The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry Read online

  Tracking and hunting for the hare

  Was all his pleasure, and no cost would he spare.

  I saw his sleeves were purfled at the hand

  With gray fur, the finest in the land.

  To fasten the hood beneath his chin,

  He had of well-wrought gold a curious pin,

  And at the end of the chord there was a love-knot.

  His head was bald, and shone like any glass,

  And smooth was his face, as bright as polished

  brass.

  He was a fine fat lord and in good prime;

  His eyes bulged out, rolling in his head

  And blazing like a fire in the furnace.

  His boots were supple, his horse of great estate.

  Now certainly he was a fair prelate.

  He was not pale like some poor tormented ghost.

  A fat swan loved he best of any roast.

  His palfrey was as brown as a berry.

  THE CLERK

  A clerk there was of Oxford, too,

  Who hearkened unto logic long ago.

  His horse was as lean as a rake,

  And he was not too fat, I undertake,

  But had a solemn and a hollow look.

  Full threadbare, too, was his best coat,

  For he had not yet gotten any benefice,

  Not worldly enough to gain church office.

  He would rather have at the head of his bed

  Twenty volumes, bound in black or red,

  Of Aristotle and his philosophy,

  Than rich robes, a fiddle or gay psaltery.

  But for all that, he was a philosopher,

  With naught but little gold within his coffer.

  All that he could borrow from his friends

  He spent on books and learning.

  And deeply for their souls he prayed

  Who gave him the wherewithal for school.

  His studies were all he cared for, or would heed,

  Not a word spoke he more than was needed

  And that he said in formal reverence.

  Short and quick and full of high good sense;

  Resounding in moral virtue was his speech,

  And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.

  Geoffrey Chaucer, 1390

  translated by Christopher Burns

  Next | TOC> The Highwayman> Sexton

  Cinderella

  You always read about it:

  the plumber with twelve children

  who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.

  from toilets to riches.

  That story.

  Or the nursemaid,

  some luscious sweet from Denmark

  who captures the oldest son's heart.

  From diapers to Dior.

  That story.

  Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,

  eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,

  the white truck like an ambulance

  who goes into real estate

  and makes a pile.

  From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

  Or the charwoman

  who is on the bus when it cracks up

  and collects enough from the insurance.

  From mops to Bonwit Teller.

  That story.

  Once

  the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed

  and she said to her daughter Cinderella:

  Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile

  down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.

  The man took another wife who had

  two daughters, pretty enough

  but with hearts like blackjacks.

  Cinderella was their maid.

  She slept in the sooty hearth each night

  and walked around looking like Al Jolsen.

  Her father brought presents home from town,

  jewels and gowns for the other women

  but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.

  She planted that twig on her mother's grave

  and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.

  Whenever she wished for anything the dove

  would drop it like an egg upon the ground.

  The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

  Next came the ball, as you all know.

  It was a marriage market.

  The prince was looking for a wife.

  All but Cinderella were preparing

  and gussying up for the big event.

  Cinderella begged to go too.

  Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils

  into the cinders and said: Pick them

  up in an hour and you shall go.

  The white dove brought all his friends;

  all the warm wings of the fatherland came,

  and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.

  No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,

  you have no clothes and cannot dance.

  That's the way with stepmothers.

  Cinderella went to the tree at the grave

  and cried forth like a gospel singer:

  Mama! Mama! My turtledove,

  send me to the prince's ball!

  The bird dropped down a golden dress

  and delicate little gold slippers.

  Rather a large package for a simple bird.

  So she went. Which is no surprise.

  Her stepmother and sisters didn't

  recognize her without her cinder face

  and the prince took her hand on the spot

  and danced with no other the whole day.

  As nightfall came she thought she'd better

  get home. The prince walked her home

  and she disappeared into the pigeon house

  and although the prince took an axe and broke

  it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.

  These events repeated themselves for three days.

  However on the third day the prince

  covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax

  and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.

  Now he would find whom the shoe fit

  and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.

  He went to their house and the two sisters

  were delighted because they had lovely feet.

  The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on

  but her big toe got in the way so she simply

  sliced it off and put on the slipper.

  The prince rode away with her until the white

  dove

  told him to look at the blood pouring forth.

  That is the way with amputations.

  They don't just heal up like a wish.

  The other sister cut off her heel

  but the blood told as blood will.

  The prince was getting tired.

  He began to feel like a shoe salesman.

  But he gave it one last try.

  This time Cinderella fit into the shoe

  like a love letter into its envelope.

  At the wedding ceremony

  the two sisters came to curry favor

  and the white dove pecked their eyes out.

  Two hollow spots were left

  like soup spoons.

  Cinderella and the prince

  lived, they say, happily ever after,

  like two dolls in a museum case

  never bothered by diapers or dust,

  never arguing over the timing of an egg,

  never telling the same story twice,

  never getting a middle-aged spread,

  their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.

  Regular Bobbsey Twins.

  That story.

  Anne Sexton, 1971

  Next | TOC> The Highwayman> Carroll

  Jabberwocky

  'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

 
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

  He took his vorpal sword in hand:

  Long time the manxome foe he sought—

  So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

  And stood awhile in thought.

  And, as in uffish thought he stood,

  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

  Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

  And burbled as it came!

  One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

  He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

  "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock!

  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

  O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

  He chortled in his joy.

  'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  Lewis Carroll, 1871

  Next | TOC> The Highwayman> Hopkins

  Felix Randal

  Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then?

  my duty all ended

  Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned

  and hardy-handsome

  Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled

  in it and some

  Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended!

  Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first,

  but mended

  Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier

  heart began some

  Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve

  and ransom

  Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road

  ever he offended!

  This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too

  it endears.

  My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had

  quenched thy tears,

  Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix,

  poor Felix Randal;

  How far from then forethought of, all thy more

  boisterous years,

  When thou at the random grim, forge, powerful

  amidst peers,

  Didst fettle for the great gray drayhorse his bright

  and battering sandal!

  Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1880

  Next | TOC> The Highwayman> Longfellow

  Paul Revere's Ride

  Listen my children, and you shall hear

  Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

  On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

  Hardly a man is now alive

  Who remembers that famous day and year.

  He said to his friend, "If the British march

  By land or sea from the town tonight,

  Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

  Of the North Church tower as a signal light—

  One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

  And I on the opposite shore will be,

  Ready to ride and spread the alarm

  Through every Middlesex village and farm

  For the country folk to be up and to arm."

  Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar

  Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

  Just as the moon rose over the bay,

  Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

  The Somerset, British man-of-war;

  A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

  Across the moon like a prison bar,

  And a huge black hulk, that was magnified

  By its own reflection in the tide.

  Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street

  Wanders and watches, with eager ears,

  Till in the silence around him he hears

  The muster of men at the barrack door,

  The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

  And the measured tread of the grenadiers,

  Marching down to their boats on the shore.

  Then he climbed the tower of the Old

  North Church,

  By the wooden stairs with a stealthy tread,

  To the belfry-chamber overhead,

  And startled the pigeons from their perch

  On the somber rafters, that round him made

  Masses and moving shapes of shade—

  By the trembling ladder, steep and tall

  To the highest window in the wall,

  Where he paused to listen and look down

  A moment on the roofs of the town

  And the moonlight flowing over all.

  Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,

  In their night-encampment on the hill,

  Wrapped in silence so deep and still

  That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,

  The watchful night wind, as it went

  Creeping along from tent to tent,

  And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"

  A moment only he feels the spell

  Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread

  Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

  For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

  On a shadowy something far away,

  Where the river widens to meet the bay—

  A line of black that bends and floats

  On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

  Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

  Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride

  On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

  Now he patted his horse's side,

  Now gazed at the landscape far and near,

  Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,

  And turned and tightened his saddle girth;

  But mostly he watched with eager search

  The belfry tower of the Old North Church,

  As it rose above the graves on the hill,

  Lonely and spectral and somber and still.

  And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height

  A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

  He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

  But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

  A second lamp in the belfry burns!

  A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

  A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

  And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing,

  a spark

  Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;

  That was all! And yet, through the doom

  and the light,

  The fate of a nation was riding that night;

  And the spark struck out by the steed in his

  flight,

  Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

  He has left the village and mounted the steep,

  And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,

  Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;

  And under the alders that skirt its edge,

  Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,

  Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

  It was twelve by the village clock,

  When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

  He heard the crowing of the cock,

  And the barking of the farmer's dog,

  And he felt the damp of the river fog,

  That rises after the sun goes down.

  It was one by the village clock,

  When he galloped into Lexington.

  He saw the gilded weathercock

  Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

  And the meeting-house windows, blank

  and bare,

  Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

  As if they already stood aghast

  At the bloody work they would look upon.

  It was two by the village clock,

  When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

  He
heard the bleating of the flock,

  And the twitter of birds among the trees,

  And felt the breath of the morning breeze

  Blowing over the meadows brown.

  And one was safe and asleep in his bed

  Who at the bridge would be first to fall,

  Who that day would be lying dead,

  Pierced by a British musket ball.

  You know the rest. In books you have read,

  How the British Regulars fired and fled—

  How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

  From behind each fence and farmyard wall,

  Chasing the redcoats down the lane,

  Then crossing the fields to emerge again

  Under the trees at the turn of the road,

  And only pausing to fire and load.

  So through the night rode Paul Revere;

  And so through the night went his cry of alarm

  To every Middlesex village and farm—

  A cry of defiance, and not of fear,

  A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

  And a word that shall echo for evermore!

  For, borne on the night wind of the Past,

  Through all our history, to the last,

  In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

  The people will waken and listen to hear

  The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

  And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860

  Next | TOC> The Highwayman> Noyes

  The Highwayman

  The wind was a torrent of darkness

  among the gusty trees,

  The moon was a ghostly galleon

  tossed upon cloudy seas,

  The road was a ribbon of moonlight

  over the purple moor,

  And the highwayman came riding,

  Riding, riding,

  The highwayman came riding,

  up to the old inn door.

  He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead,

  a bunch of lace at his chin,

  A coat of the claret velvet,

  and breeches of brown doeskin;

  They fitted with never a wrinkle:

  his boots were up to the thigh!

  And he rode with a jeweled twinkle,

  His pistol butts a-twinkle,

  His rapier hilt a-twinkle,

  under the jeweled sky.

  Over the cobbles he clattered and

  clashed in the dark inn-yard,