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

American poetry; English poetry

Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
    A way to measure out the wind;
    Distinguish all those floods that are
    Mixt in that watery theatre;
    And taste thou them as saltless there                              5
    As in their channel first they were;
    Tell me the people that do keep
    Within the kingdoms of the deep;
    Or fetch me back that cloud again,
    Beshivered into seeds of rain;                                    10
    Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears
    Of corn when summer shakes his ears;
    Show me that world of stars, and whence
    They noiseless spill their influence:
    This if thou canst, then show me Him                              15
    That rides the glorious Cherubim.
              _Robert Herrick._




LXXXIII

_AT A SOLEMN MUSIC._


    Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven’s joy,
    Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
    Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ,
    Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
    And to our high-raised phantasy present                            5
    That undisturbèd song of pure concent,
    Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
    To Him that sits thereon,
    With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;
    Where the bright Seraphim in burning row                          10
    Their loud up-lifted angel-trumpets blow;
    And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
    Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
    With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms,
    Hymns devout and holy psalms                                      15
    Singing everlastingly:
    That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
    May rightly answer that melodious noise;
    As once we did, till disproportioned sin
    Jarred against Nature’s chime, and with harsh din                 20
    Broke the fair music that all creatures made
    To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
    In perfect diapason, whilst they stood,
    In first obedience and their state of good.
    Oh may we soon again renew that song,                             25
    And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
    To his celestial consort us unite,
    To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light!
              _John Milton._




LXXXIV

_THE RAINBOW._

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

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

No reviews yet