EMILY DICKINSON 1830-86

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I'M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson left school as a teenager to live a reclusive life. She filled notebooks with poetry and wrote hundreds of letters. Her remarkable work was published after her death and she is now considered one of the leading figures of American literature.

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A.E.HOUSMAN 1859-1936

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This is a parody on "Excelsior" the famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

EXCELSIOR: THE SHADES OF NIGHT

The shades of night were falling fast

And the rain was falling faster,

When through an Alpine village passed

An Alpine village pastor;

A youth who bore mid snow and ice

A bird that wouldn't chirrup,

And a banner, with the strange device  -

"Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup."

''Beware the pass," the old man said,

"My bold and desperate fellah;

Dark lowers the tempest overhead,

And you'll want your umberella;

And the roaring torrent is deep and wide  -

You may hear how it washes."

But still that clarion voice replied:

"I've got my old goloshes."

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest

(For the wind blows from the nor'ward)

Thy weary head upon my breast  -

And please don't think me forward."

A tear stood in his bright blue eye

And gladly he would have tarried;

But still he answered with a sigh:

'"Unhappily I'm married."

The new blog THE SONGS AND SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE has been updated today

http://thesongsandsonnetsofjohndonne.blogspot.com

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616

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I KNOW A BANK

from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" spoken in the play by Oberon

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

This comedy play, written between 1590 and 1597, is one of Shakespeare's most popular works and is widely performed across the world.

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ROBERT BURNS 1759-96

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THINE AM I

Thine am I, my faithful Fair,

Thine, my lovely Nancy;

Ev'ry pulse along my veins,

Ev'ry roving fancy.

To thy bosom lay my heart,

There to throb and languish;

Tho' despair had wrung its core,

That would heal its anguish.

Take away those rosy lips,

Rich with balmy treasure;

Turn away thine eyes of love,

Lest I die with pleasure!

What is life when wanting* Love?

Night without a morning:

Love's the cloudless summer sun,

Nature gay adorning.

* lacking 

Robert Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire, is Scotland's national poet and is celebrated all over the world. He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism

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TO A FAT LADY SEEN FROM THE TRAIN

Frances Cornford  1886-1960

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is soft as the breast of doves

And shivering sweet to the touch?

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

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THE FAT WHITE WOMAN SPEAKS

G.K.Chesterton  1874-1936

Why do you rush through the field in trains,

Guessing so much and so much?

Why do you flash through the flowery meads,

Fat-head poet that nobody reads;

And why do you know such a frightful lot

About people in gloves as such?

And how the devil can you be sure,

Guessing so much and so much,

How do you know but what someone who loves

Always to see me in nice white gloves

At the end of the field you are rushing by,

Is waiting for his Old Dutch?

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THOMAS HOOD 1799-1845

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SILENCE

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,

In the cold grave - under the deep, deep sea,

Or in wide desert where no life is found,

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;

No voice is hush’d - no life treads silently,

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,

That never spoke, over the idle ground:

But in green ruins, in the desolate walls

Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,

Though the dun fox or wild hyæna calls,

And owls, that flit continually between,

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan -

There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Thomas Hood was an English poet, author and humorist. He contributed regularly to the London Magazine, The Athenaeum and Punch.

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ROBERT HERRICK 1591-1674

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TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 

  Old Time is still a-flying: 

And this same flower that smiles to-day 

  To-morrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,         

  The higher he's a-getting, 

The sooner will his race be run, 

  And nearer he's to setting. 

That age is best which is the first, 

  When youth and blood are warmer; 

But being spent, the worse, and worst 

  Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time, 

  And while ye may, go marry: 

For having lost but once your prime, 

  You may for ever tarry. 

This English lyric poet and critic is best known for his book of poems Hesperides and of those poems To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time is the most popular.

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