Your mind and mine are such great lovers they
Have freed themselves from cautious human clay,
And on wild clouds of thought, naked together
They ride above us in extreme delight;
We see them, we look up with a lone envy
And watch them in their zone of crystal weather
That changes not for winter or the night.

Nè così bello il sol giammai levarsi.

THE CHARMS OF LAURA WHEN SHE FIRST MET HIS SIGHT.


    Ne'er can the sun such radiance soft display,
Piercing some cloud that would its light impair;
Ne'er tinged some showery arch the humid air,
With variegated lustre half so gay,
As when, sweet-smiling my fond heart away,
All-beauteous shone my captivating fair;
For charms what mortal can with her compare!
But truth, impartial truth! much more might say.
I saw young Cupid, saw his laughing eyes
With such bewitching, am'rous sweetness roll,
That every human glance I since despise.
Believe, dear friend! I saw the wanton boy;
Bent was his bow to wound my tender soul;
Yet, ah! once more I'd view the dang'rous joy.

ANON. 1777.


  ...

Once in a saintly passion
I cried with desperate grief,
"O Lord, my heart is black with guile,
Of sinners I am chief."
Then stooped my guardian angel
And whispered from behind,
"Vanity, my little man,
You're nothing of the kind."

    Why wilt thou chide,
Who hast attained to be denied?
    Oh learn, above
All price is my refusal, Love.
    My sacred Nay
Was never cheapened by the way.
Thy single sorrow crowns thee lord
Of an unpurchasable word.

    Oh strong, Oh pure!
As Yea makes happier loves secure,
    I vow thee this
Unique rejection of a kiss.
    I guard for thee
This jealous sad monopoly.
I seal this honour thine. None dare
Hope for a part in thy despair.

Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them,
And softer sighs, that know not what they want;
Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seemed to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
(Such I believed it must be); for sweet scents
Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts,
And nurs...

In the waste places, in the dreadful night,
When the wood whispers like a wandering mind,
And silence sits and listens to the wind,
Or, 'mid the rocks, to some wild torrent's flight;
Bat-browed thou wadest with thy wisp of light
Among black pools the moon can never find;
Or, owlet-eyed, thou hootest to the blind
Deep darkness from some cave or haunted height.
He who beholds but once thy fearsome face,
Never again shall walk alone! but wan
And terrible attendants shall be his
Unutterable things that have no place
In God or Beauty that compel him on,
Against all hope, where endless horror is.

To this moment a rebel I throw down my arms,
Great Love, at first sight of Olinda's bright charms.
Make proud and secure by such forces as these,
You may now play the tyrant as soon as you please.

When Innocence, Beauty, and Wit do conspire
To betray, and engage, and inflame my Desire,
Why should I decline what I cannot avoid?
And let pleasing Hope by base Fear be destroyed?

Her innocence cannot contrive to undo me,
Her beauty's inclined, or why should it pursue me?
And Wit has to Pleasure been ever a friend,
Then what room for Despair, since Delight is Love's end?

There can be no danger in sweetness and youth,
Where Love is secured by good nature and truth;
On her beauty I'll gaze and of pleasure complain
While every kind look adds a link to my c...

Though dustie wits dare scorne Astrologie,
And fooles can thinke those lampes of purest light
Whose numbers, waies, greatnesse, eternity,
Promising wonders, wonder do inuite
To haue for no cause birthright in the sky
But for to spangle the black weeds of Night;
Or for some brawl which in that chamber hie,
They should still dance to please a gazers sight.
For me, I do Nature vnidle know,
And know great causes great effects procure;
And know those bodies high raigne on the low.
And if these rules did fail, proof makes me sure,
Who oft fore-see my after-following race,
By only those two starres in Stellaes face.

No days such honored days as these! When yet
Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide
For some fair thing which should forever bide
On earth, her beauteous memory to set
In fitting frame that no age could forget,
Her name in lovely April's name did hide,
And leave it there, eternally allied
To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.
And when fair Aphrodite passed from earth,
Her shrines forgotten and her feasts of mirth,
A holier symbol still in seal and sign,
Sweet April took, of kingdom most divine,
When Christ ascended, in the time of birth
Of spring anemones, in Palestine.

It's very nice to think of how
In every country lives a Cow
To furnish milk with all her might
For Kittens' comfort and delight.

In after-time, a sage of mickle lore
Yclep'd Typographus, the Giant took,
And did refit his limbs as heretofore,
And made him read in many a learned book,
And into many a lively legend look;
Thereby in goodly themes so training him,
That all his brutishness he quite forsook,
When, meeting Artegall and Talus grim,
The one he struck stone-blind, the other's eyes wox dim.

This I'll tell ye by the way:
Maidens, when ye leavens lay,
Cross your dough, and your dispatch
Will be better for your batch.

A nation spoke to a Nation,
A Queen sent word to a Throne:
“Daughter am I in my mother’s house,
But mistress in my own.
The gates are mine to open,
As the gates are mine to close,
And I set my house in order,”
Said our Lady of the Snows.

“Neither with laughter nor weeping,
Fear or the child’s amaze,
Soberly under the White Man’s law
My white men go their ways.
Not for the Gentiles’ clamour,
Insult or threat of blows,
Bow we the knee to Baal,”
Said our Lady of the Snows.

“My speech is clean and single,
I talk of common things,
Words of the wharf and the market-place
And the ware the merchant brings:
Favour to those I favour,
But a stumbling-block to my foes.
Many there be that hate us,”
Said our Lady of the Snows.<...

I.SPRING ON THE HILLS

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills,
The Spring, as wild wings follow?
Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills,
Crabapple trees the hollow,
Haunts of the bee and swallow?

In redbud brakes and flowery
Acclivities of berry;
In dogwood dingles, showery
With white, where wrens make merry?
Or drifts of swarming cherry?

In valleys of wild strawberries,
And of the clumped May-apple;
Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries,
With which the south winds grapple,
That brook and byway dapple?

With eyes of far forgetfulness, -
Like some wild wood-thing's daughter,
Whose feet are beelike fretfulness, -
To see her run like water
Through boughs that slipped or caught her.

O Spring, to seek, yet find you not!<...

What is a mine - a treasury - a dower -
A magic talisman of mighty power?
A poet's wide possession of the earth.
He has th' enjoyment of a flower's birth
Before its budding - ere the first red streaks, -
And Winter cannot rob him of their cheeks.

Look - if his dawn be not as other men's!
Twenty bright flushes - ere another kens
The first of sunlight is abroad - he sees
Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees,
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn.

When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn
Linger for harvesting? Before the leaf
Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf
The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame.
No sweet there is, no pleasure I can name,
But he will sip it first - before the lees.
'Tis his to taste rich honey, - ere th...

To thee, O Albion! be the tribute paid
Which sympathy demands, the patriot tear;
While echo'd forth to thy remotest shade,
Rebellion's menace sounds in every ear.

Though Gallia's vaunts should fill the trembling skies,
'Till nature's undiscover'd regions start
At the rude clamor; yet, shouldst thou despise,
While thy brave subjects own a common heart.

But lo! fresh streaming from the Hibernian[1] height
Her own red torrent wild-eyed faction pours;
While, 'mid her falling ranks, ignobly great,
Loud vengeance raves, and desperation scours.

Denouncing murderous strife, the rebel train
Wave their red ensigns of inhuman hate
O'er every hamlet, every peaceful plain;
Rejecting reason, and despising fate.

Oh! that again our raptur'd ...

Warrior of the youthful brow,
    Eager heart and eagle eye!
Pants thy soul for battle now?
    Burns thy glance with victory?
Dost thou dream of conflicts done,
Perils past and trophies won?
And a nation's grateful praise
Given to thine after days?

Bloodless is thy cheek, and cold
    As the clay upon it prest;
And in many a slimy fold,
    Winds the grave-worm round thy breast.
Thou wilt join the fight no more, -
Glory's dream with thee is o'er, -
And alike are now to thee
Greatness and obscurity.

But an ever sunny sky,
    O'er thy place of rest is bending;
And above thy grave, and nigh,
    Flowers ever bright are blending.
O'er thy dreamless, calm repose,
Balmily the south wind blows, -
With the green turf on thy ...

Apollo.
Abate, fair fugitive, abate thy speed,
Dismiss thy fears, and turn thy beauteous head;
With kind regard a panting lover view;
Less swiftly fly, less swiftly I'll pursue;
Pathless, alas! and rugged is the ground,
Some stone may hurt thee, or some thorn may wound.

Daphne aside
This care is for himself as pure as death;
One mile has put the fellow out of breath:
He'll never go, I'll lead him th' other round;
Washy he is, perhaps not over sound.

Apollo
You fly, alas! not knowing whom you fly;
Nor ill-bred swain, nor rusty clown am I:
I Claros' isle and Tenedos command,

Daphne
Thank ye, I would not leave my native land.

Apollo
What is to come be certain arts I know.

Daphne
Pish! Partridge has a fair pre...