I've just looked from the window
    To see the snow come down,
And make the streets look nice and white,
    That lately were so brown.

I've seen a little beggar-girl
    Go by in all the cold;
She had no shoes nor stockings on,
    Her dress was torn and old.

How thankful I should be to God,
    Who gives me clothes and food,
A nice warm fire, a pleasant home,
    And parents kind and good!

Mamma, I'll always try to help
    The hungry and the poor;
For those who are not warmed and fed,
    I pity, I am sure.

In words like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
    Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
    But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
                        - TENNYSON.

The bells that lift their yawning throats
    And lolling tongues with wrangling cries
Flung up in harsh, discordant notes,
    As though in anger, at the skies, -
Are filled with echoings replete,
    With purest tinkles of delight -
So I would have a something sweet
    Ring in the song I sing to-night.

As when a blotch of ugly guise
    On some poor artist's naked floor
Becomes a picture in his eyes,
    And he forgets that he is poor, -
So I look out upon the night,
    That ushers in the dawning year,
And in a vacant blur of light

To lose one's faith surpasses
The loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
Replenished, -- faith cannot.

Inherited with life,
Belief but once can be;
Annihilate a single clause,
And Being's beggary.

Our journey was not slacken'd by our talk,
Nor yet our talk by journeying. Still we spake,
And urg'd our travel stoutly, like a ship
When the wind sits astern. The shadowy forms,

That seem'd things dead and dead again, drew in
At their deep-delved orbs rare wonder of me,
Perceiving I had life; and I my words
Continued, and thus spake; "He journeys up
Perhaps more tardily then else he would,
For others' sake. But tell me, if thou know'st,
Where is Piccarda? Tell me, if I see
Any of mark, among this multitude,
Who eye me thus."--"My sister (she for whom,
'Twixt beautiful and good I cannot say
Which name was fitter ) wears e'en now her crown,
And triumphs in Olympus." Saying this,
He added: "Since spare diet hath so worn
Our semblance out, 't is lawful...

Dear face - bright, glinting hair;
Dear life, whose heart is mine -
The thought of you is prayer,
The love of you divine.

In starlight, or in rain;
In the sunset's shrouded glow;
Ever, with joy or pain,
To you my quick thoughts go

Like winds or clouds, that fleet
Across the hungry space
Between, and find you, sweet,
Where life again wins grace.

Now, as in that once young
Year that so softly drew
My heart to where it clung,
I long for, gladden in you.

And when in the silent hours
I whisper your sacred name,
Like an altar-fire it showers
My blood with fragrant flame!

Perished is all that grieves;
And lo, our old-new joys
Are gathered as in sheaves,
Held in love's equipoise.

Ours is the l...

Brother artist, help me; come!
    Artists are a maimed band:
    I have words but not a hand;
Thou hast hands though thou art dumb.

Had I thine, when words did fail--
    Vassal-words their hasting chief,
    On the white awaiting leaf
Shapes of power should tell the tale.

Had I hers of music-might,
    I would shake the air with storm
    Till the red clouds trailed enorm
Boreal dances through the night.

Had I his whose foresight rare
    Piles the stones with lordliest art,
    From the quarry of my heart
Love should climb a heavenly stair!

Had I his whose wooing slow
    Wins the marble's hidden child,
    Out in passion undefiled
Stood my Psyche, white as snow!

Maimed, a little help I pray;
    Words ...

Once to a horse-fair, it may perhaps have been
Where other things are bought and sold, I mean
At the Haymarket, there the muses' horse
A hungry poet brought to sell, of course.

'The hippogriff neighed shrilly, loudly,
And reared upon his hind-legs proudly;
In utter wonderment each stood and cried:
"The noble regal beast!" But, woe betide!
Two hideous wings his slender form deface,
The finest team he else would not disgrace.
"The breed," said they, "is doubtless rare,
But who would travel through the air?"
Not one of them would risk his gold.
At length a farmer grew more bold:
"As for his wings, I of no use should find them,
But then how easy 'tis to clip or bind them!
The horse for drawing may be useful found,
So, friend, I don't mind giving twenty ...

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine -
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One's alone!

("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.")

[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.]


"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray, -
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.

"Within my father's palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.

"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is...

By time and counsel do the best we can,
Th' event is never in the power of man.

I

I(First Love)
Through nurtured like the sailing moon
In beauty's murderous brood,
She walked awhile and blushed awhile
And on my pathway stood
Until I thought her body bore
A heart of flesh and blood.
But since I laid a hand thereon
And found a heart of stone
I have attempted many things
And not a thing is done,
For every hand is lunatic
That travels on the moon.
She smiled and that transfigured me
And left me but a lout,
Maundering here, and maundering there,
Emptier of thought
Than the heavenly circuit of its stars
When the moon sails out.

II

I(Human Dignity)
Like the moon her kindness is,
If kindness I may call
What has no comprehension in't,
But is the same for all
As though my sorrow we...

Dark days have passed, but you who taught me then
To look upon the world with trustful eyes,
Are not forgotten! Quick to sympathise
With noble thoughts, I’ve dreamt of moments when
Your low voice filled with strains of fairer skies!
Stray breaths of Grecian song that went and came,
Like floating fragrance from some quiet glen
In those far hills which shine with classic fame
Of passioned nymphs and grand-browed god-like men!
I sometimes fear my heart hath lost the same
Sweet sense of harmony; but this I know
That Beauty waits on you where’er you go,
Because she loveth child-like Faith! Her bowers
Are rich for it with glad perennial flowers.

Aristonoë, the fading shepherdess,
Gathers the young girls round her in a ring,
Teaching them wisdom of love,
What to say, how to dress,
How frown, how smile,
How suitors to their dancing feet to bring,
How in mere walking to beguile,
What words cunningly said in what a way
Will draw man's busy fancy astray,
All the alphabet, grammar and syntax of love.

The garden smells are sweet,
Daisies spring in the turf under the high-heeled feet,
Dense, dark banks of laurel grow
Behind the wavering row
Of golden, flaxen, black, brown, auburn heads,
Behind the light and shimmering dresses
Of these unreal, modern shepherdesses;
And gaudy flowers in formal patterned beds
Vary the dim long vistas of the park,
Far as the eye can see,
Till at the fore...

"Dumque virent genua
Et decet, obducta solvatur fonte senectus."

The muse of boyhood's fervid hour
Grows tame as skies get chill and hazy;
Where once she sought a passion-flower,
She only hopes to find a daisy.
Well, who the changing world bewails?
Who asks to have it stay unaltered?
Shall grown-up kittens chase their tails?
Shall colts be never shod or haltered?

Are we "The Boys" that used to make
The tables ring with noisy follies?
Whose deep-lunged laughter oft would shake
The ceiling with its thunder-volleys?
Are we the youths with lips unshorn,
At beauty's feet unwrinkled suitors,
Whose memories reach tradition's morn, -
The days of prehistoric tutors?

"The Boys" we knew, - but who are these
Whose heads might serve for Plu...

Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
His purple galley and his Tyrian men
And treacherous Aphrodite's mocking eyes?
For surely it was thou, who, like a star
Hung in the silver silence of the night,
Didst lure the Old World's chivalry and might
Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!

Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?
In amorous Sidon was thy temple built
Over the light and laughter of the sea
Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,
Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,
All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;
Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,
And she rose up th...

All night the ways of Heaven were desolate,
Long roads across a gleaming empty sky.
Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I,
Alone, serene beyond all love or hate,
Terror or triumph, were content to wait,
We, silent and all-knowing. Suddenly
Swept through the heaven low-crouching from on high,
One horseman, downward to the earth's low gate.

Oh, perfect from the ultimate height of living,
Lightly we turned, through wet woods blossom-hung,
Into the open. Down the supernal roads,
With plumes a-tossing, purple flags far flung,
Rank upon rank, unbridled, unforgiving,
Thundered the black battalions of the Gods.

This earth's a mystery profound,
Its movements, make, and changes all -
A mystery which none can sound,
Who dwell upon the whirling ball.

And deeper far than all the rest,
Is man; a mystery unsolved
Since the first heave of ocean's breast,
Since the first course our earth revolv'd.

His thoughts, and e'en his actions too,
Possess a subtle meaning, when
That meaning others may construe,
As plain and open to their ken.

There is a place in every heart,
As secret as the silent tomb,
Where others have no lot nor part,
Where none may gaze, where none may room.

It seemeth strange, that flesh and blood
Should hold such ghostly, hellish things,
And also things supremely good,
Which might not shame an angel's wings.

Yet s...

This is a leader's tent. "Who gathers here?"
    Enter and see and listen. On the ground
Men sit or stand, enter or disappear,
    Dark faces and deep voices all around.

One answers you. "You ask who gathers here?
    Companions! Generals we have none, nor chief.
What need is there? The plan is all so clear -
    The future's hope, the present's grim relief!

"Food for us all, and clothes, and roofs come first.
    The means to gain them? This, our leaguered band!
The hatred of the robber rich accursed
    Keeps foes together, makes fools understand.

"Beyond the present's faith, the future's hope
    Points to the dawning hour when all shall be
But one. The man condemned shall fit the rope
    Around the hangman's neck, and both be free!