Modern British Poetry

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Louis Untermeyer
Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920 - English poetry - 234 pages
 

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Page 16 - UNDER the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
Page 53 - I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full...
Page 101 - In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place ; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Page 111 - Crusade. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war, Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold, Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Page 10 - Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
Page 7 - Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods ? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long!
Page 137 - Tall Nettles TALL nettles cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone : Only the elm butt tops the nettles now. This corner of the farmyard I like most : As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
Page xviii - When I was writing The Shadow of the Glen, some years ago, I got more aid than any learning could have given me, from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servant girls in the kitchen.
Page 10 - Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate : I am the captain of my soul.
Page 119 - When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born; With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still. Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

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