Passages from English verse, from Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf to Shakespeare’s sonnets, Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, Kipling’s If and many more.
On his way to war-torn France, William Wordsworth passed through London
and was overwhelmed by the quiet of the early morning.
14
The Time of Age
ByEdmund Waller
Seventeenth-century poet and statesman Edmund Waller
reflects on the benefits of advancing years.
15
Vice and Virtue
ByAlexander Pope
Vice is a fact of life, wrote Pope, and God can even bring good out of it;
but vice is never a virtue and in tackling vice together we make our society stronger.
16
‘Westward, Look, the Land Is Bright!’
ByArthur Hugh Clough
Though Arthur Clough had discovered that to be your own man was
a long and toilsome path, it was not a path without hope.
17
The Quality of Mercy
ByWilliam Shakespeare
Shylock is savouring revenge on Antonio for years of disgusting
mistreatment, but the judge warns him to temper his demands.
18
Nature’s Harmony
ByWilliam Wordsworth
William Wordsworth looks back on a life of disappointments and regrets,
and finds in them reasons to be thankful.
