A Poison Tree - William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
A Little Girl Lost - William Blake
Children of the future Age,
Reading this indignant page;
Know that in a former time.
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.
In the Age of Gold,
Free from winters cold:
Youth and maiden bright.
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.
Once a youthful pair
Fill’d with softest care;
Met in garden bright.
Where the holy light,
Had just removed the curtains of the night. …continue reading
A Little Boy Lost - William Blake
“Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
“And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.”
A Dream - William Blake
Once a dream did weave a shade
O’er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
A Divine Image - William Blake
Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secresy the human dress.
The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.
A Cradle Song - William Blake
Sweet dreams form a shade,
O’er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams
Sweet sleep with soft down.
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o’er my happy child.
Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1343. The exact date and place of birth is not known. He was the son of a successful wine merchant and deputy to the king’s butler. His forefathers were in vinery business from decades. He belonged to a stable family in all.
Like his date of birth, not much is known about his early age and education. But from his name, Chaucer, we can assume that he knew French, as it’s a French name, meaning thereby, a shoemaker. His works also show that he could read French, Latin and Italian. He became a court man because of his father’s influence in the court. Chaucer worked as a diplomat, a courtier and a civil servant altogether. He led a busy court life as he also worked for the king, as a collector and inventor of scrap material.
Chaucer became a prisoner of war in 13 60, during the siege of Rheims, while travelling with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence. As ransom, Edward paid of £16 and got him released.
William Blake is commonly known as a poet. A few people know him as a painter. Blake, a well-known poet today, was not as famous and well known in his life. He was an imaginative and expressive person altogether, as it is evident from his expression of thoughts through poetry and painting. He was a true artist in the real sense of the word. In his time he was regarded as insane. But today, due to his extravagant work, William has been called “far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced” by a modern critic.
Biography:
William was born on 28th of November, 1757 in London, Great Britain. He was the third child of Catherine nee Wright and James Blake, a hosier and haberdasher, belonging to a middle class family. They at that time were residing at Broad Street in Golden Square, Soho. He was thought to be different from rest of the children from his early childhood due to his different approach of looking towards things.
Who doesn’t know Shakespeare, may be only those who don’t know how to be charmed by literature. William Shakespeare’s [1564-1616] life is related with superlatives and his works are master-piece in English literature. He wrote about 38 plays with each play resembling like a bright star in the skies of literature and language. He was a genius whose creativity and class, whose magnificent dramatic style, whose inspirational language and expression could never be thought to be surpassed even till today starting from the days he was alive and prior period.
William Shakespeare is the most quoted of all literary figures and without doubt since his death there have been thousands of biographies written on him in the whole world in almost every language yet he can be explored further to the heights of infinity. He is independent of age, time or society and is widely popular today as he was in his own era, the Elizabethan age. Such criteria to know him is a necessity otherwise so much written on him can make a reader bore to even think about the idea of studying one more biography. A reader may yell “eh, one more? “To be honest, he is absolutely right and spot on.
John Donne (Pronounced as “Dun”) was an English poet of scholarly imagination and theological authenticity .He was a contemporary of Marlow and Shakespeare who joint him in the spirit and the supremacy of the revival era. It is hard to find another poet of Donne’s caliber so far versatility and scholarly inventiveness in English poetry is concerned.
Early life, education and marriage
Donne was born in Bradstreet, London in 1572 to a rich Catholic family and he was the eldest son of a wealthy iron merchant .John Heywood, a well-known dramatist, was his maternal uncle. Donne received his early education privately and then matriculated from oxford in 1584.It is said that he went to Cambridge for higher education but couldn’t receive a degree on account of his resistance to the swearword of thirty-nine articles. There are little information about his life from 1584-1592.He took admission as a law student to Lincoln’s Inn in May 1592.Like many other members of the Inns of Court he used to enjoy women’s company and cards: “Not dissolute but very neat, a great visitor of ladies, a great frequenter of plays, and a great writer of conceited verses.”
