The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900
Quiller-Couch
Free public domain
Quiller-Couch · 258 chapters
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I have tried to range over the whole field of English Verse from the beginning, or from the Thirteenth Century to this closing year of the Nineteenth, and to choose the best.
My scheme is simple. I have arranged the poets as nearly as possible in order of birth, with such groupings of anonymous pieces as seemed convenient.
Chapters
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- PREFACESample
- Cuckoo Song
- Alison
- Spring-tide
- Blow, Northern Wind
- This World’s Joy
- A Hymn to the Virgin
- Praise of Women
- Freedom
- The Love Unfeigned
- Balade
- 1. CAPTIVITY
- 2. REJECTION
- 3. ESCAPE
- Lament for Chaucer
- Vox ultima Crucis
- Spring Song of the Birds
- Robin and Makyne
- The Bludy Serk
- To a Lady
- In Honour of the City of London
- On the Nativity of Christ
- Lament for the Makers
- May in the Green-Wood
- Carol
- Quia Amore Langueo
- The Nut-Brown Maid
- Balow
- The Old Cloak
- To Mistress Margery Wentworth
- To Mistress Margaret Hussey
- The True Knight
- An Epitaph
- Forget not yet
- The Appeal
- A Revocation
- Vixi Puellis Nuper Idoneus ...
- Description of Spring
- Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover being upon the Sea
- The Means to attain Happy Life
- A True Love
- A Bequest of His Heart
- In Youth is Pleasure
- Amantium Iræ
- A Lover’s Lullaby
- The Night is Near Gone
- Jolly Good Ale and Old
- When Flora had O’erfret the Firth
- My Heart is High Above
- A Praise of His Lady
- To Her Sea-faring Lover
- The Faithless Shepherdess
- Crabbed Age and Youth
- Phyllida’s Love-Call
- A Pedlar
- Hey nonny no!
- Preparations
- The New Jerusalem
- Icarus
- Madrigal
- How can the Heart forget her?
- Tears
- My Lady’s Tears
- Sister, Awake!
- Devotion
- Since First I saw your Face
- There is a Lady sweet and kind
- Love not me for comely grace
- The Wakening
- Phillida and Coridon
- A Cradle Song
- i
- ii
- His Pilgrimage
- The Conclusion
- Whilst it is prime
- A Ditty
- Prothalamion
- Epithalamion
- From ‘Daphnaïda’
- Easter
- Cards and Kisses
- Spring’s Welcome
- Beauty Bathing
- The Bargain
- Song
- Voices at the Window
- Philomela
- His Lady’s Cruelty
- Sleep
- Splendidis longum valedico Nugis
- Rosalind’s Madrigal
- Phillis I
- Phillis 2
- Rosaline
- Fair and Fair
- A Farewell to Arms
- Samela
- Fawnia
- Sephestia’s Lullaby
- A Summer Day
- Bridal Song
- Times go by Turns
- The Burning Babe
- On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney
- Love is a Sickness
- Ulysses and the Siren
- Sonnets. I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- Sonet
- Ubique
- The Parting
- Sirena
- Agincourt
- To the Virginian Voyage
- Her Reply
- Silvia
- The Blossom
- i
- ii
- i
- ii
- iii
- iv
- v
- Love
- Sweet-and-Twenty
- Dirge
- Under the Greenwood Tree
- Blow blow, thou Winter Wind
- It was a Lover and his Lass
- Take, O take those Lips away
- Aubade
- Fidele
- Bridal Song
- Dirge of the Three Queens
- Orpheus
- The Phœnix and the Turtle
- ii
- iii
- iv
- v
- vii
- viii
- ix
- x
- xi
- xii
- xiii
- xiv
- xv
- xvi
- xvii
- xviii
- xix
- xx
- Lullaby
- Spring
- In Time of Pestilence
- Cherry-Ripe
- Laura
- i
- ii
- Vobiscum est Iope
- Hymn in Praise of Neptune
- Winter Nights
- Integer Vitae
- O come quickly!
- A Nosegay
- The Character of a Happy Life
- Man
- To His Forsaken Mistress
- To an Inconstant One
- Hymn to Diana
- To Celia
- Simplex Munditiis
- The Shadow
- The Triumph
- A Farewell to the World
- The Noble Balm
- On Elizabeth L. H.
- On Salathiel Pavy
- A Part of an Ode
- Daybreak
- The Dream
- A Hymn to God the Father
- Death
- Philomel
- Sweet Content
- Matin Song
- The Message
- Sleep
- Bridal Song
- Aspatia’s Song
- Hymn to Pan
- Away, Delights
- Love’s Emblems
- Hear, ye Ladies
- God Lyaeus
- Beauty Clear and Fair
- Melancholy
- Weep no more
- A Dirge
- The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi
- Vanitas Vanitatum
- Aurora
- A Litany
- Of his Dear Son, Gervase
- Invocation
- Madrigal
- Spring Bereaved 1
- Spring Bereaved 2
- Spring Bereaved 3
- Her Passing
- Inexorable
- Change should breed Change
- Saint John Baptist
- Wooing Song
- On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey
- Dawn
- I loved a Lass
- The Lover’s Resolution
- The Choice
- A Welcome
- The Sirens’ Song
- The Rose
- Song
- Memory
- On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke
- Corinna’s going a-Maying
- To the Virgins, to make much of Time
- To the Western Wind
- To Electra
- To Violets
- To Daffodils
- To Blossoms
- The Primrose
- The Funeral Rites of the Rose
- Cherry-Ripe
- A Meditation for his Mistress
- Delight in Disorder
- Upon Julia’s Clothes
- The Bracelet: To Julia
- To Daisies, not to shut so soon
- The Night-piece: To Julia
- To Music, to becalm his Fever
- To Dianeme
- To Œnone
- To Anthea, who may command him Anything
- To the Willow-tree
- Comfort to a Youth that had lost his Love
- To Meadows
- A Child’s Grace
- Epitaph
- His Winding-sheet
- Litany to the Holy Spirit
- A Divine Rapture
- A Contemplation upon Flowers
- A Renunciation
- Exequy on his Wife
- Virtue
- Easter
- Discipline
- A Dialogue
- The Pulley
- Love
- A Hymn
- Death the Leveller
- Song
- Persuasions to Joy: a Song
- To His Inconstant Mistress
- The Unfading Beauty
- Ingrateful Beauty threatened
- Epitaph
- Another
- To Roses in the Bosom of Castara
- Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam
- A Devout Lover
- An Ode to Master Anthony Stafford
- Aubade
- To a Mistress Dying
- On a Girdle
- Go, lovely Rose
- Old Age
- Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity
- On Time
- At a Solemn Musick
- L’Allegro
- Il Penseroso
- From ‘Arcades’
- iv The Spirit epiloguizes:
- Lycidas
- To the Lady Margaret Ley
- On His Blindness
- To Mr. Lawrence
- To Cyriack Skinner
- On His Deceased Wife
- Light
- i
- ii
- A Doubt of Martyrdom
- The Constant Lover
- Why so Pale and Wan?
- A Rose
- To Chloe
- Falsehood
- On a Virtuous Young Gentlewoman that died suddenly
- I’ll never love Thee more
- Coronemus nos Rosis antequam marcescant
- Wishes to His Supposed Mistress
- The Weeper
- A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
- Verses from the Shepherds’ Hymn
- Christ Crucified
- An Epitaph upon Husband and Wife
- To Lucasta, going to the Wars
- To Lucasta, going beyond the Seas
- To Amarantha, that she would dishevel her Hair
- The Grasshopper
- To Althea, from Prison
- 1. Drinking
- 2. The Epicure
- On the Death of Mr. William Hervey
- The Wish
- The Resolve
- An Horatian Ode
- A Garden
- To His Coy Mistress
- The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers
- Thoughts in a Garden
- Bermudas
- An Epitaph
- The Retreat
- Peace
- The Timber
- Friends Departed
- The Shepherd Boy sings in the Valley of Humiliation
- Thomas the Rhymer
- I. The Sailing
- II. The Return
- The Lass of Lochroyan
- The Dowie Houms of Yarrow
- Clerk Saunders
- Fair Annie
- Edward, Edward
- Edom o’ Gordon
- The Queen’s Marie
- The Bonnie House o’ Airlie
- The Wife of Usher’s Well
- The Three Ravens
- The Twa Corbies
- A Lyke-Wake Dirge
- The Seven Virgins.
- Cradle Song
- The Bonny Earl of Murray
- Helen of Kirconnell
- Waly, Waly
- Barbara Allen’s Cruelty
- I
- II
- Phillada flouts Me
- Chloris in the Snow
- The Relapse
- Chloe Divine
- To Cœlia
- To One persuading a Lady to Marriage
- Ode
- A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1687
- Grand Chorus.
- Ah, how sweet it is to love!
- Song to a Fair Young Lady, going out of the Town in the Spring
- Against Indifference
- Song
- To a Lady asking him how long he would love her
- News
- The Sad Day
- Song
- To Chloris
- Song
- The Libertine
- Return
- Constancy
- To His Mistress
- The Reconcilement
- On One who died discovering her Kindness
- The Enchantment
- A Quiet Soul
- Song
- The Question to Lisetta
- To a Child of Quality Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty
- Song
- On My Birthday, July 21
- A Letter
- For my own Monument
- Werena my Hearts licht I wad dee
- False though She be
- A Hue and Cry after Fair Amoret
- The Day of Judgement
- A Cradle Hymn
- Song
- On a Fly drinking out of his Cup
- Song
- On a certain Lady at Court
- Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
- The Dying Christian to his Soul
- Shorten Sail
- Sally in our Alley
- A Drinking-Song
- The Rosebud
- Belinda’s Recovery from Sickness
- On the Death of a particular Friend
- Tell me, my Heart if this be Love
- One-and-Twenty
- Absence
- Elegy written in a Country Churchyard
- THE EPITAPH.
- The Curse upon Edward
- The Progress of Poesy
- On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes
- Ode to Evening
- Fidele
- Amoret
- The Complaint
- The Nightingale
- Song to David
- A Lament for Flodden
- Woman
- Memory
- If Doughty Deeds
- My Mary
- An Epitaph
- Ca’ the Yowes to the Knowes
- Life
- Prayer for Indifference
- To the Cuckoo
- Auld Robin Gray
- Song from Ælla
- Meeting
- To the Muses
- To Spring
- Reeds of Innocence
- The Little Black Boy
- Hear the Voice
- The Tiger
- Cradle Song
- Night
- Love’s Secret
- Mary Morison
- Auld Lang Syne
- My Bonnie Mary
- John Anderson, my Jo
- The Banks o’ Doon
- Ae Fond Kiss
- Bonnie Lesley
- Highland Mary
- A Red, Red Rose
- Lament for Culloden
- The Farewell
- Hark! The Mavis
- Sun
- Moon
- Time and Grief
- The Outlaw’s Song
- A Child
- The Land o’ the Leal
- A Boy’s Song
- Kilmeny
- i
- ii
- iii
- v
- Upon Westminster Bridge
- Evening on Calais Beach
- On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, 1802
- i
- ii
- iii
- iv
- v
- The Solitary Reaper
- Perfect Woman
- Daffodils
- Ode to Duty
- The Rainbow
- i
- ii
- The World
- Ode
- Desideria
- Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon
- Mutability
- The Trosachs
- Speak!
- Proud Maisie
- Brignall Banks
- Lucy Ashton’s Song
- The Rover’s Adieu
- 1. Innominatus
- 2. Nelson, Pitt, Fox
- Part I.
- Part II.
- Part III.
- Part IV.
- Part V.
- Part VI.
- Part VII.
- Love
- Youth and Age
- Time, Real and Imaginary
- Work without Hope
- Glycine’s Song
- His Books
- The Maid’s Lament
- Rose Aylmer
- Twenty Years hence
- Verse
- Proud Word you never spoke
- Resignation
- Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel
- Autumn
- Remain!
- Absence
- Of Clementina
- Ianthe’s Question
- Alciphron and Leucippe
- Years
- Separation
- Late Leaves
- The Old Familiar Faces
- Hester
- On an Infant dying as soon as born
- Ye Mariners of England
- The Young May Moon
- The Irish Peasant to His Mistress
- The Light of Other Days
- At the Mid Hour of Night
- May
- Battle Song
- Plaint
- The Sun rises bright in France
- Hame, Hame, Hame
- The Spring of the Year
- Jenny kiss’d Me
- Love and Age
- The Grave of Love
- Three Men of Gotham
- To Death
- When we Two parted
- For Music
- She walks in Beauty
- The Isles of Greece
- The Children Band
- To Mary
- Hymn of Pan
- The Invitation
- Hellas
- To a Skylark
- I
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- The Indian Serenade
- Night
- From the Arabic
- Lines
- To——
- The Question
- Remorse
- Music, when Soft Voices die
- Willie and Helen
- Burial of the Dead
- Written in Northampton County Asylum
- Dirge
- Song of the Indian Maid
- Ode to a Nightingale
- Ode on a Grecian Urn
- Ode to Psyche
- To Autumn
- Bards of Passion and of Mirth
- Fancy
- Stanzas
- La Belle Dame sans Merci
- On first looking into Chapman’s Homer
- When I have Fears that I may cease to be
- To Sleep
- Last Sonnet
- The Outlaw of Loch Lene
- Song
- To Helene
- The Fallen Star
- The Solitary-Hearted
- Song
- Early Death
- Friendship
- Autumn
- Silence
- Death
- Fair Ines
- Time of Roses
- Ruth
- The Death-bed
- The Bridge of Sighs
- The Blind Boy’s Pranks
- Elena’s Song
- Mater Dolorosa
- The Wife a-lost
- Fairy Song
- O sleep my Babe
- The Child
- Eileen Aroon
- Dark Rosaleen
- The Nameless One
- Wolfram’s Dirge
- Dream-Pedlary
- Song
- Give All to Love
- Uriel
- Brahma
- The Plough
- King Arthur’s Waes-hael
- Are they not all Ministering Spirits?
- The Half-asleep
- The Bells of Shandon
- Rosalind’s Scroll
- The Deserted Garden
- Consolation
- Grief
- i
- ii
- iii
- iv
- v
- A Musical Instrument
- The Holy Tide
- My Lost Youth
- Vesta
- Lament of the Irish Emigrant
- I do not love Thee
- To Helen
- For Annie
- I
- II
- Mariana
- Part II.
- Part III.
- The Miller’s Daughter
- Song of the Lotos-Eaters
- St. Agnes’ Eve
- Blow, Bugle, blow
- Summer Night
- Come down, O Maid
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- VIII
- IX
- X
- XII
- Maud
- O that ’twere possible
- Shadows
- The Bride
- Cean Dubh Deelish
- Cashel of Munster
- The Fair Hills of Ireland
- Song from ‘Paracelsus’
- The Wanderers
- Thus the Mayne glideth
- Pippa’s Song
- You’ll love Me yet
- Porphyria’s Lover
- Song
- Earl Mertoun’s Song
- In a Gondola
- Meeting at Night
- Parting at Morning
- The Lost Mistress
- The Last Ride together
- Misconceptions
- Home-thoughts, from Abroad
- Home-thoughts, from the Sea
- The Witch’s Ballad
- Serenade
- Sorrow
- My Lady’s Grave
- Remembrance
- The Prisoner
- Last Lines
- Airly Beacon
- The Sands of Dee
- Say not the Struggle Naught availeth
- The Imprisoned Soul
- O Captain! My Captain!
- Trust Thou Thy Love
- When the World is burning
- At Her Window
- The Forsaken Merman
- The Song of Callicles
- To Marguerite
- Requiescat
- The Scholar-Gipsy
- Philomela
- Shakespeare
- From the Hymn of Empedocles
- The Flowers
- The Thought
- I
- II
- Heraclitus
- The Married Lover
- ‘If I were dead’
- Departure
- The Toys
- A Farewell
- The Ballad of Keith of Ravelston
- Return!
- A Chanted Calendar
- Laus Deo
- That Holy Thing
- The Blessèd Damozel
- Love in the Valley
- Phœbus with Admetus
- Tardy Spring
- Love’s Grave
- Lucifer in Starlight
- Love
- Barbara
- Bride Song
- A Birthday
- Song
- Twice
- Uphill
- Passing Away
- Marvel of Marvels
- Is it Well with the Child?
- Remember
- Aloof
- Rest
- Dora
- Jessie
- Salve!
- My Garden
- A Night in Italy
- In the Train
- Sunday up the River
- Gifts
- The Vine
- Summer Dawn
- Love is enough
- The Nymph’s Song to Hylas
- The Water-Nymph and the Boy
- Meet We no Angels, Pansie?
- To Two Bereaved
- Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid Tavern
- Chorus from ‘Atalanta’
- Hertha
- Ave atque Vale
- Itylus
- Earliest Spring
- Maureen
- Aghadoe
- Song
- The Desolate City
- With Esther
- To Manon, on his Fortune in loving Her
- St. Valentines Day
- Gibraltar
- Written at Florence
- The Two Highwaymen
- A Garden Song
- Urceus Exit
- In After Days
- Mooni
- Ode
- Song
- The Fountain of Tears
- A White Rose
- My Delight and Thy Delight
- Spirits
- Nightingales
- A Passer-by
- Absence
- On a Dead Child
- Winter Nightfall
- When Death to Either shall come
- The Odyssey
- Invictus
- Margaritæ Sorori
- England, My England
- Romance
- In the Highlands
- Requiem
- The Dead at Clonmacnois
- Song
- Song
- Ode in May
- The Great Misgiving
- Prayers
- Going down Hill on a Bicycle
- My Grief on the Sea
- He fell among Thieves
- Reunited
- Where My Books go
- When You are Old
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- L’Envoi
- Recessional
- Song
- The Second Crucifixion
- Invocation to Youth
- O World, be Nobler
- The Great Breath
- A Duet
- The Poppy
- Non Nobis
- Sheep and Lambs
- An Upper Chamber
- Renouncement
- The Lady of the Lambs
- Ireland
- Genius Loci
- Dominus Illuminatio Mea
- INDEX OF AUTHORS AND FIRST LINES INDEX OF AUTHORS
- INDEX OF FIRST LINES