Clorinda and Damon

C
C. Damon, come drive thy flocks this way.
D. No, ’tis too late; they went astray.
C. I have a grassy scutcheon spied,
Where Flora blazons all her pride.
The grass I aim to feast thy sheep:
The flowers I for thy temples keep.
D. Grass withers; and the flowers too fade.
C. Seize the short joys then, ere they vade,
Seest thou that unfrequented cave?
D. That den?
C. Love’s Shrine.
D. But virtue’s grave.
C. In whose cool bosom we may lie
Safe from the sun.
D. Not heaven’s eye.
C. Near this, a fountain’s liquid bell
Tinkles within the concave shell.
D. Might a soul bathe there and be clean,
Or slake its drought?
C. What is’t you mean?
D. These once had been enticing things,
Clorinda, pastures, caves, and springs.
C. And what late change?
D. The other day
Pan met me.
C. What did great Pan say?
D. Words that transcend poor shepherds’ skill,
But he e’er since my songs does fill:
And his name swells my slender oat.
C. Sweet must Pan sound in Damon’s note.
D. Clorinda’s voice might make it sweet.
C. Who would not in Pan’s praises meet?

CHORUS
Of Pan the flowery pastures sing,
Caves echo, and the fountains ring.
Sing then while he doth us inspire;
For all the world is our Pan’s choir.
498
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

Map of the New World by Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
I Archipelagoes At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.
At the rain's edge, a sail.

Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands;
into a mist will go the belief in harbours
of an entire race.

The ten-years war is finished.
Helen's hair, a grey cloud.
Read Poem
0
871
Rating:

Hello, Willie Shoemaker by Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware
and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat)
and there was an ant circling the coffee cup;
I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer,
and outside I gave an old bum who looked about
the way I felt, I gave him a quarter,
and then I went up to see the old man
strong as steel girders, fit for bombers and blondes,
Read Poem
0
771
Rating:

Cacoethes Scribendi by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
If all the trees in all the woods were men;
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea
Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes
Had nothing else to do but act as scribes,
And for ten thousand ages, day and night,
The human race should write, and write, and write,
Till all the pens and paper were used up,
And the huge inkstand was an empty cup,
Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink
Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.

Read Poem
0
580
Rating:

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
(Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up")
Read Poem
0
1.2K
Rating:

Duncan Gray by Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Duncan Gray came here to woo,
Ha, ha, the wooin o't!
On blythe Yule night when we were fou,
Ha, ha, the wooin o't!
Maggie coost her head fu high,
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooin o't!

Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd,
Ha, ha, the wooin o't!
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,
Ha, ha, the wooin o't!
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in,
Grat his een baith bleer't and blin',
Read Poem
0
706
Rating:

Psalm For My Faith by Jack Agüeros
Jack Agüeros
Lord, it’s not true
That my faith is cooling.
It’s just that people
Are saying that candle smoke
Has caused cancer in church mice.
And I also worry that candle light
Is too weak to reach your cloud.

Do I need a hydrogen candle?
Read Poem
0
592
Rating:

The Performance by James L. Dickey
James L. Dickey
The last time I saw Donald Armstrong
He was staggering oddly off into the sun,
Going down, off the Philippine Islands.
I let my shovel fall, and put that hand
Above my eyes, and moved some way to one side
That his body might pass through the sun,

And I saw how well he was not
Standing there on his hands,
Read Poem
0
734
Rating:

from Georgics, III by Virgil
Virgil
Thus every Creature, and of every Kind,
The secret Joys of sweet Coition find:
Not only Man’s Imperial Race; but they
That wing the liquid Air, or swim the Sea,
Or haunt the Desert, rush into the flame:
For Love is Lord of all; and is in all the same.
’Tis with this rage, the Mother Lion stung,
Scours o’re the Plain; regardless of her young:
Read Poem
0
693
Rating:

January 22nd, Missolonghi by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year 'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
Read Poem
0
708
Rating:

Love and Death by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
1.

I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
Ready to strike at him—or thee and me,
Were safety hopeless—rather than divide
Aught with one loved save love and liberty.

Read Poem
0
831
Rating:

from Rubaiyat: "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough" by Omar Khayaam
Omar Khayaam
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Read Poem
0
640
Rating:

At a VA Hospital in the Middle of the United States of America: An Act in a Play by Etheridge Knight
Etheridge Knight
Stars from five wars, scars,
Words filled with ice and fear,
Nightflares and fogginess,
and a studied regularity.
Gon’ lay down my sword ’n’ shield—
Down by the river side, down by the river side—
Down by the river side...

Former Sergeant Crothers, among the worst,
Read Poem
0
693
Rating:

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Tsvetaeva
How is your life with that other one?
Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars
and a long coastline—
and the memory of me

is soon a drifting island
(not in the ocean—in the sky!)
Souls—you will be sisters—
sisters, not lovers.
Read Poem
0
610
Rating:

America by Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
Read Poem
0
958
Rating:

"Our sweet companions-sharing your bunk and your bed" by Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Tsvetaeva
Our sweet companions—sharing your bunk and your bed
The versts and the versts and the versts and a hunk of your bread
The wheels' endless round
The rivers, streaming to ground
The road. . .

Oh the heavenly the Gypsy the early dawn light
Remember the breeze in the morning, the steppe silver-bright
Wisps of blue smoke from the rise
Read Poem
0
639
Rating:

A Lady Dressed By Youth by Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish
Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish
Her hair was curls of Pleasure and Delight,
Which on her brow did cast a glistening light.
As lace her bashful eyelids downward hung:
A modest countenance o'er her face was flung:
Blushes, as coral beads, she strung to wear
About her neck, and pendants for each ear:
Her gown was by Proportion cut and made,
With veins embroidered, with complexion laid,
Rich jewels of pure honor she did wear,
By noble actions brightened everywhere:
Thus dressed, to Fame's great court straightways she went,
To dance a brawl with Youth, Love, Mirth, Content.
Read Poem
0
613
Rating:

His Wish to God by Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick
I would to God, that mine old age might have
Before my last, but here a living grave;
Some one poor almshouse, there to lie, or stir,
Ghost-like, as in my meaner sepulchre;
A little piggin, and a pipkin by,
To hold things fitting my necessity,
Which, rightly us'd, both in their time and place,
Might me excite to fore, and after, grace.
Read Poem
0
645
Rating:

from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 41-42 by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
41
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Aeneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.

42
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Read Poem
0
566
Rating:

Sonnet: “Upon a day, came Sorrow in to me” by Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
on the 9th of June 1290 Upon a day, came Sorrow in to me,
Saying, ‘I’ve come to stay with thee a while’;
Read Poem
0
644
Rating:

Hotel François 1er by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
It was a very little while and they had gone in front of it. It was that they had liked it would it bear. It was a very much adjoined a follower. Flower of an adding where a follower.
Have I come in. Will in suggestion.
They may like hours in catching.
It is always a pleasure to remember.
Have a habit.
Any name will very well wear better.
All who live round about there.
Have a manner.
The hotel François Ier.
Just winter so.
It is indubitably often that she is as denied to soften help to when it is in all in midst of which in vehemence to taken given in a bestowal show than left help in double.
Having noticed often that it is newly noticed which makes older often.
The world has become smaller and more beautiful.
The world is grown smaller and more beautiful. That is it.
Yes that is it.
Read Poem
0
712
Rating: