A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace

Related poetry:

1. The Lyttel Boy Sometime there ben a lyttel boy That wolde not renne and play, And helpless like that little tyke Ben allwais in the way. “Goe, make you merrie with the rest,” His weary moder cried; But with a frown he catcht her gown And hong untill her side. That boy did love his moder well, Which […]...
2. A paraphrase Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, in Heaven the same; Give us this day our daily bread, and may our debts to heaven As we our earthly debts forgive by Thee be all forgiven; When tempted or by evil vexed, restore Thou […]...
3. An Allusion to Horace Well Sir, ’tis granted, I said Dryden’s Rhimes, Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times: What foolish Patron, is there found of his, So blindly partial, to deny me this? But that his Plays, Embroider’d up and downe, With Witt, and Learning, justly pleas’d the Towne, In the same paper, I as freely owne: Yet […]...
4. 17. Paraphrase of the First Psalm THE MAN, in life wherever plac’d, Hath happiness in store, Who walks not in the wicked’s way, Nor learns their guilty lore! Nor from the seat of scornful pride Casts forth his eyes abroad, But with humility and awe Still walks before his God. That man shall flourish like the trees, Which by the streamlets […]...
5. Horace to phyllis Come, Phyllis, I’ve a cask of wine That fairly reeks with precious juices, And in your tresses you shall twine The loveliest flowers this vale produces. My cottage wears a gracious smile, The altar, decked in floral glory, Yearns for the lamb which bleats the while As though it pined for honors gory. Hither our […]...
6. Horace to Melpomene Lofty and enduring is the monument I’ve reared, Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing; And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared, Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing! I shall not altogether die; by far my greater part Shall mock man’s common fate in realms infernal; My works shall live as […]...
7. Horace to Pyrrha What perfumed, posie-dizened sirrah, With smiles for diet, Clasps you, O fair but faithless Pyrrha, On the quiet? For whom do you bind up your tresses, As spun-gold yellow, Meshes that go, with your caresses, To snare a fellow? How will he rail at fate capricious, And curse you duly! Yet now he deems your […]...
8. Horace iii. 13 O fountain of Bandusia, Whence crystal waters flow, With garlands gay and wine I’ll pay The sacrifice I owe; A sportive kid with budding horns I have, whose crimson blood Anon shall dye and sanctify Thy cool and babbling flood. O fountain of Bandusia, The dog-star’s hateful spell No evil brings unto the springs That […]...
9. Horace and Lydia Reconciled HORACE When you were mine in auld lang syne, And when none else your charms might ogle, I’ll not deny, Fair nymph, that I Was happier than a Persian mogul. LYDIA Before she came that rival flame! (Was ever female creature sillier?) In those good times, Bepraised in rhymes, I was more famed than Mother […]...
10. If Thou Could'st Empty All Thyself Of Self If thou could’st empty all thyself of self, Like to a shell dishabited, Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf, And say, “This is not dead,” And fill thee with Himself instead. But thou are all replete with very thou And hast such shrewd activity, That when He comes He says, “This is […]...
11. Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book Ne Rubeam, Pingui donatus Munere (Horace, Epistles II. i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc’d world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend; How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal An hour, and not defraud the public […]...
12. Mediaeval eventide song Come hither, lyttel childe, and lie upon my breast to-night, For yonder fares an angell yclad in raimaunt white, And yonder sings ye angell as onely angells may, And his songe ben of a garden that bloometh farre awaye. To them that have no lyttel childe Godde sometimes sendeth down A lyttel childe that ben […]...
13. Horace to Leuconoë I pray you not, Leuconoë, to pore With unpermitted eyes on what may be Appointed by the gods for you and me, Nor on Chaldean figures any more. ‘T were infinitely better to implore The present only:-whether Jove decree More winters yet to come, or whether he Make even this, whose hard, wave-eaten shore Shatters […]...
14. The Fifth Ode Of Horace. Lib. I Quis multa gracilis te puer in Rosa Rendred almost word for word without Rhyme according to the Latin Measure, as near as the Language permit. WHAT slender Youth bedew’d with liquid odours Courts thee on Roses in some pleasant Cave, Pyrrha for whom bind’st thou In wreaths thy golden Hair, Plain in thy neatness; O […]...
15. The IX Ode to Horace HORACE. While I was pleasing to your arms, Nor any youth, of happier charms, Thy snowy bosom blissful prest, Not Portia’s like me was blest. LYDIA. While for no other fair you burn’d, Nor Lydia was for Chloe scorn’d What maid was then so blest as thine? Not [xx’s] flame could equal mine. HORACE. Me […]...
16. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
17. Horace, Lib. I, Epist. IX, Imitated [To the right honourable Mr. Harley] Dear Dick, how e’er it comes into his head, Believes, as firmly as he does his creed, That you and I, sir, are extremely great; Though I plain Mat, you minister of state. One word from me, without all doubt, he says, Would fix his fortune in some little […]...
18. The "happy isles" of horace Oh, come with me to the Happy Isles In the golden haze off yonder, Where the song of the sun-kissed breeze beguiles, And the ocean loves to wander. Fragrant the vines that mantle those hills, Proudly the fig rejoices; Merrily dance the virgin rills, Blending their myriad voices. Our herds shall fear no evil there, […]...
19. Diffugere Nives (Horace, Odes 4.7) The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws And grasses in the mead renew their birth, The river to the river-bed withdraws, And altered is the fashion of the earth. The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear And unapparelled in the woodland play. The swift hour and the brief prime of the […]...
20. Sonnet XV YE tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle, Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain: And both the Indias of their treasures spoile, What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine? For loe my loue doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found, If Saphyres, loe her […]...
21. The New Omar A Book of verses underneath the bough, Provided that the verses do not scan, A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and Thou, Short-haired, all angles, looking like a man. But let the wine be unfermented, Pale, Of chemicals compounded, God knows how This were indeed the Prophet’s Paradise, O Paradise were Wilderness enow....
22. Of Him I Love Day and Night OF him I love day and night, I dream’d I heard he was dead; And I dream’d I went where they had buried him I love—but he was not in that place; And I dream’d I wander’d, searching among burial-places, to find him; And I found that every place was a burial-place; The houses full […]...
23. Sonnet 12 – Indeed this very love which is my boast Indeed this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,- This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost, I should not love withal, unless that thou Hadst set me an […]...
24. Her Epitaph Happy Grave, thou dost enshrine That which makes thee a rich mine: Remember yet, ’tis but a loane; And wee must have it back, Her owne, The very same; Marke mee, the same: Thou canst not cheat us with a lame Deformed Carcase; Shee was fayre, Fresh as Morning, sweete as Ayre: Purer than other […]...
25. God Full Of Mercy God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead. If God was not full of mercy, Mercy would have been in the world, Not just in Him. I, who plucked flowers in the hills And looked down into all the valleys, I, who brought corpses down from the hills, Can tell you that the world is empty of […]...
26. Sonnet LVIII By Her That Is Most Assured To Her Selfe WEake is th’assurance that weake flesh reposeth, In her owne powre and scorneth others ayde: That soonest fals when as she most supposeth, Her selfe assurd, and is of nought affrayd. All flesh is frayle, and all her strength vnstayd, Like a vaine bubble blowen vp with ayre: Deuouring tyme & changeful chance haue prayd, […]...
27. Uhland's There were three cavaliers that went over the Rhine, And gayly they called to the hostess for wine. “And where is thy daughter? We would she were here, Go fetch us that maiden to gladden our cheer!” “I’ll fetch thee thy goblets full foaming,” she said, “But in yon darkened chamber the maiden lies dead.” […]...
28. Poem 9 LOe where she comes along with portly pace, Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the East, Arysing forth to run her mighty race, Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best. So well it her beseemes that ye would weene Some angell she had beene. Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre, Sprinckled […]...
29. It don't sound so terrible quite as it did It don’t sound so terrible quite as it did I run it over “Dead”, Brain, “Dead.” Put it in Latin left of my school Seems it don’t shriek so under rule. Turn it, a little full in the face A Trouble looks bitterest Shift it just Say “When Tomorrow comes this way I shall have […]...
30. A Wreath A wreathed garland of deserved praise, Of praise deserved, unto thee I give, I give to thee, who knowest all my wayes, My crooked winding wayes, wherein I live, Wherein I die, not live : for life is straight, Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee, To thee, who art more farre above […]...
31. Pan liveth They told me once that Pan was dead, And so, in sooth, I thought him; For vainly where the streamlets led Through flowery meads I sought him Nor in his dewy pasture bed Nor in the grove I caught him. “Tell me,” ’twas so my clamor ran “Tell me, oh, where is Pan?” But, once, […]...
32. Faith Matheny At first you will know not what they mean, And you may never know, And we may never tell you: These sudden flashes in your soul, Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds At midnight when the moon is full. They come in solitude, or perhaps You sit with your friend, and all at once A […]...
33. Martha SEXTON! Martha’s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! Her weary hands their labor cease; Good night, poor Martha, sleep in peace! Toll the bell! Sexton! Martha ‘s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! For many a year has Martha said, “I’m old and poor, would I were dead!” Toll […]...
34. The Smile on the Face of a Kouros This boy, of course, was dead, whatever that Might mean. And nobly dead. I think we should feel He was nobly dead. He fell in battle, perhaps, And this carved stone remembers him Not as he may have looked, but as if to define The naked virtue the stone describes as his. One foot is […]...
35. City Dead-House, The BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause-for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d-it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full […]...
36. A Paralell Between Bowling And Preferment Preferment, like a Game at bowles, To feede our hope with diverse play Heer quick it runnes, there soft it rowles: The Betters make and shew the way. As upper ground, so great Allies Doe many cast on theyr desire: Some uppe are thrust, and forc’t to rise, When those are stopt that would aspire. […]...
37. The Old Chimaeras. Old Recipts THE old Chimaeras, old receipts For making “happy land,” The old political beliefs Swam close before my hand. The grand old communistic myths In a middle state of grace, Quite dead, but not yet gone to Hell, And walking for a space, Quite dead, and looking it, and yet All eagerness to show The Social-Contract […]...
38. Change Upon Change Five months ago the stream did flow, The lilies bloomed within the sedge, And we were lingering to and fro, Where none will track thee in this snow, Along the stream, beside the hedge. Ah, Sweet, be free to love and go! For if I do not hear thy foot, The frozen river is as […]...
39. For Mac A dead starfish on a beach He has five branches Representing the five senses Representing the jokes we did not tell each other Call the earth flat Call other people human But let this creature lie Flat upon our senses Like a love Prefigured in the sea That died. And went to water All the […]...
40. Old Ireland FAR hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty, Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother, Once a queen-now lean and tatter’d, seated on the ground, Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders; At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, Long silent-she too long silent-mourning her shrouded hope and heir; Of all […]...