In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind.To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat Man has made of Man.Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;And ’tis my faith that every flowerEnjoys the air it…
Pinions that fanned the teeming mouldOf Eden’s blissful wilderness,Did only softly-stealing hoursThere close the peaceful lives of flowers?Say, when the ‘moving’ creatures sawAll kinds commingled without fear,Prevailed a like indulgent lawFor the still growths that prosper here?Did wanton fawn and kid forbearThe half-blown rose, the lily spare?Or peeped they often from their bedsAnd prematurely disappeared,Devoured…
Bound each to each by natural piety.IThere was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth, and every common sight,To me did seemApparelled in celestial light,The glory and the freshness of a dream.It is not now as it hath been of yore; –Turn wheresoe’er I may,By night or day,The things which I have seen I…
Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune,It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather beA Pagan suckled…
Tho’ searching damps and many an envious flawHave marred this Work, the calm ethereal grace,The love deep-seated in the Saviour’s face,The mercy, goodness, have not failed to aweThe Elements; as they do melt and thawThe heart of the Beholder- and erase(At least for one rapt moment) every traceOf disobedience to the primal law.The annunciation of…
Owed many years of early liberty.This care was thine when sickness did condemnThy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem–That I, if frugal and severe, might strayWhere’er I liked; and finally arrayMy temples with the Muse’s diadem.Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,In my…
Our little English Robin;The bird that comes about our doorsWhen Autumn-winds are sobbing?Art thou the Peter of Norway Boors?Their Thomas in Finland,And Russia far inland?The bird, that by some name or otherAll men who know thee call their brother,The darling of children and men?Could Father Adam open his eyesAnd see this sight beneath the skies,He’d…
His eyes from sleep, at the first break of day,And unto Pandarus, his own Brother dear,For love of God, full piteously did say,We must the Palace see of Cresida;For since we yet may have no other feast,Let us behold her Palace at the least!And therewithal to cover his intentA cause he found into the Town…
Festively she puts forth in trim array;Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow?What boots the inquiry?–Neither friend nor foeShe cares for; let her travel where she may,She finds familiar names, a beaten wayEver before her, and a wind to blow.Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark?And, almost as it was when ships…
Shakespeare unlock’d his heart; the melodyOf this small lute gave ease to Petrarch’s wound;A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;With it Camöens sooth’d an exile’s grief;The Sonnet glitter’d a gay myrtle leafAmid the cypress with which Dante crown’dHis visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,It cheer’d mild Spenser, call’d from Faery-landTo struggle through dark ways; and…
