Covenant by Rudyard Kipling
We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
Others might fall, not we, for we were wise--
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.
Yet there remains His Mercy--to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause. God help us, and make strong
Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!
= = = = = = = = = =
Sonnet IIII by Edmund Spenser
New yeare forth looking out of Ianus gate,
Doth seeme to promise hope of new delight:
and bidding th'old Adieu, his passed date
bids all old thoughts to die in dumpish spright.
And calling forth out of sad Winters night,
fresh loue, that long hath slept in cheerlesse bower:
wils him awake, and soone about him dight
his wanton wings and darts of deadly power.
For lusty spring now in his timely howre,
is ready to come forth him to receiue:
and warnes the Earth with diuers colord flowre,
to decke hir selfe, and her faire mantle weaue.
Then you faire flowre, in who[m] fresh youth doth raine,
prepare your selfe new loue to entertaine.
= = = = = = = = = =
May by Christina Georgina Rossetti
I cannot tell you how it was;
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and breezy day
When may was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last eggs had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird forgone its mate.
I cannot tell you what it was;
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
With all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and grey.
= = = = = = = = = =
In The Green And Gallant Spring by Robert Louis Stevenson
In the green and gallant Spring,
Love and the lyre I thought to sing,
And kisses sweet to give and take
By the flowery hawthorn brake.
Now is russet Autumn here,
Death and the grave and winter drear,
And I must ponder here aloof
While the rain is on the roof.
= = = = = = = = = =
Sonnet 9 by Thomas Lodge
The dewy roseate Morn had with her hairs
In sundry sorts the Indian clime adorned;
And now her eyes, apparellèd in tears,
The loss of lovely Memnon long had mourned;
When as she spied the nymph whom I admire,
Combing her locks, of which the yellow gold
Made blush the beauty of her curlèd wire,
Which heaven itself with wonder might behold,
Then, red with shame, her reverend locks she rent,
And weeping hid the beauty of her face;
The flower of fancy wrought such discontent.
The sighs, which midst the air she breathed a space,
A three-days' stormy tempest did maintain,
Her shame a fire, her eyes a swelling rain.
|
