(After Horace)

Let others praise, as fancy wills,
    Berlin beneath her trees,
Or Rome upon her seven hills,
    Or Venice by her seas;
Stamboul by double tides embraced,
Or green Damascus in the waste.

For me there's nought I would not leave
    For the good Devon land,
Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve
    Bedewed with spray-drift stand,
And hardly bear the red fruit up
That shall be next year's cider-cup.

You too, my friend, may wisely mark
    How clear skies follow rain,
And, lingering in your own green park
    Or drilled on Laffan's Plain,
Forget not with the festal bowl
To soothe at times your weary soul.

When Drake must bid to Plymouth Hoe
    Good-bye for many a day,
And some were sad and feared ...

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here
There is such matter for all feeling.
- Childe Harold.


I
Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,
Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou:
Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed
O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe:
Or time’s stern hand, why blots it not away
The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay?

II
There are, whose glory passeth not away—
Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade:
Others there are as deathless full as they,
Who for themselves a monument have made
By their own cringes—a lesson to all eyes—
Of wonder to the fool—of warning to the wise.

III
Yes, there are stories registered on high,
Yes, there are stains time’s fingers...

For thee alone I brave the boundless deep,
Those eyes my light through every distant sea;
My waking thoughts, the dream that gilds my sleep,
    The noon-tide revery, all are given to thee,
            To thee alone, to thee alone.

Tho' future scenes present to Fancy's eye
    Fair forms of light that crowd the distant air,
When nearer viewed, the fairy phantoms fly,
    The crowds dissolve, and thou alone art there,
            Thou, thou alone.

To win thy smile, I speed from shore to shore,
    While Hope's sweet voice is heard in every blast,
Still whispering on that when some years are o'er,
    One bright reward shall crown my toil at last,
            Thy smile alone, thy smile alone,

Oh place beside the transport of that hour
    All e...

Could I from this valley drear,
Where the mist hangs heavily,
Soar to some more blissful sphere,
Ah! how happy should I be!
Distant hills enchant my sight,
Ever young and ever fair;
To those hills I'd take my flight
Had I wings to scale the air.

Harmonies mine ear assail,
Tunes that breathe a heavenly calm;
And the gently-sighing gale
Greets me with its fragrant balm.
Peeping through the shady bowers,
Golden fruits their charms display.
And those sweetly-blooming flowers
Ne'er become cold winter's prey.

In you endless sunshine bright,
Oh! what bliss 'twould be to dwell!
How the breeze on yonder height
Must the heart with rapture swell!
Yet the stream that hems my path
Checks me with its angry frown,
While its waves, in...

Behold; the Balance in the sky
Swift on the wintry scale inclines:
To earthy caves the Dryads fly,
And the bare pastures Pan resigns.
Late did the farmer's fork o'erspread
With recent soil the twice-mown mead,
Tainting the bloom which autumn knows:
He whets the rusty coulter now,
He binds his oxen to the plough,
And wide his future harvest throws.
Now, London's busy confines round,
By Kensington's imperial towers,
From Highgate's rough descent profound,
Essexian heaths, or Kentish bowers,
Where'er I pass, I see approach
Some rural statesman's eager coach
Hurried by senatorial cares:
While rural nymphs (alike, within,
Aspiring courtly praise to win)
Debate their dress, reform their airs.
Say, what can now the country boast,
O Drake, thy...

    Lord Jesus,
    Oh, ease us
    Of Self that oppresses,
    Annoys and distresses
    Body and brain
    With dull pain!
    Thou never,
    Since ever,
    Save one moment only,
    Wast left, or wast lonely:
    We are alone,
    And make moan.

    Far parted,
    Dull-hearted,
    We wander, sleep-walking,
    Mere shadows, dim-stalking:
    Orphans we roam,
    Far from home.

    Oh new man,
    Sole human,
    God's son, and our brother,
    Give each to the other--
    No one left out
    In cold doubt!

    High Father,
    Oh gather
    Thy sons and thy daughters,
    Through fires and through waters,
    Home to the nest
    Of thy breast!

    There under<...

I wish this world and its green hills were mine,
But it is not; the wandering shepherd star
Is not more distant, gazing from afar
On the unreapèd pastures of the sea,
Than I am from the world, the world from me.
At night the stars on milky way that shine
Seem things one might possess, but this round green
Is for the cows that rest, these and the sheep:
To them the slopes and pastures offer sleep;
My sleep I draw from the far fields of blue,
Whence cold winds come and go among the few
Bright stars we see and many more unseen.

Birds sing on earth all day among the flowers,
Taking no thought of any other thing
But their own hearts, for out of them they sing:
Their songs are kindred to the blossom heads,
Faint as the petals which the blackthorn sheds,
A...

Catch her and hold her if you can,
See, she defies you with her fan,
Shuts, opens, and then holds it spread
In threatening guise over your head.
Ah! why did you not start before
She reached the porch and closed the door?
Simpleton! Will you never learn
That girls and time will not return;
Of each you should have made the most;
Once gone, they are forever lost.
In vain your knuckles knock your brow,
In vain will you remember how
Like a slim brook the gamesome maid
Sparkled, and ran into the shade.

Not in the camp his victory lies
Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation's sacrifice
To turn the judgement from his race.

Happy is he who, bred and taught
By sleek, sufficing Circumstance,
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance,

Seese, on the threshold of his days,
The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to unheralded dismays
Submits his body and his soul;

The fatted shows wherein he stood
Foregoing, and the idiot pride,
That he may prove with his own blood
All that his easy sires denied,

Ultimate issues, primal springs,
Demands, abasements, penalties,
The imperishable plinth of things
Seen and unseen, that touch our peace.

For, though ensnaring ritual dim
His ...

Oft as by chance, a little while apart
The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn,
Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart,
Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn:
Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe
Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus,
Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw
Seem a new heaven and earth so marvelous;
But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes,
The fair world glistens, and in after days
The memory of kind lips and laughing eyes
Lives in my step and lightens all my face, -
So they who found the Earthly Paradise
Still breathed, returned, of that sweet, joyful place.

    All sights and sounds of day and year,
    All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
    Are thine, O God, nor will I fear
    To talk to thee of them.

        Too great thy heart is to despise,
    Whose day girds centuries about;
    From things which we name small, thine eyes
    See great things looking out.

        Therefore the prayerful song I sing
    May come to thee in ordered words:
    Though lowly born, it needs not cling
    In terror to its chords.

        I think that nothing made is lost;
    That not a moon has ever shone,
    That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed
    But to my soul is gone.

        That all the lost years garnered lie
    In this thy casket, my dim soul;
    And thou wilt, once, th...

(See Note)

Wonder I must, what I once may see
Over the lofty mountains!
Eyes shall meet only snow, may be;
Standing here, each evergreen tree
Over the heights is yearning; -
Will it be long in learning?

Pinions strong bear the eagle away
Over the lofty mountains
Forth to the young and vigorous day;
There he exults in the swift, wild play,
Rests where his spirit orders, -
Sees all the wide world's borders.

Full-leaved the apple-tree wishes naught
Over the lofty mountains!
Spreading, when summer hither is brought,
Waiting till next time in its thought;
Many a bird it is swinging,
Knowing not what they are singing.

He who has longed for twenty years
Over the lofty mountains,
He who knows that he never nears,
S...

Since green earth is awake
Let us now pastime take,
Not serving wantonness
Too well, nor niggardness,
Which monks of men would make.

But clothed like earth in green,
With jocund hearts and clean,
We will take hands and go
Singing where quietly blow
The flowers of Spring's demesne.

The cuckoo haileth loud
The open sky; no cloud
Doth fleck the earth's blue tent;
The land laughs, well content
To put off winter shroud.

Now, since 'tis Easter Day,
All Christians may have play;
The young Saints, all agaze
For Christ in Heaven's maze,
May laugh who wont to pray.

Then welcome to our round
They light on homely ground:--
Agnes, Saint Cecily,
Agatha, Dorothy,
Margaret, Hildegonde;

Next come with B...

'The soul is its own witness and its own refuge'


Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
Only the Mighty Mother knows
The wounds that quiver unconfessed.

It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,
Where thoughts alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.

It feels in the unwounding vast
For comfort for its hopes and fears:
The Mighty Mother bows at last;
She listens to her children's tears.

Where the last anguish deepens--there
The fire of beauty smites through pain:
A glory moves amid despair,
The Mother takes her child again.

The winds are lashing on the sea;
    The roads are blind with storm.
And it's far and far away with me;
    So bide you there, stay warm.
It's forth I must, and forth to-day;
    And I have no path to choose.
The highway hill, it is my way still.--
    Give me my golden shoes.

God gave them me on that first day
    I knew that I was young.
And I looked far forth, from west to north;
    And I heard the Songs unsung.

This cloak is worn too threadbare thin,
    But ah, how weatherwise!
This girdle serves to bind it in;
    What heed of wondering eyes?--
And yet beside, I wear one pride
    --Too bright, think you, to use?--
That I must wear, and still keep fair.--
    Give here my golden shoes.

God gave them me, o...