C’est toi, dénaturée ! Oui, te voilà, c’est toi
Qui fis taire ton cœur pour écouter ta foi,
Qui, pour gagner ton ciel de larve et de chouette,
Foulas ton âme aux pieds, mère sourde-muette,
Et qui, lorsque ton fils se couchait en travers
De ta porte, pleurant et les...

Poet: Victor Hugo

Celui dont nous t’offrons l’image,
Et dont l’art, subtil entre tous,
Nous enseigne à rire de nous,
Celui-là, lecteur, est un sage.

C’est un satirique, un moqueur ;
Mais l’énergie avec laquelle
Il peint le Mal et sa séquelle
Prouve la beauté de son cœur...

That face which no man ever saw
And from his memory banished quite,
With eyes in which are Hamlet ’s awe
And Cardinal Richelieu’s subtle light
Looks from this frame. A master’s hand
Has set the master-player here,
In the fair temple that he planned...

Was this his face, and these the finding eyes
That plucked a new world from the rolling seas?
Who, serving Christ, whom most he sought to please,
Willed his one thought until he saw arise
Man’s other home and earthly paradise—
His early vision, when with...

A Man more kindly, in his careless way,
  Than many who profess a higher creed;
Whose fickle love might change from day to day,
  And yet be faithful to a friend in need;
Whose manners covered, through life’s outs and ins,
Like charity, a multitude of sins...

 “One name is Elizabeth.”
—BEN JONSON.    

I WILL paint her as I see her.
  Ten times have the lilies blown
  Since she looked upon the sun.

And her face is lily-clear,
  Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty
  To the law of its own beauty....

Midnight past! Not a sound of aught
  Through the silent house, but the wind at his prayers.
I sat by the dying fire, and thought
  Of the dear dead woman upstairs.

A night of tears! for the gusty rain
  Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet;...

This figure, 1 that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature to outdo the life:
O, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpass...

Poet: Ben Jonson

Prefixed to “Paradise Lost”
THREE Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third,...

Poet: John Dryden

By B. R. Haydon
WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He, with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes...