Victorian

My letters! all dead paper,... mute and white! —
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,... he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand... a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! — this,... the paper's light...
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine — and so its ink has paled

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’ Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more.”

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’ t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’ t give way to hating,
And yet don’ t look too good, nor talk too wise:

O zummer clote! when the brook’ s a-glidèn
So slow an’ smooth down his zedgy bed,
Upon thy broad leaves so seäfe a-ridèn
The water’ s top wi’ thy yollow head,
By alder sheädes, O,
An’ bulrush beds, O,
Thou then dost float, goolden zummer clote!

The length o’ days ageän do shrink
An’ flowers be thin in meäd, among
The eegrass a-sheenèn bright, along
Brook upon brook, an’ brink by brink.

Noo starlèns do rise in vlock on wing —
Noo goocoo in nest-green leaves do sound —
Noo swallows be now a-wheelèn round —
Dip after dip, an’ swing by swing.

Where the western zun, unclouded,
Up above the grey hill-tops,
Did sheen drough ashes, lofty sh’ ouded,
On the turf beside the copse,
In zummer weather,
We together,
Sorrow-slightèn, work-vorgettèn,
Gambol’ d wi’ the zun a-zettèn.