A Household Book of English Poetry: Selected and Arranged with Notes

American poetry; English poetry

Gloucester, that duke so good,
    Next of the royal blood,
    For famous England stood,
        With his brave brother;                                      100
    Clarence, in steel so bright,
    Though but a maiden knight,
    Yet in that furious fight
        Scarce such another.

    Warwick in blood did wade,                                       105
    Oxford the foe invade,
    And cruel slaughter made,
        Still as they ran up;
    Suffolk his axe did ply,
    Beaumont and Willoughby                                          110
    Bare them right doughtily,
        Ferrers and Fanhope.

    Upon Saint Crispin’s day
    Fought was this noble fray,
    Which fame did not delay                                         115
        To England to carry.
    Oh, when shall Englishmen
    With such acts fill a pen,
    Or England breed again
        Such a King Harry!                                           120
              _Michael Drayton._




XLII

_TO HIMSELF._


    Where dost thou careless lie,
      Buried in ease and sloth?
    Knowledge, that sleeps, doth die;
    And this security,
      It is the common moth                                            5
    That eats on wits and arts, and [so] destroys them both.

    Are all the Aonian springs
      Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
    Doth Clarius’ harp want strings,
    That not a nymph now sings!                                       10
      Or droop they as disgraced,
    To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies defaced?

    If hence thy silence be,
      As ’tis too just a cause,
    Let this thought quicken thee:                                    15
    Minds that are great and free,
      Should not on Fortune pause;
    ’Tis crown enough to Virtue still, her own applause.

    What though the greedy fry
      Be taken with false baits                                       20
    Of worded balladry,
    And think it poesy?
      They die with their conceits,
    And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

    Then take in hand thy lyre,                                       25
      Strike in thy proper strain,
    With Japhet’s line, aspire
    Sol’s chariot for new fire,
      To give the world again:
    Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove’s brain.

    And since our dainty age                                          31
      Cannot endure reproof,
    Make not thyself a page
    To that strumpet the stage,
      But sing high and aloof,                                        35
    Safe from the wolf’s black jaw, and the dull ass’s hoof.
              _Ben Jonson._




XLIII

_MELANCHOLY._

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

A Household Book of English Poetry: Selected and Arranged with Notes

No reviews yet