Anne Brontë – A Prayer

My God (oh, let me call Thee mine,

Weak, wretched sinner though I be),

My trembling soul would fain be Thine;

My feeble faith still clings to Thee.

Not only for the Past I grieve,

The Future fills me with dismay;

Unless Thou hasten to relieve,

Thy suppliant is a castaway.

I cannot say my faith is strong,

I dare not hope my love is great;

But strength and love to Thee belong;

Oh, do not leave me desolate!

I know I owe my all to Thee;

Oh, TAKE the heart I cannot give!

Do Thou my strength--my Saviour be,

And MAKE me to Thy glory live.

Carl Sandburg – Remorse

The horse's name was Remorse.

There were people said, "Gee, what a nag!"

And they were Edgar Allan Poe bugs and so

They called him Remorse.

                                    When he was a gelding

He flashed his heels to other ponies

And threw dust in the noses of other ponies

And won his first race and his second

And another and another and hardly ever

Came under the wire behind the other runners.

And so, Remorse, who is gone, was the hero of a play

By Henry Blossom, who is now gone.

What is there to a monicker? Call me anything.

A nut, a cheese, something that the cat brought in. Nick me with any old name.

Class me up for a fish, a gorilla, a slant head, an egg, a ham.

Only ... slam me across the ears sometimes ... and hunt for a white star

In my forehead and twist the bang of my forelock around it.

Make a wish for me. Maybe I will light out like a streak of wind.

Edgar Allan Poe – Elizabeth

Elizabeth, it surely is most fit

[Logic and common usage so commanding]

In thy own book that first thy name be writ,

Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;

And I have other reasons for so doing

Besides my innate love of contradiction;

Each poet - if a poet - in pursuing

The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,

Has studied very little of his part,

Read nothing, written less - in short's a fool

Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,

Being ignorant of one important rule,

Employed in even the theses of the school-

Called - I forget the heathenish Greek name

[Called anything, its meaning is the same]

"Always write first things uppermost in the heart."

Anne Brontë – I hoped…

I hoped, that with the brave and strong,

My portioned task might lie;

To toil amid the busy throng,

With purpose pure and high.

But God has fixed another part,

And He has fixed it well;

I said so with my bleeding heart,

When first the anguish fell.

Thou, God, hast taken our delight,

Our treasured hope away:

Thou bid'st us now weep through the night

And sorrow through the day.

These weary hours will not be lost,

These days of misery,

These nights of darkness, anguish-tost,

Can I but turn to Thee.

With secret labour to sustain

In humble patience every blow;

To gather fortitude from pain,

And hope and holiness from woe.

Thus let me serve Thee from my heart,

Whate'er may be my written fate:

Whether thus early to depart,

Or yet a while to wait.

If Thou shouldst bring me back to life,

More humbled I should be;

More wise--more strengthened for the strife--

More apt to lean on Thee.

Should death be standing at the gate,

Thus should I keep my vow:

But, Lord! whatever be my fate,

Oh, let me serve Thee now!

Edgar Allan Poe – Sonnet - Silence

There are some qualities- some incorporate things,

That have a double life, which thus is made

A type of that twin entity which springs

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.

There is a two-fold Silence- sea and shore-

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,

Some human memories and tearful lore,

Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!

No power hath he of evil in himself;

But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,

That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod

No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!