`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,

In a green bed,With no stone at his head,And no tears nor prayers to worry him.Do you think he will sleep,Dreamless and quiet?Yes, if we keepSilence, nor weepO’er the grave where the ground-worms riot.By his tomb let us part.But hush! he is waking!He hath winged a dart,And the mock-cold heartWith the woe of want is…

Bearing as candid, gait as debonair,And voice as deeply, musically strung:That the less fortunate age, from this age sprung,In those transmitted gleams of what you were,May hear your laughter, gaze on your despair,And all but know the witchery of your tongue.Thus shall the unsteadfast dagger of MacbethBe nerved by his male spouse; thus Shylock’s knife,Glittering…

To see where the terrors of Winter wane,And out of a valley of grape and grainThere blossoms a City of domes and towers,Teuton, Lombard, and grasping Gaul,Prince and Pontiff, have forced their way,Have forded the river, and scaled the wall,And made in its palaces stye and stall,Where spears might glisten and war-steeds neigh.But ever since…

High overhead the harsh rook saileth slow,And cupless acorns crackle ‘neath your feet.No breeze, no breath, veereth the oasthouse hoods,Whence the faint smoke floats fragrantly away;And, in the distance, the half-hazy woodsGlow with the barren glory of decay.Vainly the bramble strives to drape the hedge,Whose leafless gaps show many an empty nest:The chill pool stagnates…

For a last redoubt up the hill remained,By the Russ yet held, by the Turk not gained.Mehemet Ali stroked his beard;His lips were clinched and his look was weird;Round him were ranks of his ragged folk,Their faces blackened with blood and smoke.“Clear me the Muscovite out!” he cried,Then the name of “Allah!” resounded wide,And the…

But yesterday my garden-plot was proudWith uncut sheaves of ripe chrysanthemum.Some trees the winds have stripped; but look on some,‘Neath double load of snow and foliage bowed,Unnatural winter fashioning a shroudFor Autumn’s burial ere its pulse be numb.Yet Nature plays not an inhuman part:In her, our own, vicissitudes we trace.Do we not cling to our…