The Butcher Shop

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) KUBLA KHAN In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man   Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It...

 Robert Herrick (1591-1674) TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,   Old Time is still a flying: And this same flower that smiles to day,   To morrow will be dying. The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,   The higher he's a getting; The sooner will his Race be run,   And neerer he's to Setting. That Age is best, which is the first,   When Youth and Blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst   Times, still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time;   And while ye may, goe marry: For having lost but once your prime,   You may for ever tarry.

 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.'