The Teacher's Monologue

The room is quiet, thoughts alone
   People its mute tranquility:
The yolk put off, the long task done, -
   I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
   For the first time, how soft the day
O'er waveless water, stirless tree,
   Silent and sunny, wings its way.
Now, as I watch that distant hill,
   So faint, so blue, so far removed,
Sweet dreams of home my heart may fill,
   That home where I am known and loved:
It lies beyond: yon azure brow
   Parts me from all Earth holds for me;
And, morn and eve, my yearnings flow
  Thitherward tending, changelessly.
My happiest hours, ay! all the time,
   I love to keep in memory,
Lapsed among moors, ere life's first prime
   Decayed to dark anxiety.

Sometimes, I think a narrow heart
   Makes me thus mourn those far away,
And keeps my love so far apart
   From friends and friendships of to-day;
Sometimes, I think 'tis but a dream
  I treasure up so jealously,
All the sweet thoughts I live on seem
   To vanish into vacancy:
And then, this strange, coarse world around
   Seems all that's palpable and true;
And every sight and every sound
   Combines my spirit to subdue
To aching grief; so void and lone
   Is Life and Earth - so worse than vain,

The hopes that, in my own heart sown,
   And cherished by such sun and rain
As Joy and transient Sorrow shed,
   Have ripened to a harvest there:
Alas! methinks I hear it said,
   'Thy golden sheaves are empty air.'
All fades away; my empty home
   I think will soon be desolate;
I hear, at times, a warning come
   Of bitter partings at its gate;
And, if I should return and see
   The hearth-fire quenched, the vacant chair;
And hear it whispered mournfully,
   That farewells have been spoken there,
What shall I do, and whither turn?
   Where look for peace? When cease to mourn?




'Tis not the air I wished to play,
   The strain I wished to sing;
My wilful spirit slipped away
   And struck another string.
I neither wanted smile nor tear,
   Bright joy nor bitter woe,
But just a song that sweet and clear,
   Though haply sad, might flow.

A quiet song, to solace me
   When sleep refused to come,
A strain to chase despondency
   When sorrowful for home.
In vain I try; I cannot sing;
   All feels so cold and dead;
No wild distress, no gushing spring
   Of tears in anguish shed;

But all the impatient gloom of one
   Who waits a distant day,
When, some great task of suffering done,
   Repose shall toil repay.
For youth departs, and pleasure flies,
   And life consumes away,
And youth's rejoicing ardour dies
   Beneath this drear delay;

And patience, weary with her yoke,
   Is yielding to despair,
And Health's elastic spring is broke
   Beneath the strain of care.
Life will be gone ere I have lived;
   Where now is Life's first prime?
I've worked and studied, longed and grieved,
   Through all that rosy time.

To toil, to think, to long, to grieve, -
   Is such my future fate?
The morn was dreary, must the eve
   Be also desolate?
Well, such a life at least makes Death
   A welcome, wished-for friend;
Then, aid me, Reason, Patience, Faith,
   To suffer to the end!

Lyrical Ballads

'It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind. The evidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings of Critics, but in those of Poets themselves. ...'

'Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness ...'

'Readers of superior judgement may disapprove of the style in which many of these pieces are executed. It must be expected that many lines and phrases will not exactly suit their taste. It will perhaps appear to them, that wishing to avoid the prevalent fault of their day, the author has sometimes descended too low, and that many of his expressions are too familiar, and not of sufficient dignity. It is apprehended, that the more conversant the reader is with our elder writers, and with those most successful in modern times who have been the most successful in painting manners and passions, the fewer complaints of this kind he will have to make.'

Sophocles

only the gods never become old, never die.
Time - dictator time - wrecks all else.
The might of the earth wastes away.
The strength of the body too.
Loyalty faith trust, all die, and treachery flourishes.
No spirit remains constant between men, between cities.
Soon
or perhaps later
the sweet becomes bitter and then loved again.
And so if between you and Thebes the days now pass in pleasantness, infinite time brings on infinite days and nights, in which, to the echo of a small word, a spear will smash the concord of past days.
And then my sleeping corpse, hidden, cold, will drink their hot blood

Oedipus, in Oedipus at Kolonos, First Episode

Wonder
at many things
But wonder most
at this thing:
Man
who
crosses the speckled sea
across winter storms ...

He has found a way
to weave the different nets
that ensnare giddy birds
trap the wild species of the plains
and catch the dwellers of the sea.
Ingenious man ...

He taught himself speech
thought light as wind
the passions that raise cities
and
how to escape the bitter shafts
of rain
the frost
the wrath of the open sky.
Nothing stops him:
he finds his way through
everything.
From death alone he sees no
way out,
even though
he discovers routes through stubborn diseases.

Second Chorus, Antigone

Stevie Smith

It needs a good woman, or a good girl will do, to bring you back from the stony desert that runs up flat to a precipice where the soul hangs by a thread over the abyss. And what is down below? Hell. And don't say you don't believe in hell or hell may get the laugh of you.

Novel on Yellow Paper

You say I must write another book? But I've just written this one.
You liked it so much that's the reason? Read it again then.

To an American Publisher