PolyArchive

Written from a hospital bed in 1875, after the 26-year-old Henley had had his leg amputated as a result of tuberculosis of the bone. Originally untitled, Arthur Quiller-Couch bestowed the name “Invictus” (“Unvanquished”) when he included it in The Oxford Book of English Verse. This was the poem Nelson Mandela kept on a scrap of […]

The Chilterns Rupert Brooke Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness – Oh, I’ve loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less. It wasn’t a success. Thank God, that’s done! and I’ll take the road, Quit of my youth and you, The Roman road to Wendover By Tring and Lilley […]

Locksley Hall Alfred, Lord Tennyson Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ‘t is early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. ‘T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall, […]

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Half-way House Love I was shewn upon the mountain-side And bid to catch Him ere the drop of day. See, Love, I creep and Thou on wings dost ride: Love it is evening now and Thou away; Love, it grows darker here and Thou art above; Love, come down to me […]

The Indian Serenade Percy Bysshe Shelley I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Hath led me—who knows how? To thy chamber window, Sweet! The wandering […]

The Soldier Rupert Brooke If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is forever England.  There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam. A […]

THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN (To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) W.H. Auden He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports of his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned term, he was a saint, For […]

The Great Lover Rupert Brooke I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love’s praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and still content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at […]

Sonnet XLI: Having This Day My Horse Sir Philip Sidney Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtain’d the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes And of some sent from that sweet enemy France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, Town folks my strength; a […]

Love (III) George Herbert Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back                               Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack                              From […]

Remember Christina Georgina Rossetti Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you planned: Only […]

Song of the Brook Alfred, Lord Tennyson From “The Brook: an Idyl” I COME from haunts of coot and hern: I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, 5 Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And […]

If I Could Tell You W.H. Auden Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say […]

Jenny Kiss’d Me Leigh Hunt Jenny kiss’d me when we met Jumping from the chair she sat in. Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in: Say I’m weary, say I’m sad; Say that health and wealth have missed me; Say I’m growing old, but add – Jenny kissed […]

Lies about Love D.H. Lawrence We are all liars, because the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow, whereas letters are fixed, and we live by the letter of truth. The love I feel for my friend, this year, is different from the love I felt last year. If it were not so, it would […]