ENGLISH POETRY SELECTION

0, my love is like a red, red rose,

Her Face

that's newly sprung in June.

BY ARTHUR GORGES

0, my love is like a melody,

that's sweetly play'd in tune.
Her face

Her tongue

As fair thou art, my bonnie lass,

so fair

so sweet

so deep in love am I,

first bent

then drew

Her wit
so sharp
then hit

mine eye

mine ear

my heart

Mine eye

Mine ear

My heart

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

to like

to learn

to love

and the rocks melt wi' the sun!

her face

her tongue

her wit

And I will love thee still, my dear,

till a' the seas gang dry.

doth lead

And I will love thee still, my dear,

while the sands of life shall run.
And fare the weel, my only love!

And I will come again, my love.

Tho it were ten thousand mile!
Robert Burns

Her tongue

Her wit

with beams

with sound

with art

doth charm

doth knit

mine eye

mine ear

my heart

Mine eye

Mine ear

My heart

with life

with hope

with skill

her face
doth feed

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

O face

Admit impediments. Love is not love

with frowns
wrong not

Which alters when it alteration finds,

doth move

Her face

doth blind

And fare the well awhile!

doth teach

mine eye

her tongue
doth feast

O tongue

her wit
doth fill

O wit

with checks

with smart

vex not

wound not

mine ear

my heart

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

This eye

This ear

This heart

shall joy

shall yield

shall swear

her face

her tongue

her wit

to serve

to trust

to fear.

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.

-- William Shakespeare

Because I liked you better

Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

To put the world between us

We parted, stiff and dry;

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Good-bye, said you, forget me.

I will, no fear, said I.

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

If here, where clover whitens

The dead man's knoll, you pass,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And no tall flower to meet you

Starts in the trefoiled grass,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

Halt by the headstone naming

The heart no longer stirred,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

And say the lad that loved you

Was one that kept his word.

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

A.E. Housman

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron.

If ever two were one, then surely we.

17881824

If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee;

So, we'll go no more a-roving

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me ye women if you can.

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold,

And the moon be still as bright.

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,

For the sword outwears its sheath,

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

And love itself have rest.

The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving

Anne Bradstreet

By the light of the moon.

Wendy Cope

Giving Up Smoking

I am the song that sings the bird.

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet

I am the leaf that grows the land.

Or a Beethoven quartet

I am the tide that moves the moon.

I am the stream that halts the sand.

That's easier to like than you

I am the cloud that drives the storm.

Or harder to forget.

I am the earth that lights the sun.

I am the fire that strikes the stone.

You think that sounds extravagant?

I am the clay that shapes the hand.

I haven't finished yet --

I am the word that speaks the man.

I like you more than I would like

To have a cigarette.

Charles Causley

William Shakespeare
Jerusalem Hymn

To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

And did those feet in ancient time

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

Walk upon England's mountain green?

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

And was the holy Lamb of God

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

And did the countenance divine

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?

.
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,

Bring me my chariot of fire!

Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,

I will not cease from mental fight,

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.

William Blake

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,

When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

-- Michael Drayton

If... by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

10