I ne’er was struck before that hourWith love so sudden and so sweet,Her face it bloomed like a sweet flowerAnd stole my heart away complete.My face turned pale as deadly pale.My legs refused to walk away,And when she looked, what could I ail?My life and all seemed turned to clay.…
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Vous êtes mon palais, mon soir et mon automne,Et ma voile de soie et mon jardin de lys,Ma cassolette d’or et ma blanche colonne,Mon par cet mon étang de roseaux et d’iris. Vous êtes mes parfums d’ambre et de miel, ma plume,Mes feuillages, mes chants de cigales dans l’air,Ma neige…
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I’ll not weep that thou art going to leave meThere’s nothing lovely here,And doubly will the dark world grieve meWhile thy heart suffers there – I’ll not weep – because the summer’s gloryMust always end in gloomAnd follow out the happiest story,It closes with the tomb – And I am…
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Dover Beach
The sea is calm tonight, The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air! Only,…
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Stille Nacht
“Listen, Fritz is singing to us.”Across the pitted mounds of No Man’s Landthe gentle blending of a male voice choirhushed, and reverently sweet and sadgave Stille Nacht instead of rifle fire.“Come all ye faithful,” Englishmen replied,and found the German voices had joined in“Venite adoremus,” strong and clear.Loyalties and faiths were…
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The Headache
My head doth ache,O Sappho! takeThy fillet,And bind the pain,Or bring some baneTo kill it. But less that partThan my poor heartNow is sick;One kiss from theeWill counsel beAnd physic. Robert Herrick (baptized 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674
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She is coming, my own, my sweet;Were it ever so airy a tread,My heart would hear her and beat,Were it earth in an earthy bed;My dust would hear her and beat,Had I lain for a century dead,Would start and tremble under her feet,And blossom in purple and red. Alfred Lord…
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When Cymri say“Pwllheli”I hear againthe pebbly ripple and lapblessing the shore.No human voice, no engine roaronly the thin cries of arctic ternganneting the sea. Across Tremadoc BaySnowdonia’s curtain of cloudblacked out war.The still aircalm as the prayersof a thousand Celtic saintscleansed my headof death, of furnace fires,so many missing friends.The…
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At last they fade from sight, those fieldsof white crosses, rigid, regimented,on parade. But now the Sacred Waycuts through woodland, dense as battle-smoke,concealing still the threat of instant death.Here the war continues, birch and alderinter-strangle with their tangled limbs;some in shell holes stand like moated fortsflooded nearly ninety years ago.Some…
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Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,My heart is gone, far, far from me;And ever on its track will fleeMy thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea. Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,The swallow wanders fast and free:Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,I, too, would fly beyond the sea. Beyond the…
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The timeless waves crash against the desolate beach,Haunted cries of the gulls, hanging in a lonely wind.As sand whips around my feet plumes of reeds guide my eyes.The pink horizon holding memories of an ancient mariner’s tale.Each breath invigorates my soul with peace from this world,The muffled applause of sea…