Robert Southey (1774 – 1843)
English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called Lake Poets, and Poet Laureate.
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Will ye believe
The wonders of the ocean? how its shoals
Sprang from the wave, like flashing light; .. took wing,
And, twinkling with a silver glitterance,
Flew through the air and sunshine? yet were they
To sight less wondrous than the tribe who swam,
Following like fowlers, with uplifted eye,
Their falling quarry: .. language cannot paint
Their splendid tints! though in blue ocean seen,
Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,
In all its rich variety of shades,
Suffus'd with glowing gold.
Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But ’tis the happy that have called thee so.
How does the water
Come down at Lodore?
The arts babblative and scribblative.
How, then, was the Devil dressed?
Oh! he was in his Sunday's best;
His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where his tail came through.
It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
"Great news! bloody news!" cried a newsman;
The Devil said, "Stop, let me see!"
"Great news? bloody news?" thought the Devil;
"The bloodier the better for me."
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Write poetry for its own sake;not in the spirit of emulation,and not with a view to celebrity;the less you aim at that the more likely you will be to deserve and finally obtain it.Southey's advice to Charlotte Bronte.
At this good news, so great
The Devil's pleasure grew,
That, with a joyful swish, he rent
The hole where his tail came through.
And last of all an Admiral came,
A terrible man with a terrible name,—
A name which you all know by sight very well,
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.
Cold is thy heart and as frozen as Charity!
Somebody has been sitting in my chair!
And then she went to the porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that; and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.
The laws are with us, and God on our side.