Single Verses

• Tis not too late to seek a newer world
• A death while mist slept over sand & sea
• We live in deeds not years, in thoughts not breaths - Bailey
• Can honor’s voice provoke the dust?
• Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings
• I know that all beneath the moon decays
• To the last syllable of recorded time
• checkerboard of nights & days
• where destiny plays with men as pieces
• that youth’s sweet scented manuscript should close
• When in the chronicle of wasted time
• If music be the food of love
• Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore
• How sweet the moonlight sleeps
• Eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise
• Only the actions of the dust, smell sweet & blossom in the dust
• What happened to the times where dreams still mattered?
• The fog held its breath, looking on the ruins
• Opportunity knocked, but short for time gave up & left
• trembling shadows running from the hungry dawn
• Dreams are made of you
• If music be the food of love
• This act is as an ancient tale new told,
• When workmen strive to do better than well,
• O mistress mine, where art thou roaming?
• The sad eyed justice
• He jests at scars, that never felt a wound
• Is this a dagger which I see before me?
• Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
• Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings
• Where day never shuts his eye
• With leaden foot time creeps along
• Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire
• Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest
• And read their history in a nation’s eyes
• And shut the gates of mercy on mankind
• Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
• Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved
• And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove
• By unperceived degrees he wears away
• Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing!
• For how do I hold thee, but by thy granting?
• Nor shall death brag thou wanderst in his shade
• When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
• Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow
• By sucking books the wise like bees grow
• Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger…

Were I so tall to reach the pole, Or grasp the ocean with my span I must be measured by my soul, the mind’s the standard of a man.

We’ve trod the maze of error round, And now the torch of truth’s found

Though God be free, he works by instruments And wisely fitteth them to his intents, A proud unhumbled preacher is unmet To may proud sinners humbled at Christ’s feet So are the blind to tell men what God saith And faithless men to propagate the faith. The dead are unfit means to raise the dead And enemies to give the children bread. And utter strangers to the life to come Are not the best conductors to our home They that yet never learned to live & die Will scarcely teach it others feelingly.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age & nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth Unhurt amidst the war of elements The wrecks of matter & the crush of worlds

• Addison

The unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his creator’s power display

Soon as the evening shades prevail The moon takes up the wondrous tale And nightly to the listening Earth Repeats the story of her birth. Whilst all the stars that round herburn And all the planets in their turn Confirm the tidings as they roll And spread the truth from pole to pole.

• Addison

He many a creature did anatomize Almost unpeopling water, air & land Beasts, fishes, birds, snails, caterpillars, flies Were laid full low by his relentless hand That oft with gory crimson was disdained. He many a dog destroyed & many a cat. Of flees his bead, of frogs the marshes drained, Could tellen if a mite were lean or fat And read a lecture over th’entrails of a gnat.

• Virtuoso - Akenside

Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one For daylight, for the cheerful sun For feeling nerves & living breath, Youth dreams a bliss this side of death

And is a calm like this, in truth, The crowning end of life & youth? And when this boon rewards the dead, Are all debts paid, has all been said?

• Matthew Arnold

We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

• Bailey

Make it mine to feel amid the city’s jar That there’s a peace man did not make & cannot mar.

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger & defies its point

It must be so, Plato, thou reason’st well, Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This long after immortality? Or whence this secret dread & inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shirks the soul Back on herself & startles at destruction?

Tis the divinity that stirs within us Tis heaven itself that points out a hereafter And intimates Eternity to man.

Eternity? Thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being - Through what new scenes & changes must we pass! The wide, th’unbounded prospect lies before me, But shadows, clouds & darkness rest upon it. How will I hold? If there’s a power above us. (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Through all her works) he must delight in virtue And that which he delights in must be happy. Best when or where? This world was made for Caesar. I’m weary of conjectures; This must end them!

• Cato - Addison

Thus I am doubly armed: my death & life My bane & antidote are both before me. This in a moment brings me to an end But this informs me I shall never die.

Not all that tempts your wand’rinng eyes And heedless hearts, is lawful prize.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries

The soul’s dark cottage, battered & decayed Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made Stranger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home

Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air

Let not ambition mock their useful toil Their homely joys & destiny obscure, Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short & simple annals of the poor

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave Awaits alike th’inevitable hour The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

And though she tempts your wondering eyes, She’s sadly not a lawful prize.

Others may boast, a single man to kill But I, the blood of thousands, daily spill. Let petty kings the names of parties know Where’er I come, I slay both friend & foe. The swiftest horseman my fierce rage controls And from their bodies drives their trembling souls. If they had wings & to the gods could fly And would pursue & beat them to the sky And make proud Jove, with all his thunder see, This single arm more dreadful is, than he.

• Rehersal - George Villiers

If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.

• Kipling

Her voice was ike the wildest, saddest tone Yet sweet, of some loved voice heard long ago I wept, shall this fair woman, all alone Over the sea with that fierce serpant go? His head is on her heart & who can know How soon he may devour his feeble pray? Such were my thoughts when the tide ‘gan to flow And that strange boat like the moon’s shine did sway Amid reflected stars that in the waters lay.

• Revolt of Islam - Shelley

Tis a checker board of nights & days where destiny with e as pieces plays Hither & thither moves, checkmates & slays And one by one back in the closet lays.

Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before I swore, but was I sober when I swore?

Alas, that spring should vanish with the rose, That youth’s sweet scented manuscript should close

That place that does contain My books, the best companions, is to me A glorious court, where I hourly converse With the old sages & philosophers And sometimes, for variety, I confer With kings & emperors & weigh their councels

And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied & alone

The quality of mercy’s not streamed, It dropeth as gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath, it is twice blessed, It blesseeth him who gives and him who takes.

To gold refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice or add another hue Unto the rainbow …

When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness; And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse,

But if it be a sin to count honor, I am the most offending soul alive!

Others may use the ocean as their road Only English make it their abode.

Only the actions of the just, Smell sweet & blossom in the dust.

When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead. When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow’s glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not, When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music & splendor, Survive not the lamp & the lute The heart’s echoes render, No song when the spirit is mute No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell Or the mournful surges, That ring the dead seaman’s knell.

The glories of our blood & state, Are shadows, not substantial things. There is no armor against fate, Death lays his icy hand on kings, Sceptre & crown must tumble down And in the dust be equal made With the poor crookéd scythe & spade.

Thus I have had thee, as a dream doth flatter In sleep asking, but waking, no such matter.

When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead & lovely knights

For we, which now behold these present days Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

When the will has forgotten its lifelong aim And the mind can only disagree its fame And a man is uncertain of his own name The power of the lord shall fill this frame

• Dominus Illuminatio Mea - Blackmore

The sword’s but vain & vain’s the bow, They never can work war’s overthrow. The hermit’s prayer & the widow’s tear, Alone can free the world from fear. For a tear is an intellectual thing And a sigh is the sword of an angel king And the bitter groan of a martyr’s woe is an arrow from th’almighty’s bow.

• Blake

Jesus was sitting in Moses’ chair, They brought the trembling woman there. Moses commands she be stoned to death, What was the sound of JEsus’ breath? He laid his hand on Moses’ law, The ancient heavens in silent awe, Writ with curses from scroll to scroll All away did roll.

• Blake

Riches I hold in light esteem And love I laugh to scorn And lust of fame was but a dream That vanished with the morn. Yes as my swift days near their goal Tis all that I implore, In life & death a chainless soul With courage to endure.

• E. Brontë

Stop, Christian passer-by! Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast: Beneath this sod A poet lies or that which seemed to be. Oh lift one thought in prayer for me, That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death! MErcy for praise, to be forgiven for fame He asked & hoped through Christ. Do thou the same!

• Coleridge

Who from the busy world retires, To be more useful to it still And to no great good aspires, But only the eschewing ill. Who with his angle & his books, Can think the longest day well spent And praises God when back he looks And finds that all was innocent. This man is happier far than he Whom public business oft betrays Through labyrinths of policy, To crooked & forbidden ways.

• C. Cotton

Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard. To carry nature lengths unknown before To give a Milton birth, asked ages more. Thus genius rose & set at ordered times And shot a dayspring into distant climes Ennobling every region that he chose He sent in Greece, in Italy he rose And tedious years of Gothic darkness passed, Emerged all splendor in our isle at last

Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main Then show far off their shinning plumes again.

My fainting soul athirst for grace, I wwandered in a desert place.

On Transience

Drink today & drown all sorrow, You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow But while you have it, use your breath There’s no drinking after death.

Think how many rayed bones sleep within this heap of stones, Here’s an acre sour indeed, with the richest, royalest seed.

Here the bones of earth have cried Though gods they were, as men they died!

Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou & I must part, And when, where, even how we met I own to me’s a secret yet

Still thinking I had little time to live My fervent heart to win men’s souls did strive I preached as never sure to preach again Ad as a dying man to dying men.

Under the wide & starry sky Dig the grave & let me die.

With him deceased, she for a little tried To live without him, liked it not & died.

‘Tis time to creep in close about the fire And tell grey tales of what we were, and dream Old dreams and faded, and as we may rejoice In the young life that round us leaps and laughs, A fountain in the sunshine, in the pride Of God’s best gift that to us twain returns, Dear Heart, no more — no more.

For many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air

The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed Lets in new light through chinks which time hath made