His brow spreads large and placid, and his eye
Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still.
Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill -
His face at once benign and proud and shy.
If envy scout, if ignorance deny,
His faultless patience, his unyielding will,
Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill,
Innumerable gratitudes reply.
His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties,
And seems in all his patients to compel
Such love and faith as failure cannot quell.
We hold him for another Herakles,
Battling with custom, prejudice, disease,
As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell.

The sin was mine; I did not understand.
So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,
That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen Winter's hand.

But who is this who cometh by the shore?
(Nay, love, look up and wonder!)    Who is this
Who cometh in dyed garments from the South?
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss
The yet unravished roses of thy mouth,
And I shall weep and worship, as before.

    I'll weep and sigh when e'er she wills
    To frown--and when she deigns to smile
    It will be cure for all my ills,
    And, foolish still, I'll laugh the while;
    But till that comes, I'll bless the rules
    Experience taught, and deem it wise
    To hold thee as the game of fools,
    And all thy tricks despise.

Il. 1.


Sing, O daughter of heaven, of Peleus' son, of Achilles,
Him whose terrible wrath brought thousand woes on Achaia.
Many a stalwart soul did it hurl untimely to Hades,
Souls of the heroes of old: and their bones lay strown on the sea-sands,
Prey to the vulture and dog. Yet was Zeus fulfilling a purpose;
Since that far-off day, when in hot strife parted asunder
Atreus' sceptred son, and the chos'n of heaven, Achilles.
Say then, which of the Gods bid arise up battle between them?
Zeus's and Leto's son. With the king was kindled his anger:
Then went sickness abroad, and the people died of the sickness:
For that of Atreus' son had his priest been lightly entreated,
Chryses, Apollo's priest. For he came to the ships of Achaia,
Bearing a daughter's ransom, a sum ...

To the distance! Ah, the distance!
Blue and broad and dim!
Peace is not in burgh or meadow,
But beyond the rim.

Aye, beyond it, far beyond it;
Follow still my soul,
Till this earth is lost in heaven,
And thou feel'st the whole.

Thus in altemate uproar and sad peace,
Amazed were those Titans utterly.
O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes;
For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire:
A solitary sorrow best befits
Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores.
Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp,
And not a wind of heaven but will breathe
In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute;
For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse.
Flush everything that hath a vermeil hue,
Let the rose glow intense and warm the air,
And let the clouds of even and of morn
Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills;
Let the red wine within the goblet boil,
Cold as a bubbling well; let fain...

The crag-pent breezes sob and moan where hidden waters glide;
And twilight wanders round the earth with slow and shadowy stride.
The gleaming clouds, above the brows of western steeps uphurled,
Look like the spires of some fair town that bounds a brighter world.
Lo, from the depths of yonder wood, where many a blind creek strays,
The pure Australian moon comes forth, enwreathed with silver haze.
The rainy mists are trooping down the folding hills behind,
And distant torrent-voices rise like bells upon the wind.
The echeu’s songs are dying, with the flute-bird’s mellow tone,
And night recalls the gloomy owl to rove the wilds alone;
Night, holy night, in robes of blue, with golden stars encrowned,
Ascending mountains like to walls that hem an Eden round.

Oh, lovely moon! oh, ...

Among all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.

While riding near her home one stormy night
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.

Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,
To bear it with me through the stormy night:
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.

When to the dwelling of my Love I came,
I went into the orchard quietly;
And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name,
Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.

The whole next day, I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneat...

The valiant girls - of them I sing -
Who daily to their business go,
Happy as larks, and fresh as spring;
They are the bravest things I know.
At eight, from out my lazy tower,
I watch the snow, and shake my head;
But yonder petticoated flower
Braves it alone, with aery tread;
Nor wind, nor rain, nor ice-fanged storm,
Frightens that valiant little form.

Strange! she that sweetens all the air,
The New York sister of the rose,
To a grim office should repair,
With picture-hat and silken hose,
And strange it is to see her there,
With powder on her little nose;
And yet how business-like is she,
With pad and pencil on her knee.

Changed are the times - no stranger sign,
If you but think the matter over,
Than she, the delicate, the divin...

Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year
    I saw a tear.
Alas! I murmured, that the Year should borrow
    So soon a sorrow.
Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame:
    The tear became
A wond'rous diamond sparkling in the light -
    A beauteous sight.

Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss,
    I said, "The Cross
Is grievous for a life as young as mine."
    Just then, like wine,
God's sunlight shone from His high Heavens down;
    And lo! a crown
Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden -
    My sorrow's guerdon.

Augurs that watched archaic birds
Such plumèd prodigies might read,
The eagles that were double-faced,
The eagle that was black indeed;
And when the battle-birds went down
And in their track the vultures come,
We know what pardon and what peace
Will keep our little masters dumb.

The men that sell what others make,
As vultures eat what others slay,
Will prove in matching plume with plume
That naught is black and all is grey;
Grey as those dingy doves that once,
By money-changers palmed and priced,
Amid the crash of tables flapped
And huddled from the wrath of Christ.

But raised for ever for a sign
Since God made anger glorious,
Where eagles black and vultures grey
Flocked back about the heroic house,
Where war is holier than peac...

Haunted by unknown feet -
Ways of the midnight hour!
Strangely you murmur below me,
Strange is your half-silent power.
Places of life and of death,
Numbered and named as streets,
What, through your channels of stone,
Is the tide that unweariedly beats?
A whisper, a sigh-laden breath,
Is all that I hear of its flowing.
Footsteps of stranger and foe -
Footsteps of friends, could we meet -
Alike to me in my sorrow;
Alike to a life left alone.
Yet swift as my heart they throb,
They fall thick as tears on the stone:
My spirit perchance may borrow
New strength from their eager tone.

Still ever that slip and slide
Of the feet that shuffle or glide,
And linger or haste through the populous waste
Of the shadowy, dim-lit square!
And I...

Broke the deep slumber in my brain a crash
Of heavy thunder, that I shook myself,
As one by main force rous'd.    Risen upright,
My rested eyes I mov'd around, and search'd
With fixed ken to know what place it was,
Wherein I stood.    For certain on the brink
I found me of the lamentable vale,
The dread abyss, that joins a thund'rous sound
Of plaints innumerable.    Dark and deep,
And thick with clouds o'erspread, mine eye in vain
Explor'd its bottom, nor could aught discern.

"Now let us to the blind world there beneath
Descend;" the bard began all pale of look:
"I go the first, and thou shalt follow next."

Then I his alter'd hue perceiving, thus:
"How may I speed, if thou yieldest to dread,
Who still art wont to comfort me in doubt?"

He...

I.
Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far.
God must judge the couple: leave them as they are
Whichever one’s the guiltless, to his glory,
And whichever one the guilt’s with, to my story!

II.
Why, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough,
Strike no arm out further, stick and stink as now,
Leaving right and wrong to settle the embroilment,
Heaven with snaky hell, in torture and entoilment?

III.
Who’s the culprit of them? How must he conceive
God, the queen he caps to, laughing in his sleeve,
’Tis but decent to profess oneself beneath her:
Still, one must not be too much in earnest, either!

IV.
Better sin the whole sin, sure that God observes;
Then go live his life out! Life will try his nerves,
When the sky, which...

The faint sun tipt the rising ground,
No blustering wind, the air was still;
The blue mist, thinly scatter'd round,
Verg'd along the distant hill:
Delightful morn! from labour free
I jocund met the south-west gale,
While here and there a busy bee
Humm'd sweetly o'er the flow'ry vale.

O joyful morn! on pleasure bent,
Down the green slopes and fields I flew;
And through the thickest covert went,
Which hid me from the public view:
Nor was it shame, nor was it fear,
No, no, it was my own dear choice;
I love the briary thicket, where
Echo keeps her mocking voice.

The sun's increasing heat was kind,
His warm beams cheer'd the vales around:
I left my own fields far behind,
And, pilgrim-like, trod foreign ground;
The glowing landscape's...

I

Of ownership, As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself.

II

Of waters, forests, hills;
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me;
Of vista, Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain’d on the journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become supplied, And of what will yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport in what will yet be supplied.

Fairest lass amang the monny,
Hair as black as raven, O.
Net another lass as bonny,
Lives i'th' dales ov Craven, O.
City lasses may be fairer,
May be donned i' silks an laces,
But ther's nooan whose charms are rarer,
Nooan can show sich bonny faces.
Yorksher minstrel tune thy lyre,
Show thou art no craven, O;
In thy strains 'at mooast inspire,
Sing the praise ov Craven, O.

Purest breezes toss their tresses,
Tint ther cheeks wi' rooases, O,
An old Sol wi' warm caresses,
Mak 'em bloom like pooasies, O.
Others may booast birth an riches,
May have studied grace ov motion,
But they lack what mooast bewitches, -
Hearts 'at love wi' pure devotion.
Perfect limbs an round full bosoms,
Sich as set men ravin, O,
Only can be faand i' bl...

When you came over the top of the world
In the great day on the Downs,
The air was crisp and the clouds were curled,
When you came over the top of the world,
And under your feet were spire and street
And seven English towns.

And I could not think that the pride was perished
As you came over the down;
Liberty, chivalry, all we cherished,
Lost in a rattle of pelf and perished;
Or the land we love that you walked above
Withering town by town.

For you came out on the dome of the earth
Like a vision of victory,
Out on the great green dome of the earth
As the great blue dome of the sky for girth,
And under your feet the shires could meet
And your eyes went out to sea.

Under your feet the towns were seven,
Alive and alone on high,