God has his plans, and what if we
With our sight be too blind to see
Their full fruition; cannot he,
Who made it, solve the mystery?
One whom we loved has fall'n asleep,
Not died; although her calm be deep,
Some new, unknown, and strange surprise
In Heaven holds enrapt her eyes.

And can you blame her that her gaze
Is turned away from earthly ways,
When to her eyes God's light and love
Have giv'n the view of things above?
A gentle spirit sweetly good,
The pearl of precious womanhood;
Who heard the voice of duty clear,
And found her mission soon and near.

She loved all nature, flowers fair,
The warmth of sun, the kiss of air,
The birds that filled the sky with song,
The stream that laughed its way along.
Her home to her was shrine...

Ah! why have I indulg'd my dazzled sight
    With scenes in Hope's delusive mirror shown?
    Scenes, that too seldom human Life has known
    In kind accomplishment; - but O! how bright
The rays, that gilded them with varied light
    Alternate! oft swift flashing on the boon
    That might at FAME's immortal shrine be won;
    Then shining soft on tender LOVE's delight. -
Now, with stern hand, FATE draws the sable veil
    O'er the frail glass! - HOPE, as she turns away,
    The darken'd crystal drops. - - Heavy and pale,
Rain-pouring clouds quench all the darts of day;
    Low mourns the wind along the gloomy dale,
    And tolls the Death-bell in the pausing gale.

The Incubus.


The way was dark within the gloomy church-yard,
    As I wandered through the woodland near the stream,
With slow and heavy tread
    Through a city of the dead,
When suddenly I heard a dreadful scream.

My heart gave frantic leap, as when the roebuck
    Is started by the clamor of the chase,
And I halted all atremble
    In the vain hope to dissemble,
Or cloak the leaden pallor on my face.

'Twas in the ghostly month of grim December,
    The frozen winds were bitter in their cry
And I muttered half aloud
    To that white and silent crowd:
"'Tis a somber month to live in or to die."

And then as if in answer to my whisper,
    Came a voice of some foul fiend from Hell:
"No longer live say I,
    'Tis be...

This is all that is left - this letter and this rose!
And do you, poor dreaming things, for a moment suppose
That your little fire shall burn for ever and ever on,
And this great fire be, all but these ashes, gone?

Flower! of course she is - but is she the only flower?
She must vanish like all the rest at the funeral hour,
And you that love her with brag of your all-conquering thew,
What, in the eyes of the gods, tall though you be, are you?

You and she are no more - yea! a little less than we;
And what is left of our loving is little enough to see;
Sweet the relics thereof - a rose, a letter, a glove -
That in the end is all that remains of the mightiest love.

Six-foot two! what of that? for Death is taller than he;
And, every moment, Death gathers flowers...

The misty rain makes dim my face,
The night's black cloak is o'er me;
I tread the dripping cypress-place,
A flickering light before me.

Out of the death of leaves that rot
And ooze and weedy water,
My form was breathed to haunt this spot,
Death's immaterial daughter.

The owl that whoops upon the yew,
The snake that lairs within it,
Have seen my wild face flashing blue
For one fantastic minute.

But should you follow where my eyes
Like some pale lamp decoy you,
Beware! lest suddenly I rise
With love that shall destroy you.

Young as the Spring seemed life when she
Came from her silent East to me;
Unquiet as Autumn was my breast
When she declined into her West.

Such tender, such untroubling things
She taught me, daughter of all Springs;
Such dusty deathly lore I learned
When her last embers redly burned.

How should it hap (Love, canst thou say?)
Such end should be to so pure day?
Such shining chastity give place
To this annulling grave's disgrace?

Such hopes be quenched in this despair,
Grace chilled to granite everywhere?
How should--in vain I cry--how should
That be, alas, which only could!

I would not see, yet must behold
The truth they preach in church and hall;
And question so, - Is death then all,
And life an idle tale that's told?

The myriad wonders art hath wrought
I deemed eternal as God's love:
No more than shadows these shall prove,
And insubstantial as a thought.

And love and labor, who have gone,
Hand in close hand, and civilized
The wilderness, these shall be prized
No more than if they had not done.

Then wherefore strive? Why strain and bend
Beneath a burden so unjust?
Our works are builded out of dust,
And dust their universal end.

In early morning twilight, raw and chill,
Damp vapours brooding on the barren hill,
Through miles of mire in steady grave array
Threescore well-arm'd police pursue their way;
Each tall and bearded man a rifle swings,
And under each greatcoat a bayonet clings:
The Sheriff on his sturdy cob astride
Talks with the chief, who marches by their side,
And, creeping on behind them, Paudeen Dhu
Pretends his needful duty much to rue.
Six big-boned labourers, clad in common freize,
Walk in the midst, the Sheriff's staunch allies;
Six crowbar men, from distant county brought, -
Orange, and glorying in their work, 'tis thought,
But wrongly,- churls of Catholics are they,
And merely hired at half a crown a day.

The hamlet clustering on its hill is seen,
A score o...

If any questions why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

The sun is banished,
The daylight vanished,
No rosy traces
    Are left behind.
Here in the meadow
I watch the shadow
Of forms and faces
    Upon your blind.

Through swift transitions,
In new positions,
My eyes still follow
    One shape most fair.
My heart delaying
Awhile, is playing
With pleasures hollow,
    Which mock despair.

I feel so lonely,
I long once only
To pass an hour
    With you, O sweet!
To touch your fingers,
Where fragrance lingers
From some rare flower,
    And kiss your feet.

But not this even
To me is given.
Of all sad mortals
    Most sad am I,
Never to meet you,
Never to greet you,
Nor pass your portals
    Before I die.

All men scorn ...

Low clouds, the lightning veins and cleaves,
Torn from the forest of the storm,
Sweep westward like enormous leaves
O'er field and farm.

And in the west, on burning skies,
Their wrath is quenched, their hate is hushed,
And deep their drifted thunder lies
With splendor flushed.

The black turns gray, the gray turns gold;
And, seaed in deeps of radiant rose,
Summits of fire, manifold
They now repose.

What dreams they bring! what thoughts reveal!
That have their source in loveliness,
Through which the doubts I often feel
Grow less and less.

Through which I see that other night,
That cloud called Death, transformed of Love
To flame, and pointing with its light
To life above.

Poetry, music, I have loved, and yet
Because of those new dead
That come into my soul and escape
Confusion of the bed,
Or those begotten or unbegotten
Perning in a band,

Or those begotten or unbegotten,
For I would not recall
Some that being unbegotten
Are not individual,
But copy some one action,
Moulding it of dust or sand,

An old ghost's thoughts are lightning,
To follow is to die;
Poetry and music I have banished,
But the stupidity
Of root, shoot, blossom or clay
Makes no demand.

Two warriors have grappled, and their arms
Have flecked the air with blood and flashing steel.
These frolics, this mad clanking, these alarms
Proceed from childish love's frantic appeal.

The swords are broken! like our youthful life
My dear! But tooth and nail, avid and sharp,
Soon fill the place of rapier and knife.
0 bitter heat of love, o cankered hearts!

In a ravine haunted by catlike forms
These two have tumbled, struggling to the end;
Shreds of their skin will bloom on arid thorns.

This pit is Hell, its denizens our friends!
Amazon, let us roll there guiltlessly
In spiteful fervour, for eternity!

There came a day at summer's full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at sacrament
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show
At supper of the Lamb.

The hours slid fast, as hours will,
Clutched tight by greedy hands;
So faces on two decks look back,
Bound to opposing lands.

And so, when all the time had failed,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other's crucifix,
We gave no ...

Above our dear Romancer’s dust
Grief takes the place of praise,
Because of sudden cypress thrust
Amid the old-earned bays.

Ah! when shall such another friend
By England’s fireside sit,
To tell her of her faults, yet blend
Sage words with kindly wit?

He brings no pageants of the past
To wile our hearts away;
But wins our love for those who cast
Their lot with ours to-day.

He gives us laughter glad and long;
He gives us tears as pure;
He shames us with the published wrong
We meted to the poor.

Through webs and dust and weather-stains,
His sunlike genius paints,
On life’s transfigured chancel-panes,
The angels and the saints.

He bade us to a lordly feast,
And gave us of his best;
And vanished, while the ...

Chapter 1

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said
"It is Urizen." But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid.

Chapter 2

Times on times he divided and measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear'd
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.

Chapter 3

For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent and element,
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

Chapter 4

Dark, revolving in silent activity:<...

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!, and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right,
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop,
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through ...

Lo! Byron's tomb!
            Here, deeply pensive, scan
The greatness, and the littleness of man.
In timeless death here Freedom's Martyr sleeps,
Whom, her lost Champion, Greece, desponding, weeps.
The impassion'd Bard, whose Genius, wing'd with flame,
Swept, like a comet, through the sphere of fame,
Dazzling the astonish'd world, lies buried here.
Thus human Glory ends its bright career.
To Byron what high gifts did heaven impart!
An intellect sublime, a feeling heart;
But ah! his wild desires, his passions strong,
Hurried him irresistibly along
Wherever Pleasure call'd, through good, or ill;
No law could bridle his own proud self-will.
O! had but Virtue ruled his mighty mind,
Byron had been the first of human kind!