Poets From England

"Amends may never come too late."

"My God commands, whose power no power resists."

"He kept no Christmas-house for once a year; Each day his boards were fill'd with lordly fare: He fed a rout of yeomen with his cheer, Nor was his bread and beef kept in with care: His wine and beer to strangers were not spare; And yet beside to all that hunger griev'd His gates were ope, and they were there reliev'd."

"For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placèd by their deeds."

"He that will not when he may, When he desires shall surely purchase nay."

"Fie upon such as say, "Young saints, old devils"! It is no doubt a devilish and damnable saying; for what is not bent in the cradle, will hardly be bowed in the saddle."

"Love in my bosom like a bee Doth suck his sweet: Now with his wings he plays with me, Now with his feet. Within mine eyes he makes his nest, His bed amidst my tender breast; My kisses are his daily feast, And yet he robs me of my rest: Ah! wanton, will ye?"

"Uncle, whose inventive brains kept evolving aeroplanes, fell from an enormous height upon my garden lawn last night. Flying is a fatal sport, uncle wrecked the tennis court."

"There's been an accident!" they said, "Your servant's cut in half; he's dead." "Indeed!" said Mr Jones, "and please Give me the half that's got my keys."

"When Baby's cries grew hard to bear I popped him in the Frigidaire. I never would have done so if I'd known that he'd be frozen stiff. My wife said: 'George, I'm so unhappé! Our darling's now completely frappé!"

"O'er the rugged mountain's brow Clara threw the twins she nursed, And remarked, "I wonder now Which will reach the bottom first?""

"That morning, when my wife eloped With James, our chauffeur, how I moped! What tragedies in life there are! I'm dashed if I can start the car."

"Weep not for little Leonie, Abducted by a French Marquis! Though loss of honour was a wrench, Just think how it's improved her French."

"Ich muss cherchez mon hôtel. What a charming Schwätzerei, sir! Lebe wohl! Adieu! Farewell! Vive le Congo! Hoch der Kaiser!"

"Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy."

"Guten Morgen, mon ami! Heute ist es schönes Wetter! Charmé de vous voir ici! Never saw you looking better!"

"When Grandmamma fell off the boat, And couldn’t swim, and wouldn’t float, Maria just sat by and smiled - I almost could have slapped the child!"

"What hours I spent of precious time, What pints of ink I used to waste, Attempting to secure a rhyme To suit the public taste, Until I found a simple plan Which makes the lamest lyric scan!When I’ve a syllable de trop, I cut it off, without apol.: This verbal sacrifice, I know, May irritate the schol.; But all must praise my dev’lish cunn. Who realise that Time is Mon."

"Yes, in the poor man's garden grow Far more than herbs and flowers— Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind, And joy for weary hours."

"Buttercups and Daisies— Oh, the pretty flowers, Coming ere the spring time, To tell of sunny hours."

"Old England is our home, and Englishmen are we; Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag in every sea."

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly; "'T is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy."

"The wild sea roars and lashes the granite cliffs below, And round the misty islets the loud strong tempests blow."

"Matthew Lewis [was] the genre's first punk, the Johnny Rotten of the Gothic novel."

"He was a child, and a spoiled child, but a child of high imagination; and so he wasted himself on ghost-stories and German romances."

"Another Cleland see in Lewis rise. Why sleep the ministers of truth and law? Has the state no controul, no decent awe, While each with each in madd'ning orgies vie Pandars to lust and licens'd blasphemy? Can senates hear without a kindred rage? Oh may a poet's lightning blast the page, Nor with the bolt of Nemesis in vain Supply the laws, that wake not to restrain!"

"All hail, M. P.! from whose infernal brain Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train; At whose command "grim women" throng in crowds, And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, With "small gray men," "wild yagers," and what not, To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott; Again all hail! if tales like thine may please, St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease; Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell."

"The worms, They crept in, and the worms, They crept out, And sported his eyes and his temples about, While the Spectre addressed Imogine."

"Many of the narratives can only tend to excite ideas the worst calculated for a female breast: Every thing is called plainly and roundly by its name; and the annals of a Brothel would scarcely furnish a greater choice of indecent expressions. Yet this is the Book, which young Women are recommended to study."

"An Author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an Animal whom every body is privileged to attack; For though All are not able to write Books, all conceive themselves able to judge them."

"A Warrior so bold, and a Virgin so bright Conversed, as They sat on the green: They gazed on each other with tender delight; Alonzo the Brave was the name of the Knight, The Maid's was the Fair Imogine."

"Oxford, from the strength of principles shown there, was becoming a rallying point for the whole kingdom. John Keble's assize sermon before the judges against the Latitudinarian government was thought indiscreet and fruitless. But these things were not so."

"Hark! hark! – What mean those yells – those cries? His chain some furious madman breaks! He comes! I see his glaring eyes! Now! now! my dungeon bars he shakes. Help! Help! He's gone! Oh! fearful woe, Such screams to hear – such sights to see! My brain! my brain! – I know, I know I am not mad, but soon shall be."

"Oh! hush these suspicions," Fair Imogine said, "Offensive to Love and to me! For if ye be living, or if ye be dead, I swear by the Virgin, that none in your stead Shall Husband of Imogine be."

"Farewel, thou cruel world! – to morrow No more thy scorn my heart shall tear: – The grave will shield the child of sorrow, And heaven will hear the orphan's prayer."

"His happy magic made the Anglican Church seem what Catholicism was and is."

"Mr. Keble's sensitive shrinking from anything like praise and observation has perhaps been the cause for the idea gaining ground that he was rather a gentle, holy man than a strong living force in Church matters. His friends, on the contrary, remember chiefly the fiery eagerness, the indignant remonstrances poured out, and the sternness of his judgment when he thought Church doctrine was being endangered. Eagle-eyed to detect danger, he allowed no one to be idle if things could be bettered by letters or protests."

"The true and primary author of it [the Oxford Movement], however, as is usual with great motive-powers, was out of sight. Having carried off as a mere boy the highest honours of the University, he had turned from the admiration which haunted his steps, and sought for a better and holier satisfaction in pastoral work in the country. Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?"

"A secure place in this gallery of English worthies is held by John Keble, Victorian Vicar of the parish of Hursley near Winchester. His ministry was peaceful, dedicated and devout, the qualities which reappear in his poetry; and to his contemporaries, he was a worthy successor to Hooker and Herbert as well as the very model of the rural parish priest, the pastor and shepherd of his people. For pious Anglicans, his name still evokes that romantic ecclesiastical Arcadia and heaven on earth... This vision of Christianity was Keble's, one intrinsically rustic and English. There was more about him, however, than the peace and plenty of the rural parsonage. Keble was also a national figure as one of the best-loved of English poets and a leader of the High Church revival. To his own generation he was a prophet in Israel, and for many Victorians, the poet of the religious world."

"Much against his will, but for a great many persons of very various characters who but for him might have fallen under very different influences, he became a sort of religious "court of final appeal." When all else had been said and done, people would wait and see what came from Hursley, before they made up their minds as to the path of duty."

"The Christian Year made its appearance in 1827. It is not necessary, and scarcely becoming, to praise a book which has already become one of the classics of the language. When the general tone of religious literature was so nerveless and impotent, as it was at that time, Keble struck an original note and woke up in the hearts of thousands a new music, the music of a school, long unknown in England. Nor can I pretend to analyze, in my own instance, the effect of religious teaching so deep, so pure, so beautiful."

"When he read, you saw that he felt, and he made you feel, that he was the ordained servant of God; delivering His words, or leading you, but as one of like infirmities and sins with your own, in your prayers. When he preached, it was with an affectionate almost plaintive earnestness, which was very moving."

"I do not know whether you have ever seen John Keble's Hymns. He has written a great number for most of the holidays and several of the Sundays in the year, and I believe intends to complete the series. I live in hopes that he will be induced to publish them; and it is my firm opinion that nothing equal to them exists in our language: the wonderful knowledge of Scripture, the purity of heart, and the richness of poetry which they exhibit, I never saw paralleled."

"His honours were borne with meekness and simplicity; to his attainments he joined a temper of singular sweetness and modesty, capable at the same time, when necessary, of austere strength and strictness of principle"

"Keble's Lectures must surely be regarded as, under their pious and diffident surface, the most sensationally radical criticism of their time. They broach views of the source, the function, and the effect of literature, and of the methods by which literature is appropriately read and criticised, which, when they occur in the writings of critics schooled by Freud, are still reckoned to be the most subversive to the established values and principles of literary criticism."

"Why should we faint and fear to live alone, Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die, Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own, Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh?"

"The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of "National Apostasy." I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833."

"'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose Friends out of sight, in faith to muse How grows in Paradise our store."

"The watchful mother tarries nigh Though sleep have closed her infant's eye, For should he wake, and find her gone, She knows she could not bear his moan."

"He was a brilliant university scholar overlaying the plain, unworldly country parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul, with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great unselfishness, strict and severe principles of morals and duty."