FWS - Midterm Poems

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
    The night above the dingle starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
    Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
    Down the rivers of the windfall light.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
    In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be
    Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
    In the pebbles of the holy streams.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
    And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
    And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
    Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
    Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
    And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
    Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
    In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
    My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
    Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace,

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
    In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
    I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
    Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

A Little Learning by Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

A Little Learning by Alexander Pope

Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;

A Little Learning by Alexander Pope

But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

A Little Learning by Alexander Pope

The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way,

A Little Learning by Alexander Pope

The increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

His Grace! impossible! what dead!

Of old age too, and in his bed!

And could that mighty warrior fall?

And so inglorious, after all!

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,

The last loud trump must wake him now:

And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,

He’d wish to sleep a little longer.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

And could he be indeed so old

As by the newspapers we’re told?

Threescore, I think, is pretty high;

’Twas time in conscience he should die

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

This world he cumbered long enough;

He burnt his candle to the snuff;

And that’s the reason, some folks think,

He left behind so great a stink.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

Behold his funeral appears,

Nor widow’s sighs, nor orphan’s tears,

Wont at such times each heart to pierce,

Attend the progress of his hearse.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

But what of that, his friends may say,

He had those honours in his day.

True to his profit and his pride,

He made them weep before he died.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

Come hither, all ye empty things,

Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;

Who float upon the tide of state,

Come hither, and behold your fate.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General by Jonathan Swift

Let pride be taught by this rebuke,

How very mean a thing’s a Duke;

From all his ill-got honours flung,

Turned to that dirt from whence he sprung.

Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now by A.E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now by A.E. Housman

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now by A.E. Housman

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

So We’ll Go No More a Roving by Lord Byron

So, We’ll go no more a roving

    So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

    And the moon be still as bright.

So We’ll Go No More a Roving by Lord Byron

For the sword outwears its sheath,

    And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

    And love itself have rest.

So We’ll Go No More a Roving by Lord Byron

Though the night was made for loving,

    And the day returns too soon,

Yet we’ll go no more a roving

    By the light of the moon.

In Memoriam 2 by Lord Tennyson

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones

          That name the under-lying dead,

          The fibres net the dreamless head,

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

In Memoriam 2 by Lord Tennyson

The seasons bring the flower again,

          And bring the firstling to the flock;

          And in the dusk of thee, the clock

Beats out the little lives of men.

In Memoriam 2 by Lord Tennyson

O not for thee the glow, the bloom,

          Who changest not in any gale,

          Nor branding summer suns avail

To touch thy thousand years of gloom:

In Memoriam 2 by Lord Tennyson

And gazing on thee, sullen tree,

          Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,

          I seem to fail from out my blood

And grow incorporate into thee.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His hose is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

The wood are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

    Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

    What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

         For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

             For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

             A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

             Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

            Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

When old age shall this generation waste,

             Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

             Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Astrophil and Stella I by Sir Phillip Sidney

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,—

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—

Astrophil and Stella I by Sir Phillip Sidney

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;

Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,

Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain.

Astrophil and Stella I by Sir Phillip Sidney

But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;

Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows;

And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.

Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes,

Astrophil and Stella I by Sir Phillip Sidney

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."

Astrophil and Stella IX by Sir Phillip Sidney

Queen’s Virtue court, which some call Stella’s face,

Prepar’d by Nature’s choicest furniture, 

Hath his front built of alabaster pure;

Gold is the covering of that stately place.

Astrophil and Stella IX by Sir Phillip Sidney

The door by which sometimes comes forth her Grace

Red porphyr is, which lock of pearl makes sure,

Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure)

Marble mix’d red and white do interlace. 

Astrophil and Stella IX by Sir Phillip Sidney

The windows now through which this heav’nly guest 

Looks o’er the world, and can find nothing such,

Which dare claim from those lights the name of best,

Of touch they are that without touch doth touch, 

Astrophil and Stella IX by Sir Phiilip Sidney

Which Cupid’s self from Beauty’s mine did draw:

Of touch they are, and poor I am their straw. 

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 94 by William Shakespeare

They that have power to hurt and will do none,

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:

Sonnet 94 by William Shakespeare

They rightly do inherit heaven's graces

And husband nature's riches from expense;

They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Others but stewards of their excellence.

Sonnet 94 by William Shakespeare

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet

Though to itself it only live and die,

But if that flower with base infection meet,

The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

Sonnet 94 by William Shakespeare

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

Sonnet 93 by William Shakespeare

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

Sonnet 93 by William Shakespeare

 And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

   As any she belied with false compare.

Design by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight

Design by Robert Frost

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

Design by Robert Frost

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Design by Robert Frost

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The World is Too Much With Us by John Milton

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

The World is Too Much With Us by John Milton

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

The World is Too Much With Us by John Milton

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,

   Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

   And that one Talent which is death to hide

   Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

   My true account, lest he returning chide;

   “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

   I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

   They also serve who only stand and wait.”

To Be or Not To Be (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,

To Be or Not To Be (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:

To Be or Not To Be (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

To Be or Not To Be (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

To Be or Not To Be (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

To Be or Not To Be (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant

Blank Verse

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d by Walt Whitman

Free Verse

A Noiseless, Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Shine, Perishing Republic by Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

Shine Perishing Republic by Robinson Jeffers

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.