The Jewel Stairs Grievance
 Ezra Pound (after Li Po)

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.

 [Pound's] Note.---Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore
there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady,
not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on
account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely
whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially
prized because she utters no direct reproach.


I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
     William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden 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 stretched 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 danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in 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.


Not Waving But Drowning
     Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much farther out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.


Bright Star
   John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art---
	Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
	Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task 
	Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
	Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---
No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
	Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
	Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever---or else swoon to death.