Robert Stephen Hawker - The Burial Hour::I.\n"At eve should be the time," they said,\n"To close their brother's narrow bed:"\n'Tis at that pleasant hour of day\nThe labourer treads his homeward way.\nII.\nHis work was o'er, his toil was done,\nAnd therefore, with the set of sun,\nTo wait the wages of the dead\nWe laid our hireling in his bed.\nRobert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875)
Langston Hughes - Suicide's Note::The calm,\nCool face of the river\nAsked me for a kiss.\nLangston Hughes (1902-1967)
Langston Hughes - The Negro Speaks Of Rivers::I've known rivers:\nI've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.\nMy soul has grown deep like the rivers.\nI bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.\nI built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.\nI looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.\nI heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.\nI've known rivers:\nAncient, dusky rivers.\nMy soul has grown deep like the rivers.\nLangston Hughes (1902-1967)
Leigh Hunt - A Thought Of The Nile::It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,\nLike some grave mighty thought threading a dream,\nAnd times and things, as in that vision, seem\nKeeping along it their eternal stands,--\nCaves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands\nThat roamed through the young world, the glory extreme\nOf high Sesostris, and that southern beam,\nThe laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.\nThen comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,\nAs of a world left empty of its throng,\nAnd the void weighs on us; and then we wake,\nAnd hear the fruitful stream lapsing along\nTwixt villages, and think how we shall take\nOur own calm journey on for human sake.\nLeigh Hunt (1784-1859)
John Keats - To Sleep::O soft embalmer of the still midnight,\nShutting, with careful fingers and benign,\nOur gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,\nEnshaded in forgetfulness divine:\nO soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close\nIn midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,\nOr wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws\nAround my bed its lulling charities.\nThen save me, or the passed day will shine\nUpon my pillow, breeding many woes,--\nSave me from curious Conscience, that still lords\nIts strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;\nTurn the key deftly in the oiled wards,\nAnd seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.\nJohn Keats (1795-1821)
Amy Levy - In the Mile End Road::HOW like her! But 'tis she herself,\nComes up the crowded street,\nHow little did I think, the morn,\nMy only love to meet!\nWhose else that motion and that mien?\nWhose else that airy tread?\nFor one strange moment I forgot\nMy only love was dead.\nAmy Levy (1861-1889)
Katherine Mansfield - A Few Rules for Beginners::Babies must not eat the coal\nAnd they must not make grimaces,\nNor in party dresses roll\nAnd must never black their faces.\nThey must learn that pointing's rude,\nThey must sit quite still at table,\nAnd must always eat the food\nPut before them -- if they're able.\nIf they fall, they must not cry,\nThough it's known how painful this is;\nNo -- there's always Mother by\nWho will comfort them with kisses.\nKatherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
Katherine Mansfield - Countrywomen::These be two\nCountry women.\nWhat a size!\nGreat big arms\nAnd round red faces;\nBig substantial\nSit down places;\nGreat big bosoms firm as cheese\nBursting through their country jackets;\nWide big laps\nAnd sturdy knees;\nHands outspread,\nRound and rosy,\nHands to hold\nA country posy\nOr a baby or a lamb --\nAnd such eyes!\nStupid, shifty, small and sly\nPeeping through a slit of sty,\nSquinting through their neighbours' plackets.\nKatherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
Katherine Mansfield - Voices of the Air::But then there comes that moment rare\nWhen, for no cause that I can find,\nThe little voices of the air\nSound above all the sea and wind.\nThe sea and wind do then obey\nAnd sighing, sighing double notes\nOf double basses, content to play\nA droning chord for the little throats --\nThe little throats that sing and rise\nUp into the light with lovely ease\nAnd a kind of magical, sweet surprise\nTo hear and know themselves for these --\nFor these little voices: the bee, the fly,\nThe leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,\nThe breeze on the grass-tops bending by,\nThe shrill quick sound that the insect makes\nKatherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
Susanna Moodie - My Autograph::What -- write my name!\nHow vain the feeble trust,\nTo be remembered\nWhen the hand is dust --\nGrieve rather that the talents freely given\nWere used for earth -- not treasured up for Heaven!\nSusanna Moodie (1803-1885)
