George Eliot – Sweet Springtime

It was in the prime

Of the sweet springtime

In the linnet's throat

Trembled the love note,

And the love-stirred air

Thrilled the blossoms there.

Little shadows danced,

Each a tiny elf

Happy in large light

And the thinnest self.

It was but a minute

In a far-off spring,

But each gentle thing,

Sweetly wooing linnet,

Soft thrilled hawthorn tree,

Happy shadowy elf,

With the thinnest self,

Live on still in me.

It was in the prime

Of the past springtime!

George Eliot – Self and Life

SELF

Changeful comrade, Life of mine,

Before we two must part,

I will tell thee, thou shalt say,

What thou hast been and art.

Ere I lose my hold of thee

Justify thyself to me.

LIFE

I was thy warmth upon thy mother's knee

When light and love within her eyes were one;

We laughed together by the laurel-tree,

Culling warm daisies 'neath the sloping sun;

We heard the chickens' lazy croon,

Where the trellised woodbines grew,

And all the summer afternoon

Mystic gladness o'er thee threw.

Was it person? Was it thing?

Was it touch or whispering?

It was bliss and it was I:

Bliss was what thou knew'st me by.

SELF

Soon I knew thee more by Fear

And sense of what was not,

Haunting all I held most dear

I had a double lot:

Ardour, cheated with alloy,

Wept the more for dreams of joy.

LIFE

Remember how thy ardour's magic sense

Made poor things rich to thee and small things great;

How hearth and garden, field and bushy fence,

Were thy own eager love incorporate;

And how the solemn, splendid Past

O'er thy early widened earth

Made grandeur, as on sunset cast

Dark elms near take mighty girth.

Hands and feet were tiny still

When we knew the historic thrill,

Breathed deep breath in heroes dead,

Tasted the immortals' bread.

SELF

Seeing what I might have been

Reproved the thing I was,

Smoke on heaven's clearest sheen,

The speck within the rose.

By revered ones' frailties stung

Reverence was with anguish wrung.

LIFE

But all thy anguish and thy discontent

Was growth of mine, the elemental strife

Towards feeling manifold with vision blent

To wider thought: I was no vulgar life

That, like the water-mirrored ape,

Not discerns the thing it sees,

Nor knows its own in others' shape,

Railing, scorning, at its ease.

Half man's truth must hidden lie

If unlit by Sorrow's eye.

I by Sorrow wrought in thee

Willing pain of ministry.

SELF

Slowly was the lesson taught

Through passion, error, care;

Insight was with loathing fraught

And effort with despair.

Written on the wall I saw

'Bow! ' I knew, not loved, the law.

LIFE

But then I brought a love that wrote within

The law of gratitude, and made thy heart

Beat to the heavenly tune of seraphin

Whose only joy in having is, to impart:

Till thou, poor Self — despite thy ire,

Wrestling 'gainst my mingled share,

Thy faults, hard falls, and vain desire

Still to be what others were —

Filled, o'erflowed with tenderness

Seeming more as thou wert less,

Knew me through that anguish past

As a fellowship more vast.

SELF

Yea, I embrace thee, changeful Life!

Far-sent, unchosen mate!

Self and thou, no more at strife,

Shall wed in hallowed state.

Willing spousals now shall prove

Life is justified by love.

Edgar Allan Poe – Eulalie

I dwelt alone

In a world of moan,

And my soul was a stagnant tide,

Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-

Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

Ah, less- less bright

The stars of the night

Than the eyes of the radiant girl!

That the vapor can make

With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,

Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl-

Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless

curl.

Now Doubt- now Pain

Come never again,

For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,

And all day long

Shines, bright and strong,

Astarte within the sky,

While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-

While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

George Gordon Byron – So we'll go no more a roving

So, we'll go no more a roving

    So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

    And the moon be still as bright.

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

Thomas Morton – The Poem

Rise Oedipeus, and, if thou canst, unfould

What meanes Caribdis underneath the mould,

When Scilla sollitary on the ground

(Sitting in forme of Niobe) was found,

Till Amphitrites Darling did acquaint

Grim Neptune with the Tenor of her plaint,

And causd him send forth Triton with the sound

Of Trumpet lowd, at which the Seas were found

So full of Protean formes that the bold shore

Presented Scilla a new parramore

So stronge as Sampson and so patient

As Job himselfe, directed thus, by fate,

To comfort Scilla so unfortunate.

I doe professe, by Cupids beautious mother,

Heres Scogans choise for Scilla, and none other;

Though Scilla’s sick with greife, because no signe

Can there be found of vertue masculine.

Esculapius come; I know right well

His laboure’s lost when you may ring her Knell.

The fatall sisters doome none can withstand,

nor Cithareas powre, who poynts to land

With proclamation that the first of May

At Ma-re Mount shall be kept hollyday.