Poets From England

"When a man's cause is good, it will sufficiently plead for itself, yea, and for its master too."

"Now, this... Mountain signified the Church of the living God; the Sun that shone thereon, the comfortable shining of his merciful Face on them that were therein; the Wall, I thought, was the Word, that did make separation between the Christians and the World; and the Gap which was in this Wall, I thought was Jesus Christ, who is the way to God the Father. But forasmuch as the Passage was wonderful narrow... it showed me that none could enter into Life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left this wicked World behind them; for here was only room for Body and Soul, but not for Body and Soul, and Sin."

"Now, therefore, they began to praise, to commend and to speak well of me, both to my face, and behind my back. Now, I was, as they said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man. But, oh! when I understood that these were their words and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well. For though, as yet, I was nothing but a poor painted Hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly. I was proud of my Godliness, and, indeed, I did all I did, ether to be seen of, or to be well spoken of, by Man."

"And so I penned It down, until at last it came to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see."

"Then Mr. Honest called for his friends, and said unto them, I die, but shall make no will. As for my honesty, it shall go with me; let him that comes after be told of this. When the day that he was to be gone was come, he addressed himself to go over the river. Now the river at that time over-flowed its banks in some places; but Mr. Honest, in his lifetime, had spoken to one Good-conscience to meet him there, the which he also did, and lent him his hand, and so helped him over. The last words of Mr. Honest were, Grace reigns! So he left the world.After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, "That his pitcher was broken at the fountain." When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

"O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!"

"The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors."

"The angels keep their ancient places;— Turn but a stone, and start a wing! ‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing."

"All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms."

"Upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross."

"Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul; it is to live in a nutshell and to count yourself the king of infinite space; it is To see a world in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour; it is to know not as yet that you are under sentence of life, nor petition that it be commuted into death."

"Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare; And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame."

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter."

"Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him."

"Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven."

"Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star."

"But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbéd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat—and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.""

"The innocent moon, that nothing does but shine, Moves all the labouring surges of the world."

"O GAIN that lurk’st ungainèd in all gain! O love we just fall short of in all love! O height that in all heights art still above! O beauty that dost leave all beauty pain! Thou unpossessed that mak’st possession vain,"

"The hills look over on the South, And Southward dreams the sea; And with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she."

"The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose."

"Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars: Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon."

"Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan, For we are born in other's pain, And perish in our own."

"I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon."

"In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream."

"Simple and brave, his faith awoke Ploughmen to struggle with their fate; Armies won battles when he spoke, And out of Chaos sprang the state."

"The name of happiness is but a wider term for the unalloy'd conditions of the Pleasur of Life, attendant on all function, and not to be deny'd to th' soul, unless forsooth in our thought of nature spiritual is by definition unnatural."

"Seeking unceasingly for the First Cause of All, in question for what special purpose he was made, Man, in the unsearchable darkness, knoweth one thing: that as he is, so was he made; and if the Essence and characteristic faculty of humanity is our conscient Reason and our desire of knowledge, that was Nature's Purpose in the making of man."

"Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for thee any better melody in the April woods at dawn than what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awake o'night in his comfortless attic, might perchance be aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?"

"Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences, the quality of appearances that thru' the sense wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man."

"Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God and Angel of his Presence thru' all creation."

"Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense, that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach him dignity morals manners and human comfort, she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell."

"I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents: A honeymoon delight, A joy of love at sight, That ages in an hour My song be like a flower!"

"So sweet love seemed that April morn, When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change."

"Repudiation of pleasur is a reason'd folly of imperfection. Ther is no motiv can rebate or decompose the intrinsic joy of activ life, whereon all function whatsoever in man is based."

"But I can tell — let truth be told — That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is nought to see, So delicate his motions be."

"The evening darkens over After a day so bright, The windcapt waves discover That wild will be the night."

"And now impatiently despairest, see How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired Splended for others' eyes if not for thee: Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled: If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead."

"I know that if odour were visible as colour is, I'd see the summer garden aureoled in rainbow clouds."

"Were I a cloud I'd gather My skirts up in the air, And fly I well know whither, And rest I well know where."

"I live on hope and that I think do all Who come into this world."

"Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?"

"Scatter the clouds that hide The face of heaven, and show Where sweet peace doth abide, Where Truth and Beauty grow."

"The storm is over, the land hushes to rest: The tyrannous wind, its strength fordone, Is fallen back in the west."

"The broad cloud-driving moon in the clear sky Lifts o’er the firs her shining shield, And in her tranquil light Sleep falls on forest and field. See! sleep hath fallen: the trees are asleep: The night is come. The land is wrapt in sleep."

"When Death to either shall come— I pray it be first to me."

"Awake! the land is scattered with light, and see, Uncanopied sleep is flying from field and tree."

"And Reason kens he herits in A haunted house. Tenants unknown Assert their squalid lease of sin With earlier title than his own."

"When first we met we did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master."

"As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn."