Song of Innocence and Experience The Tyger By William Blake The Lamb By William Blake Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; Little Lamb who made thee What immortal hand or eye, Dost thou know who made thee Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; In what distant deeps or skies. Gave thee clothing of delight, Burnt the fire of thine eyes? Softest clothing wooly bright; On what wings dare he aspire? Gave thee such a tender voice, What the hand, dare seize the fire? Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee And what shoulder, & what art, Dost thou know who made thee Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, Little Lamb I'll tell thee, What dread hand? & what dread feet? Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, What the hammer? what the chain, For he calls himself a Lamb: In what furnace was thy brain? He is meek & he is mild, What the anvil? what dread grasp, He became a little child: Dare its deadly terrors clasp! I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. When the stars threw down their spears Little Lamb God bless thee. And water'd heaven with their tears: Little Lamb God bless thee. Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 1794 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud She Walks in Beauty By William Wordsworth By Lord Byron (George Gordon) I wandered lonely as a cloud She walks in beauty, like the night That floats on high o'er vales and hills, Of cloudless climes and starry skies; When all at once I saw a crowd, And all that’s best of dark and bright A host, of golden daffodils; Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Thus mellowed to that tender light Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Which heaven to gaudy day denies. Continuous as the stars that shine One shade the more, one ray the less, And twinkle on the milky way, Had half impaired the nameless grace They stretched in never-ending line Which waves in every raven tress, Along the margin of a bay: Or softly lightens o’er her face; Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Where thoughts serenely sweet express, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. The waves beside them danced; but they And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, A poet could not but be gay, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, In such a jocund company: But tell of days in goodness spent, I gazed—and gazed—but little thought A mind at peace with all below, What wealth the show to me had brought: A heart whose love is innocent! For oft, when on my couch I lie 1815 In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Ozymandias Which is the bliss of solitude; By Percy Bysshe Shelley And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 1815 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” 1818 Ode to a Nightingale By John Keats My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? 1819 My Last Duchess Much the same smile? This grew; I gave By Robert Browning commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands FERRARA As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, The company below, then. I repeat, Looking as if she were alive. I call The Count your master’s known munificence That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands Is ample warrant that no just pretense Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Strangers like you that pictured countenance, Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, But to myself they turned (since none puts by Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 1842 How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: Her husband’s presence only, called that spot How do I love thee? By Elizabeth Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps Barrett Browning Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Must never hope to reproduce the faint I love thee to the depth and breadth and height Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For the ends of being and ideal grace.