Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
My pretty rose tree
A flower was offered to me,
Such a flower as May never bore;
But I said “I’ve a pretty rose tree,”
And I passed the sweet flower o’er.
Then I went to my pretty rose tree,
To tend her by day and by night;
But my rose turned away with jealousy,
And her thorns were my only delight.
Ah Sunflower
Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey
is done;
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in
snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!
The lily
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat’ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
The garden of love
I laid me down upon a bank,
Where Love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping.
Then I went to the heath and the wild,
To the thistles and thorns of the
waste;
And they told me how they were beguiled,
Driven out, and compelled to the
chaste.
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And “Thou shalt not,”
writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should
be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their
rounds,
And binding with briars my joys
and desires.
The little vagabond
Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;
But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and
warm.
Besides, I can tell where I am used well;
The poor parsons with wind like a blown bladder
swell.
But, if at the Church they would give us some
ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We’d sing and we’d pray all the
livelong day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and
sing,
And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting,
nor birch.
And God, like a father, rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or
the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.
London
I wandered through each chartered street,