Identity

Three sorts there are, as Malherbe[2] says,
Which one can never overpraise -
The gods, the ladies, and the king;
And I, for one, endorse the thing.
The heart, praise tickles and entices;
Of fair one's smile, it oft the price is.
See how the gods sometimes repay it.
Simonides - the ancients say it -
Once undertook, in poem lyric,
To write a wrestler's panegyric;
Which, ere he had proceeded far in,
He found his subject somewhat barren.
No ancestors of great renown;
His sire of some unnoted town;
Himself as little known to fame,
The wrestler's praise was rather tame.
The poet, having made the most of
Whate'er his hero had to boast of,
Digress'd, by choice that was not all luck's,
To Castor and his brother Pollux;
Whose bright career...

Majestic King of storms! around
    Thy wan and hoary brow
A spotless diadem is bound
    Of everlasting snow:
Time, which dissolves all earthly things,
O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!

The sun, with his refulgent beams,
    Thaws not thy icy zone;
Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,
    That sleep around thy throne,
Whose crystal barriers may defy
The genial warmth of summer's sky.

What human foot shall dare intrude
    Beyond the howling waste,
Or view the untrodden solitude,
    Where thy dark home is placed;
In those far realms of death where light
Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?

The earth has felt thine iron tread,
    The streams have ceased to flow,
The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,
    And...

All my stars forsake me,
And the dawn-winds shake me.
Where shall I betake me?

Whither shall I run
Till the set of sun,
Till the day be done?

To the mountain-mine,
To the boughs o' the pine,
To the blind man's eyne,

To a brow that is
Bowed upon the knees,
Sick with memories.

Before my sight appear'd, with open wings,
The beauteous image, in fruition sweet
Gladdening the thronged spirits. Each did seem
A little ruby, whereon so intense
The sun-beam glow'd that to mine eyes it came
In clear refraction. And that, which next
Befalls me to portray, voice hath not utter'd,
Nor hath ink written, nor in fantasy
Was e'er conceiv'd. For I beheld and heard
The beak discourse; and, what intention form'd
Of many, singly as of one express,
Beginning: "For that I was just and piteous,
l am exalted to this height of glory,
The which no wish exceeds: and there on earth
Have I my memory left, e'en by the bad
Commended, while they leave its course untrod."

Thus is one heat from many embers felt,
As in that image many were the loves,
...

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

Midways of a wallèd garden,
    In the happy poplar land,
    Did an ancient castle stand,
With an old knight for a warden.

Many scarlet bricks there were
    In its walls, and old grey stone;
    Over which red apples shone
At the right time of the year.

On the bricks the green moss grew.
    Yellow lichen on the stone,
    Over which red apples shone;
Little war that castle knew.

Deep green water fill'd the moat,
    Each side had a red-brick lip,
    Green and mossy with the drip
Of dew and rain; there was a boat

Of carven wood, with hangings green
    About the stern; it was great bliss
    For lovers to sit there and kiss
In the hot summer noons, not seen.

Across the moat the fresh west wind
    In ve...

    Thou art the Way.
Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal,
    I cannot say
If Thou hadst ever met my soul.

    I cannot see -
I, child of process - if there lies
    An end for me,
Full of repose, full of replies.

    I'll not reproach
The way that goes, my feet that stir.
    Access, approach,
Art Thou, time, way, and wayfarer.

In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,
Wild night around me, wild water under me,
Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.

Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,
Why do I look for a place to rest?
I must fight always and die fighting
With fear an unhealing wound in my breast.

Più volte già dal bel sembiante umano.

LOVE UNMANS HIS RESOLUTION.


    Oft as her angel face compassion wore,
With tears whose eloquence scarce fails to move,
With bland and courteous speech, I boldly strove
To soothe my foe, and in meek guise implore:
But soon her eyes inspire vain hopes no more;
For all my fortune, all my fate in love,
My life, my death, the good, the ills I prove,
To her are trusted by one sovereign power.
Hence 'tis, whene'er my lips would silence break,
Scarce can I hear the accents which I vent,
By passion render'd spiritless and weak.
Ah! now I find that fondness to excess
Fetters the tongue, and overpowers intent:
Faint is the flame that language can express!

NOTT.


    Oft have I meant my...

There's no dew left on the daisies and clover,
There's no rain left in heaven:
I've said my "seven times" over and over,
Seven times one are seven.

I am old, so old, I can write a letter;
My birthday lessons are done;
The lambs play always, they know no better;
They are only one times one.

O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing
And shining so round and low;
You were bright! ah bright! but your light is failing -
You are nothing now but a bow.

You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven
That God has hidden your face?
I hope if you have you will soon be forgiven,
And shine again in your place.

O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow,
You've powdered your legs with gold!
O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow,
Give ...

I walked through a Forest, beneath the hot noon,
On Etheline calling and calling!
One said: “She will hear you and come to you soon,
When the coolness, my brother, is falling.”
But I whispered: “O Darling, I falter with pain!”
And the thirsty leaves rustled, and hissed for the rain,
Where a wayfarer halted and slept on the plain;
And dreamt of a garden of Roses!
Of a cool sweet place,
And a nestling face
In a dance and a dazzle of Roses.

In the drouth of a Desert, outwearied, I wept,
O Etheline, darkened with dolours!
But, folded in sunset, how long have you slept
By the Roses all reeling with colours?
A tree from its tresses a blossom did shake,
It fell on her face, and I feared she would wake,
So I brushed it away for her sweet sake;
In that ...

As indignation mastered grief, my tongue
Spake bitter words; words that did ill agree
With those rich stores of Nature's imagery,
And divine Art, that fast to memory clung
Thy gifts, magnificent Region, ever young
In the sun's eye, and in his sister's sight
How beautiful! how worthy to be sung
In strains of rapture, or subdued delight!
I feign not; witness that unwelcome shock
That followed the first sound of German speech,
Caught the far-winding barrier Alps among.
In that announcement, greeting seemed to mock
Parting; the casual word had power to reach
My heart, and filled that heart with conflict strong.

Oh, happy shades—to me unblest!
Friendly to peace, but not to me!
How ill the scene that offers rest,
And heart that cannot rest, agree!


This glassy stream, that spreading pine,
Those alders, quivering to the breeze,
Might soothe a soul less hurt than mine,
And please, if any thing could please.


But fix’d unalterable Care
Foregoes not what she feels within,
Shows the same sadness everywhere,
And slights the season and the scene.


For all that pleased in wood or lawn,
While Peace possess’d these silent bowers,
Her animating smile withdrawn,
Has lost its beauties and its powers.


The saint or moralist should tread
This moss-grown alley musing, slow;
They seek like me the secret shade,
But not like me t...

The spirit of the shower,
    Of the sunshine and the breeze,
Of the dewy twilight hour,
Of the bud and opening flower,
    My soul delighted sees.
Stern winter's robe of gray,
    Beneath thy balmy sigh,
Like mist-wreaths melt away,
When the rosy laughing day
    Lifts up his golden eye.--

Spirit of ethereal birth,
    Thy azure banner floats,
In lucid folds, o'er air and earth,
And budding woods pour forth their mirth
    In rapture-breathing notes.
I see upon the fleecy cloud
    The spreading of thy wings;
The hills and vales rejoice aloud,
And Nature, starting from her shroud,
    To meet her bridegroom springs.

Spirit of the rainbow zone,
    Of the fresh and breezy morn,--
Spirit of climes where joy alone
F...

...wry humour.
The poet revels in image and can use it well.
Paul Cameron Brown is capable of interesting,
even arresting work.

Sail fast, sail fast,
Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;
Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past,
Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams;
Sail fast, sail fast.
Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea
With news about the Future scent the sea:
My brain is beating like the heart of Haste:
I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;
Go, trembling song,
And stay not long; oh, stay not long:
Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove,
But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.

From out the mosques the pious wend their way;
        Muezzin voices tremble through the night;
Within the sky the pallid King of Light
        Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may,
And Heaven's harem greets its star array.
        One lone white cloud rests in the azure height--
A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight--
        Whom cruel love and day have cast away.

The mosques stand there; and here tall cypress trees;
        There--mountains, towering, black as demons frown,
Which Lucifer in rage from God cast down.
        Like sword blades lightning flickers over these,
And on an Arab steed the wild Khan rides
        Who goes to Baktschi Serai which night hides.

Se l' onorata fronde, che prescrive.

TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE POETRY.


    If the world-honour'd leaf, whose green defies
The wrath of Heaven when thunders mighty Jove,
Had not to me prohibited the crown
Which wreathes of wont the gifted poet's brow,
I were a friend of these your idols too,
Whom our vile age so shamelessly ignores:
But that sore insult keeps me now aloof
From the first patron of the olive bough:
For Ethiop earth beneath its tropic sun
Ne'er burn'd with such fierce heat, as I with rage
At losing thing so comely and beloved.
Resort then to some calmer fuller fount,
For of all moisture mine is drain'd and dry,
Save that which falleth from mine eyes in tears.

MACGREGOR.