Elegy Upon Tiger
Her dead lady’s joy and comfort,
Who departed this life
The last day of March, 1727:
To the great joy of Bryan
That his antagonist is gone.
And is poor Tiger laid at last so low?
O day of sorrow! – Day of dismal woe!
Bloodhounds, or spaniels, lap-dogs, ’tis all one,
When Death once whistles – snap! – away they’re gone.
See how she lies, and hangs her lifeless ears,
Bathed in her mournful lady’s tears!
Dumb is her throat, and wagless is her tail,
Doomed to the grave, to Death’s eternal jail!
In a few days this lovely creature must
First turn to clay, and then be changed to dust.
That mouth which used its lady’s mouth to lick
Must yield its jaw-bones to the worms to pick.
That mouth which used the partridge-wing to eat
Must give its palate to the worms to eat.
Methinks I see her now in Charon’s boat
Bark at the Stygian fish which round it float;
While Cerberus, alarmed to hear the sound,
Makes Hell’s wide concave bellow all around.
She sees him not, but hears him through the dark,
And valiantly returns him bark for bark.
But now she trembles – though a ghost, she dreads
To see a dog with three large yawning heads.
Spare her, you hell-hounds, case your frightful paws,
And let poor Tiger ‘scape your furious jaws.
Let her go safe to the Elysian plains,
Where Hylax barks among the Mantuan swains;
There let her frisk about her new-found love:
She loved a dog when she was here above.
The Epitaph
Here lies beneath this marble
An animal could bark, or warble:
Sometimes a bitch, sometimes a bird,
Could eat a tart, or eat a t -.
Related poetry:
- The Tiger The tiger, on the other hand, Is kittenish and mild, And makes a pretty playfellow For any little child. And mothers of large families (Who claim to common sense) Will find a tiger well repays The trouble and expense....
- The Other Tiger A tiger comes to mind. The twilight here Exalts the vast and busy Library And seems to set the bookshelves back in gloom; Innocent, ruthless, bloodstained, sleek It wanders through its forest and its day Printing a track along the muddy banks Of sluggish streams whose names it does not know (In its world there […]...
- Your tiger (in china it is symbolic Of darkness and the new moon) In your night’s hollow The tiger stalks Black grasses have licked It into nothingness Hooked by moon I hover on your hollow’s lip I feel the smell of fire The leap of a bright cat-fur My eye is dumb Asking to be devoured I […]...
- Tiger At noon thepaper tigers roar Miroslav Holub The paper tigers roar at noon; The sun is hot, the sun is high. They roar in chorus, not in tune, Their plaintive, savage hunting cry. O, when you hear them, stop your ears And clench your lids and bite your tongue. The harmless paper tiger bears Strong […]...
- A Dying Tiger moaned for Drink A Dying Tiger moaned for Drink I hunted all the Sand I caught the Dripping of a Rock And bore it in my Hand His Mighty Balls in death were thick But searching I could see A Vision on the Retina Of Water and of me ‘Twas not my blame who sped too slow ‘Twas […]...
- The Drunkard from St. Ambrose He fears the tiger standing in his way. The tiger takes its time, it smiles and growls. Like moons, the two blank eyes tug at his bowels. “God help me now,” is all that he can say. “God help me now, how close I’ve come to God. To love and to be […]...
- Elegy to the Memory of Werter “With female Fairies will thy tomb be haunted “And worms will not come to thee.” SHAKSPERE. WHEN from Day’s closing eye the lucid tears Fall lightly on the bending lily’s head; When o’er the blushing sky night’s curtains spread, And the tall mountain’s summit scarce appears; When languid Evening, sinking to repose, Her filmy mantle […]...
- The Tale of the Tiger-Tree A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old. The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal. I […]...
- Eating Poetry Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad And she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs […]...
- A Landscape By Courbet Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still And glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clear To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill Low lies the mere. The wind speaks only summer: eye nor ear Sees aught at all of dark, hears aught of shrill, From sound or shadow felt or […]...
- Elegy Here rests beneath this hospitable spot A youth to flats and flatties not unknown. The Plymouth Brethren gave it to him hot; Trinity, Cambridge, claimed him for her own. At chess a minor master, Hoylake set His handicap a 2. Love drove him crazy; Thrre thousand women used to call him “pet”; In other gardens […]...
- Elegy For My Father HLF, August 8, 1918-August 22, 1997 “Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.” -Hart Crane, “Voyages” “If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly Past the long edge of the […]...
- Elegy I: Jealousy Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die, And yet complain’st of his great jealousy; If swol’n with poison, he lay in his last bed, His body with a sere-bark covered, Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can The nimblest crocheting musician, Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew His soul out of one […]...
- Cassandra The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers Hooked in the stones of the wall, The storm-wrack hair and screeching mouth: does it matter, Cassandra, Whether the people believe Your bitter fountain? Truly men hate the truth, they’d liefer Meet a tiger on the road. Therefore the poets honey their truth with […]...
- 173. Elegy on Stella STRAIT is the spot and green the sod From whence my sorrows flow; And soundly sleeps the ever dear Inhabitant below. Pardon my transport, gentle shade, While o’er the turf I bow; Thy earthy house is circumscrib’d, And solitary now. Not one poor stone to tell thy name, Or make thy virtues known: But what […]...
- The Glove – A Tale Before his lion-court, Impatient for the sport, King Francis sat one day; The peers of his realm sat around, And in balcony high from the ground Sat the ladies in beauteous array. And when with his finger he beckoned, The gate opened wide in a second, And in, with deliberate tread, Enters a lion dread, […]...
- The Lion and the Lamb I saw a Tiger’s golden flank, I saw what food he ate, By a desert spring he drank; The Tiger’s name was Hate. Then I saw a placid Lamb Lying fast asleep; Like a river from its dam Flashed the Tiger’s leap. I saw a lion tawny-red, Terrible and brave; The Tiger’s leap overhead Broke […]...
- The Sin Of Hamlet The horns in the harbor booming, vaguely, Fog, forgotten, yesterday, conclusion, Nostalgic, noising dim sorrow, calling To sleep is it? I think so, and childhood, Not the door opened and the stair descended, The voice answered, the choice announced, the Trigger touched in the sharp declaration! And when it comes, escape is small; the door […]...
- 177. Elegy on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair THE LAMP of day, with-ill presaging glare, Dim, cloudy, sank beneath the western wave; Th’ inconstant blast howl’d thro’ the dark’ning air, And hollow whistled in the rocky cave. Lone as I wander’d by each cliff and dell, Once the lov’d haunts of Scotia’s royal train; 1 Or mus’d where limpid streams, once hallow’d well, […]...
- Elegy Too proud to die; broken and blind he died The darkest way, and did not turn away, A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride On that darkest day. Oh, forever may He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow Young among the long […]...
- In a Southern Garden WHEN the tall bamboos are clicking to the restless little breeze, And bats begin their jerky skimming flight, And the creamy scented blossoms of the dark pittosporum trees, Grow sweeter with the coming of the night. And the harbour in the distance lies beneath a purple pall, And nearer, at the garden’s lowest fringe, Loud […]...
- Long Time I Lay In Little Ease LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE LONG time I lay in little ease Where, placed by the Turanian, Marseilles, the many-masted, sees The blue Mediterranean. Now songful in the hour of sport, Now riotous for wages, She camps around her ancient port, As ancient of the ages. Algerian airs through all the place Unconquerably […]...
- Worms Worms finer for fishing you couldn’t be wishing; I delved them dismayed from the velvety sod; The rich loam upturning I gathered them squirming, Big, fat, gleamy earthworms, all ripe for my rod. Thinks I, without waiting, my hook I’ll be baiting, And flip me a fish from the foam of the pool; Then Mother […]...
- A Poem About George Doty In The Death House Lured by the wall, and drawn To stare below the roof, Where pigeons nest aloof From prowling cats and men, I count the sash and bar Secured to granite stone, And note the daylight gone, Supper and silence near. Close to the wall inside, Immured, empty of love, A man I have wondered of Lies […]...
- Turns And Movies: Zudora Here on the pale beach, in the darkness; With the full moon just to rise; They sit alone, and look over the sea, Or into each other’s eyes. . . She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand, Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand. ‘A lovely night,’ he says, ‘the moon, Comes up […]...
- 302. Elegy on Willie Nicol's Mare PEG NICHOLSON was a good bay mare, As ever trod on airn; But now she’s floating down the Nith, And past the mouth o’ Cairn. Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, An’ rode thro’ thick and thin; But now she’s floating down the Nith, And wanting even the skin. Peg Nicholson was a good […]...
- Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY When man had ceased to utter his lament, A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow. WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now In the still-closed blossoms of this day? Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou; What wav’ring thoughts within the bosom play No longer doubt! Descending from the […]...
- 141. Tam Samson's Elegy HAS auld Kilmarnock seen the deil? Or great Mackinlay 1 thrawn his heel? Or Robertson 2 again grown weel, To preach an’ read? “Na’ waur than a’! cries ilka chiel, “Tam Samson’s dead!” Kilmarnock lang may grunt an’ grane, An’ sigh, an’ sab, an’ greet her lane, An’ cleed her bairns, man, wife, an’ wean, […]...
- 66. Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux NOW Robin 1 lies in his last lair, He’ll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair; Cauld poverty, wi’ hungry stare, Nae mair shall fear him; Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care, E’er mair come near him. To tell the truth, they seldom fash’d him, Except the moment that they crush’d him; For sune as chance […]...
- Holy Sonnet VIII: If Faithful Souls Be Alike Glorified If faithful souls be alike glorified As angels, then my fathers soul doth see, And adds this even to full felicity, That valiantly I hells wide mouth o’erstride: But if our minds to these souls be descried By circumstances, and by signs that be Apparent in us, not immediately, How shall my mind’s white truth […]...
- Elegy VIII: The Comparison As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, As that which from chafed musk-cats’ pores doth trill, As the almighty balm of th’ early East, Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast, And on her brow her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets. Rank sweaty froth […]...
- An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. John Can we not force from widow’d poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak’d prose, thy dust, Such as th’ unscissor’d churchman from the flower Of fading rhetoric, short-liv’d as his hour, Dry as the sand that measures it, should […]...
- Elegy on the Death of Lady Middleton THE knell of death, that on the twilight gale, Swells its deep murmur to the pensive ear; In awful sounds repeats a mournful tale, And claims the tribute of a tender tear. The dreadful hour is past! the mandate giv’n! The gentle MIDDLETON shall breathe no more, Yet who shall blame the wise decrees of […]...
- Elegy VII Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love, And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand The mystic language of the eye nor hand: Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair: Nor by th’ eyes water call […]...
- Psalm 49 The rich sinner’s death, and the saint’s resurrection. Why do the proud insult the poor, And boast the large estates they have? How vain are riches to secure Their haughty owners from the grave! They can’t redeem one hour from death, With all the wealth in which they trust; Nor give a dying brother breath, […]...
- Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers, Echo from the dreary house of woe; Death-notes rise from yonder minster’s towers! Bearing out a youth, they slowly go; Yes! a youth unripe yet for the bier, Gathered in the spring-time of his days, Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear, With the flame that in his […]...
- An Elegy On The Glory Of Her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaize Good people all, with one accord Lament for Madam Blaize, Who never wanted a good word,- From those who spoke her praise. The needy seldom passed her door, And always found her kind; She freely lent to all the poor,- Who left a pledge behind. She strove the neighbourhood to please With manners wondrous winning; […]...
- Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats I weep for Adonais he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, And teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me Died Adonais; till the Future dares […]...
- An Elegy on the Death of Montgomery Tappen An elegy on the death of MONTGOMERY TAPPEN who dies at Poughkeepsie on the 20th of Nov. 1784 in the ninth year of his age. The sweetest, gentlest, of the youthful train, Here lies his clay cold upon the sable bier! He scarce had started on life’s varied plain, For dreary death arrested his career. […]...
- Elegy IX: The Autumnal No spring nor summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnall face. Young beauties force our love, and that’s a rape, This doth but counsel, yet you cannot ‘scape. If ’twere a shame to love, here ’twere no shame, Affection here takes Reverence’s name. Were her first years the Golden Age; […]...