• Lascelles Abercrombie

    Hope And Despair

    Said God, “You sisters, ere ye go Down among men, my work to do, I will on each a badge bestow: Hope I love best, and gold for her, Yet a silver glory for Despair, For she is my angel too.” Then like a queen, Despair Put on the stars…

  • William Blake

    Fair Elenor

    William Blake (1757–1827).  THE BELL struck one, and shook the silent tower; The graves give up their dead: fair Elenor Walk’d by the castle gate, and lookèd in. A hollow groan ran thro’ the dreary vaults. She shriek’d aloud, and sunk upon the steps,         On the…

  • William Blake

    Song: My silks and fine array

    William Blake (1757–1827). My silks and fine array, My smiles and languish’d air, By love are driv’n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave; Such end true lovers have. His face is fair as heav’n When springing buds unfold; O why to him was ’t…

  • William Blake

    A War Song to Englishmen

    William Blake (1757–1827). Prepare, prepare the iron helm of war, Bring forth the lots, cast in the spacious orb; Th’ Angel of Fate turns them with mighty hands, And casts them out upon the darken’d earth!                     Prepare, prepare!    …

  • William Blake

    To the Muses

    WHETHER on Ida’s shady brow, Or in the chambers of the East, The chambers of the sun, that now From ancient melody have ceas’d; Whether in Heaven ye wander fair, Or the green corners of the earth, Or the blue regions of the air Where the melodious winds have birth;…

  • Matilda Betham

    The Lonely Walk

    To W.S.B. When the grey evening spreads a calm around,   Tell me, has thy bewilder’d fancy sought, Retir’d in some sequestered spot of ground,   Rest, from the labour of eternal thought? When, wrapt in self, the soul enjoys repose,   The wearied brain resigns its fervent heat, In…

  • Percy Bysshe Shelley

    Love Philosophy

    The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix forever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In another’s being mingle– Why not I with thine? See, the mountains kiss high heaven, And…

  • William Blake

    To Morning

    O HOLY virgin! clad in purest white, Unlock heav’n’s golden gates, and issue forth; Awake the dawn that sleeps in heaven; let light Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring The honey’d dew that cometh on waking day.         5 O radiant morning, salute the…