English Poems
BEAUTIFUL ENGLISH POEMS
Ozymandias, Kubla Khan, Auguries of Innocence, Invictus, Sea-Fever,
Daffodils, The Tyger, Endymion, Raindrops, The Primrose Wood, My
Lady Greensleeves, A Red, Red Rose, Auld Lang Syne.
Poem from a Lovesick Fool by Robin Gulland
Surrounded by the merry jingle of festival
In a cold and sinister month
Forced to celebrate
And bound by fate
One glimpse of your eye so sparkling
And I was overwhelmed by a feeling so startling.
Was it the music, or maybe the booze?
All of a sudden my heart was loose,
Waiting for naught, but to be caught
By your graceful love.
All of a sudden I was floating
Above the delirium of the past hours, wondering,
no pondering, on the sense of life,
Looking for something to strive for
And finding it in thou.
Yet two days later, ever so long,
Thou hast forgotten me, I feel so wrong.
What is this feeling overwhelming the fortress of my inner self?
What is it that pounds on the cell of my sentiments?
What is it that makes me wake at night,
Yearning for your precious presence,
Desiring the purest essence,
Of what people may call love.
In this dire hour I indulge in my emotions,
I give in to the tempest within my heart,
So forceful and omniscient, so impossible to resist, when love calls
with its iron fist.
It is this unrequited love that turns me into a shadow,
Entangling me in the depths of sorrow.
Feelings so omnipresent,
Which make me seem alive, the lack of the latter making me seem so deprived.
Of humanity and love....
OZYMANDIAS by Percy B. Shelley (1792-1822)
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
KUBLA KHAN by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1772-1834 (first verse given here)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE by William Blake 1757-1827
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro’ the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night
When the Soul slept in beams of Light.
God appears and God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
INVICTUS by W.E. Henley, 1888
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirate
character, Long John Silver. He was crippled by tuberculosis as a child.
In later years he was a successful journalist and poet, and a close friend of
Robert Louis Stevenson. Born in
SEA-FEVER by John Masefield
I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking
And a grey mist on the sea’s face
and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again
For the call of the running tide
Is a wild call, and a clear call
That may not be denied.
DAFFODILS by William Wordsworth 1770-1850
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eze
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
THE TYGER by William Blake 1757-1827
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? And what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
From ENDYMION by John Keats 1795-1821 (first 5 lines
given here)
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
RAINDROPS by Agnes Rous Howell
Raindrops, falling on the ground,
With a soft delicious sound;
Falling, falling, falling fast,
Pouring from the eaves at last.
Raindrops sinking through the earth,
Saving it from drought and dearth;
Lying on the grass like dew,
Giving Nature graces new.
Raindrops weighing down the flowers,
Dripping off the trees in showers;
Turning green leaves into brown,
Making brown leaves flutter down.
Raindrops, cooling earth and air,
Freshening all things far and near;
Coming after sunshine blest,
As after worktime cometh rest.
THE PRIMROSE WOOD by Agnes Rous Howell
There is a little wood half hid away,
Close to the river-side, which well I know!
Thither will you and I together go,
And spend in idleness the live-long day.
There, thickly covering the mossy ground,
Making soft carpet for our weary feet,
And shedding all around their perfume sweet,
The starry primrose clustering will be found.
There hyacinths their graceful heads uprear,
And violets, whose fragrance scents the air.
There may we hear the nightingale’s sweet song,
And watch the river as it flows along;
There, folded in wild flowers, lie down to rest,
Until the sun sinks slowly in the west.
MY LADY GREENSLEEVES
Alas! My love, you do me wrong o:p>
To cast me off discourteously;
And I have loved you so long,
Delighting in your company.
Greensleeves was all my joy!
Greensleeves was my delight!
Greensleeves was my heart of gold!
And who but my Lady Greensleeves!
I bought thee petticoats of the best,
The cloth so fine as fine as might be;
I gave thee jewels for thy chest,
And all this cost I spent on thee.
Greensleeves, etc.
The smock of silk, both fair and white,
With gold embroidered gorgeously;
Thy petticoat of sandal right:
And these I bought thee gladly.
Greensleeves, etc.
The gown was of the grassy green,
The sleeves of satin hanging by;
Which made thee be our harvest queen:
And yet thou wouldest not love me!
Greensleeves, etc.
Greensleeves now farewell! Adieu!
God I pray to prosper thee!
For I am still thy lover true:
Come once again and love me!
Greensleeves was all my joy!
Greensleeves was my delight!
Greensleeves was my heart of gold!
And
who but my Lady Greensleeve
Anonymous
&
A RED, RED ROSE by Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
O My Luve’s like a red, red rose o:p>
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
&
AULD LANG SYNE by Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, o:p>
And never brought to min’?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear.
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wandered mony a weary foot
Sin’ auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidled i’ the burn,
From morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine;
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I’ll be mine;
And we’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet
For auld lang syne.