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Adnax Publications 
Poetry Anthology: Poem Anthology
Twixt Ape and Plato
Poems by Subject


Quotes


Lewis Carroll

What I tell you three times is true.
The Hunting of the Snark.

The rule is, jam tomorrow, and jam yesterday - but never jam today.

I am fond of children (except boys).

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.


Horace Walpole

Life is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.


George Gordon, Lord Byron

A little still she strove, and much repented, 
And whispering 'I will ne'er consent' - consented.

Merely innocent flirtation - not quite adultery, but adulteration.


Wilfred Owen

Above all this book is not concerned with Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the Pity of War. The Poetry is in the Pity.
Preface to Poems. (1920)


Christopher Marlowe

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damned perpetually;
Stand still you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come.
Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again and make
Perpetual day, or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul.
Doctor Faustus

I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
The Jew of Malta.


Charles Lamb

Friend is married; he has married a Roman Catholic, which has offended his family, but they have come to an agreement, that the boys (if they have children) shall be bred up in the father's religion, and the girls in the mother's, which I think equitable enough....I am determined my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.
Letter CCVI to John Chambers (1818)


Euripides  

I tell you frankly: those who are generally considered to be intelligent, the ones who come up with fine theories - they are the most useless of all. Because happiness is a thing no man possesses. Good luck may come now to one man, now to another, but happiness, never.
Medea Messenger to Medea


George Borrow

Finn Mac Coul ’mongst his joys did number
To hark to the boom of the dusky hills;
By the wild cascade to be lull’d to slumber,
Which Cuan Na Seilg with its roaring fills.
more
translated from the Ancient Irish


Giordano Bruno
 on a visit to the University of Oxford 

They spoke Latin well, [were] proper men,...of good reputation ... fairly competent in learning but mediocre in education, courtesy and breeding..., well furnished with tides ... for 'tis yes my master; yes my Father, or my mistress; yes sir forsooth;...elect indeed, with their long [academic] robes, clad in velvet. One wore two shining gold chains about his neck while the other, by God, whose precious hand bore twelve rings on two fingers, had rather the appearance of a rich jeweller who would wrench eyes and heart from the amorous beholder.... Did they know aught of Greek? Aye and also of beer.... One was the herald of the idol of Obscurity and the other the bailiff of the goddess of Presumption.


Christopher Marlowe  

Hero and Leander

Hero (the heroine of Marlowe's poem) explains to Leander her domestic arrangements:

Upon a rocke, and underneath a hill,
Far from the towne.....
My turret stands, and there God knows I play
With Venus swannes and sparrowes all the day.
A dwarfish beldame beares me companie,
That hops about the chamber where I lie,
And spends the night (that might be better spent)
In vaine discourse, and apish merriment.

Such treats! She invites him there, and Leander, duly inspired, swims the four miles across the Hellespont to be with her. But Poseidon (the Sea) has other ideas......

He watcht his armes, and as they opend wide,
At every stroke, betwixt them would he slide,
And steale a kisse, and then run out and daunce,
And as he turnd, cast many a lustfull glance,
And threw him gawdie toies to please his eie,
And dive into the water, and there prie
Upon his brest, his thighs, and everie lim,
And up again, and close beside him swim,
And talk of love: Leander made replie,
You are deceiv'd, I am no woman, I.

Notwithstanding these attentions, Leander arrives at Hero's tower. Where is the beldame? Nowhere to be seen.

And now she1 lets him whisper in her eare,
Flatter, intreat, promise, protest and sweare,
Yet ever as he greedily assayd
To touch those dainties, she the Harpey playd,
And every lim did as a soldier stout,
Defend the fort, and keep the foe-man out.
For though the rising yv'rie mount he scal'd,
Which is with azure circling lines empal'd2,
Much like a globe, (a globe may I tearme this,
By which love sailes to regions full of blis),
Yet there with Sisyphus3 he toyld in vaine,
Till gentle parlie did the truce obtaine.
Wherein Leander on her quivering brest,
Breathless spoke some thing, and sigh'd out the rest;
Which so prevail'd, as he with small ado,
Inclos'd her in his armes and kist her to.
And everie kisse to her was as a charme,
And to Leander as a fresh alarme,
So that the truce was broke, and she alas,
(Poore sillie maiden) at his mercie was.
Love is not ful of pittie (as men say)
But deaffe and cruell, where he meanes to pray.
Even as a bird, which in our hands we wring,
Foorth plungeth, and oft flutters with her wing,
She trembling strove, this strife of hers (like that
Which made the world) another world begat,
Of unknowne joy.

And so it all ended happily after all. (?)

1. Hero. (back)
2. Her breast. (back)  


Adnax Publications 
Poetry Anthology: Poem Anthology
Twixt Ape and Plato
Poems by Subject


 

 


Poems in the Anthology by Subject


Advice on How to Live
Epigram Book II No XXXVI - Martial
Epigram Book X No XLVII - Martial
Farewell to Folly - Robert Greene

Ode on Solitude - Alexander Pope

Stella's Birthday (March 13th, 1727) - Jonathan Swift

Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree - William Wordsworth

Cities
A Description of the Morning - Jonathan Swift

London - William Blake

Upon Westminster Bridge - William Wordsworth

Day and Night
The Sun Rising - John Donne 
 Selection from Epithalamium - Edmund Spenser 
It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free - William Wordsworth 
It Is the Hour - George Gordon, Lord Byron
To Night - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Frost at Midnight - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A Night-Piece - William Wordsworth

Death
 Fear No More - William Shakespeare
The Dying Christian to His Soul - Alexander Pope 
A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General - Jonathan Swift 
Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard - Thomas Gray
La Belle Dame sans Merci - John Keats
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave? - Thomas Hardy

Drink, and Other Vices
Ode to a Wine Jar - Horace
From Comus - John Milton 
John Barleycorn: a Ballad - Robert Burns 
I Would to Heaven that I Were so Much Clay - George Gordon, Lord Byron 

Imagination, Sense and Nonsense
The Tyger - William Blake
Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
The Lobster-Quadrille - Lewis Carroll 
Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll 
The Mad Gardener's Song - Lewis Carroll 
The Walrus and the Carpenter - Lewis Carroll 
You Are Old Father William - Lewis Carroll 
The Jumblies - Edward Lear

Love
Ode to Aphrodite I - Sappho 
Ode to Aphrodite II - Sappho 
Amores Book I, No V - Ovid
Amores Book III, No XIV - Ovid 
Verse V - Catullus 
Verse LXXXV - Catullus 
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love - Christopher Marlow
Sonnet X - Edmund Spenser 
Sonnet XCIV - William Shakespeare 
One Day I Wrote Her Name - Edmund Spenser 
Sonnet CVII - William Shakespeare 
Love's Alchemy - John Donne 
The Bait - John Donne 
To His Mistress Going to Bed - John Donne 
To His Coy Mistress - Andrew Marvell 
Methought I Saw My Late Espousèd Saint - John Milton
To a Kiss - Robert Burns 
Song - William Blake 

Song - Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
The Garden of Love - William Blake 
The Clod and the Pebble - William Blake 
To a Beautiful Quaker - George Gordon, Lord Byron 
Maid of Athens, Ere We Part - George Gordon, Lord Byron 
Love's Last Adieu - George Gordon, Lord Byron 
The Lang Coortin' - Lewis Carroll

Melancholy
Ode on Melancholy - John Keats 
 Ode to a Nightingale - John Keats
 The Pains of Sleep - Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
 I Am - John Clare 
The Question - Percy Bysshe Shelley
When the Lamp Is Shattered - Percy Bysshe Shelley 
A Daughter of Eve - Christina Georgina Rossetti 
My Soul is Dark - George Gordon, Lord Byron

Metaphysics, Folklore and Other Transformations
Over Hill, over Dale - William Shakespeare
Full Fathom Five - William Shakespeare
Transformations - Thomas Hardy

Natural Phenomena
Ode to the West Wind - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Who Has Seen the Wind? - Christina Georgina Rossetti
Dover Beach - Matthew Arnold

The Poet
Ode to Poetry - Horace
Where’s the Poet - John Keats

The Poet’s Work - William Wordsworth
Song, Rarely Rarely Comest Thou - Percy Bysshe Shelley

To a Skylark - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur - Lewis Carroll
Song in the Manner of Housman - Ezra Pound

The Seasons
Winter is Fled - Horace
The Green Linnet - William Wordsworth

An April Day - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spring - William Blake
Roundel - Geoffrey Chaucer

The Schoolboy - William Blake
Autumn : A Dirge - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ode to Autumn - John Keats
To Autumn - William Blake

Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind - William Shakespeare

Fall, Leaves, Fall - Emily Brontë
The Night is Darkening Round Me Now - Emily Brontë

Winter - William Shakespeare
Winter, My Secret - Christina Rossetti
Snow in the Suburbs - Thomas Hardy
The Darkling Thrush - Thomas Hardy

Time
Even Such Is Time - Walter Raleigh
On Time - John Milton

Time - Percy Bysshe Shelley
To Time - George Gordon, Lord Byron
I Look into My Glass - Thomas Hardy

War
The Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen
Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen
The Man He Killed - Thomas Hardy

Women
Verse LXX - Catullus
Against Women Unconstant - Geoffrey Chaucer
Sonnet XXIV - Edmund Spenser
In an Artist’s Studio - Christina Rossetti
The Bath Tub  - Ezra Pound
Alba - Ezra Pound