As those of old drank mummia To fire their limbs of lead, Making dead kings from Africa Stand pandar to their bed; Drunk on the dead, and medicined With spiced imperial dust, In a short night they reeled to find Ten centuries of lust. So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme, Stuffed love's infinity, And sucked all lovers of all time To rarify ecstasy. Helen's the hair shuts out from me Verona's livid skies; Gypsy the lips I press; and see Two Antonys in your eyes. The unheard invisible lovely dead Lie with us in this place, And ghostly hands above my head Close face to straining face; Their blood is wine along our limbs; Their whispering voices wreathe Savage forgotten drowsy hymns Under the names we breathe; Woven from their tomb, and one with it, The night wherein we press; Their thousand pitchy pyres have lit Your flaming nakedness. For the uttermost years have cried and clung To kiss your mouth to mine; And hair long dust was caught, was flung, Hand shaken to hand divine, And Life has fired, and Death not shaded, All Time's uncounted bliss, And the height o' the world has flamed and faded, Love, that our love be this!
By Rupert Brooke
https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/rupert-brooke/mummia-9659
Vast was the wealth I carried in life's pack - Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.Before me lay a long and lonely track Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb; Behind me lay in shadows the sublimeLost lands of Love's delight.Alack!Alack!Unwearied, and with springing steps elate, I had conveyed my wealth along the road. The empty sack proved now a heavier load:&n
Coming, clean from the Maryland-endOf this great National Road of ours,Through your vast West; with the time to spend,Stopping for days in the main towns, whereEvery citizen seemed a friend,And friends grew thick as the wayside flowers, -I found no thing that I might narrateMore singularly strange or queerThan a thing I found in your sister-stateOhio, - at a river-town - down hereIn my notebook:Zanesville - situateOn the stream Muskingum - broad and clear,And navigable, through half the year,North, to Coshocton; south, as farAs Marietta.- But these f
He seemed so strange to me, every way -In manner, and form, and size,From the boy I knew but yesterday, -I could hardly believe my eyes!To hear his name called over there,My memory thrilled with gleeAnd leaped to picture him young and fairIn youth, as he used to be.But looking, only as glad eyes can,For the boy I knew of yore,&nb
Ah, fair Lord God of Heaven, to whom we call, - By whom we live, - on whom our hopes are built, - Do Thou, from year to year, e'en as Thou wilt,Control the Realm, but suffer not to fallIts ancient faith, its grandeur, and its thrall! Do Thou preserve it, in the hours of guilt, When foemen thirst for blood that should be spilt,And keep it strong when traitors would appal.Uphold us still, O God! and be the screen And sword and buckler of our England's might, 
Some one came knockingAt my wee, small door;Some one came knocking,I'm sure - sure - sure;I listened, I opened,I looked to left and right,But naught there was a-stirringIn the still dark night;Only the busy beetleTap-tapping in the wall,Only from the forestThe screech-owl's call,Only the cricket whistlingWhile the dewdrops fall,So I know not who came knocking,At all, at all, a
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,O Priestess in the vaults of Death,O sweet and bitter in a breath,What whispers from thy lying lip?"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run;A web is wov'n across the sky;From out waste places comes a cry,And murmurs from the dying sun:"And all the phantom, Nature, stands--With all the music in her tone,A hollow echo of my own,--A hollow form with empty hands."And shall I take a thing so blind,Embrace her as my natural good;Or crush her, like a vice of blood,Upon the threshold of the mind?ByAlfred Lord Tennysonhttps://www.public-domain-poetry.com/alfred-lord-tennyson/in-memoriam-3-o-sorrow-cruel-fellowship-743
Climbing the heights of BerkeleyNightly I watch the West.There lies new San Francisco,Sea-maid in purple dressed,Wearing a dancer's girdleAll to inflame desire:Scorning her days of sackcloth,Scorning her cleansing fire.See, like a burning citySets now the red sun's dome.See, mystic firebrands sparkleThere on each store and home.See how
I'll tell thee everything I can:There's little to relate.I saw an aged aged man,A-sitting on a gate.'Who are you, aged man?' I said.'And how is it you live?'And his answer trickled through my head,Like water through a sieve.He said, 'I look for butterfliesThat sleep among the wheat:I make them into mutton-pies,And sell them in the street.I sell them unto men,' he said,'Who sail on stormy seas;And that's the way I get my bread,A trifle, if you please.'But I was thinking of a planTo dye one's whiskers green,And always use so large a fanThat they could not be seen.So having no reply to giveTo what the old man said, I cried'Come, tell me how you live!'And thumped him on the head.His accents mild took up the tale:He said 'I go my ways,And when I find a mountain-rill,I set it in a blaze;