Freedom

    Here, through the ages old, the desert slept
        In solitudes unbroken, save when passed
    The bison herds, and savage hunters swept
        In thund'ring chaos down the valleys vast;
    But, lo! Across the barren margins stepped
        Advancement with her legions, and one blast
        From her imperial trumpet filled the last
    Lone covert where affrighted wildness crept.

    Full armed, full armored, at her wondrous birth,
        Her shining temples wreathed with gorgeous dower,
    She sits among the empires of the earth;
        Her proud achievements o'er the nations tower,
    Won by her people with their royal worth,
        With lofty culture, wisdom, wealth and power.

What can I do in poetry,
Now the good spirit's gone from me?
Why, nothing now but lonely sit
And over-read what I have writ.

There's a beautiful lake where the sun lies low,
And the skies are warm with their summer glow;
And a beautiful picture there I see
Where the winds are warm and the waves are free,
    And the waves lie still in the sun
As the flowers at night, when the day is done.

You may sing of your silvery seas by night
When the moon looks down with a dreamy light;
And the stars shine out in the skies above
Like the warm sweet gaze of the eyes of love;
    But the glow on the lake to-day
Is a glory that never will fade away.

The beautiful lake is a sea of gold
And the beauty it wears will never grow old;
The trees bend down in the sun's warm glow
Till their branches meet in the waves below,
    And the clouds in the far-off skies
Are mirrored anew where t...

Pommi ove 'l sol occide i fiori e l' erba.

HIS INVINCIBLE CONSTANCY.


    Place me where herb and flower the sun has dried,
Or where numb winter's grasp holds sterner sway:
Place me where Phoebus sheds a temperate ray,
Where first he glows, where rests at eventide.
Place me in lowly state, in power and pride,
Where lour the skies, or where bland zephyrs play
Place me where blind night rules, or lengthened day,
In age mature, or in youth's boiling tide:
Place me in heaven, or in the abyss profound,
On lofty height, or in low vale obscure,
A spirit freed, or to the body bound;
Bank'd with the great, or all unknown to fame,
I still the same will be! the same endure!
And my trilustral sighs still breathe the same!

DACRE.

        I hear the beat of the unresting tide
    On either shore as swiftly on I glide
    With eager haste the narrow channel o'er,
    Which links the floods behind with those before.
    I hear behind me as I onward glide,
    Faint, farewell voices blending with the tide,
    While from beyond, now near, now far away,
    Come stronger voices chiding each delay;
    And drowning, oft, with wild, discordant burst,
    The melancholy minor of the first

"Farewell! farewell! - ye leave us far behind you!" -
    Tis thus the bright-winged Hours sigh from the Past -
"Ye leave us, and the coming ones will find you
    Still vainly dreaming they will ever last, -
Still trifling with the gifts all fresh and glowing,
    Each in its turn will scatter in your way, ...

O why should nature nigardly restraine,
The Sotherne Nations relish not our tongue,
Else should my lines glide on the waues of Rhene,
And crowne the Pirens with my liuing song;
But bounded thus to Scotland get you forth:
Thence take you wing vnto the Orcades,
There let my verse get glory in the North,
Making my sighs to thawe the frozen seas,
And let the Bards within the Irish Ile,
To whom my Muse with fiery wings shall passe,
Call backe the stifneckd rebels from exile,
And molifie the slaughtering Galliglasse:
    And when my flowing numbers they rehearse,
    Let Wolues and Bears be charmed with my verse.

When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,
And life can shew no joy for me;
And I behold a yawning tomb,
Where bowers and palaces should be;

In vain you talk of morbid dreams;
In vain you gaily smiling say,
That what to me so dreary seems,
The healthy mind deems bright and gay.

I too have smiled, and thought like you,
But madly smiled, and falsely deemed:
Truth led me to the present view,
I'm waking now, 'twas then I dreamed.

I lately saw a sunset sky,
And stood enraptured to behold
Its varied hues of glorious dye:
First, fleecy clouds of shining gold;

These blushing took a rosy hue;
Beneath them shone a flood of green;
Nor less divine, the glorious blue
That smiled above them and between.

I cannot name each lovely...

The curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye, -
He strove to speak, - his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race
Flit past the scenes and others take their place;
Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,
His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,
Had died in earnest and were heard no more;
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread
They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,
Had faded slowly through suc...

Mæcenas, thou of royalty's descent,
Both my protector and dear ornament,
Among humanity's conditions are
Those who take pleasure in the flying car,
Whirling Olympian dust, as on they roll,
And shunning with the glowing wheel the goal;
While the ennobling palm, the prize of worth,
Exalts them to the gods, the lords of earth.

Here one is happy if the fickle crowd
His name the threefold honor has allowed;
And there another, if into his stores
Comes what is swept from Libyan threshing-floors.
He who delights to till his father's lands,
And grasps the delving-hoe with willing hands,
Can never to Attalic offers hark,
Or cut the Myrtoan Sea with Cyprian bark.
The merchant, timorous of Afric's breeze,
When fiercely struggling with Icarian seas
Praises ...

Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades;
Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.

Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil
Hide all the peopled hills you see,
The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
These many summers you and me.

    On every bush are roses blooming, everywhere the nightingale
    To his love again is warbling plaintively his oft-told tale.
    Now within our balmy garden dances the tall cypress tree,
    And the poplar never ceases clapping his slim hands in glee.
    From the height of every bough-tip you can hear the turtle sing,
    With loud voice proclaiming gaily the glad coming of the spring.
    On the head of the narcissus gleams as bright his diadem,
    As the crown of China's Emperor decked with many a costly gem.
    Here the west wind, there the north wind, in true token of their love,
    At the feet of yonder rose lay treasure poured down from above.
    All the earth with musk is scented, and musk-laden is the air.
    Everything proclaims that daily now draws nearer spring t...

No protesting, dearest!
Hardly kisses even!
Don’t we both know how it ends?
How the greenest leaf turns serest,
Bluest outbreak, blankest heaven,
Lovers, friends?

You would build a mansion,
I would weave a bower
Want the heart for enterprise.
Walls admit of no expansion:
Trellis-work may haply flower
Twice the size.

What makes glad Life’s Winter?
New buds, old blooms after.
Sad the sighing “How suspect
Reams would ere mid-Autumn splinter,
Rooftree scarce support a rafter,
Walls lie wrecked?”

You are young, my princess!
I am hardly older:
Yet, I steal a glance behind!
Dare I tell you what convinces
Timid me that you, if bolder,
Bold, are blind?

Where we plan our dwelling
Glooms a graveyard sur...

Let us be drunk, and for a while forget,
Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,
Live without reason and despite of rhyme,
As in a dream preposterous and sublime,
Where place and hour and means for once are met.

Where is the use of effort?    Love and debt
And disappointment have us in a net.
Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .
Let us be drunk.

In vain our little hour we strut and fret,
And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:
We cannot please the tragicaster Time.
To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,
Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,
Let us be drunk!



***



When you are old, and I am passed away -
Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray -
I think, whate'er the end, ...

Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bay
I with the kestrels shared the cleanly day,
The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf;
Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surf
From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish Nore
Lipping the bulwarks of the English shore,
While many a lovely ship below sailed by
On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely;
And after each, oh, after each, my heart
Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart,
I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide
That might befall their beauty and their pride;

Shared first with them the blessèd void repose
Of oily days at sea, when only rose
The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheen
Of satin water indolently green,
When for'ard the crew, caps tilted over eyes,
Lay heaped on deck; slept; mum...

Under the rose-tree's dancing shade
There stands a little ivory girl,
Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl
With pale green nails of polished jade.

The red leaves fall upon the mould,
The white leaves flutter, one by one,
Down to a blue bowl where the sun,
Like a great dragon, writhes in gold.

The white leaves float upon the air,
The red leaves flutter idly down,
Some fall upon her yellow gown,
And some upon her raven hair.

She takes an amber lute and sings,
And as she sings a silver crane
Begins his scarlet neck to strain,
And flap his burnished metal wings.

She takes a lute of amber bright,
And from the thicket where he lies
Her lover, with his almond eyes,
Watches her movements in delight.

And now she gives a...

    This wearisome and this distressing sleep
    That we call life, O how dost thou support,
    My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thou
    Thy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,
    Agreeable or sad, dost thou invest
    The idleness thy ancestors bequeathed
    To thee, a dull and heavy heritage?
    All life, indeed, in every walk of life,
    Is idleness, if we may give that name
    To every work achieved, or effort made,
    That has no worthy aim in view, or fails
    That aim to reach. And if you idle call
    The busy crew, that daily we behold,
    From tranquil morn unto the dewy eve,
    Behind the plough, or tending plants and flocks,
    Because they live simply to keep alive,
    And life is worthless for itself alone,
    Th...

You say 'tis plain that poets feign,
    And from the truth depart;
They write with ease what fibs they please,
    With artifice, not art;
Dearer to you the simply true--
    The fact without the fancy--
Than this false play of colours gay,
    So very vague and chancy.
No doubt 'tis well the truth to tell
    In scientific coteries;
But I'll be bold to say she's cold,
    Excepting to her votaries.
The false disguise of tawdry lies
    May hide sweet Nature's face;
But in her form the blood runs warm,
    As in the human race;
And in the rose the dew-drop glows,
    And, o'er the seas serene,
The sunshine white still breaks in light
    Of yellow, blue, and green.
In thousand rays the fancy plays;
    The feelings rise and bubble;

I.

The hills are full of prophecies
And ancient voices of the dead;
Of hidden shapes that no man sees,
Pale, visionary presences,
That speak the things no tongue hath said,
No mind hath thought, no eye hath read.
The streams are full of oracles,
And momentary whisperings;
An immaterial beauty swells
Its breezy silver o'er the shells
With wordless speech that sings and sings
The message of diviner things.
No indeterminable thought is theirs,
The stars', the sunsets' and the flowers';
Whose inexpressible speech declares
Th' immortal Beautiful, who shares
This mortal riddle which is ours,
Beyond the forward-flying hours.

II.

It holds and beckons in the streams;
It lures and touches us in all
The flowers of the golde...