Poets From England

"I, born in Essex thirty-four Essentially sexual years ago, Stepped down, looked around, and saw I had been cast a little low In the social register For the friends whom I now know. Is a constable a mister? Bob's your uncle, even so."

"Turn on your side and bear the day to me Beloved, sceptre-struck, immured In the glass wall of sleep. Slowly Uncloud the borealis of your eye And show your iceberg secrets, your midnight prizes To the green-eyed world and to me."

"When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side…At last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them [deleted: the end we did not see] along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them; some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing."

"My one, my one, my only love, Hide, hide your face in a leaf, And let the hot tear falling burn The stupid heart that will not learn The everywhere of grief."

"I wish I was dead, And lay deep in the grave. I've a pain in my head, I wish I was dead. In a coffin of lead— With the Wise and the Brave— I wish I was dead, And lay deep in the grave."

"Thank God I'm alive In the light of the Sun! It's a quarter to five; Thank God I'm alive! Now the hum of the hive Of the world has begun, Thank God I'm alive In the light of the Sun!"

"Here's the lily, here the rose Her full chalice shall disclose; Here's narcissus wet with dew, Windflower and the violet blue. Wear the garland I have made; Crowned with it, put pride away; For the wreath that blooms must fade; Thou thyself must fade some day, Rhodocleia."

"If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom He gives it."

"My Brother William was married to Mary Hutchinson…At a little after 8 o'clock I saw them go down the avenue towards the Church. William had parted from me upstairs. [deleted: I gave him the wedding ring – with how deep a blessing! I took it from my forefinger where I had worn it the whole of the night before – he slipped it again onto my finger and blessed me fervently]."

"To be so closely caught up in the teeth of things that they kill you, no matter how infinitesimally kill you, is, truly, to be a poet: and to be a poet in fact it is additionally necessary that you should possess the tongues and instruments with which to record this series of infinitesimal deaths."

"I am sitting on the sofa. By the fire and staying in. Me head is free of comfort And me nose is free of skin Me friends have run for cover, They have left me pale and sick With me pockets full of tissues And me nostrils full of Vick."

"In Mozart and Salieri we see the contrast between the genius which does what it must and the talent which does what it can."

"Lord Saint-Edith said he couldn't understand people thinking Bacon had written Shakespeare's plays. If they said Shakespeare had written the works of Bacon as a pastime he could understand it."

"I am a mighty Garage, On the corner of the Square, And it is all my pleasure, To provide a quick repair, Or I can do your service, In the blinking of an eye, I wouldn't say it's thorough, But it'll get you by."

"Like everything the British poet Edwin Arnold wrote, The Light of Asia was quickly written: a poem in eight books of about five hundred lines each, mostly in blank verse, composed over a period of several months when Arnold was busy with other concerns. Immediately upon its publication in the summer of 1879, the poem began to sell copies and win attention. It was a life of Siddhartha Gautama, told from the point of view of “an Indian Buddhist” (so read the title page) in high English style. The immediate sensation surrounding The Light of Asia was remarkable: for some time on both sides of the Atlantic, newspapers and dining rooms were charged with discussion about the Buddha, his teaching, and Arnold’s presentation of Buddhism. The book’s success was also sustained. By 1885 the authorized English version had gone through thirty editions. Pirated editions, which went for as little as three cents in the U.S., make a count of the book’s circulation impossible, but it has been estimated at a million copies (not far short of Huckleberry Finn). After thirty years it had become one of the undisputed bestsellers of Victorian England and America, had been translated into a number of languages (German, Dutch, French, Czech, Italian, Swedish, Esperanto), and had inspired a stage version and even an opera."

"Arnold’s great project was a blank verse poem based loosely on the Lalitavistara Sutra. It ran for forty-one thousand words and was composed in eight volumes and published in 1879 as the Light of Asia: the Great Renunciation. The Light of Asia was an instant success and would capture the English speaking imagination. It would be reprinted numerous times in England and the United States. The best estimate I could find was sixty editions in England and another eighty in the US. The Light has also been translated into many languages, including Hindi. But, most importantly, it is generally credited as the first book to bring the life and teachings of Gautama Siddhartha broadly to the attention of the English speaking public."

"I bought myself a Wonderbra For fourteen ninety nine, It looked so good on the model girl's chest, And I hoped it would on mine, I took it from the packaging And when I tried it on, The Wonderbra restored to me All I believed had gone."

"[T]here is a vast difference between games and play. Play is played for fun, but games are deadly serious, and you do not play them to enjoy yourself."

"We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest and rest can never find; Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife."

"The Buddhas who have been and who shall be, of these am I and what they did, I do."

"Below the highest sphere four Regents sit Who rule our world, and under them are zones Nearer, but high, where saintliest spirits dead Wait thrice ten thousand years, then live again; And on Lord Buddha, waiting in that sky, Came for our sakes the five sure signs of birth So that the Devas knew the signs, and said "Buddha will go again to help the World." "Yea!" spake He, "now I go to help the World. This last of many times; for birth and death End hence for me and those who learn my Law. I will go down among the Sakyas, Under the southward snows of Himalay, Where pious people live and a just King.""

"He who died at Azan sends This to comfort all his friends:— Faithful friends! It lies I know Pale and white and cold as snow; And ye say, 'Abdallah’s dead!' Weeping at the feet and head. I can see your falling tears, I can hear your sighs and prayers; Yet I smile and whisper this: I am not the thing you kiss. Cease your tears and let it lie; It was mine—it is not I."

"The Englishwoman Grace Aguilar was a similar pioneer: her work includes the poems "Song of the Spanish Jews, During Their 'Golden Age'" and "A Vision of Jerusalem, While Listening to a Beautiful Organ in One of the Gentile Shrines," as well as books such as The Spirit of Judaism, The Women of Israel, and, posthumously, Sabbath Thoughts and Sacred Communings."

"Now, when our Lord was come to eighteen years, The King commanded that there should be built Three stately houses, one of hewn square beams With cedar lining, warm for winter days; One of veined marbles, cool for summer heat; And one of burned bricks, with blue tiles bedecked, Pleasant at seed-time, when the champaks bud-- Subha, Suramma, Ramma, were their names. Delicious gardens round about them bloomed, Streams wandered wild and musky thickets stretched, With many a bright pavilion and fair lawn In midst of which Siddartha strayed at will, Some new delight provided every hour; And happy hours he knew, for life was rich, With youthful blood at quickest; yet still came The shadows of his meditation back, As the lake's silver dulls with driving clouds."

"Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude."

"Birthless and deathless and changeless remainaineth the spirit forever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!"

"It may be we shall know in the hereafter Why we, begetting hopes, give birth to fears, And why the world's too beautiful for laughter, Too gross for tears."

"Every Hebrew should look upon his Faith as a temple extending over every land to prove the immutability of God and the unity of His purposes."

"Her former trials had been sharp agony and strong excitement. Her present had neither the one nor the other; yet it was fraught with as heavy suffering, as any that had gone before it; even though she knew not, guessed not, _all_ that depended upon her conversion. It would have been comparatively easy to have endured, for her faith's sake, harshness and contempt; in such a case, self-respect rises to sustain us, and we value our own tenets the more, from their startling contrast with those which could command the cruelty we endure; but Father Denis used harshness neither of manner nor of words."

"We shall lodge at the sign of the Grave, you say; Well, the road is a long one we trudge, my friend, So why should we grieve at the break of the day? Let us sing, let us drink, let us love, let us play,-- We can keep our sights for the journey's end."

"Firmly impressed in his own mind, that it was utterly vain for a soul to hope for salvation unless it believed in Jesus, the Virgin, the saints and holy martyrs; he brought heart and soul to his task; and the more he saw of Marie, the more painfully did he deplore her blind infatuation, and the more ardently desire, to save her from the eternal perdition which, as a Jewess, must await her."

"He is the happy wanderer, who goes, Singing upon the way, with eyes awake To every scene, with ears alert to take The sweetness of all sounds; who loves and knows The secrets of the highway, and the rose Holds fairer for the wounds that briars make."

"A good play is a play which, when acted upon the boards, makes an audience interested and pleased. A play that fails in this is a bad play."

"God save King Robert! then, say I," vociferated Alan, eagerly grasping the knight's hand. "Sit, sit, Sir Knight; and for the love of heaven, speak more of this most wondrous tale. Erewhile, we hear of this goodly Earl of Carrick at Edward's court, doing him homage, serving him as his own English knight, and now in Scotland--aye, and Scotland's king. How may we reconcile these contradictions?"

"But tir'd at length poor Beauty slept, And while she rested, wearied quite, Indifference to the dear lamp crept, And quench'd its warm, and splendid light."

"To win, beloved Caroline from thee, One thought, in years when we shall sever'd be-- --Sever'd, perchance, by those deep waves, which pour Their billowy murmurs round our native shore,-- For this, I wander'd round the Bow'rs of Song, A weary, and rejected suppliant long, And of the Muses crav'd in humblest tone From their rich wreaths, one simple bud alone: They did but fling their wildest weeds at me, And thus I twin'd them into verse for thee!"

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."

"In Beauty's dwelling all things fair, And rich, to win her sweet smiles strove; But still young Beauty's only care Was, to watch o'er the lamp of Love."

"A Spring o'erhung with many a flow'r, The grey sand dancing in its bed, Embank'd beneath a Hawthorn bower, Sent forth its waters near my head: A rosy Lass approach'd my view; I caught her blue eye's modest beam: The stranger nodded 'How d'ye do!' And leap'd across the infant stream."

"Soon round us spread the hills and dales, Where GEOFFREY spun his magic tales, And call'd them history. The land Whence ARTHUR sprung, and all his band Of gallant knights. Sire of romance, Who led the fancy's mazy dance, Thy tales shall please, thy name still be, When Time forgets my verse and me."

"Adieu, LANDOGA, scene most dear, Farewell we bade to ETHEL'S WIER; Round many a point then bore away, Till morn was chang'd to beauteous day: And forward on the lowland shore, Silent majestic ruins wore The stamp of holiness; this strand The steersman hail'd, and touch'd the land."

"The glory of the king of all the kings. You with the golden power on your brows, You kings, I think you know not what you are. First you shall learn yourselves: for neither light Understandeth itself, nor darkness light."

"Friends, wives and husbands, sons and daughters, dead Of plague, famine, and arrows: and the houses Battered unsafe by cannonades of stone Hurled in by the Assyrians: the town-walls Crumbling out of their masonry into mounds Of foolish earth, so smitten by the rams: The hunger-pangs, the thirst like swallowed lime Forcing them gulp green water maggot-quick That lurks in corners of dried cisterns: yea, Murders done for a drink of blood, and flesh Sodden of infants: and no hope alive Of rescue from this heat of prisoning anguish Until Assyrian swords drown it in death."

"And where is now that palace gone, All the magical skill'd stone, All the dreaming towers wrought By Love as if no more than thought The unresisting marble was? How could such a wonder pass? Ah, it was but built in vain Against the stupid horns of Rome, That pusht down into the common loam The loveliness that shone in Spain. But we have raised it up again! A loftier palace, fairer far, Is ours, and one that fears no war. Safe in marvellous walls we are; Wondering sense like builded fires, High amazement of desires, Delight and certainty of love, Closing around, roofing above Our unapproacht and perfect hour Within the splendours of love's power."

"I sit, this evening, far away, From all I used to know, And nought reminds my soul to-day Of happy long ago."

"I'll thank thee when approaching death Would quench life's feeble ember, For thou wouldst even renew my breath With thy sweet word 'Remember'!"

"I ever give a thought to another, you may well spare it, for those fancies are here and gone like a flash of lightning, while my love for you burns on steadily, and for ever, like the sun."

"You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again."

"Intimate acquaintance must precede real friendship."

"It is a woman's nature to be constant — to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever."