May they stumble, stage by stage On an endless Pilgrimage Dawn and dusk, mile after mile At each and every step a stile At each and every step withal
Down, wanton, down! Have you no s… That at the whisper of Love’s nam… Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze? Poor Bombard—captain, sworn to re…
Caria and Philistia considered Only pre—marital adventures wise; The bourgeois French argue contra… Socrate and Plato burked the issu… (Namely, how man—and—woman love sh…
LOOK at my knees, That island rising from the steamy… The candle’s a tall lightship; my… Are boats and barges anchored to t… With mighty cliffs all round;…
‘Give us Rain, Rain,’ said the be… ‘Not so much Sun, Not so much Sun.’ But the Sun smiles bravely and en… And no rain falls and no waters ru…
Yet once an earlier David took Smooth pebbles from the brook: Out between the lines he went To that one—sided tournament, A shepherd boy who stood out fine
Feet and faces tingle In that frore land: Legs wobble and go wingle, You scarce can stand. The skies are jewelled all around,
When outside the icy rain Comes leaping helter—skelter, Shall I tie my restive brain Snugly under shelter? Shall I make a gentle song
“Come, surly fellow, come! A song… “What, madmen? Sing to you? Choose from the clouded tales of w… And terror I bring to you. Of a night so torn with cries,
Penthesileia, dead of profuse wond… Was despoiled of her arms by Prin… Who, for love of that fierce white… Necrophily on her committed In the public view.
Down in the mud I lay, Tired out by my long day Of five damned days and nights, Five sleepless days and nights,… Dream—snatched, and set me where
He is quick, thinking in clear ima… I am slow, thinking in broken imag… He becomes dull, trusting to his c… I become sharp, mistrusting my bro… Trusting his images, he assumes th…
Now I begin to know at last, These nights when I sit down to r… The form and measure of that vast God we call Poetry, he who stoops And leaps me through his paper hoo…
Under this loop of honeysuckle, A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn sp… I nibble it leaf by leaf away. Down beneath grow dandelions,
What could be dafter Than John Skelton’s laughter? What sound more tenderly Than his pretty poetry? So where to rank old Skelton?