Praise or blame he ever loves;None in prose confess an error,Yet we do so, void of terror,In the Muses’ silent groves.What I err’d in, what corrected,What I suffer’d, what effected,To this wreath as flow’rs belong;For the aged, and the youthful,And the vicious, and the truthful,All are fair when viewed in song.
Saw Beauty his superior deem’dBy folks who loved to gaze upon her;At this he was most sorely vex’d.Then came Sir Breath (long known as fitTo represent the cause of wit),Beginning, rudely, I admit,To treat the lady with a text.To this she hearken’d not at all,But hasten’d to his principal:‘None are so wise, they say, as…
To another town, next night:Black the bread, the maidens white!
Where are the hours that fled so swiftly by?In vain the fairest thou didst gain from fate;Sad is the soul, confused the enterprise;The glorious world, how on the sense it dies!In million tones entwined for evermore,Music with angel-pinions hovers there,To pierce man’s being to its inmost core,Eternal beauty has its fruit to bear;The eye grows…
Dear wife, see how our plainsWith blessings sweet are fraught!We cast our distant gazeFar in the misty blue;Here gentle love still strays,Here dwells still rapture true.Thou seest whither goYon pair of pigeons white,Where swelling violets blowRound sunny foliage bright.‘Twas there we gather’d firstA nosegay as we roved;There into flame first burstThe passion that we proved.Yet…
WHEN in spring the gentle rainBreathes into the flower new birth,When the green and happy plainSmiles upon the sons of earth,Haste to give what help we may,Little elves of wondrous might!Whether good or evil they,Pity for them feels the sprite.II.CHORUS OF SPIRITS.WHEN the moist and balmy galeRound the verdant meadow sighs,Odors sweet in misty veilAt…
He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,Can he in aught beside find happiness?Removed from thee, friend-sever’d, in distress,These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:They still return to that one hour of bliss,The only one; then tears my grief confess.But unawares the tear makes haste to dry:He loves, methinks, e’en to these glades so…
And in the middle they take their place,And wield their scissors with wondrous grace.But if a besom should sweep that way:‘What a most shameful thing,’ they say,–‘They’ve crush’d a mighty palace to-day.’
THE sun still chaunts, as in old time,With brother-spheres in choral song,And with his thunder-march sublimeMoves his predestined course along.Strength find the angels in his sight,Though he by none may fathomed be;Still glorious is each work of mightAs when first form’d in majesty.GABRIEL.And swift and swift, in wondrous guise,Revolves the earth in splendour bright,The radiant…
For each sorrow and each tearMakes the father’s heart to mourn.Patient be a short time to it,Unproduced, and known to none;If your father cannot do it,By your mother ’twill be done.
