ROMANTICS Flashcards
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1
Q
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
A
Wordsworth, Strange fits of passion have I known
2
Q
There poets find materials for their books,
And every now and then we read them through,
So that their plan and prosody are eligible,
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.
A
Byron, Don Juan
3
Q
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft – so calm – yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent –
A mind at peace with all below –
A Heart – whose love is innocent!
A
Byron, She Walks in Beauty
4
Q
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ‘tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: —Do I wake or sleep?
A
Keats, Ode to a Nightingale (early May)
5
Q
She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
A
Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci: a Ballad
6
Q
There are in our existence spots of time,
Which with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating Virtue, whence, depressed
By false opinion and contentius thought,
A
Wordsworth, The Prelude (spots in time)
7
Q
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
A
Keats, On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
8
Q
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.
A
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
9
Q
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
A
Coleridge, Kubla Khan
10
Q
Their Clay Creator the vain title take
Of Lord of thee, and Arbiter of War –
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar *
Alike the Armada’s pride or spoils of Trafalgar. †
A
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
11
Q
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
A
Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
12
Q
both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls
That they might answer him.
A
Wordsworth, The Prelude (there was a boy)
13
Q
Had cross’d the mighty Orb’s dilated glory,
While thou stood’st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o’er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
A
Coleridge, This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison
14
Q
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield!
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay!
Religion, Christless, Godless—a book sealed!
A
Shelley, England in 1819
15
Q
‘Twas strange that one so young should thus concern
His brain about the action of the Sky;
If you think ’twas Philosophy that this did,
I can’t help thinking Puberty assisted. – – –
A
Byron, Don Juan
16
Q
Meanwhile the sun paus’d ere it should alight,
Over the horizon of the mountains —Oh,
How beautiful is sunset, when the glow
Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee,
Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!
A
Shelley, Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation
17
Q
To the kind reader of our sober clime
This way of writing will appear Exotic;
Pulci was Sire of the half-serious Rhyme
Who sang when Chivalry was more Quixotic
And revelled in the fancies of the Time,
A
Byron, Don Juan
18
Q
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
A
Keats, Ode to Autumn
19
Q
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
A
Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge
20
Q
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gusht from my heart,
And I bless’d them unaware!
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I bless’d them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
A
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
21
Q
‘Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout
All countries of the Catholic persuasion,
Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,
The People take their fill of recreation,
And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,
However high their rank, or low their station,
A
Byron, Beppo
22
Q
Eve of the land which still is Paradise!
Italian Beauty! didst thou not inspire
Raphael, who died in thy embrace, and vies
With all we know of heaven, or can desire
In what he hath bequeathed us?
A
Byron, Beppo
23
Q
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardours of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
A
Shelley, The Cloud
24
Q
First the realm I’ll pass
Of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass,
Feed upon apples red, and strawberries,
And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees;
A
Keats, Sleep and Poetry
25
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Keats, Ode to Autumn
26
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—
Keats, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
27
Go thou to Rome—at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
And where its wrecks like shatter'd mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness
Pass,
Shelley, Adonis
28
Wordsworth, ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
29
“The eye — it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against, or with our will.
Wordsworth, Expostulation and Reply
30
and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine!
Coleridge, This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison
31
The naked Hulk alongside came
And the Twain were playing dice;
“The Game is done! I've won, I've won!"
Quoth she, and whistled thrice.
A gust of wind sterte up behind
And whistled thro' his bones;
Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth
Half-whistles and half-groans.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
32
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Wordsworth, ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
33
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
Wordsworth, A Slumber did my Spirit Seal
34
yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
Keats, Bright Star
35
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.
Keats, On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
36
In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless Gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And Music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone – but Beauty still is here.
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
37
I met Murder on the way--
He had a mask like Castlereagh--
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:
Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy
38
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
Wordsworth, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
39
So much for Julia. Now we’ll turn to Juan,
Poor little fellow! he had no idea
Of his own Case, and never hit the true one;
In feelings quick as Ovid’s Miss Medea,
Byron, Don Juan
40
that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the dim clay-stone.
Coleridge, This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison
41
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
Keats, Ode on Melancholy (May)
42
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
Keats, When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
43
But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perish'd,
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherish'd,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Shelley, Adonis
44
I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fix'd on me their stony eyes
That in the moon did glitter.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
45
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
46
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
Shelley, The Cloud
47
“With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"
Shelley, Adonis
48
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
49
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone;
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Wordsworth, ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
50
I said that like a picture by Giorgione
Venetian women were, and so they are,
Particularly seen from a balcony
Byron, Beppo
51
And its peculiar tint of yellow green –
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Coleridge, DEJECTION
52
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Shelley, To a Skylark
53
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Keats, Ode to a Nightingale (early May)
54
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
55
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Wordsworth, ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
56
Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps,
Coleridge, This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison
57
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!
Coleridge, Kubla Khan
58
On summer-evenings, I believe that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!
Wordsworth, The Prelude (there was a boy)
59
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see.
I know the man that must hear me;
To him my tale I teach.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
60
He raised, and never stopp’d:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the planet dropp’d.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a lover’s head—
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy should be dead!’
Wordsworth, Strange fits of passion have I known
61
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
Keats, When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
62
A little distance from the prow
Those dark-red shadows were;
But soon I saw that my own flesh
Was red as in a glare.
I turn'd my head in fear and dread,
And by the holy rood,
The bodies had advanc'd, and now
Before the mast they stood.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
63
Give me your tool” to him I said ;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffer’d aid.
Wordsworth, Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman, with an incident in which he was concerned
64
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year,
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
65
Five years have past; 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
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
66
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
Shelley, The Cloud
67
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Wordsworth, The Prelude (the skating scene)
68
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Keats, Ode to a Nightingale (early May)
69
The sun above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Wordsworth, The Tables Turned, an evening scene on the same subject
70
“Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
Wordsworth, Expostulation and Reply
71
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci: a Ballad
72
And some in dreams assuréd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so:
Nine fathom deep he had follow'd us
From the Land of Mist and Snow.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
73
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn (May)
74
our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lias us up when fallen.
Wordsworth, The Prelude (spots in time)
75
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn (May)
76
A simple Child, dear brother Jim
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
Wordsworth, We are seven
77
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
Byron, So We'll Go No More a Roving
78
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
79
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu!
Keats, On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
80
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Coleridge, Kubla Khan
81
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
Wordsworth, The Tables Turned, an evening scene on the same subject
82
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.
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
83
Shakespeare described the Sex in Desdemona
As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,
And to this day from Venice to Verona
Such matters may be probably the same,
Byron, Beppo
84
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
Keats, Ode to Autumn
85
At once the observer's purpose to espy,
And on himself roll back his scrutiny,
Lest he to Conrad rather should betray
Some secret thought—than drag that chief's to day.
There was a laughing Devil in his sneer,
That raised emotions both of rage and fear;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled—and Mercy sighed farewell!
Byron, The Corsair
86
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear—
Coleridge, DEJECTION
87
’twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a Child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy Mane – as I do here.
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
88
Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Coleridge, DEJECTION
89
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, —
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
Wordsworth, ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
90
I also like to dine on Becaficas,
To see the Sun set, sure he’ll rise tomorrow,
Nor through a misty morning twinkling weak as
A drunken Man’s dead eye in maudlin sorrow,
But with all Heaven to himself; that Day will break as
Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow
That sort of farthing Candle-light which glimmers
Where reeking London’s smoky Cauldron simmers.
Byron, Beppo
91
The moving Moon went up the sky
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up
And a star or two beside—
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
92
Ah me! amused by no such curious toys,
How often in my early schoolboy days,
With most believing superstitious wish
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars
To watch the stranger there!
Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
93
if on ye swell
A single recollection – not in vain
He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell;
Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain
If such there were – with You, the Moral of his Strain!
Laus Dea!
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
94
“Is it he? quoth one, “Is this the man?
“By him who died on cross,
“With his cruel bow he lay'd full low
“The harmless Albatross.
“The spirit who bideth by himself
“In the land of mist and snow,
“He lov'd the bird that lov'd the man
“Who shot him with his bow.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
95
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number--
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many -- they are few.’
Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy
96
and it toll'd
In strong and black relief. “What we behold
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,"
Said Maddalo, “and ever at this hour
Those who may cross the water, hear that bell
Which calls the maniacs, each one from his cell,
To vespers.
Shelley, Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation
97
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:—
Wordsworth, Expostulation and Reply
98
but Gods at least in face,
In Conrad's form seems little to admire,
Though his dark eye-brow shades a glance of fire:
Robust but not Herculean—
Byron, The Corsair
99
The Ship was cheer'd, the Harbour clear'd—
Merrily did we drop
Below the Kirk, below the Hill,
Below the Light-house top.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
100
“A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
Wordsworth, Three Years She Grew (in Sun and Shower)
101
“Oh Love! in such a Wilderness as this
“Where Transport and Security entwine,
“Here is the Empire of thy perfect bliss,
“And here thou art a God indeed divine.”
Byron, Don Juan
102
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Keats, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
103
While swung the deep Bell from the distant tower,
Or the faint dying Day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy Air,
And yet the Forest leaves seemed stirred with Prayer.
Byron, Don Juan
104
so, o'er the lagune
We glided; and from that funereal bark
I lean'd, and saw the city, and could mark
How from their many isles, in evening's gleam,
Its temples and its palaces did seem
Like fabrics of enchantment pil'd to Heaven.
Shelley, Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation
105
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and Music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
106
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
A light is pass'd from the revolving year,
And man, and woman;
Shelley, Adonis
107
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Keats, Ode on Melancholy (May)
108
The body of my brother's son
Stood by me knee to knee:
The body and I pull'd at one rope,
But he said nought to me—
And I quak'd to think of my own voice
How frightful it would be!
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
109
“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.
Wordsworth, Three Years She Grew (in Sun and Shower)
110
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
111
The breath whose might I have invok'd in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
Shelley, Adonis
112
We walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said
‘The will of God be done!'
Wordsworth, The Two April Mornings
113
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A Palace and a Prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the Enchanter’s wand:
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
114
then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
Keats, When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
115
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Wordsworth, ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
116
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Keats, Ode to Autumn
117
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents;
Wordsworth, The Prelude (there was a boy)
118
Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
119
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
120
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight blaz'd,
I heeded not the summons:
Wordsworth, The Prelude (the skating scene)
121
Methinks, its motion in this hush of Nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
With which I can hold commune. Idle thought!
Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
122
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;
Coleridge, Kubla Khan
123
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
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:
Coleridge, Kubla Khan
124
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw--
‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'
Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy
125
Ne dim ne red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the Bird
That brought the fog and mist.
T'was right, said they, such birds to slay
That bring the fog and mist.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
126
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.
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
127
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
128
And can I ever bid these joys farewell?
Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life,
Where I may find the agonies, the strife
Of human hearts—
Keats, Sleep and Poetry
129
“And where are they? I pray you tell.”
She answered, “Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.
Wordsworth, We are seven
130
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion; then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopp'd short, yet still the solitary Cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had roll'd
With visible motion her diurnal round;
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train
Wordsworth, The Prelude (the skating scene)
131
The Ice was here, the Ice was there,
The Ice was all around:
It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd—
noises of a swound.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
132
Like those, my babe, which, ere tomorrow’s warmth
Have capped their sharp keen points with pendulous drops,
Will catch thine eye, and with their novelty
Suspend thy little soul, then make thee shout
And stretch and flutter from thy mother’s arms
As thou wouldst fly for very eagerness.
Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
133
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,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
134
Thy tail's tip is nicked off, and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enteredst on glass-bottled wall.
Keats, To Mrs Reynolds’s Cat
135
‘And turning from her grave, I met
Beside the churchyard yew
A blooming girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.
Wordsworth, The Two April Mornings
136
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Edmund – joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Joy, Edmund, is the spirit and the power,
Which, wedding Nature to us, gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Coleridge, DEJECTION
137
Joy lifts thy spirit, joy attunes thy voice;
To thee do all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of thy living soul!
Oh simple spirit, guided from above;
Oh lofty poet, full of light and love;
Brother and friend of my devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayst thou ever, evermore rejoice.
Coleridge, DEJECTION
138
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher – he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask !
Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
139
thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectitic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes:
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
140
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:
—We murder to dissect.
Wordsworth, The Tables Turned, an evening scene on the same subject
141
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci: a Ballad
142
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
Shelley, To a Skylark
143
And round the theatres, a sable throng,
They wait in their dusk livery of woe,
But not to them do woeful things belong,
For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,
Like Mourning Coaches when the funeral’s done.
Byron, Beppo
144
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
Shelley, To a Skylark
145
King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains.
Shelley, Ozymandias
146
Trampled and mock'd with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.
Shelley, Adonis
147
—wilt thou then forget
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:
Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
148
Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
Shelley, Ozymandias
149
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much With Us
150
An old man dwells, a little man,
I’ve heard he once was tall.
Of years he has upon his back,
No doubt, a burthen weighty ;
Wordsworth, Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman, with an incident in which he was concerned
151
The inheritors of unfulfill'd renown
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton
Rose pale, his solemn agony had not
Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought
And as he fell and as he liv'd and lov'd
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,
Arose; and Lucan, by his death approv'd:
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reprov'd.
Shelley, Adonis
152
But still the living spirit in our frame,
That loves not to behold a lifeless thing,
Transfuses into all its own delights,
Its own volition, sometimes with deep faith,
And sometimes with fantastic playfulness.
Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
153
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Shelley, To a Skylark
154
Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end,
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a Wing, and down we tend
Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for Sinning;
Byron, Don Juan
155
Are graves, from which a glorious phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
Shelley, England in 1819
156
Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge
157
He lives, he wakes—'tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!
Shelley, Adonis
158
Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn (May)
159
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
160
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
Keats, Bright Star
161
When she I loved, was strong and gay
And like a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath the evening moon.
Wordsworth, Strange fits of passion have I known
162
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Shelley, To a Skylark
163
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King!
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,
Shelley, England in 1819
164
save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
‘Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness.
Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
165
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
166
Life with me,
As far as memory can look back, is full
Of this beneficent influence.
Wordsworth, The Prelude (spots in time)
167
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
168
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well,
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small:
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
169
Her lips are red, her looks are free,
Her locks are yellow as gold:
Her skin is as white as leprosy,
And she is far liker Death than he;
Her flesh makes the still air cold.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
170
Sweet sounds rose slowly thro' their mouths
And from their bodies pass'd.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun:
Slowly the sounds came back again
Now mix'd, now one by one.
Coleridge, THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
171
Who said: ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies,
Shelley, Ozymandias
172
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to Earth – there let him lay!
Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
