Freedom

A light tap on the window. She looked out, gestured to say she knew it was time. Hastily, she tossed her things into a night bag--- her white Sunday frock, the little savings she had and her beautiful lock of hair. She shut the door behind her. The bright yellow moon shone overhead. It was time.

The Charge of The Light Brigade (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Ariel (by Sylvia Plath)

Stasis in darkness.

Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!--The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks----

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else

Hauls me through air----
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.

White
Godiva, I unpeel----
Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry

Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,

The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.

Let Me Not To The Marriage of True Minds (William Shakespeare)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Holy Sonnet XIV (John Donne)

XIV.


Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

To His Mistress Going To Bed (John Donne)

COME, madam, come, all rest my powers defy ;


Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,

Is tired with standing, though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,

That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.

Off with your wiry coronet, and show

The hairy diadems which on you do grow.

Off with your hose and shoes ; then softly tread

In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven's angels used to be

Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee

A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise ; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these angels from an evil sprite ;

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O, my America, my Newfoundland,

My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,

My mine of precious stones, my empery ;

How am I blest in thus discovering thee !

To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;

Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.

Full nakedness ! All joys are due to thee ;

As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views ;

That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,

His earthly soul might court that, not them.

Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made

For laymen, are all women thus array'd.

Themselves are only mystic books, which we

—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—

Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,

As liberally as to thy midwife show

Thyself ; cast all, yea, this white linen hence ;

There is no penance due to innocence :

To teach thee, I am naked first ; why then,

What needst thou have more covering than a man?

The Flea by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.