Against Evil Company

by Isaac Watts (1674-1728)
Why should I join with those in Play,
In whom I've no delight,
Who curse and swear, but never pray,
Who call ill Names, and fight.

I hate to hear a wanton Song,
Their Words offend my ears:
I should not dare defile my Tongue
With Language such as theirs.

Away from Fools I'll turn my Eyes,
Nor with the Scoffers go;
I would be working with the Wise,
That wiser I may grow.

From one rude Boy that us'd to mock
Ten learn the wicked Jest;
One sickly Sheep infects the Flock,
And poysons all the rest.

“I Said To Love”

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named the the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.

I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when
With hearts abrim
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.

I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove 
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.

"Depart then, Love! . . .
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of?
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease - So let it be,"
I said to Love?

Happiness

by Wilfred Owen (1893‐1918)
Ever again to breathe pure happiness,
So happy that we gave away our toy?
We smiled at nothings, needing no caress?
Have we not laughed too often since with Joy?
Have we not stolen too strange and sorrowful wrongs
For her hands' pardoning? The sun may cleanse,
 And time, and starlight. Life will sing great songs,
And gods will show us pleasures more than men's.

Yet heaven looks smaller than the old doll's-home,
No nestling place is left in bluebell bloom,
And the wide arms of trees have lost their scope.
The former happiness is unreturning:
Boy's griefs are not so grievous as our yearning 
Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.

Kin to Sorrow

by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Am I kin to Sorrow,
That so oft
Falls the knocker of my door --
Neither loud nor soft,
But as long accustomed,
Under Sorrow's hand?
Marigolds around the step
And rosemary stand,
And then comes Sorrow --
And what does Sorrow care
For the rosemary
Or the marigolds there?
Am I kin to Sorrow?
Are we kin?
That so oft upon my door --
Oh, come in!

Lives

by Derek Mahon (1941-2020)
For Seamus Heaney

First time out
I was a torc of gold
And wept tears of the sun.

That was fun
But they buried me
In the earth two thousand years

Till a labourer
Turned me up with a pick
In eighteen fifty-four.

Once I was an oar
But stuck in the shore
To mark the place of a grave

When the lost ship
Sailed away. I thought
Of Ithaca, but soon decayed.

The time that I liked
Best was when
I was a lump of clay

In a Navaho rug
Put to mitigate
The too god-like

Perfection of that
Merely human artifact
I served my maker well -

He lived long
To be struck down in
Denver by an electric shock

The night the lights
Went out in Europe
Never to shine again.

So many lives,
So many things to remember!
I was a stone in Tibet,

A tongue of bark
At the heart of Africa
Growing darker and darker . . .

It all seems
A little unreal now,
Now that I am

An anthropogist
With my own
Credit card, dictaphone,

Army-surplus boots
And a whole boatload
of photographic equipment.

I know too much
To be anything more;
And if in the distant

Future someone
Thinks he has been me
As I am today,

Let him revise
His insolent ontology
Or teach himself to pray.

Though The Last Glimpse Of Erin With Sorrow I See

by Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.

To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore,
Where the eye of the stranger can haunt us no more,
I will fly with my Coulin, and think the rough wind
Less rude than the foes we leave frowning behind.

And I'll gaze on thy gold hair as graceful it wreathes,
And hang o'er thy soft harp, as wildly it breathes;
Nor dread that the cold-hearted Saxon will tear
One chord from that harp, or one lock from that hair.

The Law

by Emma Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run.
And when onto chaos the systems are hurled,
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.

Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night,
The torch of the Builder shall give you new light.

You were, and you will be; know this while you are,
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.

It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,
It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,
It took on strange garbs for long eons of years,
And now in the soul of yourself it appears.

From body to body your spirit speeds on;
It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.

As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.
You cannot escape them or petty, or great,
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.

Somewhere, on some planet, some time and somehow 
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.
The law is unerring; no blood can atone;
The structure you rear you must live it alone.

From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.
And all that you ask for, and all you desire,
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.

Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,
Your life is the life of the infinite One,
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,
With love for the purpose and love for the cause.

You are your own devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod;
And no one can save you from error or sin,
Until you shall hark to the spirit within.

Evening

by John Clare (1793-1864)
'Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track,
And gone to its nest is the wren,
And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back,
Clings to the bowed bents like a wen.

The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot
Where his shadow reached when he first came,
And it just touched the tree where his secret love cut
Two letters that stand for love's name.

The evening comes in with the wishes of love,
And the shepherd he looks on the flowers,
And thinks who would praise the soft song of the dove,
And meet joy in these dew-falling hours.

For Nature is love, and finds haunts for true love,
Where nothing can hear or intrude;
It hides from the eagle and joins with the dove,
In beautiful green solitude.

Love and Harmony

by William Blake (1757-1827)
Love and harmony combine,
And around our souls entwine
While thy branches mix with mine
And our roots together join.

Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.

Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.

There she sits and feeds her young,
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love, I hear his tongue.

There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.

I Cried at Pity – Not at Pain

by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
I cried at Pity - not at Pain -
I heard a Woman say
"Poor Child" - and something in her voice
Convicted me - of me -

So long I fainted, to myself 
It seemed the common way,
And Health, and Laughter, Curious things -
To look at, like a Toy -

To sometimes hear "Rich people" buy
And see the Parcel rolled -
And carried, I suppose - to Heaven,
For children, made of Gold -

But not to touch, or wish for,
Or think of, with a sigh -
And so and so - had been to me,
Had God willed differently.

I wish I knew that Woman's name -
So when she comes this way,
To hold my life, and hold my ears
For fear I hear her say

She's "sorry I am dead" - again -
Just when the Grave and I -
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep,
Our only Lullaby -