In Youth is Pleasure
IN a harbour grene aslepe whereas I lay,
The byrdes sang swete in the middes of the day,
I dreamed fast of mirth and play:
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.
Methought I walked still to and fro,
And from her company I could not go--
But when I waked it was not so:
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.
Therefore my hart is surely pyght
Of her alone to have a sight
Which is my joy and hartes delight:
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.
poem by Robert Wever
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Related quotes
People at Night
A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd. & nbsp; We won't
&nbs p; ; look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
& nbsp; under movie signs,
&nb sp; &nbs p; pictures made of a million lights,
&n bsp; &nb sp; giants that move and again move
; again, above a cloud of thick smells,
&n bsp; &nb sp; franks, roasted nutmeats-
Or going up to some apartment, yours
&nbs p; ; or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
&n bsp; But you won't see.
The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
&nbs p; ; You &nb sp;and you and I repeat
&n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p;gestures that make do when speech
&nb sp; &nbs p; has failed & nbsp; and talk
; and talk, laughing, saying
&nb sp; &nbs p; 'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
; & nbsp; No one.
poem by Denise Levertov
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The Words
Clouds scattered across the sky &nbs p;all so far away
and then the space between this strange 'distance'
What does 'normal' mean, after all? &nb sp;you move
toward the window & nbsp;lights marking the headland
and the night becomes a milestone &nbs p; though
I the fog rolls up the hill from the sea
in waves the town &nb sp;desperate?
Whichever way we look &nb sp;though so much at hand
only held back by obsessions
but 'home' is so long ago &nbs p;don't cry
the light's a very pale blue &nb sp;then maybe &n bsp;the next time too
a faint glimmer across the bay &nbs p;neither moon
nor stars
and your letter making signs &n bsp;concerning 'understanding'
and 'the magic tortoise' &nbs p; what then? &n bsp;or just tiredness
At each alternative &n bsp; the colours in the sky
gradually changing ; until you're lulled into believing
you've seen this before & nbsp;but not quite
The wood-cut of a lone horseman
riding through a deathly countryside &n bsp; raped
'You're very brave' & nbsp;I clean the table-top
and you sat in that chair &n bsp;two red poppies
in the garden below &n bsp;at dawn
This apparent clumsiness is far from true
poem by Lee Harwood
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A Revocation
WHAT should I say?
--Since Faith is dead,
And Truth away
From you is fled?
Should I be led
With doubleness?
Nay! nay! mistress.
I promised you,
And you promised me,
To be as true
As I would be.
But since I see
Your double heart,
Farewell my part!
Thought for to take
'Tis not my mind;
But to forsake
One so unkind;
And as I find
So will I trust.
Farewell, unjust!
Can ye say nay
But that you said
That I alway
Should be obeyed?
And--thus betrayed
Or that I wist!
Farewell, unkist!
poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt
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To Chloris
AH, Chloris! that I now could sit
As unconcern'd as when
Your infant beauty could beget
No pleasure, nor no pain!
When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,
I little thought the growing fire
Must take my rest away.
Your charms in harmless childhood lay
Like metals in the mine;
Age from no face took more away
Than youth conceal'd in thine.
But as your charms insensibly
To their perfection prest,
Fond love as unperceived did fly,
And in my bosom rest.
My passion with your beauty grew,
And Cupid at my heart,
Still as his mother favour'd you,
Threw a new flaming dart:
Each gloried in their wanton part;
To make a lover, he
Employ'd the utmost of his art--
To make a beauty, she.
poem by Sir Charles Sedley
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Old Woman
I see Senora Sanchez
along the river.
Black catfish
pop the silver
water surface,
waves unroll
as the gnarled
bronze face and
black eyes
remember
cool sea shells
and warm turquoise,
the turkey gobbling
behind bushes,
and the red skirt
hanging on boughs
as she bathed….
She pulls her black sweater
snug around her, folded arms
across her stomach.
She who remembers
cannot say amen
but smiles to sunrise
as she walks through the grass,
&nb sp; &nbs p; ; the tall,
&nbs p; ; green grass,
grass that does not listen to
& nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; the priest
in black robes, blooms green
as she walks through the grass
and talks with them.
poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Music in an Empty House
The house was empty and
the people of the house
gone many months
Months for the weevil
for the patient worm
timbe r-mole softly tunnelling
;for the parliament of rats
Footsteps slink past
damp walls
down
long
& nbsp; corridors
Slow feet
warily scuff
bare boards
The much-bitten
&nbs p;tapestry
; holds
&nb sp; many
&n bsp; moths
In a certain curtain'd room
the halting steps evade
chai rs white shrouded
To twitch the winding-sheet
&n bsp;around a grand piano
thin phalanx of sound
sharp rat's teeth edge yellow
with decay
The much-bitten
&nbs p;tapestry
;holds
man y
moths
On rat's teeth-edge
;fingers preparate
hesitate
Then falling send
as tenantry
darnp-muffied chords
rus ting strings
a still-born song
Their fortissimoThe tattered scarcetapestry stirsholds nearmany cobwebsmoths
poem by Hugh Sykes Davies
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Fairy Land i
OVER hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moone's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Dirge of the Three Queens
URNS and odours bring away!
Vapours, sighs, darken the day!
Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
Sacred vials fill'd with tears,
And clamours through the wild air flying!
Come, all sad and solemn shows,
That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes!
We convent naught else but woes.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Song
O FLY not, Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure;
Fold me thy wings, I prithee, yet and stay:
For my heart no measure
Knows, nor other treasure
To buy a garland for my love to-day.
And thou, too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow,
Thou gray-eyed mourner, fly not yet away:
For I fain would borrow
Thy sad weeds to-morrow,
To make a mourning for love's yesterday.
The voice of Pity, Time's divine dear Pity,
Moved me to tears: I dared not say them nay,
But passed forth from the city,
Making thus my ditty
Of fair love lost for ever and a day.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Something
It is something in this darker dream demented
to have wrestled with its pleasure and its pain:
it is something to have sinned, and have repented:
it is something to have failed, and tried again!
It is something to have loved the brightest Beauty
with no hope of aught but silence for your vow:
it is something to have tried to do your duty:
it is something to be trying, trying now!
And, in the silent solemn hours,
when your soul floats down the far faint flood of time --
to think of Earth's lovers who are ours,
of her saviours saving, suffering, sublime:
And that you with THESE may be her lover,
with THESE may save and suffer for her sake --
IT IS JOY TO HAVE LIVED, SO TO DISCOVER
YOU'VE A LIFE YOU CAN GIVE AND SHE CAN TAKE!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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A Spot
In years defaced and lost,
Two sat here, transport-tossed,
Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:
Scared momently
By gaingivings,
Then hoping things
That could not be.
Of love and us no trace
Abides upon the place;
The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal;
Foul days and fair
Here, too, prevail,
And gust and gale
As everywhere.
But lonely shepherd souls
Who bask amid these knolls
May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noontides from the ground:
"O not again
Till Earth outwears
Shall love like theirs
Suffuse this glen!"
poem by Thomas Hardy
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Remain!
REMAIN, ah not in youth alone!
--Tho' youth, where you are, long will stay--
But when my summer days are gone,
And my autumnal haste away.
'Can I be always by your side?'
No; but the hours you can, you must,
Nor rise at Death's approaching stride,
Nor go when dust is gone to dust.
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Apology
Be not angry with me that I bear
Your colours everywhere,
All through each crowded street,
And meet
The wonder-light in every eye,
As I go by.
Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,
Blinded by rainbow haze,
The stuff of happiness,
No less,
Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds
Of peacock golds.
Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way
Flushes beneath its gray.
My steps fall ringed with light,
So bright,
It seems a myriad suns are strown
About the town.
Around me is the sound of steepled bells,
And rich perfumed smells
Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud,
And shroud
Me from close contact with the world.
I dwell impearled.
You blazon me with jewelled insignia.
A flaming nebula
Rims in my life. And yet
You set
The word upon me, unconfessed
To go unguessed.
poem by Amy Lowell
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To Mistress Margaret Hussey
MERRY Margaret
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon
Or hawk of the tower:
With solace and gladness,
Much mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness;
So joyously,
So maidenly,
So womanly
Her demeaning
In every thing,
Far, far passing
That I can indite,
Or suffice to write
Of Merry Margaret
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon
Or hawk of the tower.
As patient and still
And as full of good will
As fair Isaphill,
Coliander,
Sweet pomander,
Good Cassander;
Steadfast of thought,
Well made, well wrought,
Far may be sought,
Ere that ye can find
So courteous, so kind
As merry Margaret,
This midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon
Or hawk of the tower.
poem by John Skelton
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Fairy Land iii
COME unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,--
The wild waves whist,--
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow, wow,
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow, wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!
poem by William Shakespeare
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Wedding-Ring
My wedding-ring lies in a basket
as if at the bottom of a well.
Nothing will come to fish it back up
and onto my finger again.
&nb sp; &nbs p; It lies
among keys to abandoned houses,
nails waiting to be needed and hammered
into some wall,
telephone numbers with no names attached,
idle paperclips.
&nb sp; It can't be given away
for fear of bringing ill-luck.
&nb sp; It can't be sold
for the marriage was good in its own
time, though that time is gone.
&nb sp; Could some artificer
beat into it bright stones, transform it
into a dazzling circlet no one could take
for solemn betrothal or to make promises
living will not let them keep? Change it
into a simple gift I could give in friendship?
poem by Denise Levertov
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Soft White
When the sea is as grey as her eyes
On these days for sure &nb sp;the soft white
mist blown in from the ocean &n bsp;the town dissolving
It all adds up ;her bare shoulders
Nakedness ; rolling in from the sea
on winter afternoons - a fine rain
looking down on the sand &nb sp;& shingle
the waves breaking on the shore &n bsp;& white
It is impossible to deny what
taken by surprise ; then wonder
the many details of her body
to be held first now &nbs p;then later
In body & mind &nb sp;the fine rain outside
on winter afternoons &nb sp; the nakedness
of her bare shoulders &nbs p; as grey as her eyes
the sea rushing up the beach as white as
The whole outline called 'geography'
meeting at a set of erotic points
lips shoulders&n bsp; breasts &n bsp;stomach
the town dissolves &nbs p; sex thighs &n bsp; legs
Outside &n bsp; then across her nakedness
it rains in the afternoon &nbs p; then the wonder
her body so young & firm &nb sp;dissolves the town
in winter & nbsp;grey as her eyes
poem by Lee Harwood
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Our Duty
Yet what were Love if man remains unfree,
And woman's sunshine sordid merchandise:
If children's Hope is blasted ere they see
Its shoots of youth from out the branchlets rise:
If thought is chained, and gagged is Speech, and Lies
Enthroned as Law befoul posterity,
And haggard Sin's ubiquitous disguise
Insults the face of God where'er men be?
Ay, what were Love, my love, did we not love
Our stricken brothers so, as to resign
For Its own sake, the foison of Its dower:
That, so, we two may help them mount above
These layers of charnel air in which they pine,
To seek with us the Presence and the Power?
poem by Bernard O'Dowd
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The Shepherd Boy sings in the Valley of Humiliation
HE that is down needs fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much:
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because Thou savest such.
Fullness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
poem by John Bunyan
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To Life
O life with the sad seared face,
I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
And thy too-forced pleasantry!
I know what thou would'st tell
Of Death, Time, Destiny -
I have known it long, and know, too, well
What it all means for me.
But canst thou not array
Thyself in rare disguise,
And feign like truth, for one mad day,
That Earth is Paradise?
I'll tune me to the mood,
And mumm with thee till eve;
And maybe what as interlude
I feign, I shall believe!
poem by Thomas Hardy
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