Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer Quotes

“The world should listen then, as I am listening now.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“Why are we weighed upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, "There is no joy but calm!" Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“The breathing instruments inspire, Wake into voice each silent string, And sweep the sounding lyre! In a sadly pleasing strain, 2 Let the warbling lute complain: Let the loud trumpet sound, Till the roofs all around The shrill echoes rebound; While in more lengthen'd notes and slow, The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow. Hark! the numbers soft and clear Gently steal upon the”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“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;”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel 6 covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. I slip, I slide, I gloom, 7 I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeams dance Against my shady shallows.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott. Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darkened wholly, Turned to towered Camelot; For ere she reached upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“THE SOLITARY REAPER. Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary highland lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from a cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings?— Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, or may be again? Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;— I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“Little breezes dusk 3 and shiver Through the wave that runs forever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot; Four gray walls, and four gray towers, Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“Swifter far than summer's flight, Swifter far than youth's delight, Swifter far than happy night, Art thou come and gone: As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am left alone, alone.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“The innocent brightness of a new-born day Is lovely yet: The clouds that gather round the setting sun 19 Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair;”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“Shalott?”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“To dream and dream, like yonder amber light Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place; Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets

“short poem by Wordsworth, entitled "My Heart leaps up": "My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky. So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old,”
― James Baldwin, Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets