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Love and Marriage Poems - 27
Who Learns My Lesson Complete? by Walt Whitman
Who learns my lesson complete?
Boss, journeyman, apprentice--churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker--parents and offspring--merchant,
clerk, porter and customer,
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy--Draw nigh and commence;
It is no lesson--it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.
The great laws take and effuse without argument;
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits--I do not halt, and make salaams.
I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons
of things;
They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.
I cannot say to any person what I hear--I cannot say it to myself--it
is very wonderful.
It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so
exactly in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt, or the
untruth of a single second;
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,
nor ten billions of years,
Nor plann'd and built one thing after another, as an architect plans
and builds a house.
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;
I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how
I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful;
And pass'd from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers
and winters, to articulate and walk--All this is equally
wonderful.
And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each
other, is every bit as wonderful.
And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just as wonderful;
And that I can remind you, and you think them, and know them to be
true, is just as wonderful.
And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
equally wonderful,
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars, is equally
wonderful.
= = = = = = = = = =
Hymn Of Pan by Percy Bysshe Shelley
From the forests and highlands
We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb
Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle-bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.
Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Temple lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni and Sylvans and fauns,
And the Nymphs of the woods and wave
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love,--as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.
I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the dedal earth,
And of heaven, and the Giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth.
And then I changed my pipings,--
Singing how down the vale of Maenalus
I pursued a maiden, and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus;
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.
All wept--as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood--
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
= = = = = = = = = =
Unto Us by Spike Milligan
Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother --my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked, defenseless
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste
bucket.
There was no Queens Counsel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled.
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With tickets to see Danny la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was.
= = = = = = = = = =
Fie, Pleasure, Fie! by George Gascoigne
Fie, pleasure, fie! thou cloyest me with delight;
Thou fill'st my mouth with sweetmeats overmuch;
I wallow still in joy both day and night:
I deem, I dream, I do, I taste, I touch
No thing but all that smells of perfect bliss,
Fie, pleasure, fie! I cannot like of this.
To taste, sometimes, a bait of bitter gall,
To drink a draught of sour ale some season,
To eat brown bread with homely hands in hall,
Doth much increase man's appetites, by reason,
And makes the sweet more sugared that ensues,
Since minds of men do still seek after news.
It might suffice that Love hath built his bower
Between my lady's lively shining eyes;
It were enough that beauty's fading flower
Grows ever fresh with her in heavenly wise;
It had been well that she were fair of face,
And yet not rob all other dames of grace.
To muse in mind, how wise, how fair, how good,
How brave, how frank, how courteous, and how true
My lady is, doth but inflame my blood
With humours such as bid my health adieu:
Since hap always when it is clomb* on high, [climbed]
Doth fall full low, though erst* it reached the sky. [before]
Lo, pleasure, lo! lo, thus I lead a life
That laughs for joy and trembleth oft for dread;
Thy pangs are such as call for change's knife
To cut the twist, or else to stretch the thread,
Which holds yfeer* the bundle of my bliss: [in fear]
Fie, pleasure, fie! I dare not trust to this.
= = = = = = = = = =
Lady Clare by Lord Alfred Tennyson
IT was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.
I trow they did not part in scorn-
Lovers long-betroth'd were they:
They too will wed the morrow morn:
God's blessing on the day !
'He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well,' said Lady Clare.
In there came old Alice the nurse,
Said, 'Who was this that went from thee?'
'It was my cousin,' said Lady Clare,
'To-morrow he weds vith me.'
'O God be thank'd!' said Alice the nurse,
' That all comes round so just and fair:
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare.'
'Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?'
Said Lady Clare, 'that ye speak so wild?'
'As God's above,' said Alice the nurse,
' I speak the truth: you are my child.
'The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;
I speak the truth, as I live by bread!
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead.'
'Falsely, falsely have ye done,
O mother,' she said, ' if this be true,
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due.'
'Nay now, my child,' said Alice the nurse,
'But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
When you are man and wife.'
' If I'm a beggar born,' she said,
'I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by.'
'Nay now, my child,' said Alice the nurse,
'But keep the secret all ye can.'
She said, ' Not so: but I will know
If there be any faith in man.'
'Nay now, what faith ?' said Alice the nurse,
'The man will cleave unto his right.'
'And he shall have it,' the lady replied,
'Tho' I should die to-night.'
'Yet give one kiss to your mother dear !
Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee.'
'O mother, mother, mother,' she said,
'So strange it seems to me.
'Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,
And bless me, mother, ere I go.'
She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare:
She went by dale, and she went by down,
With a single rose in her hair.
The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
And follow'd her all the way.
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:
'O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!
Why come you drest like a village maid,
That are the flower of the earth?'
'If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are:
I am a beggar born,' she said,
'And not the Lady Clare.'
'Play me no tricks,' said Lord Ronald,
'For I am yours in word and in deed.
Play me no tricks,' said Lord Ronald,
'Your riddle is hard to read.'
O and proudly stood she up !
Her heart within her did not fail:
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes,
And told him all her nurse's tale.
He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn:
He turn'd and kiss'd her where she stood:
'If you are not the heiress born,
And I,' said he, 'the next in blood--
'If you are not the heiress born,
And I,' said he, ' the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare.
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