"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.
Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!
And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
My native Land — Good Night!"
(From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimages")
My Soul is Dark
G.G.Byron
My soul is dark — Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
"Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.
But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence long:
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once — or yield to song.
She is not Fair
Hartley Coleridge
She is not fair to outward view,
As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me.
Oh, then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.
But now her looks are coy and cold —
To mine they ne'er reply;
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye.
Her very frowns are sweeter far
Than smiles of other maidens are.
Those Evening Bells
Th.Moore
Those evening bells!
Those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,
Of love, and home, and that sweet time,
When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those joyous hours are passed away!
And many a heart that then was gay
Within the tomb now darkly dwells
And hears no more those evening bells!
And so 'twill be when I am gone,
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!
The Daffodils
W.Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee.
A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company;
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
Robert Browning
Oh, to be in England
Now that April is there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England — now:
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge —
That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
The Song of Hiawatha
H.W.Longfellow
(Extract)
Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their eyries; —
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this song of Hiawatha!
Ye who love a nation's legends
, Love the ballads of a people,
That like voices from afar off
Call to us to pause and listen,
Speak in tones so plain and childlike,
Scarcely can the ear distinguish
Whether they are sung or spoken; —
Listen to this Indian Legend,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
If
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is fhe Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!
SUPPLEMENT
SECTION TWO
Ex. 12, a)
... George said his watch went wrong one evening, and stopped at a quarter past eight. He didn't know this at the time because, for
some reason or other, he forgot to wind it up when he went to bed.
... It was in the winter when this happened, very near the shortest day, and a week of fog into the bargain, so the fact that it was
still very dark when George woke in the morning was no guide to him as to the time.