Poets know how to say thank you!


Sonnet to R. Graham, Esq., on Receiving a Favour
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Addressed to ROBERT GRAHAM, Esq. of Fintry.
 

I CALL no Goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns:
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,	
And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gifts still dearer, as the giver you.
Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!
And all ye many sparkling stars of night!
If aught that giver from my mind efface,	
If I that giver’s bounty e’er disgrace,
Then roll to me along your wand’rig spheres,
Only to number out a villain’s years!	
I lay my hand upon my swelling breast,
And grateful would, but cannot speak the rest.

  
THE MOON
by: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
  
ND, like a dying lady lean and pale, 
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil, 
Out of her chamber, led by the insane 
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, 
The moon arose up in the murky east 
A white and shapeless mass. 
  
Art thou pale for weariness 
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, 
Wandering companionless 
Among the stars that have a different birth, 
And ever changing, like a joyless eye 
That finds no object worth its constancy?