Before I could understand?
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Caliban Upon Rudiments Or Autoschediastic Theology In A Hole
Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments!
'Thinketh one made them i' the fit o' the blues.
'Thinketh one made them with the 'tips' to match,
But not the answers; 'doubteth there be none,
Only Guides, Helps, Analyses, such as that:
Also this Beast, that groweth sleek thereon,
And snow-white bands that round the neck o' the same.
'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease.
'Hath heard that Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands, and the rest o 't. That's the case.
Also 'hath heard they pop the names i' the hat,
Toss out a brace, a dozen stick inside;
Let forty through and plough the sorry rest.
'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in them,
Only their strength, being made o' sloth i' the main—
'Am strong myself compared to yonder names
O' Jewish towns i' the paper. Watch th' event—
'Let twenty pass, 'have a shot at twenty-first,
'Miss Ramoth-Gilead, 'take Jehoiakim,
'Let Abner by and spot Melchizedek,
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Unity Put Quarterly
By A. C. S.
The Centuries kiss and commingle,
Cling, clasp, and are knit in a chain;
No cycle but scorns to be single,
No two but demur to be twain,
'Till the land of the lute and the love-tale
Be bride of the boreal breast,
And the dawn with the darkness shall dovetail,
The East with the West.
The desire of the grey for the dun nights
Is that of the dun for the grey;
The tales of the Thousand and One Nights
Touch lips with 'The Times' of to-day.—
Come, chasten the cheap with the classic;
Choose, Churton, thy chair and thy class,
Mix, melt in the must that is Massic
The beer that is Bass!
Omnipotent age of the Aorist!
Infinitely freely exact!—
As the fragrance of fiction is fairest
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To A Friend Who Sent Me A Box Of Violets
Nay, more than violets
These thoughts of thine, friend!
Rather thy reedy brook--
Taw's tributary--
At midnight murmuring,
Descried them, the delicate
Dark-eyed goddesses,
There by his cressy bed
Dissolved and dreaming
Dreams that distilled into dew
All the purple of night,
All the shine of a planet.
Whereat he whispered;
And they arising--
Of day's forget-me-nots
The duskier sisters--
Descended, relinquished
The orchard, the trout-pool,
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Measure For Measure
By O—r K—m.
Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept
Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept,
And wailed the Nightingale with 'Jug, jug, jug!'
Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept.
Enter with me where yonder door hangs out
Its Red Triangle to a world of drought,
Inviting to the Palace of the Djinn,
Where Death, Aladdin, waits as Chuckerout.
Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe
Stood by the Tavern-door and whispered, 'Lo,
The Pledge departed, what avails the Cup?
Then take the Pledge and let the Wine-cup go.'
But I: 'For every thirsty soul that drains
This Anodyne of Thought its rim contains—
Free-will the can, Necessity the must,
Pour off the must, and, see, the can remains.
'Then, pot or glass, why label it 'With Care'?
Or why your Sheepskin with my Gourd compare?
Lo! here the Bar and I the only Judge:—
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures…
Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of
Professors.
The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.
I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table—and every one is
signed by the Dean's name—
And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I
stay up
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I am one who goes to the river,
I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'
How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is
everything,
But the end is something.
I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.
I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the
trousers of the twenty-two young men,
I see the Balliol men en masse watching me.—The Hottentot
that loves his mother, the untutored Bedowee, the Cave-man
that wears only his certificate of baptism, and the shaggy
Sioux that hangs his testamur with his scalps.
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Sair Stroke
O waly, waly, my bonnie crew
Gin ye maun bumpit be!
And waly, waly, my Stroke sae true,
Ye leuk unpleasauntlie!
O hae ye suppit the sad sherrie
That gars the wind gae soon;
Or hae ye pud o' the braw bird's-e'e,
Ye be sae stricken doun?
I hae na suppit the sad sherrie,
For a' my heart is sair;
For Keiller's still i' the bonnie Dundee,
And his is halesome fare.
But I hae slain our gude Captain,
That c'uld baith shout and sweer,
And ither twain put out o' pain—
The Scribe and Treasurere.
There's ane lies stark by the meadow-gate,
And twa by the black, black brig:
And waefu', waefu', was the fate
That gar'd them there to lig!
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!