Poetry Books

BIOGRAPHICAL The life of John Clare, offering as it does so much opportunity for sensational contrast and unbridled distortion, became at one time (like the tragedy of Chatterton) a favourite with the quillmen. Even his serious biographers have made excessive use of light and darkness, poetry and poverty, genius and stupidity: that there should be some uncertainty about dates and incidents is no great... more...

  I. The Old Woman  (A Morality Play)   The Old Woman  (A Morality Play)   Characters:  The Woman  The House  The Doctor  The Deacon  The Landlady   Doctor:  There is an old woman  Who ought to die—   Deacon:  And nobody knows  But what she's dead—   Doctor:  The air will be cleaner  When she's gone—   Deacon:  But we dare not bury her  Till... more...

Gerontion Thou hast nor youth nor ageBut as it were an after dinner sleepDreaming of both. Here I am, an old man in a dry month,Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.I was neither at the hot gatesNor fought in the warm rainNor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,Bitten by flies, fought.My house is a decayed house,And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,Spawned in some estaminet... more...

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Although Bret Harte's name is identified with Californian life, it was not till he was fifteen that the author of "Plain Language from Truthful James" saw the country of his adoption. Francis Bret Harte, to give the full name which he carried till he became famous, was born at Albany, New York, August 25, 1839. He went with his widowed mother to California in 1854, and... more...

LAMENT I Come, Heraclitus and Simonides,Come with your weeping and sad elegies:Ye griefs and sorrows, come from all the landsWherein ye sigh and wail and wring your hands:Gather ye here within my house todayAnd help me mourn my sweet, whom in her MayUngodly Death hath ta'en to his estate,Leaving me on a sudden desolate.'Tis so a serpent glides on some shy nestAnd, of the tiny nightingales... more...

Though flattered by imitators galore Miss Potter's work stands supreme. Her many picture stories should be among the first books owned by children. Cecily Parsley lived in a pen,And brewed good ale for gentlemen; Gentlemen came every day,Till Cecily Parsley ran away. Goosey, goosey, gander,Whither will you wander?Upstairs and downstairs,And in my lady's chamber! This pig went to market;This... more...

A APPLE PIE By KATE GREENAWAY London FREDERICK WARNE & Ltd. & New York Printed in Great Britain by W & J Mackay Limited, Chatham from original woodblock designs engraved in 1886    ...

To an Old Mate Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,When our hopes and our troubles were new,In the years spent in wearing out leather,I found you unselfish and true —I have gathered these verses togetherFor the sake of our friendship and you. You may think for awhile, and with reason,Though still with a kindly regret,That I've left it full late in the seasonTo prove I remember you yet;But... more...

Prologus Torpor, ebes sensus, scola parua labor minimusqueCausant quo minimus ipse minora canam:Qua tamen Engisti lingua canit Insula BrutiAnglica Carmente metra iuuante loquar.Ossibus ergo carens que conterit ossa loquelisAbsit, et interpres stet procul oro malus. Of hem that writen ous toforeThe bokes duelle, and we therforeBen tawht of that was write tho:Forthi good is that we alsoIn oure tyme among... more...

CELIA Cherry, cherry, glowing on the hearth, bright red cherry…. When you try to pick up cherry Celia's shriek sticks in you like a pin. : : When God throws hailstones you cuddle in Celia's shawl and press your feet on her belly high up like a stool. When Celia makes umbrella of her hand. Rain falls through big pink spokes of her fingers. When wind blows Celia's gown up off her legs... more...