THIRD YEAR POETRY

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE
Christopher Marlowe

OME live with me, and be my love;                And we will all the pleasures prove    That hills and valleys, dales and fields,    Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies; A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair-lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy-buds, With coral clasps and amber-studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love. The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD
Sir Walter Raleigh

IF all the world and love were young,            
And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love. 

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb; 
The rest complains of cares to come. 

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
To wayward winter reckoning yields: 
A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. 

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies 
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,— 
In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
Thy coral clasps and amber studs, 
All these in me no means can move 
To come to thee and be thy love. 

But could youth last and love still breed, 
Had joys no date nor age no need, 
Then these delights my mind might move 
To live with thee and be thy love. 
 


RICHARD CORY
Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, 
We people on the pavement looked at him: 
He was a gentleman from sole to crown, 
Clean-favoured and imperially slim. 

And he was always quietly arrayed, 
And he was always human when he talked; 
But still he fluttered pulses when he said, 
"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked. 

And he was rich, yes, richer than a king, 
And admirably schooled in every grace: 
In fine -- we thought that he was everything 
To make us wish that we were in his place. 

So on we worked and waited for the light, 
And went without the meat and cursed the bread, 
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, 
Went home and put a bullet in his head. 




THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.