First Year Poetry 2013

Shoak Al-Husami

A Collection of Poems
When You Are Old

Sonnet 31

W.Y. Yeats

Sir Philip Sidney

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once; and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved th sowrrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies,

How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long with love-aquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace,
To me that feel the like, ty state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are bueaties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness?

Sonnet 70, from Amoretti

Sonnet 75

Edmund Spenser
Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king,
In whose cote armour richly are displayed
All sorts of lovers the wich on earth do spring
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd:
Go to my love, where she is careless layd,
Yet in here winter bowre not well awake:
Tell her the joyous time will not be staid
Unless she she doe him by the forelock take.
Bid her therefore her self soon ready make,
To wayt on love among his lovely crew:
Where every one that misseth then her make,
Shall be by him amearst with penance dew.
Make haste therefore sweet love, whilest it is
prime,
For non can call againe the pass time.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

But came the waves and washed it away
Agayn I wrote it wih a second hand,
But came the tyde, and made my payns his pray.
"Vayn man," sayd she, "that dost in vaine assay.
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wyped out lykewise."
"Not so," quod I, "let baser things devise,
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

First Year Poetry 2013

Love What Art Thou (Song)

Lady Mary Wroth

Love what art thou: A vain thought
In our minds by fantsy wroought,
Idle smiles did thee beget,
While fond wishes made the net
Which so many fools have caught.
Love what art thou? Light and fair,
Fresh as morning, clear as th'air.
But too soon thy evening change
Makes thy worth with coldness range;
Still thy joy is mixt with care.
Love what art thou? A sweet flower
Once full blown, dead in an hour.
Dunst in wind as staid remains
As thy pleasure or our gains,
If thy humor change, to lour.
Love what art thou? Childlish, vain,
Firm as bubbles made by rain,
Wantonness thy greatest pride.
These foul faults thy virtues hide
But babes can no staidness gain.
Love what art thou? Causeless cursed,
Yet alas these not the worst:
Much more of thee may be said.
But thy llaw I once obeyed,
Therefore say no more at first.

Shoak Al-Husami

Song: To Celia

Ben Jonson
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a iss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drin divine:
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope that there,
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
Ans sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

First Year Poetry 2013

Shoak Al-Husami

Sonnet 18

Sonnet 71

William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temporate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor less possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Go, Lovely Rose

A Red, Red Rose

Edmund Waller

Robert Burns

Go, lovely Rose

Tell her that she wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resmble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell he that's young,
And shuns to her graces spied,
That hast thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
3

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand tthat writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Oh! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps co,pounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June;
O my love's like the moelodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
O I will love thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Thou' it were ten thousand mile!

First Year Poetry 2013

Shoak Al-Husami

Death, be not Proud, from his Holy Sonnets

Death, be not proud, though some have calld thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thin'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men wit thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost wit poisom, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppoy and charms can mae us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep pasr, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Death, be not proud, though some have calld thee.

John Donne
The Good Morrow
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not wearned till then,
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.
And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sighyts controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the face rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp North, without declining West?
Whatever dies was not mixed equallly;
If out two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacen, none can die.

First Year Poetry 2013

Shoak Al-Husami

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

I Wanderd Lonely As A Cloud

William Wordsworth
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She semm'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no forces;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, ans stones, an trees.

The Pulley

George Herbert
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blesings standing by
Let us (said he) pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
The beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honour,
pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.
"For if I should, "said He,
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast."

I wanderd lonely as a cloud

That float on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of goldin daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They streched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them dancd; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazedand gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had bought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant and pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

First Year Poetry 2013

Shoak Al-Husami

The Eagle

There is a garden in her face

Tenysson

Thomas Campion

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls:
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies grow,
A heav'nly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy,
Till "Cherry ripe!" themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow.
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till "Cherry ripe!" themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till "Cherry ripe!" themselves do cry.

Methought I saw my late espoused Saint

Johm Milton
Methought I saw my late espoused Saint.
Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave,
Who Jove's great son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint.
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined.
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O, as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

First Year Poetry 2013

Shoak Al-Husami

England's Dead

Felecia Dorothea Herman

Son of the Ocean Isle!
Where sleep your mighty dead?
Show me what high and stately pile
Is reared oer Glorys bed.
Go, stranger! track the deep
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not Englands dead.
On Egypts burning plains
By the pyramid oerswayed,
With fearful power the noonday reigns
And the palm-trees yield no shade ;
But let the angry sun
From heaven look fiercely red
Unfelt by those whose task is done!
There slumber Englands dead.

The hurricane hath might

Along the Indian shore,
And far by Ganges banks at night
Is heard the tigers roar;

But let the sound roll on!

It hath no tone of dread
For those that from their toils are gone,
There slumber Englands dead.

Loud rush the torrent-floods

The Western wilds among,
And free, in green Columbias woods,
The hunters bow is strung;

But let the floods rush on!

Let the arrows flight be sped!
Why should they reck whose task is done?
There slumber Englands dead
The mountain-storms rise high
In the snowy Pyrenees,
And toss the pine-boughs through the sky
Like rose-leaves on the breeze;
7

But let the storm rage on!

Let the fresh wreaths be shed!
For the Roncesvalles field is won,
There slumber Englands dead.
On the frozen deeps repose
'Tis a dark and dreadful hour,
When round the ship the ice-fields close,
And the northern night-clouds lour;
But let the ice drift on!
Let the cold-blue desert spread!
Their course with mast and flag is done,
Even there sleep Englands dead.
The warlike of the isles,
The men of field and wave!
Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shores their grave?
Go, stranger! track the deep
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not Englands dead.