Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.

Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Meaning: The poet begins by stating he should not stand in the way of true love. Love can not be true if it changes for any reason. Love is supposed to be constant, throu gh any difficulties. In the sixth line, a nautical reference is made, alluding t hat love is much like the north star to sailors. Love should not fade with time; instead, true love lasts forever. When it says "Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom," Shakespeare is sayi ng that love is timeless, and only death can do it part. The last two lines employ a paradoxical conceit. If there is no such thing as tr ue love, the poet says that neither has he ever written, nor has anyone ever exp erienced true love. However, because the poem has been written, it means the poe t, ultimately, is right about true love Meaning: Overview Sonnet 116 is one of Shakespeare's most famous love sonnets, but some scholars h ave argued the theme has been misunderstood. Hilton Landry believes the apprecia tion of 116 as a celebration of true love is mistaken [4], in part because its c ontext in the sequence of adjacent sonnets is not properly considered. Landry ac knowledges the sonnet has the grandeur of generality or a universal significance, b ut cautions that however timeless and universal its implications may be, we must never forget that Sonnet 116 has a restricted or particular range of meaning sim ply because it does not stand alone. [5] Carol Thomas Neely writes that, Sonnet 11 6 is part of a sequence which is separate from all the other sonnets of Shakespe are because of their sense of detachment. They arent about the action of love and the object of that love is removed in this sequence which consists of Sonnets 9 4, 116, and 129 [6] This group of three sonnets doesnt fit the mold of the rest of Shakespeares sonnets, therefore. They defy the typical concept and give a differ ent perspective of what love is and how it is portrayed or experienced. Though 11 6 resolves no issues, the poet in this part of the sequence acknowledges and acc epts the fallibility of his love more fully than he could acknowledge that of th e young mans earlier [7] Other critics of Sonnet 116 [8] have argued that one cann ot rely on the context of the sonnet to understand its tone. They argue there is no indisputably authoritative sequence to them, we cannot make use of context as positive evidence for one kind of tone or another. [9] Shakespeare doesnt attempt to come to any significant conclusion within this particular sonnet because no resolution is needed. Quatrain 1 The sonnet begins with the poet's apparent acknowledgment of the compelling qual ity of the emotional union of "true minds". As Helen Vendler has observed, This f amous almost impersonal sonnet on the marriage of true minds has usually been read as a definition of true love.[10] This is not a unique theme of Shakespeares sonn ets. Carol Neely observes that Like [sonnet] 94, it defines and redefines its sub ject in each quatrain and this subject becomes increasingly concrete, attractive and vulnerable. [11] Shakespeare tends to use negation to define love according to Lukas Erne, The first and the third [quatrains], it is true, define love negat

ively: 'love is not...'; Love's not...'. The two quatrains are further tied toge ther by the reappearance of the verbs 'to bend' and 'to alter'.[12] Love is defin ed in vague terms in the first quatrain. Garry Murphy observes that the meaning shifts with the distribution of emphasis. He suggests that in the first line the stress should properly be on "me": Let ME not to the marriage of true minds...; the sonnet then becomes not just a gentle m etaphoric definition but an agitated protest born out of fear of loss and merely conveyed by means of definition. [13] C.R. B. Combellack disputes the emphasis p laced on the ME due to the absence from the sonnet of another person to stand in co ntrast. No one else is addressed, described, named, or mentioned. [14] Murphy als o claims that The unstopped first and second lines suggest urgency in speech, not leisurely meditation. [15] He writes that the short words when delivered would h ave the effect of rapid delivery rather than slow rumination. Combellack question th is analysis by asking whether urgency is not more likely to be expressed in short bursts of speech? He argues that the words in the sonnet are not intended to be read quickly and that this is simply Murphys subjective opinion of the quatrain. Murphy believes the best support of the sonnet itself being an exclamation comes f rom the O no which he claims a person would not say without some agitation. Combel lack observes that O no could be used rather calmly in a statement such as O no, th ank you, but my coffee limit is two cups. [16] If anything, Combellack suggests, the use of the O softens the statement and it would require the use of different g rammar to suggest that the sonnet should be understood as rapid speech. The poetic language leaves the sort of love described somewhat indeterminate; The 'marriage of true minds' like the 'power to hurt' is troublesomely vague open t o a variety of interpretations. [17]Interpretations include the potential for rel igious imagery and the love being for God, Lines one and two echo the Anglican ma rriage service from the Book of Common Prayer. The concept of the marriage of tru e minds is thought to be a highly Christian; according to Erne, The mental pictur e thus called up in our minds of the bride and bridegroom standing up front in a church is even reinforced by the insistence on the word alter/altar in the foll owing line. [18] Quatrain 2 The second quatrain explains how love is unchanging according to Neely, Love is a star, remote, immovable, self-contained, and perhaps, like the 'lords and owner s of their faces,' improbably and even somewhat unpleasantly cold and distant. [1 9] The second quatrain continues Shakespeare's attempt to define love, but in a more direct way. Shakespeare mentions it in the second quatrain according to Dougl as Trevor, The constancy of love in sonnet 116, the it of line five of the poem, is also for the poet the poetry, the object of love itself. [20] Not only is there a direct address to love itself, the style Shakespeares contemplation becomes mor e direct. Erne states, Lines five to eight stand in contrast to their adjacent qu atrains, and they have their special importance by saying what love is rather th an what it is not. This represents a change in Shakespeare's view that love is co mpletely undefinable. This concept of unchanging love is focused in the statemen t, '[love] is an ever-fixed mark'. This has generally been understood as a sea ma rk or a beacon. [21] This concept may also convey in a theological sense. During the Reformation there was dispute about Catholic doctrines, One of the points of disagreement was precisely that the Reformers rejected the existence of an everfixed, or in theological idiom, 'idelible' mark which three of the sacraments, a ccording to Catholic teaching, imprint on the soul.[22] This interpretation makes God the focus of the sonnet as opposed to the typical concept of love. The compass is also considered an important symbol in the first part of the poem . John Doebler identifies a compass as a symbol that drives the poem, The first q uatrain of this sonnet makes implied use of the compass emblem, a commonplace sy mbol for constancy during the period in which Shakespeare's sonnets were compose d. [23] Doebler identifies certain images in the poem with a compass, In the Renai ssance the compass is usually associated with the making of a circle, the ancien t symbol of eternity, but in sonnet 116 the emphasis is more upon the contrastin g symbolism of the legs of the compass. [24] The two feet of the compass represen t the differences between permanent aspects of love and temporary ones. These di

fferences are explained as, The physical lovers are caught in a changing world of time, but they are stabilized by spiritual love, which exists in a constant wor ld of eternal ideals. [25] The sonnet uses imagery like this create a more clear concept of love in the speaker's mind. Quatrain 3 In the third quatrain, The remover who bends turns out to be the grim reaper, Tim e, with his bending sickle. What alters are Times brief hours and weeks and Only the Day of Judgment (invoked from the sacramental liturgy of marriage) is the prope r measure of loves time [26] The young man holds the value of beauty over that of l ove. When he comes to face the fact that the love he felt has changed and become less intense and, in fact, less felt, he changes his mind about this person hed loved before because what he had felt in his heart wasnt true. That the object of his affections beauty fell to Times Sickle would not make his feelings change. This fact is supported by Helen Vendler as she wrote, The second refutational passage , in the third quatrain, proposes indirectly a valuable alternative law, one app roved by the poet-speaker, which we may label the law of inverse constancy: the mo re inconstant are times alterations (one an hour, one a week), the more constant is loves endurance, even to the edge of doom [27] Vendler believes that if the lov e the young man felt was real it would still be there after the object of that l oves beauty had long faded away, but he has announced the waning of his own attach ment to the speaker, dissolving the marriage of true minds [28] Shakespeare is argu ing that if love is true it will stand against all tests of time and adversity, no manner of insignificant details such as the persons beauty fading could alter or dissolve the marriage of two minds. Couplet The couplet of Sonnet 116 Shakespeare went about explaining in the inverse. He s ays the opposite of what it would be natural to say about love. For instance, in stead of writing something to the effect of I have written and men have loved, acc ording to Nelson, Shakespeare chose to write, I never writ, nor no man ever loved . Nelson argues that The existence of the poem itself gives good evidence that the poet has written. It is harder to see, however, how the mere existence of the p oem could show that men have loved. In part, whether men have loved depends upon just what love isSince the poem is concerned with the nature of love, there is a sense in which what the poem says about love, if true, in part determines wheth er or not men have loved. [29] Nelson quotes Ingram and Redpath who are in agreem ent with his statement when they paraphrase the couplet in an extended form: "If this is a judgment (or a heresy), and this can be proved against me, and by cit ing my own case in evidence, then I've never written anything, and no man's love has ever been real love." [30] Vendler states Therefore, if he himself is in erro r on the subject of what true love is, then no man has ever loved; certainly the young man (it is implied) has not loved, if he has not loved after the steady f ashion urged by the speaker, without alteration, removals, or impediments [31] Ea ch of these authorities agree in the essence of the Sonnet and its portrayal of what love really is and what it can withstand, for example, the test of time and the fading of physical attraction of the object of our love. The couplet is, th erefore, that men have indeed loved both in true and honest affection (this bein g the most important part of the argument) as well as falsely in the illusions o f beauty before just as Shakespeare has written before this sonnet. On time FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race; Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace; And glut thyself with what thy womb devours, Which is no more then what is false and vain, And merely mortal dross; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain. For when, as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd And last of all thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss, With an individual kiss; And Joy shall overtake us, as a flood, When every thing that is sincerely good, And perfectly divine, With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine, About the supreme throne Of Him, to whose happy-making sight, alone, When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, Then all this earthly grossness quit, Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time! On Time by John Milton creates another idea of not beating time in a sense to li ve forever, but to survive, such as in wars, and acts of human cruelty. It is a triumph over the time until you die, by surviving these events. In the end the s ame results are reached. But, the idea of beating time just by living seems to a dd something. It shows us the power of the human spirit and the nature of the human condition to fight the passing of time. It is grim to consider time passing, and to see it as a finite irreversible sequence of events. This poem encapsulates our feeling s of time, but is also meant to give us hope. It is a poem of a powerful sadness , and an eternal joy. On shakespear What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd Bones, The labour of an age in pild Stones, Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a stary pointing Pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thy self a live-long Monument. For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book Those Delphick lines with deep impression took, Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving, Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving; And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie, That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die. The Divine Image To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love All pray in their distress; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God our Father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is man, His child and care. For Mercy has a human heart, Pity, a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. Then every man, of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk, or Jew; Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. The school boy I love to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree; The distant huntsman winds his horn, And the skylark sings with me: O what sweet company! But to go to school in a summer morn, O it drives all joy away! Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day In sighing and dismay. Ah then at times I drooping sit, And spend many an anxious hour; Nor in my book can I take delight, Nor sit in learning's bower, Worn through with the dreary shower. How Sit How But And can the bird that is born for joy in a cage and sing? can a child, when fears annoy, droop his tender wing, forget his youthful spring!

O father and mother if buds are nipped, And blossoms blown away; And if the tender plants are stripped Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care's dismay, How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear? Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear? Summary Another critique of human societal restrictions on the nature-loving human spiri t, this poem is less harsh and more playful than most of Blakes other such works. The boy loves to rise in a summer morn,/When the birds sing on every tree. He enj oys nature in all its splendor, But to go to school in a summer morn,/O! it drive s all joy away. The boy longs for the freedom of the outdoors and cannot take deli ght in his book. He asks, How can the bird that is born for joy,/Sit in a cage and sing. His youth and innocence are suited to playing in the summertime fields, no t to sitting captive to a dreary educational system. Analysis "The School-Boy" is a six-stanza poem of five lines each. Each stanza follows an ABABB rhyme scheme, with the first two stanzas using the same word "morn" to rh yme in the first lines. The repetition of the word morn as well as similarly low-s ounding words such as "outworn," "bower," "dismay," and "destroy" lend the poem a bleak tone in keeping with the school-boy's attitude at being trapped inside a

t school rather than being allowed to move freely about the countryside on this fine summer day. Blake suggests that the educational system of his day destroys the joyful innoce nce of youth; Blake himself was largely self-educated and did not endure the dru dgery of the classroom as a child. Again, the poet wishes his readers to see the difference between the freedom of imagination offered by close contact with nat ure, and the repression of the soul caused by Reasons demands for a so-called edu cation. A slumber did my spirit seal A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathd horn.

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket by John Keats The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead In summer luxury,--he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats 1. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 2. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 3. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 4. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 6. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain To thy high requiem become a sod.

7. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 8. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toil me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:Do I wake or sleep? The Sun Rising by John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams so reverend, and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long. If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and to-morrow late tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay." She's all states, and all princes I; Nothing else is; Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus; Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere. STAND still, and I will read to thee A lecture, Love, in Loves philosophy. These three hours that we have spent, Walking here, two shadows went Along with us, which we ourselves produced. But, now the sun is just above our head, We do those shadows tread, And to brave clearness all things are reduced. So whilst our infant loves did grow, Disguises did, and shadows, flow From us and our cares ; but now tis not so. That love hath not attaind the highest degree, Which is still diligent lest others see. Except our loves at this noon stay, We shall new shadows make the other way. As the first were made to blind Others,these which come behind Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes. If our loves faint and weterwardly decline, To me thou,falsely,thine And i to thee mine actions shall disguise. The morning shadows wear away, The morning shadows wear away, But these grow longer all the day; But o! loves day is short, if love decay.

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge read by Robert Kelly

Or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment 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 there 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. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw; It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. The Last Bargain BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE "Come and hire me," I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-pav ed road. Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot. He held my hand and said, "I will hire you with my power." But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot. In the heat of the midday the houses stood with shut doors. I wandered along the crooked lane. An old man came out with his bag of gold. He pondered and said, "I will hire you with my money." He weighed his coins one by one, but I turned away. It was evening. The garden hedge was all aflower. The fair maid came out and said, "I will hire you with a smile." Her smile paled and melted into tears, and she went back alone into the dark. The sun glistened on the sand, and the sea waves broke waywardly. A child sat playing with shells. He raised his head and seemed to know me, and said, "I hire you with nothing." From thenceforward that bargain struck in child's play made me a free man Lover's Gifts II: Come to My Garden Walk Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that press themselves on your sight. Pass them by, stopping at some chance joy, which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines, yet elude. For lover's gift is shy, it never tells its name, it flits across the shade, spreading a shiver of joy along the dust. Overtake it or miss it for ever. But a gift that can be grasped is merely a frail flower, or a lamp with flame that will flicker. Dust of Snow The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood

And saved some part Of a day I had rued. Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what Ive tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

For Anne Gregory 'NEVER shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.' 'But I can get a hair-dye And set such colour there, Brown, or black, or carrot, That young men in despair May love me for myself alone And not my yellow hair.' 'I heard an old religious man But yesternight declare That he had found a text to prove That only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.' The Wild Swans At Coole THE trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty Swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away? The Lake Isle Of Innisfree I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core. The Solitary Reaper Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings?-Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again? Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;-I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more. William Wordsworth Ode To Autumn Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. John Keats The Education of Nature THREE years she grew in sun and shower; Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown: This child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make 5 A lady of my own. "Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse; and with me The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. "She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; 15 And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm

10

Of mute insensate things. "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; 20 Nor shall she fail to see Ev'n in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's form By silent sympathy. "The stars of midnight shall be dear 25 To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. 30 "And vital feelings of delight Shall rear her form to stately height, Her virgin bosom swell; Such thoughts to Lucy I will give, While she and I together live 35 Here in this happy dell." Thus Nature spakethe work was done How soon my Lucy's race was run! She died, and left to me This heath, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been, And never more will be.

40

Byzantium THE unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins. Before me floats an image, man or shade, Shade more than man, more image than a shade; For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth May unwind the winding path; A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death. Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, More miraclc than bird or handiwork, Planted on the star-lit golden bough, Can like the cocks of Hades crow, Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud In glory of changeless metal Common bird or petal And all complexities of mire or blood. At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame, Where blood-begotten spirits come And all complexities of fury leave,

Dying into a dance, An agony of trance, An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve. Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood, Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood. The golden smithies of the Emperor! Marbles of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. William Butler Yeats

The Second Coming 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 Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi} Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? William Butler Yeats Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost

A I I I I

Poison Tree was angry with my friend: told my wrath, my wrath did end. was angry with my foe: told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine. And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree. William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a sailor who has retu rned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedd ing ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns f rom bemusement to impatience and fear to fascination as the Mariner's story prog resses, as can be seen in the language style: for example, Coleridge uses narrat ive techniques such as personification and repetition to create either a sense o f danger, of the supernatural or of serenity, depending on the mood of each of t he different parts of the poem. The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initia l good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually re aches Antarctica. An albatross appears and leads them out of the Antarctic but, even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the Mariner shoots the bird ("with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross"). The crew is angry with the Marine r, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antar ctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer an d the mist disappears ("'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay / that bring the fog and mist"). However, they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime as it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mi st and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice no w sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for th e torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the Mariner to wear the dea d albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret ("Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung"). Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vesse l. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death" (a deathly -pale woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the

dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of th e Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mar iner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killin g of the albatross. One by one, all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for se ven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expr essions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing the m as "slimy things" earlier in the poem ("Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / upon the slimy sea"), he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them ("a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them unaware"); suddenly, as h e manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and stee r the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner be hind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to mee t it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. When they pull him from the wat er, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes cr azy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil, and says, "The Devil knows ho w to row." As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he me ets: He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home , and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man".

Authors History and brief notes William Blake (28 November 1757 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, an d printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romant ic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artis try has led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greate st artist Britain has ever produced". Although he lived in London his entire lif e except for three years spent in Felpham he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "Human exi stence itself". Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in h igh regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the p hilosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetr y have been characterised as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romanti c", for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but host ile to the Church of England indeed, to all forms of organised religion Blake wa s influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Bhme andEmanuel Swedenborg. Despite these k nown influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify . The 19th century scholar William Rossetti characterised Blake as a "glorious l uminary," and as "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors". William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English

poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English langu age and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations , consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamn et and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlai n's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespea re's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about suc h matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early pla ys were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistic ation and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedie s until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear,Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote t ragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy dur ing his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but tw o of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputati on did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. TheRomantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakes peare with a reverence that George Bernard Shawcalled "bardolatry".[6] In the 20 th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are cons tantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political c ontexts throughout the world. John Milton (9 December 1608 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth (republic) o f England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and politi cal upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freed om and self determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. Writing in English, Latin, and Italian, he achieved international renown w ithin his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica, (written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship) is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press. William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author", and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English lan guage"; though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his deat h (often on account of his republicanism). Samuel Johnsonpraised Paradise Lost a s "a poem which...with respect to design may claim the first place, and with res pect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind". Thoug h Johnson (a Tory and recipient of royal patronage) described his politics as th ose of an "acrimonious and surlyrepublican". Because of his republicanism, Milton has been the subject of centuries of Britis h partisanship (a "nonconformist" biography by John Toland, a hostile account by Anthony Wood etc). William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poe t who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in Englis h literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobi ographical poem of his early years which he revised and expanded a number of tim es. It was posthumously titled and published, prior to which it was generally kn own as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

John Keats (/kits/; 31 October 1795 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet . Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his wor k had been in publication for only four years before his death. Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his life, his reputation grew after his death to the extent that by the end of the 19th ce ntury he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He has had a s ignificant influence on a diverse range of later poets and writers: Jorge Luis B orges stated that his first encounter with Keats was the most significant litera ry experience of his life. The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the ser ies of odes. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and analyz ed in English literature. William Butler Yeats ( /jets/ yayts; 13 June 1865 28 January 1939) was an Irish po et and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later year s he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and othe rs, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early yea rs. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman s o honoured for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest work s after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and T he Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929). Yeats was a very good friend of Indian Bengali poet Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. H e studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by bothIrish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, whi ch lasted roughly until the turn of the 20th century. His earliest volume of ver se was published in 1889 and those slow-paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the Pre-Raphaelitepoets. From 1900, Y eats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcen dental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and sp iritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life. John Donne ( /dn/ dun; 1572 (between 24 January and 19 June[1]) 31 March 1631 was an English poet, satirist, lawyer and priest. He is considered the pre-eminent r epresentative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, s ensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translatio ns, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its v ibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially compared to that o f his contemporaries. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and vari ous paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry a nd an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of British society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donn es poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time conside

ring and theorising about. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poe ms. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits. Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for sever al years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inhe rited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes, and tr avel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne Moore, with whom he had twelve childr en. In 1615, he became an Anglican priest, although he did not want to take Angl ican orders. He did so because King James I persistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He also served as a me mber of parliament in 1601 and in 1614. Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( /ko lrd/; 21 October 1772 25 July 1834) was an English poet , Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordswo rth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poemsThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner an d Kubla Khan, as well as for his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His crit ical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped intr oduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many fam iliar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He wa s a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of anxiety an d depression; it has been speculated by some that he suffered from bipolar disor der, a condition as yet unidentified during his lifetime. Coleridge suffered fro m poor health that may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other chi ldhood illnesses. He was treated for these concerns with laudanum, which fostere d a lifelong opium addiction. Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is h ighly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of Ame rican colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life i n New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex soci al and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected Am erican poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime , receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ti es, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Ho lyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white c lothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her roo m. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence. Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was pu blished during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique f or the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuati on. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring t opics in letters to her friends. Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, i t was not until after her death in 1886when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, disc overed her cache of poemsthat the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent. He r first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Tho mas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of whom heavily edited the c ontent. A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became availabl e for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her lit erary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet.

Rabindranath Tagore[][] (Bengali: ; 7 May 1861 7 August 1941),[] sob gali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjal i and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature. In transla tion his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his seemingly mesmeric pe rsonality, flowing hair, and other-worldly dress earned him a prophet-like reput ation in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At age sixteen, he cheekily released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym B hnusiha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. He graduated to his first short stories and dramasand the aegis of his birth nameby 1877. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and strident ant i-nationalist he denounced the Raj and advocated for independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs ; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati Universit y. Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting li nguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his vers e, short stories, and novels were acclaimedor pannedfor their lyricism, colloquial ism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by tw o nations as national anthems: the Republic of India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangla desh's Amar Shonar Bangla.