Poets Laureate

"For beauty being the best of all we know Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims Of nature."

"When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town."

"I love all beauteous things, I seek and adore them."

"To-morrow it seem Like the empty words of a dream Remembered on waking."

"Why hast thou nothing in thy face? Thou idol of the human race, Thou tyrant of the human heart, The flower of lovely youth that art."

"Surely thy body is thy mind, For in thy face is nought to find, Only thy soft unchristened smile, That shadows neither love nor guile."

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

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

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

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

"As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn."

"I will not let thee go. I hold thee by too many bands: Thou sayest farewell, and lo! I have thee by the hands, And will not let thee go."

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

"Then watchers of the life of man will know How spirits quickened in this ended reign, Till what was centuries stagnant 'gan to flow And what was centuries fettered moved again; How with this Ruler entered into rest The country's very self from slumber stirred, To charity as guide and hope as guest And ventured to a nobler marching word."

"I, who am dead, have ways of knowing Of the crop of death that the quick are sowing. I, who was Pompey, cry it aloud From the dark of death, from the wind blowing. I, who was Pompey, once was proud, Now I lie in the sand without a shroud; I cry to Caesar out of my pain, "Caesar beware, your death is vowed.""

"What is this creature, Music, save the Art, The Rhythm that the planets journey by? The living Sun-Ray entering the heart, Touching the Life with that which cannot die?"

"From '41 to '51 I was my folk's contrary son; I bit my father's hand right through And broke my mother's heart in two."

"What have I done, or tried, or said In thanks to that dear woman dead? Men triumph over women still, Men trample women's rights at will, And man's lust roves the world untamed. * * * * O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed."

"My blood did leap, my flesh did revel, Saul Kane was tokened to the devil."

"I loved Swinburne and Masefield and all the other great sea poets."

"The moon came white and ghostly as we laid the treasure down, There was gear there’d make a beggarman as rich as Lima Town, Copper charms and silver trinkets from the chests of Spanish crews, Gold doubloons and double moidores, louis d’ors and portagues"

"Will you not come home, brother? you have been long away, It's April, and blossom time, and white is the spray; And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain, - Will you not come home, brother, home to us again?"

"Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French, And some’ll swallow tay and stuff fit only for a wench; But I’m for right Jamaica till I roll beneath the bench, Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan."

"In the dark womb where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her."

"It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April's in the west wind, and daffodils."

"Life Loves to change, wrote poet John Masefield, in the cobbled town of Ledbury, Herefordshire, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's town too. ... I felt drunk on general coziness... thinking of Elizabeth, whose "father never spoke to her again," once she had a child (what was his problem?), and Masefield, who suffered intense seasickness yet wrote about going down to the sea as if it were his favorite act ... Life loves to change-but some of us want to stay."

"A considerable stir was being made (1795) by two youthful advocates of revolution, who were trying to rouse the people of Bristol. These two young men who protested boldly against the war, the ministry and the established church and social order were Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Colerige."

"Not the last struggles of the Sun, Precipitated from his golden throne, Hold darkling mortals in sublime suspense; But the calm exod of a man Nearer, tho’ far above, who ran The race we run, when Heaven recalls him hence."

"Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you His eyes have closed; and ye, loved books, no more Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore, To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown, Adding immortal labors of his own; Whether he traced historic truth with zeal For the state's guidance, or the church's weal; Or Fancy, disciplined by studious Art, Informed his pen, or Wisdom of the heart Or Judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind By reverence for the rights of all mankind. Large were his aims, yet in no human breast Could private feelings find a holier nest. His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud From Skiddaw's top, but he to heaven was vowed Through a life long and pure, and steadfast faith Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death."

"Of all the Tory reformers in the early years of the nineteenth century none was so fecund of schemes, and often sound schemes, for improving the lot of the people as Robert Southey. He often seems to us cold and unattractive, but for his life of hard work, his unflinching honour, and his practical pity for the unfortunate he deserves a sympathetic understanding which is more often given to frailer brethren of the pen."

"Bob Southey! You're a poet—Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at Last—yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;"Which pye being open'd they began to sing" (This old song and new simile holds good), "A dainty dish to set before the king," Or Regent, who admires such kind of food; And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood, Explaining Metaphysics to the nation— I wish he would explain his Explanation.*You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know, At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only Blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob!"

"It was only one of a formidable list of reforms demanded by Southey, a catalogue of which is given by his son. It includes national education, the diffusion of cheap and good literature, an organized system of colonization, with especial attention to the provision of female immigrants, a “wholesome training for the children of poverty”, the establishment of Protestant sisters of charity and of a better class of hospital nurses, setting up of savings banks, abolition of flogging in the Services except in extreme cases, reform of the game laws, reduction in the number of capital crimes, execution of criminals within prison walls, reform of the factory system, establishment of national works in time of distress, allotments for labourers, employment of paupers in cultivating waste lands, commutation of tithes, an increase in the number of clergy, more colleges, and a more adequate judicial system. To these might be added various reforms for which he pleaded in the name of humanity, such as the abolition of bull-baiting and cock-fighting, improvements in prison conditions, more reputable ale-houses, and finally the cause of the little chimney-sweeps. He gives a prominent place to law reform, allows that over-severe laws defeat their own ends; that the game laws are iniquitous, and that entail should be limited."

"I have seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, So I trust, too."

"Somebody has been sitting in my chair!"

"And then she went to the porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that; and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right."

"Wild dreams! but such As Plato lov'd; such as with holy zeal Our Milton worshipp'd. Blessed hopes! awhile From man with-held, even to the latter days When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfill'd."

"Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be."

"No sooner was the Baltic open to our merchants, than corn was bought up there for importation into England; at the same time the continent was glutted with English goods, which, because the supply greatly exceeded the demand, were sold at less than their prime cost, and upon which the foreign governments soon laid new duties...to prevent the ruin of their own manufactures. This might have been a salutary lesson, if nations were ever rendered wise by experience; it might have taught us that, however willing one part of this nation might be to see the other ruined by the free admission of foreign grain, foreign governments would never consent to have their fabrics destroyed by the unrestricted introduction of British goods. It is a sound maxim in politics, whatever it may be in morals, that charity begins at home."

"Write poetry for its own sake — not in a spirit of emulation, and not with a view to celebrity; the less you aim at that the more likely you will be to deserve and finally to obtain it."

"Already in 1829 the poet laureate, Southey, was preaching the tenets of philanthropic collectivism, and his Colloquies showed an antipathy to laissez-faire which was to influence Lord Shaftesbury. The literary tradition of Southey was continued in the novels of Kingsley and Mrs. Gaskell, of Dickens and Charles Reade; and it appears, if in new forms, in the philippics of Carlyle and the delicate satire of Arnold."

"I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking."

"From its fountains In the mountains, Its rills and its gills; Through moss and through brake, It runs and it creeps For a while, till it sleeps In its own little lake."

"So I told them in rhyme, For of rhymes I had store."

"It runs through the reeds, And away it proceeds, Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood-shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter, Hurry-skurry."

"The march of intellect."

"The arts babblative and scribblative."

"How does the water Come down at Lodore?"

"Rising and leaping, Sinking and creeping, Swelling and sweeping, Showering and springing, Flying and flinging, Writhing and ringing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, Turning and twisting, Around and around With endless rebound: Smiting and fighting, A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound."

"Agreed to differ."

"Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe; But ’tis the happy that have called thee so."