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Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
by Thomas Gray
 

  
  The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
    The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea1,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
    And leaves the world to darkness, and to me.		 1 meadow
(5) Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
    And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
    And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

  
(10)     The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wandering near her sacred bower,
    Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,
    Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,

  
(15) Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
    The rude2 forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
    The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn3,

 2 uneducated

 

3 instrument often used by hunter
(20)     No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
    Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
    Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
 

  
(25) Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
    Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe4 has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
    How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

 4 soil
(30)     Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
    The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry5, the pomp of power,
    And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

  

5 noble birth
(35) Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
    The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
    If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies6 raise,
Where through the long-drawn isle and fretted vault7

  

6 the achievements of the deceased

7 a church ceiling decorated with intersecting lines
(40)     The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn8 or animated9 bust
    Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke10 the silent dust,
    Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of Death?
 

 8 vase holding the remains of the dead, with an inscription

9 life-like

10 call forth
(45) Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
    Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
    Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

  
(50)     Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
    And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
    The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

  
(55) Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
    And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden11 that with dauntless breast
    The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton12 here may rest,

 11 Englishman who defended the rights of the people against Charles I

12 John Milton, author of Paradise Lost
(60)     Some Cromwell13 guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
    The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
    And read their History in a nation's eyes,
 

 13 Oliver Cromwell, leader of the English Commonwealth
(65) Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
    Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
    And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

  
(70)     To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
    With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding14 crowd's ignoble strife,
    Their sober wishes never learned to stray;

 14 frenzied
(75) Along the cool sequestered vale of life
    They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet even these bones from insult to protect
    Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked15,

 15 refers to "the storied urn or animated bust"  from line 41
(80)     Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse16,
    The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
    That teach the rustic moralist to die.
 

 16 an uneducated gravestone carver
(85) For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
    This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
    Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,		  
(90)

    Some pious drops17 the closing eye requires;
Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
    Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of the unhonored dead
    Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

 17 tears
(95) If chance18, by lonely contemplation led,
    Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed19 swain may say,
    "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away		 18 perhaps

19 white-haired (implies old age)
(100)     To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
     That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
     And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
 

  
(105) "Hard by yon wood, now frowning as in scorn,
    Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
    Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the customed hill,

  
(110)      Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill20,
    Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array
    Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.

 20 brook
(115) Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
    Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
   A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
   And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
   Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
   He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.
No farther seeks his merits to disclose,
    Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
    The bosom of his Father and his God.

  


 

 

The Lamb
by William Blake
 

  
     Little Lamb, who made thee?
   Dost thou know who made thee?
 Gave thee life, & bid thee feed,
 By the stream & o'er the mead;		  
(5)  Gave thee clothing of delight,
 Softest clothing, wooly bright;
 Gave thee such a tender voice,
 Making all the vales rejoice!
   Little Lamb who made thee?		  
(10)    Dost thou know who made thee?

   Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
   Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb		  
(15) He is meek, & he is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, & thou a lamb,
We are callèd by his name.
   Little Lamb, God bless thee!		  
(20)    Little Lamb, God bless thee!  

 

 

The Tyger
by William Blake
 

  
  Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
 		  
(5)  In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art		  
(10) 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?		  
(15) 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?		  
(20) Did 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?		  


 

 

Tintern Abbey
by William Wordsworth
 

  
  Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. --Once again		  
(5) Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose		  
(10) Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see		  
(15) These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,		  
(20) Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

                                  These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:		  
(25) But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din,
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind,		  
(30)  With tranquil restoration:--feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts		  
(35) Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen1 of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight


1 burden
(40) Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,--
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame2
And even the motion of our human blood		 2 body
(45) Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

 

  
(50)                                              If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft--
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless day-ight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--		  
<_font28_5529_> (55) How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee
O sylvan3 Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

  And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
3 wooded
(60) And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food		  
(65) For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe4
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,		 4 deer
(70) Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)		  
(75) To me was all in all.--I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me		  
(80) An appetite: a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,		  
(85) And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint5 I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
5 lose heart
(90)

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy

  
(95) Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,		  
(100) A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold		  
(105) From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear,-- both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,		  
(110) The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

                                     Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer6 my genial spirits7 to decay?
For thou art with me here upon the banks



6 allow
7 genius creative powers 
(115) Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend8,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
8 his sister Dorothy
(120) May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead		  
(125) From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,		  
(130) Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon		  
(135) Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind		  
(140) Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts		  
(145) Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence9-- wilt thou then forget



9 speaker's visit five years earlier
(150) That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal		  
(155) Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake!		  


 

 

My Heart Leaps Up
by William Wordsworth
 

  
  My heart leaps up when I behold
      A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began:
So is it now I am a man:		  
(5) So be it when I shall grow old,
      Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man:
And I could wish my days to be
bound each to each by natural piety.		  


 

 

The Rime of The Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 

  
 

In "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a ship captain tells a tale of killing an albatross at sea, against the wishes of his crew and in defiance of supernatural forces of the ocean. Both captain and crew are cursed by this action. At the end of Part 2, the ship cannot move because shooting the bird cause the winds to die down, and the crew has been suffering from severe thirst. The spirits of Death and Life-in-Death arrive in Part 3 to deal with the souls of those on board.

(Note: Samuel Coleridge wrote his own notes to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which are included here. The notes in italics are Coleridge's.)
 

  

 

 
    PART 3

     There passed a weary time.  Each throat
     Was parched, and glazed each eye.		  
(145)      A weary time! a weary time!
     How glazed each weary eye,
     When looking westward, I beheld
     A something in the sky.

     At first it seemed a little speck,		  

The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

(150)      And then it seemed a mist;
     It moved and moved, and took at last
     A certain shape, I wist.1

     A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
     And still it neared and neared:

 

1 knew
(155)      As if it dodged a water-sprite,2
     It plunged and tacked and veered.

     With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
     We could not laugh nor wail;
     Through utter drought all dumb we stood!		 2 a super natural being that supervises the natural elements


At its nearest approach, it seemeth him to be a ship and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

(160)      I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
     And cried, A sail! a sail!...

[And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?]

 A flash of joy;
(175)   
     And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
     (Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
     As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,		  


It seemth him but the skeleton of a ship.
(180)      With broad and burning face.

     Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
     How fast she nears and nears!
     Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
     Like restless gossameres3!
 		  

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun. The Specter Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship.
3 floating cobwebs
(185)      Are those her ribs through which the Sun
     Did peer, as through a grate?
     And is that Woman all her crew?
     Is that a death? and are there two?
     Is death that woman's mate?
 		  
(190)      Her lips were red, her looks were free,
     Her locks were yellow as gold:
     Her skin was as white as leprosy,
     The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she,
     Who thicks man's blood with cold.
 		 Like vessel, like crew!

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

(195)      The naked hulk alongside came,
     And the twain were casting dice;
     "The game is done! I've won! I've won!"
     Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

     The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:		  

 


No twilight with the courts of the sun.

(200)      At one stride comes the dark;
     With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea.
     Off shot the spectre-bark.

     We listened and looked sideways up!
     Fear at my heart, as at a cup,		  

 

At the rising of the Moon.
(205)      My life-blood seemed to sip!
     The stars were dim, and thick the night,
     The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
     From the sails the dew did drip--
     Till clomb4 above the eastern bar



4 climbed
(210)      The horned5 Moon, with one bright star
     Within the nether tip6.

     One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
     Too quick for groan or sigh,
     Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,		 5 crescent
6 an evil omen for sailors

One after another
(215)      And cursed me with his eye.

     Four times fifty living men,
     (And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
     With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
     They dropped down one by one.
 		  

His shipmates drop down dead.
(220)      The souls did from their bodies fly,--
     They fled to bliss or woe!
     And every soul, it passed me by,
     Like the whizz of my cross-bow!		 But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.


 

 

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 

  
  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man		  
(5)       Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;		  
(10) And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted		  
(15) As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:		  
(20) Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.		  
(25) Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far		  
(30) Ancestral voices prophesying war!

     The shadow of the dome of pleasure
     Floated midway on the waves;
     Where was heard the mingled measure
     From the fountain and the caves.		  
(35) It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
     A damsel with a dulcimer
     In a vision once I saw:
     It was an Abyssinian maid,		  
(40)      And on her dulcimer she played,
     Singing of Mount Abora.
     Could I revive within me
     Her symphony and song,
     To such a deep delight 'twould win me,		  
(45) That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!		  
(50) His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice1,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.		 1 a ritual used to keep an inspired writer from being interrupted.