AN ODE OF THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR

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1. On My Wife's Birth-Day ‘Tis Nancy’s birth-day raise your strains, Ye nymphs of the Parnassian plains, And sing with more than usual glee To Nancy, who was born for me. Tell the blythe Graces as they bound, Luxuriant in the buxom round; They’re not more elegantly free, Than Nancy, who was born for me. Tell royal Venus, tho’ she […]...
2. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET SICK YOUTH Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere, On this sick youth work your enchantments here! Bind up his senses with your numbers, so As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe. Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keep Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep: That done, then let him, dispossess’d […]...
3. Sonnet 04: Not In This Chamber Only At My Birth Not in this chamber only at my birth- When the long hours of that mysterious night Were over, and the morning was in sight- I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth; And never shall one room contain me quite Who in so many rooms […]...
4. Death And Birth Death and birth should dwell not near together: Wealth keeps house not, even for shame, with dearth: Fate doth ill to link in one brief tether Death and birth. Harsh the yoke that binds them, strange the girth Seems that girds them each with each: yet whether Death be best, who knows, or life on […]...
5. Sonnet 91: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force, Some in their garments though new-fangled ill, Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest, But these particulars are not […]...
6. A PASTORAL UPON THE BIRTH OF PRINCE CHARLES:PRESENTED TO THE KING, AND SET BY MR NIC. LANIERE A PASTORAL UPON THE BIRTH OF PRINCE CHARLES: PRESENTED TO THE KING, AND SET BY MR NIC. LANIERE THE SPEAKERS: MIRTILLO, AMINTAS, AND AMARILLIS AMIN. Good day, Mirtillo. MIRT. And to you no less; And all fair signs lead on our shepherdess. AMAR. With all white luck to you. MIRT. But say, What news Stirs […]...
7. Birth And Death Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother, Night and day, on all things that draw breath, Reign, while time keeps friends with one another Birth and death. Each brow-bound with flowers diverse of wreath, Heaven they hail as father, earth as mother, Faithful found above them and beneath. Smiles may lighten tears, and tears may smother […]...
8. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
9. TO HIS SWEET SAVIOUR Night hath no wings to him that cannot sleep; And Time seems then not for to fly, but creep; Slowly her chariot drives, as if that she Had broke her wheel, or crack’d her axletree. Just so it is with me, who list’ning, pray The winds to blow the tedious night away, That I might […]...
10. Sonnet XLII: Some Men There Be Some men there be which like my method well And much commend the strangeness of my vein; Some say I have a passing pleasing strain; Some say that im my humor I excel; Some, who not kindly relish my conceit, They say, as poets do, I use to feign, And in bare words paint out […]...
11. On the Birth-Day of Queen Katherine WHile yet it was the Empire of the Night, And Stars still check’r’d Darkness with their Light, From Temples round the cheerful Bells did ring, But with the Peales a churlish Storm did sing. I slumbr’d; and the Heavens like things did show, Like things which I had seen and heard below. Playing on Harps […]...
12. On Stella's Birth-Day 1719 Stella this Day is thirty four, (We shan’t dispute a Year or more) However Stella, be not troubled, Although thy Size and Years are doubled, Since first I saw Thee at Sixteen The brightest Virgin on the Green, So little is thy Form declin’d Made up so largely in thy Mind. Oh, woud it please […]...
13. There Was A Saviour There was a saviour Rarer than radium, Commoner than water, crueller than truth; Children kept from the sun Assembled at his tongue To hear the golden note turn in a groove, Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles. The voice of children says From a lost wilderness […]...
14. To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton For brave comportment, wit without offence, Words fully flowing, yet of influence: Thou art that man of men, the man alone, Worthy the public admiration: Who with thine own eyes read’st what we do write, And giv’st our numbers euphony, and weight. Tell’st when a verse springs high, how understood To be, or not born […]...
15. On My Birthday, July 21 I, MY dear, was born to-day So all my jolly comrades say: They bring me music, wreaths, and mirth, And ask to celebrate my birth: Little, alas! my comrades know That I was born to pain and woe; To thy denial, to thy scorn, Better I had ne’er been born: I wish to die, even […]...
16. 311. On the Birth of a Posthumous Child SWEET flow’ret, pledge o’ meikle love, And ward o’ mony a prayer, What heart o’ stane wad thou na move, Sae helpless, sweet, and fair? November hirples o’er the lea, Chill, on thy lovely form: And gane, alas! the shelt’ring tree, Should shield thee frae the storm. May He who gives the rain to pour, […]...
17. Birth-Day Ode 03 And wouldst thou seek the low abode Where PEACE delights to dwell? Pause Traveller on thy way of life! With many a snare and peril rife Is that long labyrinth of road: Dark is the vale of years before Pause Traveller on thy way! Nor dare the dangerous path explore Till old EXPERIENCE comes to […]...
18. Birth-Dues Joy is a trick in the air; pleasure is merely contemptible, the dangled Carrot the ass follows to market or precipice; But limitary pain the rock under the tower and the hewn coping That takes thunder at the head of the turret- Terrible and real. Therefore a mindless dervish carving himself With knives will seem […]...
19. 1985 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. Psalm 58 It was the fortieth year since Buchenwald: two thousand Jewish refugees in Sudan starved while Reagan visited The graves of Nazis. CBS paid off Westmoreland For their rude disclosure of his lies and […]...
20. The Birth Seven o’clock. The seventh day of the seventh month of the year. No sooner have I got myself up in lime-green scrubs, A sterile cap and mask, And taken my place at the head of the table Than the windlass-woman ply their shears And gralloch-grub For a footling foot, then, warming to their task, Haul […]...
21. Lily-Bell and Thistledown Song II Thistledown in prison sings: Bright shines the summer sun, Soft is the summer air; Gayly the wood-birds sing, Flowers are blooming fair. But, deep in the dark, cold rock, Sadly I dwell, Longing for thee, dear friend, Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell replies: Through sunlight and summer air I have sought for thee long, Guided by birds […]...
22. TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK [Addressed, during the Swiss tour already mentioned, To a present Lily had given him, during the time of their happy Connection, which was then about to be terminated for ever.] OH thou token loved of joys now perish’d That I still wear from my neck suspended, Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish’d? Or […]...
23. The Nativity Peace? and to all the world? sure, One And He the Prince of Peace, hath none. He travels to be born, and then Is born to travel more again. Poor Galilee! thou canst not be The place for His nativity. His restless mother’s called away, And not delivered till she pay. A tax? ’tis so […]...
24. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
25. Before the Birth of One of Her Children All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joys attend; No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death’s parting blow are sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh, inevitable. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How […]...
26. FROM THE MOUNTAIN [Written just after the preceding one, on a Mountain overlooking the Lake of Zurich.] IF I, dearest Lily, did not love thee, How this prospect would enchant my sight! And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee, Could I find, or here, or there, delight? 1775....
27. Birth-Day Ode 02 Small is the new-born plant scarce seen Amid the soft encircling green, Where yonder budding acorn rears, Just o’er the waving grass, its tender head: Slow pass along the train of years, And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed. Anon it rears aloft its giant form, And spreads its broad-brown arms […]...
28. TO HIS SAVIOUR, A CHILD;A PRESENT, BY A CHILD Go, pretty child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon his bib or stomacher; And tell him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of […]...
29. Sorrow of Departure Red lotus incense fades on The jeweled curtain. Autumn Comes again. Gently I open My silk dress and float alone On the orchid boat. Who can Take a letter beyond the clouds? Only the wild geese come back And write their ideograms On the sky under the full Moon that floods the West Chamber. Flowers, […]...
30. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
31. THE EPOCHS ON Petrarch’s heart, all other days before, In flaming letters written, was impress d GOOD FRIDAY. And on mine, be it confess’d, Is this year’s ADVENT, as it passeth o’er. I do not now begin, I still adore Her whom I early cherish’d in my breast;, Then once again with prudence dispossess’d, And to whose […]...
32. Discontents In Devon More discontents I never had Since I was born, than here; Where I have been, and still am, sad, In this dull Devonshire. Yet justly too I must confess, I ne’er invented such Ennobled numbers for the press, Than where I loath’d so much....
33. ART ABOVE NATURE: TO JULIA When I behold a forest spread With silken trees upon thy head; And when I see that other dress Of flowers set in comeliness; When I behold another grace In the ascent of curious lace, Which, like a pinnacle, doth shew The top, and the top-gallant too; Then, when I see thy tresses bound Into […]...
34. Ai There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five. There’s a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice Just won the National Book Award. The name “Ai” is pronounced “I” So that whenever I talk about the poet Ai Such as I’m teaching Ai’s poems again this semester It sounds like I’m teaching […]...
35. Love is Enough Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold. Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness; In those serene, Arcadian days of old Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress. The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia’s height Lived only for dear love and love’s delight. Love is enough. Love is enough. […]...
36. THE LILY IN A CRYSTAL You have beheld a smiling rose When virgins’ hands have drawn O’er it a cobweb-lawn: And here, you see, this lily shows, Tomb’d in a crystal stone, More fair in this transparent case Than when it grew alone, And had but single grace. You see how cream but naked is, Nor dances in the eye […]...
37. UPON CUPID Love, like a gipsy, lately came, And did me much importune To see my hand, that by the same He might foretell my fortune. He saw my palm; and then, said he, I tell thee, by this score here, That thou, within few months, shalt be The youthful Prince D’Amour here. I smiled, and bade […]...
38. Birth-Day Ode 01 O my faithful Friend! O early chosen, ever found the same, And trusted and beloved! once more the verse Long destin’d, always obvious to thine ear, Attend indulgent....
39. The Promise of Sleep Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, The dreams from out thy breast; No joy for thee but thou shalt find Thy rest All day I could not work for woe, I could not work nor rest; The trouble drove me to and fro, Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. Night came and […]...
40. To Tirzah Whate’er is Born of Mortal Birth, Must be consumed with the Earth To rise from Generation free: Then what have I to do with thee? The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride Blowd in the morn; in evening died But Mercy changed Death into Sleep; The Sexes rose to work & weep. Thou Mother of […]...