Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 1 of 12

(1) Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

(2) Repentance by John Donne

(3) The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

(4) Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins

(5) God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

(6) The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins

(7) Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend by Gerard Manley Hopkins

(8) On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats

(9) A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(10) To Althea, from Prison by Richard Lovelace

(11) On his Blindness by John Milton

(12) Childhood by Rainer Maria Rilke

(13) The Gazelle by Rainer Maria Rilke

(14) Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

(15) Sonnet 19 by William Shakespeare

(16) Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare

(17) Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare

(18) Sonnet 36 by William Shakespeare

(19) Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare

(20) Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

(21) Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

(22) Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare

(23) Sonnet LXI from the Amoretti by Edmund Spenser

(24) Daffodils by William Wordsworth

(25) The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 2 of 12 (1) Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and Chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity –

(2) Repentance by John Donne At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go; All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow, All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes Shall behold God and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space, For if above all these my sins abound, 'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace When we are there; here on this lowly ground Teach me how to repent; for that's as good As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 3 of 12

(3) The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

(4) Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 4 of 12

(5) God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(6) The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king- dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 5 of 12

(7) Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end? Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

(8) On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 6 of 12

(9) A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,—act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 7 of 12

(10) To Althea, from Prison by Richard Lovelace

When Love with unconfinèd wings Hovers within my Gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the Grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye, The Gods that wanton in the Air, Know no such Liberty.

When flowing Cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with Roses bound, Our hearts with Loyal Flames; When thirsty grief in Wine we steep, When Healths and draughts go free, Fishes that tipple in the Deep Know no such Liberty.

When (like committed linnets) I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, Mercy, Majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how Great should be, Enlargèd Winds, that curl the Flood, Know no such Liberty.

Stone Walls do not a Prison make, Nor Iron bars a Cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an Hermitage. If I have freedom in my Love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such Liberty. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 8 of 12

(11) On his Blindness by John Milton (13) The Gazelle by Rainer Maria Rilke

When I consider how my light is spent Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, ever attain the harmony of pure rhyme And that one talent which is death to hide that pulses through you as your body stirs? Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more Out of your forehead branch and lyre climb bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present and all your features pass in simile through My true account, lest he returning chide, the songs of love whose words as light as rose- “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” petals rest on the face of someone who I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent has put his book away and shut his eyes: That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best to see you: tensed as if each leg were a gun Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state loaded with leaps but not fired while your neck Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed holds your head still listening: as when And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.” while swimming in some isolated place a girl hears leaves rustle and turns to look: (12) Childhood by Rainer Maria Rilke the forest pool reflected in her face.

Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words (14) Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare ever attain the harmony of pure rhyme that pulses through you as your body stirs? Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Out of your forehead branch and lyre climb Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and all your features pass in simile through And summer's lease hath all too short a date: the songs of love whose words as light as rose- petals rest on the face of someone who Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, has put his book away and shut his eyes: And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, to see you: tensed as if each leg were a gun By chance, or nature's changing course loaded with leaps but not fired while your neck untrimmed: holds your head still listening: as when But thy eternal summer shall not fade, while swimming in some isolated place Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, a girl hears leaves rustle and turns to look: Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, the forest pool reflected in her face. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 9 of 12

(15) Sonnet 19 by William Shakespeare (17) Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws, When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood, I summon up remembrance of things past, Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood, And with old woes new wail my dear time's Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st, waste: And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time To the wide world and all her fading sweets: Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow) But I forbid thee one most heinous crime, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe, O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight. Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen, Him in thy course untainted do allow, Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong, Which I new pay as if not paid before. My love shall in my verse ever live young. But if the while I think on thee (dear friend) (16) Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, (18) Sonnet 36 by William Shakespeare And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon my self and curse my fate, Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one: Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, So shall those blots that do with me remain, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Without thy help, by me be borne alone. Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least, In our two loves there is but one respect, Though in our lives a separable spite, Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, Which though it alter not love's sole effect, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight. (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate, I may not evermore acknowledge thee, Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, For thy sweet love remembered such wealth Nor thou with public kindness honour me, brings, Unless thou take that honour from thy name: That then I scorn to change my state with kings. But do not so, I love thee in such sort, As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 10 of 12

(19) Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare (21) Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Let me not to the marriage of true minds Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, Admit impediments, love is not love But you shall shine more bright in these contents Which alters when it alteration finds, Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish Or bends with the remover to remove. time. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark When wasteful war shall statues overturn, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; And broils root out the work of masonry, It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall Whose worth's unknown, although his height be burn: taken. The living record of your memory. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and 'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity cheeks Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find Within his bending sickle's compass come, room, Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, Even in the eyes of all posterity But bears it out even to the edge of doom: That wear this world out to the ending doom. If this be error and upon me proved, So till the judgment that your self arise, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

(20) Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare (22) Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When my love swears that she is made of truth, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang I do believe her, though I know she lies, Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, That she might think me some untutored youth, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. sang. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, In me thou seest the twilight of such day, Although she knows my days are past the best, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue, Which by and by black night doth take away, On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed: Death's second self that seals up all in rest. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, And wherefore say not I that I am old? That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, O love's best habit is in seeming trust, As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, And age in love, loves not to have years told. Consumed with that which it was nourished by. Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more And in our faults by lies we flattered be. strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 11 of 12 (24) Daffodils by William Wordsworth (23) Sonnet LXI from the Amoretti by Edmund Spenser I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, The Glorious image of the Maker’s beauty, When all at once I saw a crowd, My sovereign saint, the idol of my thought, A host, of golden daffodils; Dare not henceforth, above the bounds of duty, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, T’ accuse of pride, or rashly blame for aught. Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. For being, as she is, divinely wrought, And of the brood of Angels heavenly born; Continuous as the stars that shine And with the crew of blessed Saints upbrought, And twinkle on the milky way, Each of which did her with their gifts adorn; They stretched in never-ending line The bud of joy, the blossom of the morn, Along the margin of a bay: The beam of light, whom mortal eyes admire; Ten thousand saw I at a glance, What reason is it then but she should scorn Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. Base things, that to her love too bold aspire? Such heavenly forms ought rather worshipped be, The waves beside them danced; but they Than dare be lov’d by men of mean degree. 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. Poetry selections for the Poetry Recital Assignment 12 of 12

(25) The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats

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 of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.