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To An Orphan Child

A Whimsey

AH, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine--
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One's alone!

poem by Thomas Hardy
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To An Orphan Child

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature’s trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine—
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One’s alone!

poem by Thomas Hardy
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To Mary

If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot, when by thy side,
That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past
The time would e'er be o'er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain.
But when I speak—thou dost not say
What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary, thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene—
I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been.
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there—I lay thee in thy grave,
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart
In thinking too of thee:
Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!

poem by Charles Wolfe
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Sonnet 4

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

poem by William Shakespeare from Sonnets (1609)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Lxv.

The mother’s grace that I do awake
The mother who forever looks after me
In golden light of the blessed daybreak
To crimson evening, in both I do agree
Mother of the children under her wings
Mother of trees, of rocks and of the rivers
Of thee Mother Nature dose my song sings
All that we know, to know thou art cleaver
With it has thee fashioned all living creatures
Under thou grace, because of it all things are
Deep within thy mercy you seek to capture
We poets who think thee God are not bizarre.
O Mother Nature, mother of us all
Before thee do we stand in utter awl.

poem by David E. Patton
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Song: Oh! Go to Sleep

Oh! go to sleep, my baby dear,
And I will hold thee on my knee;
Thy mother's in her winding sheet,
And thou art all that's left to me.
My hairs are white with grief and age,
I've borne the weight of every ill,
And I would lay me with my child,
But thou art left to love me still.

Should thy false father see thy face,
The tears would fill his cruel e'e,
But he has scorned thy mother's woe,
And he shall never look on thee:
But I will rear thee up alone,
And with me thou shalt aye remain;
For thou wilt have thy mother's smile,
And I shall see my child again.

poem by Joseph Rodman Drake
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Song

OH! go to sleep, my baby dear,
And I will hold thee on my knee;
Thy mother's in her winding sheet,
And thou art all that's left to me.
My hairs are white with grief and age,
I've borne the weight of every ill,
And I would lay me with my child,
But thou art left to love me still.

Should thy false father see thy face,
The tears would fill his cruel e'e,
But he has scorned thy mother's wo,
And he shall never look on thee:
But I will rear thee up alone,
And with me thou shalt aye remain;
For thou wilt have thy mother's smile,
And I shall see my child again.

poem by Joseph Rodman Drake
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Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which usèd, lives th' executor to be.

poem by William Shakespeare
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A Lesson In Humility

'Tis time, my soul, thou shouldst be purged of pride.
What men are these with thee, whose ill deeds done
Make thee thus shrink from them and be denied?
They are but as thou art, each mother's son
A convict in transgression. Here is one,
Sayest thou, who struck his fellow and he died.
And yet he weeps hot tears. Do thy tears run?
This other thieved, yet clasps Christ crucified.

Where is thy greater virtue? Thinkest thou sin
Is but crime's record on the judgment seat?
Or must thou wait for death to be bowed down?
Oh for a righteous reading which should join
Thy deeds together in an accusing sheet,
And leave thee if thou couldst, to face men's frown!

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Epitaph

He lived, he played, a little laughing sprite:
Why, Nature, didst thou snatch him from the light?
Hast thou not myriad birds within thy bowers?
Stars, and great woods, blue skies, and ocean wild?
Why, then, from his lone mother snatch the child,
And hid him underneath the bed of flowers?

This one child more cannot enlarge thy reign,
Star-spangled Nature; thou no joy dost gain.
The Mother's heart so many cares oppress—
That heart whose joys do equal pangs create—
Abyss, as thou, O Nature! deep and great,
Is empty made and void, by this child less.

poem by Victor Hugo
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To The Spring

Welcome, gentle Stripling,
Nature's darling thou!
With thy basket full of blossoms,
A happy welcome now!
Aha!--and thou returnest,
Heartily we greet thee--
The loving and the fair one,
Merrily we meet thee!
Think'st thou of my maiden
In thy heart of glee?

I love her yet, the maiden--
And the maiden yet loves me!
For the maiden, many a blossom
I begged--and not in vain!
I came again a-begging,
And thou--thou givest again:
Welcome, gentle Stripling,
Nature's darling thou--
With thy basket full of blossoms,
A happy welcome now!

poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Paternal Love

[LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act II]

My child! oh, only blessing Heaven allows me!
Others have parents, brothers, kinsmen, friends,
A wife, a husband, vassals, followers,
Ancestors, and allies, or many children.
I have but thee, thee only. Some are rich;
Thou art my treasure, thou art all my riches.
And some believe in angels; I believe
In nothing but thy soul. Others have youth,
And woman's love, and pride, and grace, and health;
Others are beautiful; thou art my beauty,
Thou art my home, my country and my kin,
My wife, my mother, sister, friend--my child!
My bliss, my wealth, my worship, and my law,
My Universe! Oh, by all other things
My soul is tortured. If I should ever lose thee--
Horrible thought! I cannot utter it.
Smile, for thy smile is like thy mother's smiling.
She, too, was fair; you have a trick like her,
Of passing oft your hand athwart your brow
As though to clear it. Innocence still loves
A brow unclouded and an azure eye.
To me thou seem'st clothed in a holy halo,
My soul beholds thy soul through thy fair body;
E'en when my eyes are shut, I see thee still;
Thou art my daylight, and sometimes I wish
That Heaven had made me blind that thou might'st be
The sun that lighted up the world for me.

poem by Victor Hugo
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Ex Ore Infantium

Little Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of THERE,
And ask where all the angels were?
I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky;
I would look about the air,
And wonder where my angels were;
And at waking 'twould distress me--
Not an angel there to dress me!
Hadst Thou ever any toys,
Like us little girls and boys?
And didst Thou play in Heaven with all
The angels that were not too tall,
With stars for marbles? Did the things
Play Can you see me? through their wings?
And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil
Thy robes, with playing on OUR soil?
How nice to have them always new
In Heaven, because 'twas quite clean blue!

Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,
And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?
And did they tire sometimes, being young,
And make the prayer seem very long?
And dost Thou like it best, that we
Should join our hands to pray to Thee?
I used to think, before I knew,
The prayer not said unless we do.
And did Thy Mother at the night
Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?
And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,
Kissed, and sweet, and thy prayers said?

Thou canst not have forgotten all
That it feels like to be small:
And Thou know'st I cannot pray
To Thee in my father's way--
When Thou wast so little, say,
Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way?--
So, a little Child, come down
And hear a child's tongue like Thy own;
Take me by the hand and walk,
And listen to my baby-talk.
To Thy Father show my prayer
(He will look, Thou art so fair),
And say: 'O Father, I, Thy Son,
Bring the prayer of a little one.'

And He will smile, that children's tongue
Has not changed since Thou wast young!

poem by Francis Thompson
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Sonnet 65: Love By Sure Proof

Love by sure proof I may call thee unkind,
That giv'st no better ear to my just cries:
Thou whom to me such my good turns should bind,
As I may well recount, but none can prize:

For when, nak'd boy, thou couldst no harbor find
In this old world, grown now so too too wise,
I lodg'd thee in my heart, and being blind
Bu nature born, I gave to thee mine eyes.

Mine eyes, my light, my heart, my life alas,
If so great services may scorned be,
Yet let this thought thy tigrish courage pass:

That I perhaps am somewhat kin to thee,
Since in thine arms, if learn'd fame truth hath spread,
Thou bear'st the arrow, I the arrowhead.

poem by Philip Sidney
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Written At Sea

What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?

Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?

Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.

Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.

Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.

I have my home in thee. Thy arms enfold
Me all night long, and I am rocked and rolled,
And thou art never weary of thy hold.

Thou art a woman in thy constancy,
And worthy better love than mine could be;
And yet, behold, I cannot suffer thee.

If thou wert dumb; if thou wert like the sky,
Which has not learned to speak our misery
In any voice less rude than the wind's cry;

If thou wert wholly young and didst not know
The secret of our ancient human woe,
Or if thou knewest it wholly as I know;

Or yet if thou wert old with all these years;
If thou wert dull to hopes and loves and fears;
If thou wert blind and couldst not see our tears;

If thou wert bounded by some rocky shore,
And hadst not given thyself thus wholly o'er
To our poor single selves with all thy store;

If thou wert not in thy immensity,
A single circle circling with the sky,
Where we must still be centres changelessly;

If thou wert other than thou art; alas,
If thou wert not of water, but a mass
Of formless earth, a waveless plain of grass;

If thou wert shapeless as the mountains are;
If thou wert clad in some discordant wear;
If thou wert not so blue and trim and fair;

If thou wert decked with towns and villages;
If there was heard, across the silent seas,
The music of church bells upon the breeze;

If thou wert this; or if thou wert not near,
But I could only sit apart and hear
The beating of thy waves, and find it drear,

But wild and quite unknown, and far from me;
Sea, if thou couldst no longer be the sea,
Then I could love thee as thou lovest me.

If thou wouldst have me love thee, beautiful sea,
Build up a wall of dark 'twixt thee and me;
Let me not see thee; call the night to thee.

League with the winds; rise up, and send them driven
To roll mad clouds about thy back at even.
Make thee a desolation of the heaven.

Thou shouldst compel me, with thy angry voice,
To choose 'twixt death and thee; and, at the choice,
If my cheek grew not pale, thou might'st rejoice,

And I might love thee, oh thou monstrous sea;
But now I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or bear thy beauty in my misery.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Child of a Day

Child of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thy urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!

And why the wish! the pure and blest
Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep.
O peaceful night! O envied rest!
Thou wilt not ever see her weep.

poem by Walter Savage Landor
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My Light Thou Art

My light thou art, without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darkened with eternal night;
My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.

Thou art my way, I wander if thou fly;
Thou art my light, if hid, how blind am I!
Thou art my life, if thou withdraw'st I die.

Thou art my life; if thou but turn away,
My life's a thousand deaths. Thou art my way;
Without thee, Love, I travel not, but stray.

poem by Lord John Wilmot
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Otho

I.
Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,
Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim
From Brutus his own glory--and on thee
Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame:
Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail
Amid his cowering senate with thy name,
Though thou and he were great--it will avail
To thine own fame that Otho’s should not fail.

II.
'Twill wrong thee not—thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,
Abjure such envious fame--great Otho died
Like thee--he sanctified his country’s steel,
At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,
In his own blood—a deed it was to bring
Tears from all men—though full of gentle pride,
Such pride as from impetuous love may spring,
That will not be refused its offering.

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Thee, God, I Come from

Thee, God, I come from, to thee go,
All day long I like fountain flow
From thy hand out, swayed about
Mote-like in thy mighty glow.

What I know of thee I bless,
As acknowledging thy stress
On my being and as seeing
Something of thy holiness.

Once I turned from thee and hid,
Bound on what thou hadst forbid;
Sow the wind I would; I sinned:
I repent of what I did.

Bad I am, but yet thy child.
Father, be thou reconciled.
Spare thou me, since I see
With thy might that thou art mild.

I have life before me still
And thy purpose to fulfil;
Yea a debt to pay thee yet:
Help me, sir, and so I will.

But thou bidst, and just thou art,
Me shew mercy from my heart
Towards my brother, every other
Man my mate and counterpart.
. . . . . . . .

poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins
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Sonnet: On Calumny

Be thou a saint and yet the world won't spare;
Be thou most chaste and yet, most tongues will talk;
Be thou a crook and yet people don't care;
Be thou a tiger yet, some men will stalk.

Be thou cruel and yet the world will praise;
Be thou too kind and yet the world will taunt;
Be thou rigid and yet the world can't face;
Be thou timid and yet the world will haunt;

Be thou selfish and yet the world loves thee;
Be thou selfless and yet the world thee hates;
Be thou goodly and yet you are not free;
Be thou evil and yet the world thee mates.

Be thou yourself and yet the world finds fault;
Be thou anything, yet the world will vault.

poem by John Celes
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My Dear Child

Come hither my dear child
It's late - The E'en has fallen

Hark now my dear child
Hie to bed - Thou should'st

Thee forgot thy keys again my dear child
Wait for thou - I must

Methinks that it's getting late my dear child
Perchance - Something has happened to her

Wherefore have thou forgotten thy keys my dear child
I sit here heavy - Awaiting your anon arrival

Wherefore have thou left aroint from me my dear child
I lie here and pray - That thee arrives safely

Doth thou not realise of your keys my dear child
Why art thou - Do this oft to me and leave me heavy

Hark she has arrived my dear child
Mark me - Thou would'st not do this again

Hark now my dear child
Hie to your bed - Aroint in your dreams

poem by Gabriel Gauci Maistre
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