Lord Byron: Epitaph to a Dog
…all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.
William Wordsworth: Surprised by Joy
An elegy for Wordsworth’s daughter Catherine, who died in 1812, aged three.
Michelle Bitting: Pandemic Mask Sonnet
The world’s gone mad at the wheel
While bees and seas soar for bloom, germs and chaos
Straining against reorder.
William Wordsworth: Lines Written in Early Spring
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
Denise Levertov: Clouds
as if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling
John Clare: The Thunder Mutters
The thunder mutters louder & more loud
With quicker motion hay folks ply the rake
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Frost at Midnight
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch…
Karen Friedland: These Limpid Days
how ridiculously grateful I am now
for whatever divine forces brought me here,
to this very porch, this very summertime
John Clare: Summer
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.
John Clare: The Badger
The badger grunting on his woodland track
With shaggy hide and sharp nose scrowed with black
Roots in the bushes and the woods, and makes
A great high burrow in the ferns and brakes.
Charlotte Turner Smith: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
I see him more with envy than fear
Sandra Shapshay: At once tiny and huge — what is this feeling we call ‘sublime’?
Have you ever felt awe and exhilaration while contemplating a vista of jagged, snow-capped mountains? Or been fascinated but also a bit unsettled while beholding a thunderous waterfall such as … Continue reading
William Wordsworth: Tintern Abbey
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 . Five years have past; five summers, with the … Continue reading
