To Mistress
Hadst thou but livd before ye Gods were dead
That Heathens ownd ye world might thus have said.
'If any settled seat ye Muses use
'Thou art that seat or art thy self a Muse.
poem by Thomas Parnell
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Related quotes
Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.
poem by William Shakespeare
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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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The Temple Of Vishnu
Grand Cañon of Arizona
Vishnu, the gods of eld are dead. Long dead
Are Zeus, Astarte, and that lotus-flower,
Isis of Egypt. Unto each his hour.
Yet thou, silent within thy temple dread,
Locked against prayers, mounted above the tread
Of climbing feet, thou from thy purple tower
Contemplatest the stern inscrutable power
Whence all things come and whither all are led.
The day in splendor of lilac and clear blue
Visits thy mighty seat. The sapphire night
Broods in the abyss with darkness, and the rain
Veils thee with clouds, hails thee and bids adieu
In thunder. Steadfast on thy terraced height
Thou seest bold time besiege thy throne in vain.
poem by Harriet Monroe
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Agassiz
I stand again on the familiar shore,
And hear the waves of the distracted sea
Piteously calling and lamenting thee,
And waiting restless at thy cottage door.
The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor,
The willows in the meadow, and the free
Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me;
Then why shouldst thou be dead, and come no more?
Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men
Are busy with their trivial affairs,
Having and holding? Why, when thou hadst read
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then
Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears,
Why art thou silent! Why shouldst thou be dead?
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Upon The Blush Of A Faire Ladie
Stay lusty blood! where canst thou seeke
So blest a seat as in her cheeke?
How dar'st thou from her face retire
Whose beauty doth command desire?
But if thou wilt not stay, then flowe
Downe to her panting pappes belowe:
There take thou glory to distayne
With azure blewe each swelling veyne,
From thence run boyling through each part
Till thou hast warm'd her frozen hart,
Which, if from love thou find'st entire,
O martyr it with gentle fire.
poem by William Strode
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But wherefore thou alone
Wherefore with thee
Came not all hell broke loose
Is pain to them
Less pain, less to be fled, or thou than they
Less hardy to endure
Courageous chief,
The first in flight from pain, hadst thou alleged
To thy deserted host this cause of flight,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
quote by John Milton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If you sit on a seat, and that seat is a comfortable seat, sit on that seat, and do not leave that seat.
Fallen
O, hadst thou died when thou wert great,
When at thy feet a nation knelt
To sob the gratitude it felt
And thank the Saviour of the State,
Gods might have envied thee thy fate!
Then was the laurel round thy brow,
And friend and foe spoke praise of thee,
While all our hearts sang victory.
Alas! thou art too base to bow
To hide the shame that brands it now.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Lines Written in Windsor Forest
All hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade!
Scene of my youthful loves and happier hours!
Where the kind Muses met me as I stray'd,
And gently press'd my hand, and said 'Be ours!-
Take all thou e'er shalt have, a constant Muse:
At Court thou may'st be liked, but nothing gain:
Stock thou may'st buy and sell, but always lose,
And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain.'
poem by Alexander Pope
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Ch 06 On Weakness And Old Age Story 06
In the folly of youth I one day shouted at my mother who then sat down with a grieved heart in a corner and said, weeping: ‘Hast thou forgotten thy infancy that thou art harsh towards me?’
How sweetly said the old woman to her son
When she saw him overthrow a tiger, and elephant-bodied:
‘If thou hadst remembered the time of thy infancy
How helpless thou wast in my arms
Thou would’st this day not have been harsh
For thou art a lion-like man, and I an old woman.’
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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Roman Girl's Song
Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!
On thy seven hills of yore
Thou satst a queen.
Thou hadst thy triumphs then
Purpling the street,
Leaders and sceptred men
Bow'd at thy feet.
They that thy mantle wore,
As gods were seen–
Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!
Rome! thine imperial brow
Never shall rise:
What hast thou left thee now?
Thou hast thy skies!
Blue, deeply blue, they are,
Gloriously bright!
Veiling thy wastes afar
With colour'd light.
Thou hast the sunset's glow,
Rome, for thy dower,
Flushing tall cypress-bough,
Temple and tower!
And all sweet sounds are thine,
Lovely to hear,
While night, o'er tomb and shrine,
Rests darkly clear.
Many a solemn hymn,
By starlight sung,
Sweeps thro' the arches dim,
Thy wrecks among.
Many a flute's low swell,
On thy soft air
Lingers, and loves to dwell
With summer there.
Thou hast the South's rich gift
Of sudden song,
A charmed fountain, swift,
Joyous, and strong.
Thou hast fair forms that move
With queenly tread;
Thou hast proud fanes above
Thy mighty dead.
Yet wears thy Tiber's shore
A mournful mien:
Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.
poem by William Shakespeare
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To His Saviour, A Child;a Present, By A Child
Go, pretty child, and bear this flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell him, by that bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known.
When thou hast said so, stick it there
Upon his bib or stomacher;
And tell him, for good handsel too,
That thou hast brought a whistle new,
Made of a clean straight oaten reed,
To charm his cries at time of need;
Tell him, for coral, thou hast none,
But if thou hadst, he should have one;
But poor thou art, and known to be
Even as moneyless as he.
Lastly, if thou canst win a kiss
From those melifluous lips of his;--
Then never take a second on,
To spoil the first impression.
poem by Robert Herrick
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The Rail Road
Thou great proclaimer to the outward eye
Of what the spirit too would seek to tell,
Onward thou go'st, appointed from on high
The other warnings of the Lord to swell;
Thou art the voice of one that through the world
Proclaims in startling tones, 'Prepare the way;'
The lofty mountain from its seat is hurled,
The flinty rocks thine onward march obey;
The valleys lifted from their lowly bed
O'ertop the hills that on them frowned before,
Thou passest where the living seldom tread,
Through forests dark, where tides beneath thee roar,
And bid'st man's dwelling from thy track remove,
And would with warning voice his crooked paths reprove.
poem by Jones Very
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Sonnet IV: Virtue, Alas
Virtue, alas, now let me take some rest.
Thou set'st a bate between my soul and wit.
If vain love have my simple soul oppress'd,
Leave what thou likest not, deal not thou with it.
The scepter use in some old Cato's breast;
Churches or schools are for thy seat more fit.
I do confess, pardon a fault confess'd,
My mouth too tender is for thy hard bit.
But if that needs thou wilt usurping be,
The little reason that is left in me,
And still th'effect of thy persuasions prove:
I swear, my heart such one shall show to thee
That shrines in flesh so true a deity,
That Virtue, thou thyself shalt be in love.
poem by Philip Sidney
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Emily Bronte
'Du hast Diamanten'
Thou hadst all Passion's splendor,
Thou hadst abounding store
Of heaven's eternal jewels,
Beloved; what wouldst thou more?
Thine was the frolic freedom
Of creatures coy and wild,
The melancholy of wisdom,
The innocence of a child,
The maiPd will of the warrior,
That buckled in thy breast
Humility as of Francis,
The Self-surrender of Christ;
And of God's cup thou drankest
The unmingled wine of Love,
Which makes poor mortals giddy
When they but sip thereof.
What was't to thee thy pathway
So rugged mean and hard,
Whereon when Death surprised thee
Thou gavest him no regard?
What was't to thee, enamour'd
As a red rose of the sun,
If of thy myriad lovers
Thou never sawest one?
Nor if of all thy lovers
That are and were to be
None ever had their vision,
O my belov'd, of thee,
Until thy silent glory
Went forth from earth alone,
Where like a star thou gleamest
From thine immortal throne.
poem by Robert Seymour Bridges
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Tiber, Nile, And Thames
THE head and hands of murdered Cicero,
Above his seat high in the Forum hung,
Drew jeers and burning tears. When on the rung
Of a swift-mounted ladder, all aglow,
Fluvia, Mark Antony's shameless wife, with show
Of foot firm-poised and gleaming arm upflung,
Bade her sharp needle pierce that god-like tongue
Whose speech fed Rome even as the Tiber's flow.
And thou, Cleopatra's Needle, that hadst thrid
Great skirts of Time ere she and Antony hid
Dead hope!—hast thou too reached, surviving death,
A city of sweet speech scorned,—on whose chill stone
Keats withered, Coleridge pined, and Chatterton,
Breadless, with poison froze the God-fired breath?
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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To The Grasshopper
HAPPY art thou, darling insect,
Who, upon the trees' tall branches,
By a modest draught inspired,
Singing, like a monarch livest!
Thou possessest as thy portion
All that on the plains thou seest,
All that by the hours is brought thee
'Mongst the husbandmen thou livest,
As a friend, uninjured by them,
Thou whom mortals love to honour,
Herald sweet of sweet Spring's advent!
Yes, thou'rt loved by all the Muses,
Phoebus' self, too, needs must love thee;
They their silver voices gave thee,
Age can never steal upon thee.
Wise and gentle friend of poets,
Born a creature fleshless, bloodless,
Though Earth's daughter, free from suff'ring,
To the gods e'en almost equal.
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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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