ALAS! what boots the long laborious quest

Oft is she hid from mortal eyeOr dimly seen,But when the clouds asunder flyHow bright her mien!Far different we–a froward race,Thousands though rich in Fortune’s graceWith cherished sullenness of paceTheir way pursue,Ingrates who wear a smileless faceThe whole year through.If kindred humours e’er would makeMy spirit droop for drooping’s sake,From Fancy following in thy wake,Bright…

Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquityHath flowed, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood,’Roused though it be full often to a moodWhich spurns the check of salutary bands,That this most famous Stream in bogs and sandsShould perish; and to evil and to goodBe lost for ever. In our halls is hungArmoury of the invincible Knights of…

Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,For May is on the lawn.A quickening hope, a freshening glee,Foreran the expected Power,Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and tree,Shakes off that pearly shower.All Nature welcomes Her whose swayTempers the year’s extremes;Who scattereth lustres o’er noon-day,Like morning’s dewy gleams;While mellow warble, sprightly trill,The tremulous heart excite;And hums the balmy air…

Into the soul its tranquillising power,Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man,Earth’s paramount Creature! not so much for woesThat thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divineDoth melt away; but for those palms achievedThrough length of time, by patient exerciseOf study and hard thought; there, there, it…

Nor, England! did I know till thenWhat love I bore to thee.‘Tis past, that melancholy dream!Nor will I quit thy shoreA second time; for still I seemTo love thee more and more.Among thy mountains did I feelThe joy of my desire;And she I cherish’d turn’d her wheelBeside an English fire.Thy mornings showed, thy nights conceal’d,The…

But in the lover’s ear alone,What once to me befell.When she I loved looked every dayFresh as a rose in June,I to her cottage bent my way,Beneath an evening-moon.Upon the moon I fixed my eye,All over the wide lea;With quickening pace my horse drew nighThose paths so dear to me.And now we reached the orchard-plot;And,…