General Books

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...

GENERAL INVITATION.Jenny consented; the day was named,The joyful news the Cock proclaimed.Together came the Rook and Lark,The one as Parson, t'other Clerk.THE WEDDING.The Goldfinch gave the bride away,Who promis'd always to obey.The feathery tenants of the airTowards the Feast each gave a share.THE DINNER.The jovial party din'd together,And fine and pleasant was the weather.The... more...

In the tenth book of the Republic, when Plato has completed his final burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of things which themselves are shadows, the ally of all that is low and weak in the soul against that which is high and strong, who makes us feed the things we ought to starve and serve the things we ought to rule, he ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give... more...

I A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,Of temper amorous, as the first of May,With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,For on my cradle shone the Northern star. There lived an ancient legend in our house.Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burntBecause he cast no shadow, had foretold,Dying, that none of all our blood should knowThe shadow from the substance, and that oneShould come to... more...

The Rubáiyát of aPersian KittenWake! for the Golden Cat has put to flightThe Mouse of Darkness with his Paw of Light:Which means, in Plain and simple every-dayUnoriental Speech—The Dawn is bright.They say the Early Bird the Worm shall taste.Then rise, O Kitten! Wherefore, sleeping, wasteThe Fruits of Virtue? Quick! the Early BirdWill soon be on the Flutter—O make haste!The Early Bird has gone,... more...

THE STUDY OF POETRY. BY FRANCIS HOVEY STODDARD. Clever men of action, according to Bacon, despise studies, ignorant men too much admire them, wise men make use of them. "Yet," he says, "they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them and above them won by observation." These are the words of a man who had been taught by years of studiousness the emptiness of mere... more...

ARGUMENT In this Threnody and Birth-song of the Elements, written in California some five years ago, I have striven to capture and present some of the chief-factors and phases of the eternal drama of Life and Death in the Universe. These powers, elements and agents I have endowed with human attributes and human emotions as though it were Man himself who uttered himself through them. The actors in this... more...

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock S'io credesse che mia risposta fosseA persona che mai tornasse al mondo,Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondoNon torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;Let us go, through... more...

CANTO XIX It was the hour, when of diurnal heatNo reliques chafe the cold beams of the moon,O'erpower'd by earth, or planetary swayOf Saturn; and the geomancer seesHis Greater Fortune up the east ascend,Where gray dawn checkers first the shadowy cone;When 'fore me in my dream a woman's shapeThere came, with lips that stammer'd, eyes aslant,Distorted feet, hands maim'd, and... more...

On the night of the rains,water was oozing out fromthe sky's swollen stitches,a rash developed acrossthe meaning of the heavens. The wooden floors of my attic placestrove for a deeper tone,a hoarse callinggrew louder as I pacedtrying to see rain. I followed the gravity of the treasure huntwhere each bounce meant a slapacross a table top of tension,where the window basted winter black rainand... more...