To His Coy Mistress

BY ANDREW MARVELL


Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning BY John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

"Heaven" has different Signs—to me"

"Heaven" has different Signs—to me" (575) by Emily Dickinson

"Heaven" has different Signs—to me—
Sometimes, I think that Noon
Is but a symbol of the Place—
And when again, at Dawn,

A mighty look runs round the World
And settles in the Hills—
An Awe if it should be like that
Upon the Ignorance steals—

The Orchard, when the Sun is on—
The Triumph of the Birds
When they together Victory make—
Some Carnivals of Clouds—

The Rapture of a finished Day—
Returning to the West—
All these—remind us of the place
That Men call "paradise"—

Itself be fairer—we suppose—
But how Ourself, shall be
Adorned, for a Superior Grace—
Not yet, our eyes can see—

AFTER APPLE PICKING

BY ROBERT FROST

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

After Apple Picking

-Robert Frost

This is a pastoral poem that appeared in Frost’s volume of poems called ‘North of Boston’. This nature lyric presents and experience in daily life in simple and casual way. It describes the experience of the Apple-Picker who has been working throughout the day. It reveals his sense of fatigue and fulfilment he felt after a day’s work.

The Apple-Picker has been working has been working throughout the day with his long two-pointed ladder. Now it is kept sticking on a tree with its pointed ends towards the sky. He can still see the unpicked Apples on the trees. But he is tired now. He has no mood of picking Apples any further.

But I am done with Apple-Picking now

. . . I am drowsing off.

The smell of the Apples makes him drowsy. He yearns for a winter sleep like the birds. His thinking gets confused. He gets a thought about the pane of glass which he broke on that morning. He dreams about the Apple Picking which he did from morning to evening. Big apples appear and disappear in his dream.

What from my dreaming was about to take

Magnified apples appear and disappear

The poet in his dream can feel the touch of the Apples, he picked. The instep arch in his feet can feel the touch of the ladder and the swaying of the ladder among the branches. He can hear the rumbling sound of the loads of Apples added in the cellar bind. He feels satisfied about the year’s harvest. He has collected nearly ten thousand apples and does not worry about the wasted ones. The poem ends with a complete satisfaction of the poet. So the poet plans to have a winter sleep as wood chuck enjoys its ‘long sleep’. He wonders whether his sleep is like the long hibernating sleep of animals or something human.

Thus the fact and fancy get intermingled in the poem. The poem appeals to the five senses. It is similar to the poem of Keats. In ode to ‘Autumn’ Keats reminds us the fume of poppies which is drowsy. Here the scent of apples produces the drowsing effect.

THE RAVEN

-Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is a famous American poet and fiction writer. His stories are noted for horror and supernatural element. In this poem ‘The Raven’ he narrates his horrible experience with Raven which has entered his chamber in a storming midnight.

One December midnight, Poe was reading some old books of magic. When he was half asleep, he heard somebody knocking the door gently. He thought that it might be some unknown visitor. The poet is in a distressed mood due to the recent death of his wife Lenore.

            

                              For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore

Meantime, the poet was thrilled by the eerie atmosphere in the room. The silken curtains rustled and it increased his heartbeat. It filled him with ‘fantastic terrors’. Yet he went out and opened the door, but could find nothing.

                        

                                The only word he could whisper is ‘Lenore’ which was echoed back.

The poet again heard a tapping louder than before from the window lattice. When he opened that a ‘stately’ Raven came in. It entered without hesitation and sat on the statue of Pallas above the chamber door. The poet became happy on seeing the bird. The poet was surprised to hear a bird talking.

The poet was startled to hear the words of the Raven. He thought that the bird could have learned the single word from his unhappy master. Sinking on his velvet cushion chair, he remembered his loving Lenore who was ‘nomore’.

The poet who was disturbed scolded the bird as ‘Prophet of Doom’ and ‘Agent of Evil’. He again asked for a balm in Gilead to cure his sadness.

            

                                 Is there – is there balm in Gilead tell me- tell me. I implore.

The bird again refused to it by saying ‘Nevermore’. He again asked the bird whether it had seen Lenore ‘The Sainted maiden’ in the distant land. The bird replied of the bird the poet became very angry. He asked the bird to get out of his chamber.

                    

                               Take thy beak from out my heart, and taken thy from, from off my door!

Yet, the Raven was still sitting on the bust of Pallas and looking at the poet with its fiery eyes. The poet could not lift his soul from the shadow of the bird that laid on the floor.

In this poem, the poet uses the conversational tone. The poem is also considered as the dramatization of the poet’s despair.