LEONARD TARRIES LONG The sun upon the lake is low, The wild birds hush their song, In the calm sunset may repair The noble dame, on turret high, Upon the footpath watches now For Colin's darkening plaid. Now to their mates the wild swans row, By day they swam apart, And to the thicket wanders slow The hind beside the hart. The woodlark at his partner's side All meet whom day and care divide, Sir Walter Scott CONSTANCY Not, Celia, that I juster am For I would change each hour, like them, But I am tied to very thee All that in woman is adored For the whole sex can but afford Why then should I seek further store, When change itself can give no more, Sir Charles Sedley JEAN Of a' the airts the wind can blaw I dearly like the West, For there the bonnie lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best: There wild woods grow, and rivers row, And mony a hill between; But day and night my fancy's flight I see her in the dewy flowers, I hear her in the tunefu' birds, There's not a bonnie flower that springs There's not a bonnie bird that sings Robert Burns LOVE IS A SICKNESS Love is a sickness full of woes, A plant that most with cutting grows, More we enjoy it, more it dies; Love is a torment of the mind, And Jove hath made it of a kind, More we enjoy it, more it dies; May the First Joseph Addison, Born 1672 MAY MORNING Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger, John Milton TO THE NIGHTINGALE O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; John Milton THE RHODORA ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, Made the black water with their beauty gay; This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose, I never thought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. Ralph Waldo Emerson DEATH Death, be not proud, though some have called thee For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die ! John Donne |