Poems by Other Poets

The Conqueror Worm - Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Once again, with the employment of fantastic visual imagery, Poe touches upon the bizarre thoughts that linger hidden in the commonplace imaginings of man and subtly strikes upon heartstrings of our ambitions. This story is one of the less ambiguous tales that Poe has spun with poetry, for it does not create but rather depicts. What does it depict? Figuratively, this is the story of humanity or perhaps an individual human therein. It is set on a stage with heavy allusions to Christianity, and is very enjoyable to read or speak aloud.


Jerusalem - 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 Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear : O clouds unfold !
Bring me my Chariot of fire.

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

This poem seems to spew forth an essence of righteousness as William Blake dons the voice of a Christian missionary-- or something of the sort. It appears that the orator abhors England for not revering the hallowed ground on which it exists, for, according to what the poem implies, Jesus Christ roamed England on a holy pilgrimage. The poem then proceeds, in the third and fourth stanza, to grow impassioned and violent, claiming that the orator will not relent until he has "built Jerusalem," in England. This is a poem of arbitrary notions of course, but passionate and invigorated nonetheless.

Forefathers - Edmund Blunden

Here they went with smock and crook,
Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,
Here they mudded out the brook
And here their hatchet cleared the glade:
Harvest supper woke their wit,
Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit.

From this church they led their brides,
From this church themselves were led
Shoulder-high; on these waysides
Sat to take their beer and bread.
Names are gone―what men they were
These their cottages declare.

Names are vanished, save the few
In the old brown Bible scrawled;
These were men of pith and thew,
Whom the city never called;
Scarce could read or hold a quill,
Built the barn, the forge, the mill.

On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me;
While the bat and beetle flew
On the warm air webbed with dew.

Unrecorded, unrenowned,
Men from whom my ways begin,
Here I know you by your ground
But I know you not within―
There is silence, there survives
Not a moment of your lives.

Like the bee that now is blown
Honey-heavy on my hand,
From his toppling tansy-throne
In the green tempestuous land
I’m in clover now, nor know
Who made honey long ago.

This is a poem of reminiscence and ponderation. It conjures up the images of a time of yore, when western-civilization forayed eastward in search of prosperity and progress. It tells the story of residents within the countryside and elaborates on the divergence between their world and the poet's world. The poet places stress on the mirthful, innocent ignorance that blessed this demesne of simplicity. And in the final stanza, he closes with a woeful sentiment: he is indifferent to that kinder time, and has forgotten the history of his ancestors. This reveals much about his demeanor and, in marriage with implications from preceding stanzas, shows to the reader that he may once have known that form of life; he once may have been happier.

The Destruction of Sennacherib - Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Clearly depicting the violent destruction of a city, or a strong-hold of some sort, Lord Byron does justice to the event he describes. By using strong weapons like deft figurative language and passionate word choices, he is able to endow this poem with a sense of vigor that passes to the reader as he peruses its navigable lines. The allusions included in the poem are many and refer primarily to history and christian lore. Personally, albeit not religiously tied, I find this poem very entertaining.

The River of Life - Thomas Campbell

The more we live, more brief appear
Our life’s succeeding stages:
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.

But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow’s shafts fly thicker,
Ye Stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath
And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death,
Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange—yet who would change
Time’s course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone
And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying fleetness;
And those of youth, a seeming length,
Proportion’d to their sweetness.

"The River of Life" is one of Campbell's greatest masterpieces in my opinion. Although I often reserve my favour for poems depicting scenes of strife or of a fantastical nature, I am inclined to like the axiom that this poem presents and elaborates on, however divergent it may be from those I fancy most. The axiom pertains to childhood and it's endless blissfulness when compared to the fading, mundane stage of life followed later in adulthood. Campbell elaborates on this axiom with nearly flawless figurative forms and marries it to a dedicated rhyme-scheme which makes it roll loftly through the mind and off the tongue.

When I Was One-and-Twenty - A.E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
‘The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Housman's poems are renowned for boasting a homely, merry, even humorous ambiance that seem generally free from violence or zeal-- it oft reminds me of a hobbit's view of the world. This poem bears such a crest, and akin to the crest is a parable of a kind. The poem abides by a rhyme scheme and wanders between Iambic, Catalectic Iambic, Anapestic, and Catalectic Anapestic meters. Regardless of meter however, the meaning--meaning is seldom a convoluted encryption when it comes to A.E. Housman--construes the same thing: dedicating your heart to a single person is an unwise act and should be abstained from, but dalliances should be indulged in. Following this, the author is repentent for not having heeded the wise man's words by the age of 22.

The Eagle - Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands ;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

This poem is a wonderful paragon of figurative language regarding nature. It speaks, of course, about an eagle. From an inferred translation: the eagle is perched upon a the ridge of a precipice, scouring the waters--or the dried sea bed--below him for a meal while the day is still young, until finally with great and forceful majesty he dives to catch his prey. The description of the eagle is impeccable from my perspective, and the environment in which this poem states that he resides seems to reflect the eagles sentinel-like solitude and grace.

Song of Myself LII - Walt Whitman

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Walt Whitman has gathered a reputation for verboseness from his many poems. For many of the poems that Whitman conjures up are, indeed, the creations of a garrulous penhand. This poem refrains from what his reputation would uphold, and strikes upon a poignant, axiomatic note. The poem claims that life is a cycle, and does so through metaphors, personification, and similes. The hawk in the initial stanza seems impatient with the character's lingering life and heralds his imminent, if not incurred, demise. In a style that Whitman is revered for, the death of the character is not mourned but celebrated. For in death he transcends from a single, wasteful being into a ubiquitous resource for life. A beautiful sentiment I find.

Homo Sapiens - John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal
Who is so proud of being rational.
The senses are too gross, and he’ll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other five,
And before certain instinct, will prefer
Reason, which fifty times for one does err ;
Reason, an ignis fatuus in the mind,
Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes
Through error’s fenny bogs and thorny brakes ;
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain ;
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down
Into doubt’s boundless sea, where, like to drown,
Books bear him up awhile, and make him try
To swim with bladders of philosophy ;
In hopes still to o’ertake the escaping light,
The vapour dances in his dazzling sight
Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.

Approaching the topic of humanity from a somewhat cynical level, this poem addresses the facet of human nature that is the endless quest for perfect rationale.
Wilmot begins by expressing his abhorrence for the human race, and elaborates on what creature he would choose otherwise if his spirit was free to choose. Following this, he speaks on behalf of the convoluted and distressing journey of life that the average man travels through. Primarily, Wilmot seems to loathe the incessant desire for righteous knowledge that is inherent to humanity, and states that this desire, until old age, is the undoing of a pleasant life.

The Solitary Reaper - William Wordsworth

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass !
Reaping and singing by herself ;
Stop here, or gently pass !
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain ;
O listen ! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands :
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings ? –
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago :
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day ?
Some natural sorry, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again ?

Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending ;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending ; –
I listened, motionless and still ;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Beautiful is the poem that can be understood in full. And therefore do I find this poem beautiful. Wordsworth depicts a maiden, lonesome, perhaps widowed, worked valiantly to maintain a humble farm life on her own. In such a day, and in such a realm as she resided in, such a task is heavy on the soul. And yet through the veil of toil pierces an ethereal song! Hard-pressed is he who dares to guess that such a voice would dwell within a maiden, and Wordsworth felt the song within his heart forevermore beyond his doubt.

The New House - Edward Thomas

Now first, as I shut the door,
I was alone
In the new house ; and the wind
Began to moan.

Old at once was the house,
And I was old ;
My ears were teased with the dread
Of what was foretold,

Nights of storm, days of mist, without end ;
Sad days when the sun
Shone in vain : old griefs and griefs
Not yet begun.

All was foretold me ; naught
Could I foresee ;
But I learned how the wind would sound
After these things should be.

Undoubtedly, there is some underlying meaning to the poem... or so the professionals of the world would have me guess! But alas, I cannot see it.
The tale woven in my mind depicts a house amidst a tame and youthful thicket, where the tempest and its repercussions reign. It tells me of a resident newly come to this old home who looks with premonitions to its ramshackle facade. At first he entered the estate unawares, but after a passage of time, discovered the debilitating nature of where he would live many a day.

Whilst it is Prime - Edmund Spenser

Fresh Spring, the herald of love’s mighty king,
In whose cote-armour richly are displayed
All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring,
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd—
Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd,
Yet in her winters bowre not well awake ;
Tell her the joyous time will not be staid
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take ;
Bid her therefore her selfe soone ready make
To wayt on Love amongst his lovely crew ;
Where every one, that misseth then her make,
Shall be by him amearst with penance dew.
Make haste, therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime ;
For none can call againe the passed time.

There are a great many poems on the topic of spring. It is clear to see where there is such an abundance. For spring is a time of birth and rebirth, a fleeting epoch of restless joy that's summoned from the winter's chill. This poem, however, captures the essence of spring in greater eloquence and conciseness than most. With figurative language abounding, this romantic work of Spenser's is a divine piece.

Echo - Christina Rossetti

Come to me in the silence of the night ;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream ;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream ;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet ;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams that I may live
My very life again though cold in death :
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath :
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Appropriately is this poem named, for it tells of an echo of the past, traveling to a grim and dimly lit present and future. The echo is the sound of love emanating from a dalliance in the past. Dalliance, for it seems that the narrator abruptly awoke outside of love and entered into a cold and tarnished nightmare. From this nightmare she can only dream, and thus she hears the echo and implores it to follow her unto a final rest; unto death.

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore -
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
" 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you" - here I opened wide the door;-
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore!"
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'T is the wind and nothing more!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never - never more.' "

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by Horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there -is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting -
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

My eyes have perused a bounty of lines of poetry, and throughout all of their searching never have they stumbled upon so dazzling a piece of work as this. Rife with the macabre, and deeply entrenched with the figurative, no other poem can hold my imagination in a constant sway like "The Raven". The rhyme scheme, meter, and diction work in a perfect harmony, and all throughout the story remains enthralling and intriguing. But simple reverence cannot do this poem justice.. one must read it first.

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!―An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime,―
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,―
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

War renders many stories, poems, and songs, but many pale in comparison to this. Wilfred Owen depicts war with such a deftness and with such poignant accuracy, that it is hard to contend with. The title of the poem refers to a commonplace moniker of battle: glory. Owen anathematizes the misconceived idea of glory in battle, and replaces it with the cold and sickening truths forged in the poisonous gases and bullet-storms of battle. He does all of this with beautiful metaphors and other forms of figurative language.

The Mosquito - D.H. Lawrence

When did you start your tricks,
Monsieur ?

What do you stand on such high legs for ?
Why this length of shredded shank,
You exaltation ?

Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwards
And weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,
Stand upon me weightless, you phantom ?

I heard a woman call you the Winged Victory
In sluggish Venice.
You turn your head towards your tail, and smile.

How can you put so much devilry
Into that translucent phantom shred
Of a frail corpus ?

Queer, with your thin wings and your streaming legs
How you sail like a heron, or a dull clot of air,
A nothingness.

Yet what an aura surrounds you ;
Your evil little aura, prowling, and casting a numbness on my mind.

That is your trick, your bit of filthy magic :
Invisibility, and the anæsthetic power
To deaden my attention in your direction.
But I know your game now, streaky sorcerer.

Queer, how you stalk and prowl the air
In circles and evasions, enveloping me,
Ghoul on wings
Winged Victory.

Settle, and stand on long thin shanks
Eyeing me sideways, and cunningly conscious that I am aware,
You speck.

I hate the way you lurch off sideways into air
Having read my thoughts against you.

Come then, let us play at unawares,
And see who wins in this sly game of bluff,
Man or mosquito.

You don’t know that I exist, and I don’t know that you exist.
Now then !

It is your trump,
It is your hateful little trump,
You pointed fiend,
Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you :
It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.

Why do you do it ?
Surely it is bad policy.

They say you can’t help it.

If that is so, then I believe a little in Providence protecting the innocent.
But it sounds so amazingly like a slogan,
A yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.

Blood, red blood
Super-magical
Forbidden liquor.

I behold you stand
For a second enspasmed in oblivion,
Obscenely estasied
Sucking live blood,
My blood.

Such silence, such suspended transport,
Such gorging,
Such obscenity of trespass.

You stagger
As well as you may.
Only your accursed hairy frailty,
Your own imponderable weightlessness
Saves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in its snatching.

Away with a pæan of derision,
You winged blood-drop.

Can I not overtake you ?
Are you one too many for me,
Winged Victory ?
Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?

Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makes
Beside the infinitesimal faint smear of you !
Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into !

The region of time between spring and summer is a beautiful time indeed. But amidst all the proliferating beauty, there is a terrible vexation that plagues poetic thoughts. That vexation is a winged beast known as the mosquito! And if the reader has ever traversed a forest or a lakeside or a swamp or the merest field in the night in the later days of May, then the reader shall love this poem. D.H. Lawrence displays his terrible hatred for these creatures, and I am quick to share in his sentiments.

The Lost Leader - Robert Browning

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat –
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags – were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us – they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
– He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering – not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, – not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done, – while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part – the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him – strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

Betrayal is a passion-instilling thing, and this poem epitomizes it. Often is betrayal found amongst brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, allies and the like, but rarely does a prideful leader abandon his post of pride to betrayal. In this poem, the narrator and his cohorts follow devoutly in the path cut by their honorable leader. But the followers are abruptly abandoned by their leader when he succumbs to some greedy allure. This imbues the followers with a diseased rage, and Browning tells of where their vengeance leads.

The Tyger - William Blake

Tyger ! Tyger ! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry ?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes ?
On what wings dare he aspire ?
What the hand dare sieze the fire ?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart ?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet ?

What the hammer, what the chain ?
In what furnace was thy brain ?
What the anvil, what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp ?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see ?
De he who made the Lamb make thee ?

Tyger ! Tyger ! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ?

With this poem, Blake attempts to convey the perfection that the untamed facets of nature are rich with. The first stanza recurs in the final stanza for good reason, for it places emphasis on this very point. The Tyger burns with a gleaming flawlessness, and cannot be encompassed by any other than an immortal-- only a god could craft such a creature, and thus man, although he may try doggedly, will never create something so masterful. A worthy piece of poetry if ever there was.

The Sun Rising - John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys, and sour ’prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long :
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday
And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’

She’s all States, and all Princes I ;
Nothing else is.
Princes do play us ; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic ; all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

The sun is endlessly lionized by humanity across the globe. And yet, in this poem, John Donne chooses to reject the sun and to contradict its supposed splendor. For the sun is disconcerting to sleep and it begs that the day begin when those who dwell in night are wont to stay. Donne is perhaps a resident of darkness, or perhaps a vampire, or a cave-wyrm! Regardless, this poem is aberrant for he clearly dislikes the sun.

Drinking - Abraham Cowley

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again ;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair ;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks ten thousand rivers up,
So filled that they o’erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By’s drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and when he’s done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun :
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night :
Nothing in Nature’s sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there—for why
Should every creature drink but I ?
Why, man of morals, tell me why ?

Initially, the impression that this poem has--as can be attributed to the title--is that it is about the consumption of alcohol. And it may truly, and in a humorous fashion, be about a man's argument for why he should be allowed to drink. But the notion of everything drinking is one that seldom treads across the mind. Cowley applies a figurative coating to the universe and personifies it all by claiming that it drinks light and water and spews out life in return. Humorous though it may be, it is certainly alluring.