Because I could not stop for Death (The Chariot) (1890) By Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess in the Ring We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain We passed the Setting Sun Or rather He passed Us The Dews drew quivering and chill For only Gossamer, my Gown My Tippet only Tulle We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground The Roof was scarcely visible The Cornice in the Ground 1 Since then 'tis Centuries and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity
If By Rudyard Kipling 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; If you can dream---and not make dreams your master; If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same:. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 1 2 30
Remember (1849) By Christina Rossetti Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.
To Helen By Edgar Allan Poe Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land! 1
I Speak Not, I Trace Not, I Breathe Not Thy Name (May, 1814) By Lord Byron I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name; There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame; But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace, Were those hours - can their joy or their bitterness cease? We repent, we abjure, we will break from our chain, - We will part, we will fly to - unite it again! Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! Forgive me, adored one! - forsake if thou wilt; But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased, And man shall not break it - whatever thou may'st. And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, This soul in its bitterest blackness shall be; And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet, With thee at my side, than with worlds at our feet. One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love, Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove. And the heartless may wonder at all I resign - Thy lips shall reply, not to them, but to mine. 1