Life

    People with money but no fortune
    or stomach for the life of an albatross,
    watch him soar on self-made wings,
    fetch the dingy redness
    of morning's first catch with
    a long necked bottle
    he calls the captain

Quel sol che mi mostrava il cammin destro.

LOVE AND HE SEEK LAURA, BUT FIND NO TRACES OF HER EXCEPT IN THE SKY.


    That sun, which ever signall'd the right road,
Where flash'd her own bright feet, to heaven to fly,
Returning to the Eternal Sun on high,
Has quench'd my light, and cast her earthly load;
Thus, lone and weary, my oft steps have trode,
As some wild animal, the sere woods by,
Fleeing with heavy heart and downcast eye
The world which since to me a blank has show'd.
Still with fond search each well-known spot I pace
Where once I saw her: Love, who grieves me so,
My only guide, directs me where to go.
I find her not: her every sainted trace
Seeks, in bright realms above, her parent star
From grisly Styx and black Avernus far.
...

Qual in colle aspro, al imbrunir di sera
L'avezza giovinetta pastorella
Va bagnando l'herbetta strana e bella
Che mal si spande a disusata spera
Fuor di sua natia alma primavera,
Cosi Amor meco insu la lingua snella
Desta il fior novo di strania favella,
Mentre io di te, vezzosamente altera,
Canto, dal mio buon popol non inteso
E'l bel Tamigi cangio col bel Arno
Amor lo volse, ed io a l'altrui peso
Seppi ch' Amor cosa mai volse indarno.
Deh!    foss' il mio cuor lento e'l duro seno
A chi pianta dal ciel si buon terreno.

I stood by the shore at the death of day,
As the sun sank flaming red;
And the face of the waters that spread away
Was as gray as the face of the dead.

And I heard the cry of the wanton sea
And the moan of the wailing wind;
For love's sweet pain in his heart had he,
But the gray old sea had sinned.

The wind was young and the sea was old,
But their cries went up together;
The wind was warm and the sea was cold,
For age makes wintry weather.

So they cried aloud and they wept amain,
Till the sky grew dark to hear it;
And out of its folds crept the misty rain,
In its shroud, like a troubled spirit.

For the wind was wild with a hopeless love,
And the sea was sad at heart
At many a crime that he wot of,
Wherein he had played hi...

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door,
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;, vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors n...

Gloomy cliffs, so worn and wasted with the washing of the waves,
Are ye not like giant tombstones round those lonely ocean graves?
Are ye not the sad memorials, telling of a mighty grief
Dark with records ground and lettered into caverned rock and reef?
Oh! ye show them, and I know them, and my thoughts in mourning go
Down amongst your sunless chasms, deep into the surf below!
Oh! ye bear them, and declare them, and o’er every cleft and scar,
I have wept for dear dead brothers perished in the lost Dunbar!
Ye smitten ye battered,
And splintered and shattered
Cliffs of the Sea!

Restless waves, so dim with dreams of sudden storms and gusty surge,
Roaring like a gathered whirlwind reeling round a mountain verge,
Were ye not like loosened maniacs, in the night when Beauty p...

I.

    Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
        How can ye bloom sae fair;
    How can ye chant, ye little birds,
        And I sae fu' o' care!

II.

    Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
        That sings upon the bough;
    Thou minds me o' the happy days
        When my fause love was true.

III.

    Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
        That sings beside thy mate;
    For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
        And wist na o' my fate.

IV.

    Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
        To see the woodbine twine,
    And ilka bird sang o' its love;
        And sae did I o' mine.

V.

    Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
        Frae aff its thorny tree:
    An...

Remember all those renowned generations,
They left their bodies to fatten the wolves,
They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,
Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves
In cavern, crevice, or hole,
Defending Ireland's soul.
i(Be still, be still, what can be said?
My father sang that song,
But time amends old wrong,
All that is finished, let it fade.)
Remember all those renowned generations,
Remember all that have sunk in their blood,
Remember all that have died on the scaffold,
Remember all that have fled, that have stood,
Stood, took death like a tune
On an old,tambourine.
i(Be still, be still, what can be said?
My father sang that song,
But time amends old wrong,
And all that's finished, let it fade.)
Fail, and that history tu...

I stood on the Land's End, alone and still.
    Man might have been unmade, for no frail trace
    Of mortal labour startled the wild place,
And only sea-mews with their wailing shrill,
    Circled beneath me over the dark sea,
Flashing the waves with pinions snowy white,
That glimmer'd faintly in the gloomy light
    Betwixt the foaming furrows constantly.
It was a mighty cape, that proudly rose
    Above the world of waters, high and steep,
    With many a scar and fissure fathoms deep,
Upon whose ledges lodged the endless snows;
    A noble brow to a firm-founded world,
    That at the limits of its empire stood,
    Fronting the ocean in its roughest mood,
And all its fury calmly backward hurl'd.
    The Midnight Sun rose like an angry god,
Girt round...

    My wife lost her health,
    And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.
    Then that woman, whom the men
    Styled Cleopatra, came along.
    And we - we married ones
    All broke our vows, myself among the rest.
    Years passed and one by one
    Death claimed them all in some hideous form
    And I was borne along by dreams
    Of God's particular grace for me,
    And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams
    Of the second coming of Christ.
    Then Christ came to me and said,
    "Go into the church and stand before the congregation
    And confess your sin."
    But just as I stood up and began to speak
    I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat -
    My little girl who was born blind!
    After that, ...

Oh, sing me a merry song!
    My heart is sad tonight;
The day has been so drear and long,
The world has gone awry and wrong,
Discouragements around me throng,
    And gloom surpassing night.

Oh, sing again the song for me
    My mother used to sing
When I, a child beside her knee,
Looked up for her sweet sympathy,
Nor ever thought how I might be
    Her little hindering thing.

Oh, sing, as eventide draws near,
    The old-time lullabys
Grandmother sang - forever dear,
Though in her grave this many a year
She lies who "read her title clear
    To mansions in the skies."

Oh, sing till all perplexing care
    Has vanished with the day!
And angels ever bright and fair
Come down the melody to share,
And on their pini...

If one could have a hundred years to live,
After the settlement of youth's unrest,
A hundred years of vigorous life to give
To the pursuit of what he counted best,
A hundred summers, autumns, winters, springs,
To train and use the forces of his mind,
He might fulfil his fond imaginings,
And lift himself and benefit his kind.

O faint of heart, to whom this life appears
Too short for thy ambitious projects, He
Who plied His task in weakness and in tears
Along the countrysides of Galilee,
And blest the world for these two thousand years,
Did His incomparable work in three.

There's no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily's at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions wildly wave,
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.

What is the fairy's name? Is't Lily? Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she's unknown to thee.

Oh what a cackling, what a shrieking,

When near the door she takes her stand,

With her food-basket in her hand!
Oh what a croaking, what a squeaking!
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within, the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then ...

Thou wouldst have led us through the twilight land
Where spirit shows by form, form is refined
Away to spirit by transfiguring mind,
Till they are one, and in the morn we stand;
Treading thy footsteps, children, hand in hand,
With sense divinely growing, till, combined,
We heard the music of the planets wind
In harmony with billows on the strand;
Till, one with Earth and all God's utterance,
We hardly knew whether the sun outspake,
Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake;
Whether we think, or windy leaflets dance:
Alas, O Poet Leader! for this good,
Thou wert God's tragedy, writ in tears and blood.

Now June walks on the waters,
And the cuckoo's last enchantment
Passes from Olton pools.

Now dawn comes to my window
Breathing midsummer roses,
And scythes are wet with dew.

Is it not strange for ever
That, bowered in this wonder,
Man keeps a jealous heart?...

That June and the June waters,
And birds and dawn-lit roses,
Are gospels in the wind,

Fading upon the deserts,
Poor pilgrim revelations?...
Hist ... over Olton pools!

Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover
On my brow, a rose and a book
For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion
Whose singing turns the herbs green
A Damascene moon travels through my blood
Nightingales... and grain... and domes
From Damascus, jasmine begins its whiteness
And fragrances perfume themselves with her scent
From Damascus, water begins... for wherever
You lean your head, a stream flows
And poetry is a sparrow spreading its wings
Over Sham... and a poet is a voyager
From Damascus, love begins... for our ancestors
Worshipped beauty, they dissolved it, and they melted away
From Damascus, horses begin their journey
And the stirrups are tightened for the great conquest
From Damascus, eternity begins... and with her
Languages remain an...

Sitting alone, love bids me go and write;
    Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay,
    Boasting that she doth still direct the way,
Or else love were unable to indite.
Love growing angry, vexèd at the spleen,
    And scorning reason's maimèd argument,
    Straight taxeth reason, wanting to invent
Where she with love conversing hath not been.
Reason reproachèd with this coy disdain,
    Despiteth love, and laugheth at her folly;
    And love contemning reason's reason wholly,
Thought it in weight too light by many a grain.
    Reason put back doth out of sight remove,
    And love alone picks reason out of love.

The stars are golden instants in the deep
Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set:
The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep
Seeming so motionless that I forget
The hollow booming bridges, where it slides,
Dark with the sad looks that it bears along,
Towards a sea whose unreturning tides
Ravish the sighted ships and the sailors' song.