Цитаты из книги The Collected Poems

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man.

Dust's your wages, son of sorrow, But men may come to worse than dust.

THE lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair, There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold, The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there, And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong. And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn nor to Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man.

'Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.

Bring baskets now, and sally Upon the spring's array, And bear from hill and valley The daffodil away That dies on Easter day.

And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong. Think rather, -- call to thought, if now you grieve a little, The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

'Lydians, as the troop advances, -- It is eve and I am old -- Tell me why they trail their lances, Washers of the sands of gold.

I am old and day is ending And the wildering night comes on; Up the Mysian entry wending, Lydians, Lydians, what is yon...

THE stars have not dealt me the worst the could do: My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two. But oh, my two troubles they reave me of rest, The brains in my head and the heart in my breast.

THEY say my verse is sad: no wonder. Its narrow measure spans Rue for eternity, and sorrow Not mine, but man's.

This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not.

WHEN first my way to fair I took Few pence in purse had I, And long I used to stand and look At things I could not buy.

Now times are altered: if I care To buy a thing, I can; The pence are here and here's the fair, But where's the lost young man?

--To think that two and two are four And neither five nor three The heart of man has long been sore And long 'tis like to be.

WE'LL to the woods no more, The laurels all are cut, The bowers are bare of bay That once the Muses wore; The year draws in the day And soon will evening shut: The laurels all are cut, We'll to the woods no more Oh we'll no more, no more To the leafy woods away, To the high wild woods of laurel And the bowers of bay no more.

Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread, Look not left nor right: In all the endless road you tread There's nothing but the night.

FROM far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I.

Now--for a breath I tarry Nor yet disperse apart-- Take my hand quick and tell me, What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer; How shall I help you, say; Ere to the wind's twelve quarters I take my endless way.

The rainy Pleiads wester, Orion plunges prone, The stroke of midnight ceases And I lie down alone.

The rainy Pleiads wester And seek beyond the sea The head that I shall dream of That will not dream of me.

WHEN Adam walked in Eden young Happy, 'tis writ, was he, While high the fruit of knowledge hung Unbitten on the tree.

Happy was he the livelong day: I doubt 'tis written wrong: The heart of man, for all they say, Was never happy long.

And now my feet are tired of rest And here they will not stay And the soul fevers in my breast And aches to be away.