Ah! Sun-Flower by William Blake
Ah Sun-flower! weary of time. Who countest the steps of the Sun; Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the travellers journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire. Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. ————— The End And that’s […]
A Cradle Song by William Blake
Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. Sweet smiles in the night, Hover over my delight. Sweet smiles Mothers smiles, All the […]
Earth’s Answer by William Blake
Earth raised up her head. From the darkness dread & drear, Her light fled: Stony dread! And her locks cover’d with grey despair. Prison’d on watery shore Starry Jealousy does keep my den Cold and hoar Weeping o’er I hear the father of the ancient men Selfish father of men Cruel jealous selfish fear Can […]
A Dream by William Blake
Once a dream did weave a shade, O’er my Angel-guarded bed. That an Emmet lost it’s way Where on grass methought I lay. Troubled wildered and forlorn Dark benighted travel-worn, Over many a tangled spray, All heart-broke I heard her say. O my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh. Now they […]
Infant Joy by William Blake
I have no name I am but two days old.– What shall I call thee? I happy am Joy is my name.– Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old. Sweet joy I call thee; Thou dost smile, I sing the while Sweet joy befall thee. ————— The End And that’s […]
Evening Star by William Blake
Thou fair hair’d angel of the evening, Now, while the sun rests on the mountains light, Thy bright torch of love; Thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed! Smile on our loves; and when thou drawest the Blue curtains, scatter thy silver dew On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes […]
Auguries Of Innocence by William Blake
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. A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage. A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons Shudders hell through all its regions. A […]
And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time by William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my […]
Infant Sorrow by William Blake
My mother groand! my father wept, Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud: Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my fathers hands: Striving against my swaddling bands: Bound and weary I thought best To sulk upon my mother’s breast. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
If It Is True What the Prophets Write by William Blake
If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for the sake of being polite, Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones? And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew What the finger of God pointed to their view, Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian […]
How Sweet I Roam’d by William Blake
How sweet I roam’d from field to field, And tasted all the summer’s pride ‘Til the prince of love beheld Who in the sunny beams did glide! He shew’d me lilies for my hair And blushing roses for my brow; He led me through his garden fair, Where all his golden pleasures grow. With sweet […]
Holy Thursday (Experience) by William Blake
Is this a holy thing to see. In a rich and fruitful land. Babes reduced to misery. Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine. And their […]
From Milton: And did those feet by William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my […]
Blind Man’s Buff by William Blake
When silver snow decks Susan’s clothes, And jewel hangs at th’ shepherd’s nose, The blushing bank is all my care, With hearth so red, and walls so fair; `Heap the sea-coal, come, heap it higher, The oaken log lay on the fire.’ The well-wash’d stools, a circling row, With lad and lass, how fair the […]
A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth
A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. ————— The End And that’s the End […]
A Sketch by William Wordsworth
The little hedgerow birds, That peck along the road, regard him not. He travels on, and in his face, his step, His gait, is one expression; every limb, His look and bending figure, all bespeak A man who does not move with pain, but moves With thought. -He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet: he […]
A Poet’s Epitaph by William Wordsworth
Art thou a Statist in the van Of public conflicts trained and bred? -First learn to love one living man; ‘Then’ may’st thou think upon the dead. A Lawyer art thou?-draw not nigh! Go, carry to some fitter place The keenness of that practised eye, The hardness of that sallow face. Art thou a Man […]
A Poet! He Hath Put His Heart To School by William Wordsworth
A poet!-He hath put his heart to school, Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff Which art hath lodged within his hand-must laugh By precept only, and shed tears by rule. Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff, And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, In fear that else, when Critics grave […]
A Parsonage In Oxfordshire by William Wordsworth
Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends, Is marked by no distinguishable line; The turf unites, the pathways intertwine; And, wheresoe’er the stealing footstep tends, Garden, and that domain where kindred, friends, And neighbours rest together, here confound Their several features, mingled like the sound Of many waters, or as evening blends With shady night. Soft […]
A Morning Exercise by William Wordsworth
FANCY, who leads the pastimes of the glad, Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw; Sending sad shadows after things not sad, Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe: Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry Becomes an echo of man’s misery. Blithe ravens croak of death; and when the owl Tries […]
A Jewish Family In A Small Valley Opposite St. Goar, Upon The Rhine by William Wordsworth
GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings Might bear thee to this glen, With faithful memory left of things To pencil dear and pen, Thou would’st forego the neighbouring Rhine, And all his majesty– A studious forehead to incline O’er this poor family. The Mother–her thou must have seen, In spirit, ere she came To dwell […]
A Gravestone Upon The Floor In The Cloisters Of Worcester Cathedral by William Wordsworth
“MISERRIMUS,” and neither name nor date, Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone; Nought but that word assigned to the unknown, That solitary word–to separate From all, and cast a cloud around the fate Of him who lies beneath. Most wretched one, ‘Who’ chose his epitaph?–Himself alone Could thus have dared the grave to […]
A Fact, And An Imagination, Or, Canute And Alfred, On The Seashore by William Wordsworth
THE Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair, Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty, To aid a covert purpose, cried–“O ye Approaching Waters of the deep, that share With this green isle my fortunes, come not where Your Master’s throne is set.”–Deaf was the Sea; Her waves rolled on, respecting his decree Less than they heed […]
A Complaint by William Wordsworth
There is a change-and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart’s door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need. What happy moments did I count! Blest was I then all bliss above! Now, […]
Written In A Quarrel by William Cowper
Think, Delia, with what cruel haste Our fleeting pleasures move, Nor heedless in sorrow waste The moments due to love; Be wise, my fair, and gently treat These few that are our friends; Think thus abused, what sad regret Their speedy flight attends! Sure in those eyes I loved so well, And wished so long […]
Written In A Fit Of Illness. R. S. S. by William Cowper
In these sad hours, a prey to ceaseless pain, While feverish pulses leap in every vein, When each faint breath the last short effort seems Of life just parting from my feeble limbs; How wild soe’er my wandering thoughts may be, Still, gentle Delia, still they turn on thee! At length if, slumbering to a […]
Written After Leaving Her At New Burns by William Cowper
How quick the change from joy to woe! How chequered is our lot below! Seldom we view the prospect fair, Dark clouds of sorrow, pain, and care, (Some pleasing intervals between), Scowl over more than half the scene. Last week with Delia, gentle maid, Far hence in happier fields I strayed, While on her dear […]
Watching Unto God In The Night Season by William Cowper
Sleep at last has fled these eyes, Nor do I regret his flight, More alert my spirits rise, And my heart is free and light. Nature silent all around, Not a single witness near; God as soon as sought is found; And the flame of love burns clear. Interruption, all day long, Checks the current […]
Watching Unto God In The Night Season (3) by William Cowper
Night! how I love thy silent shades, My spirits they compose; The bliss of heaven my soul pervades, In spite of all my woes. While sleep instils her poppy dews In every slumbering eye, I watch to meditate and muse, In blest tranquillity. And when I feel a God immense Familiarly impart, With every proof […]
Watching Unto God In The Night Season (2) by William Cowper
Season of my purest pleasure, Sealer of observing eyes! When, in larger, freer measure, I can commune with the skies; While, beneath thy shade extended, Weary man forgets his woes, I, my daily trouble ended, Find, in watching, my repose. Silence all around prevailing, Nature hushed in slumber sweet, No rude noise mine ears assailing, […]
Verses Written At Bath, On Finding The Heel Of A Shoe by William Cowper
Fortune! I thank thee: gentle goddess! thanks! Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny She would have thank’d thee rather hadst thou cast A treasure in her way; for neither meed Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes, And bowel-racking pains of emptiness, Nor noontide feast, nor evening’s cool repast, Hopes she from this-presumptuous, […]
Verses Printed By Himself On A Flood At Olney by William Cowper
To watch the storms, and hear the sky Give all our almanacks the lie; To shake with cold, and see the plains In autumn drown’d with wintry rains; ‘Tis thus I spend my moments here, And wish myself a Dutch mynheer; I then should have no need of wit; For lumpish Hollander unfit! Nor should […]
To The Rev. Mr. Newton, On His Return From Ramsgate by William Cowper
That ocean you have late surveyed, Those rocks I too have seen; But I, afflicted and dismayed, You tranquil and serene. You from the flood-controlling steep Saw stretched before your view, With conscious joy, the threatening deep, No longer such to you. To me, the waves that ceaseless broke Upon the dangerous coast, Hoarsely and […]
To The Rev. Mr. Newton : An Invitation Into The Country by William Cowper
The swallows in their torpid state Compose their useless wing, And bees in hives as idly wait The call of early spring. The keenest frost that binds the stream, The wildest wind that blows, Are neither felt nor fear’d by them, Secure of their repose. But man, all feeling and awake, The gloomy scene surveys; […]
To Mary by William Cowper
The twentieth year is well nigh past, Since first our sky was overcast; Ah, would that this might be the last! My Mary! Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow- ‘Twas my distress that brought thee low, My Mary! Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, […]
To Delia by William Cowper
Me to whatever state the gods assign, Believe, my love, whatever state be mine, Ne’er shall my breast one anxious sorrow know, Ne’er shall my heart confess a real woe, If to thy share heaven’s choicest blessings fall, As thou hast virtue to deserve them all. Yet vain, alas! that idle hope would be That […]
To A Young Friend, On His Arriving At Cambridge Wet, When No Rain Had Fallen There by William Cowper
If Gideon’s fleece, which drenched with dew he found, White moisture none refreshed the herbs around, Might fitly represent the Church, endowed With heavenly gifts to heathens not allowed; In pledge, perhaps, of favours from on high, Thy locks were wet when others’ locks were dry. Heaven grant us half the omen,–may we see Not […]
The Symptoms of Love by William Cowper
Would my Delia know if I love, let her take My last thought at night, and the first when I wake; With my prayers and best wishes preferred for her sake. Let her guess what I muse on, when rambling alone I stride o’er the stubble each day with my gun, Never ready to shoot […]
The Silkworm by William Cowper
The beams of April, ere it goes, A worm, scarce visible, disclose; All winter long content to dwell The tenant of his native shell. The same prolific season gives The sustenance by which he lives, The mulberry leaf, a simple store, That serves him-till he needs no more! For, his dimensions once complete, Thenceforth none […]
The Secrets Of Divine Love Are To Be Kept by William Cowper
Sun! stay thy course, this moment stay– Suspend the o’er flowing tide of day, Divulge not such a love as mine, Ah! hide the mystery divine; Lest man, who deems my glory shame, Should learn the secret of my flame. O night! propitious to my views, Thy sable awning wide diffuse; Conceal alike my joy […]