At the Church Gate

1811 –

1863

  Although I enter not,
  Yet round about the spot
      Ofttimes I hover:
  And near the sacred gate,
  With longing eyes I wait,
      Expectant of her.

  The Minster bell tolls out
  Above the city's rout,
      And noise and humming:
  They've hush'd the Minster bell:
  The organ 'gins to swell:
      She's coming, she's coming!

  My lady comes at last,
  Timid, and stepping fast,
      And hastening hither,
  With modest eyes downcast:
  She comes—she's here—she's past—
      May heaven go with her!

  Kneel, undisturb'd, fair Saint!
  Pour out your praise or plaint
      Meekly and duly;
  I will not enter there,
  To sully your pure prayer
      With thoughts unruly.

  But suffer me to pace
  Round the forbidden place,
      Lingering a minute
  Like outcast spirits who wait
  And see through heaven's gate
      Angels within it.

This poem is in the public domain.

At the Zoo

First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black;
Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back;
Then I saw the grey wolf, with mutton in his maw;
Then I saw the wombat waddle in the straw;
Then I saw the elephant a-waving of his trunk;
Then I saw the monkeys—mercy, how unpleasantly they smelt!

William Makepeace Thackeray

1863

The Garret

     With pensive eyes the little room I view,
       Where, in my youth, I weathered it so long;
     With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two,
       And a light heart still breaking into song:
     Making a mock of life, and all its cares,
       Rich in the glory of my rising sun,
     Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs,
       In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

     Yes; 'tis a garret—let him know't who will—
       There was my bed—full hard it was and small.
     My table there—and I decipher still
       Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
     Ye joys,

William Makepeace Thackeray

2018

Jolly Jack

     When fierce political debate
       Throughout the isle was storming,
     And Rads attacked the throne and state,
       And Tories the reforming,
     To calm the furious rage of each,
       And right the land demented,
     Heaven sent us Jolly Jack, to teach
      The way to be contented.

     Jack's bed was straw, 'twas warm and soft,
       His chair, a three-legged stool;
     His broken jug was emptied oft,
       Yet, somehow, always full.
     His mistress' portrait decked the wall,
       His mirror had a crack;
     Yet, gay and glad, though this was all
       His we

William Makepeace Thackeray

2018

Poems

At the Church Gate

More by this poet

At the Zoo

The Garret

Jolly Jack

Poems

Page submenu block

At the Church Gate

More by this poet

At the Zoo

The Garret

Jolly Jack

Newsletter Sign Up