WHEN biting Boreas, fell and dour, Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r; When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r, Far south the lift, Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r, Or whirling drift: Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, Poor Labour sweet...

Universal

Robert Burns

796 words

Poetry

The Canterbury Tales. The Nun's Priest's Tale.

THE PROLOGUE. "Ho!" quoth the Knight, "good sir, no more of this; That ye have said is right enough, y-wis, And muche more; for little heaviness Is right enough to muche folk, I guess.

L'AMITIÉ, Est L'AMOUR Sans Ailes

Why should my anxious breast repine, Because my youth is fled? Days of delight may still be mine; Affection is not dead.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

514 words

Poetry

57. Holy Willie’s Prayer

O THOU, who in the heavens does dwell, Who, as it pleases best Thysel’, Sends ane to heaven an’ ten to hell, A’ for Thy glory, And no for ony gude or ill They’ve done afore Thee!

The Canterbury Tales. The Miller's Tale.

THE PROLOGUE. When that the Knight had thus his tale told In all the rout was neither young nor old, That he not said it was a noble story, And worthy to be drawen to memory; And namely the gentles every one.

Poem of Joys.

1 O TO make the most jubilant poem! Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death. O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! Full of common employments! full of grain and trees. O for the voices of animals!

Universal

Walt Whitman

1954 words

Fable

The Horse and the Ass

Better humble security than gilded danger

Universalhumilitysecurity

Aesop

Short11 words

Poetry

The Canterbury Tales. The Merchant's Tale.

THE PROLOGUE. "Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I have enough, on even and on morrow," Quoth the Merchant, "and so have other mo', That wedded be; I trow that it be so; For well I wot it fareth so by me.

The Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Bath's Tale.

THE PROLOGUE.

The Statue and the Bust

There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well, And a statue watches it from the square, And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Summer Evening

The sinking sun is taking leave, And sweetly gilds the edge of Eve, While huddling clouds of purple dye Gloomy hang the western sky. Crows crowd croaking over head, Hastening to the woods to bed. Cooing sits the lonely dove, Calling home her absent love.

The Cloud

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams.

Count Gismond

Christ God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, Chose time and place and company To suit it; when he struck at length My honour, 'twas with all his strength.

Universal

Robert Browning

1075 words

Fable

The Ant and the Grasshopper

It is best to prepare for the days of necessity

Universalpreparationdiligence

Aesop

Short15 words

Poetry

Prayer of Columbus.

A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man, Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death, I take my way along...

Hervé Riel

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety two, Did the English fight the French,--woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue. Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came...

The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church (Rome, 15--)

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews--sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well, She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

The Canterbury Tales. The Man of Law's Tale.

THE PROLOGUE.

The Canterbury Tales. The Knight's Tale.

WHILOM, as olde stories tellen us, There was a duke that highte Theseus. Of Athens he was lord and governor, And in his time such a conqueror That greater was there none under the sun. Full many a riche country had he won.

The Poet's Calendar

January Janus am I; oldest of potentates; Forward I look, and backward, and below I count, as god of avenues and gates, The years that through my portals come and go.

Universal

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

665 words

Poetry

The Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner's Tale.

THE PROLOGUE. OUR Hoste gan to swear as he were wood; "Harow!" quoth he, "by nailes and by blood, This was a cursed thief, a false justice. As shameful death as hearte can devise Come to these judges and their advoca's.

Universal

Geoffrey Chaucer

4654 words