The snow came down last night like moths Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn, Covered the town with simple cloths. ... The ration stacks are milky domes; Across the ammunition pile The snow has climbed in sparkling combs. ... Persons and persons in disguise, Walking the new air white and fine, Trade glances quick with shared surprise. ... The night guard coming from his post, Ten first-snows back in thought, walks slow And warms him with a boyish boast: He was the first to see the snow. ...
I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical; I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical, About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news--- With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. ...
There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium, Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium, And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium, And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium. ...
... A star was bound upon her brows, A light was on her hair As sun upon the golden boughs In L rien the fair. Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free; And in the wind she went as light As leaf of linden-tree. Beside the falls of Nimrodel By water clear and cool, Her voice as falling silver fell Into the shining pool. ... Amroth beheld the fading shore Now low beyond the swell, And cursed the faithless ship that bore Him far from Nimrodel. ...
Salix Cordifolia ---Ground Willow) They are 18 inches long or even less crawling under rocks groveling among the lichens bending and curling to escape making themselves small finding new ways to hide Coward trees I am angry to see them like this not proud of what they are bowing to weather instead careful of themselves worried about the sky afraid of exposing ...
... And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: "Love has no ending. ... But all the clocks in the city Began to whirr and chime: "O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time. ... O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbor With all your crooked heart." It was late, late in the evening, The lovers they were gone; The clocks had ceased their chiming, And the deep river ran on. ...
... If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori . ...
From The Silmarillion Farewell sweet earth and northern sky, for ever blest, since here did lie and here with lissom limbs did run beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun, L thien, Tin viel more fair than mortal tongue can tell. Though all to ruin fell the world and were dissolved and backward hurled unmade into the old abyss, yet were its making good, for this--- the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea--- That L thien for a time should be.
From The Return of the King Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
From The Two Towers Gondor! Gondor, between the Mountains and the Sea! West Wind blew there; the light upon the Silver Tree Fell like bright rain in gardens of the Kings of old. O proud walls! White towers! O wing d crown and throne of gold! O Gondor, Gondor! Shall Men behold the Silver Tree, Or West Wind blow again between the Mountains and the Sea?
From The Two Towers In Dwimordene, in L rien Seldom have walked the feet of Men, Few mortal eyes have seen the light That lies there ever, long and bright. Galadriel! Galadriel! Clear is the water of your well; White is the star in your white hand; Unmarred, unstained is leaf and land In Dwimordene, in L rien More fair than thoughts of Mortal Men.
From the short story Slumber, watcher, till the spheres, Six and twenty thousand years Have revolv'd, and I return To the spot where I now burn. Other stars anon shall rise To the axis of the skies; Stars that soothe and stars that bless With a sweet forgetfulness: Only when my round is o'er Shall the past disturb thy door.
From The Fellowship of the Ring Gil-Galad was an Elven-king. Of him the harpers sadly sing: the last whose realm was fair and free between the Mountains and the Sea. His sword was long, his lance was keen, his shining helm afar was seen; the countless stars of heaven's field were mirrored in his silver shield. But long ago he rode away, and where he dwelleth none can say; for into darkness fell his star in Mordor where the shadows are.
From The Fellowship of the Ring Snow-white! ... O Lady clear! ... Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath, Snow-white! ... We sing to thee In a far land beyond the Sea. ... We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees, Thy starlight on the Western Seas. Elvish, from The Fellowship of the Ring A Elbereth Gilthoniel, silivren penna m riel o menel aglar elenath! ... We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees The starlight on the Western Seas. ...
from The Return of the King In western lands beneath the Sun the flowers may rise in Spring, the trees may bud, the waters run, the merry finches sing. Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night and swaying beeches bear the Elven-stars as jewels white amid their branching hair. Though here at journey's end I lie in darkness buried deep, beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep, above all shadows rides the Sun and Stars forever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.
When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
... A Fragment In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. ... Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! ... It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice! ... Beware! ...
... She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold Of Night primeval, and of Chaos old! ... Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain; As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand oppressed, Closed one by one to everlasting rest; Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, Art after Art goes out, and all is night. ... In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. ...
(Fragment) He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wringled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
A Requiem ( April 1862 ) Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the field in clouded days, The forest- field of Shiloh --- Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched one stretched in pain Through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh --- The church so lone, the log-built one , That echoed to many a parting groan And natural prayer Of dying ...