Among School Children By William Butler Yeats I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and history, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way—the children’s eyes In momentary wonder…
Twelfth Night By Shakespeare ACT I SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO’s palace. Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and other Lords; Musicians attending DUKE ORSINO If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it…
As You Like It By Shakespeare ACT I SCENE I. Orchard of Oliver’s house. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM ORLANDO As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my…
King Lear By Shakespeare ACT I SCENE I. King Lear’s palace. Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND KENT I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values…
Hamlet By Shakespeare The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark ACT I SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO BERNARDO Who’s there? FRANCISCO Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. BERNARDO Long live the king! FRANCISCO Bernardo? BERNARDO He. FRANCISCO You come most carefully upon your…
This moment yearning and thoughtful By Walt Whitman This moment wishing and thoughtful sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands wishing and thoughtful, It seems to me I can look over and look/see them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or…
“Are you the new person drawn toward me?” By Walt Whitman Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?…
As I ponder’d in silence By Walt Whitman As I ponder’d in silence, Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, Terrible in beauty, age, and power, The genius of poets of old lands, As to me directing like flame its eyes, With finger pointing to many immortal…
Dry loaf By Wallace Stevens It is equal to living in a tragic land To live in a tragic time. Regard now the sloping, the mountainous rocks And the river that batters its way over stones, Regard the hovels of those that live in this land. That was what I painted behind the loaf, The…
Continual Conversation With A Silent Man By Wallace Stevens The old brown hen and the old blue sky, Between the two we live and die– The broken cartwheel on the hill. As if, in the presence of the sea, We dried our nets and mended sail And talked of never-ending things, Of the never-ending storm…
A Postcard from the Volcano By Wallace Stevens Children picking up our bones Will never know that these were once As quick as foxes on the hill; And that in autumn, when the grapes Made sharp air sharper by their smell These had a being, breathing frost; And least will guess that with our bones…
The Trees By Philip Larkin The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too, Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings…
Continuing To Live By Philip Larkin Continuing to live — that is, repeat A habit formed to get necessaries — Is nearly always losing, or going without. It varies. This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise — Ah, if the game were poker, yes, You might discard them, draw a full house! But it’s chess….
Maturity By Philip Larkin A stationary sense… as, I suppose, I shall have, till my single body grows Inaccurate, tired; Then I shall start to feel the backward pull Take over, sickening and masterful – Some say, desired. And this must be the prime of life… I blink, As if at pain; for it is…
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By T. S. Eliot S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I,…
The Waste Land By T. S. Eliot FOR EZRA POUND IL MIGLIOR FABBRO I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with…
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst…
A Dialogue of Self and Soul By William Butler Yeats I My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all…
The Lady of Shalott (1832) By Alfred Lord Tennyson Part I On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And thro’ the field the road runs by To many-tower’d Camelot; The yellow-leaved waterlily The green-sheathed daffodilly Tremble in the water chilly Round…
Ulysses By Alfred Lord Tennyson It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to…