Braving the tempests of the night
Have I ‘scaped the flickering flame.
Like the scathed pine, which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath;
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.
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Rough wind, that moanest loud
Wild wind, when sullen cloudKnells all the night long;Sad storm whose tears are vain,Bare woods, whose branches strain,Deep caves and dreary main,–Wail, for the world’s wrong!
Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Let us remain together still,Then it will be good night.How can I call the lone night good,Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?Be it not said, thought, understood —Then it will be — good night.To hearts which near each other moveFrom evening close to morning light,The night is good; because, my love,They never say good-night.
PEOPLE of England, ye who toil and groan,
Who weave the clothes which your oppressors wear,And for your own take the inclement air;Who build warm houses . . .And are like gods who give them all they have,And nurse them from the cradle to the grave . . .
‘Thus do the generations of the earth
Surviving still the imperishable changeThat renovates the world; even as the leavesWhich the keen frost-wind of the waning yearHas scattered on the forest-soil and heapedFor many seasons there-though long they choke,Loading with loathsome rottenness the land,All germs of promise, yet when the tall treesFrom which they fell, shorn of their lovely shapes,Lie level with the…
‘Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
A Spirit of activity and life,That knows no term, cessation, or decay;That fades not when the lamp of earthly life,Extinguish’d in the dampness of the grave,Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babeIn the dim newness of its being feelsThe impulses of sublunary things,And all is wonder to unpractis’d sense:But, active, steadfast and eternal, stillGuides…
Amid the desolation of a city,
Of an extinguished people,—so that PityWeeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave,There stands the Tower of Famine. It is builtUpon some prison-homes, whose dwellers raveFor bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,Agitates the light flame of their hours,Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.There stands the pile, a tower amid the towersAnd…