It is with humility really unassumed, it is with a sentiment even of awe, that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn, the most comprehensive, the mos...
Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself, Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hand tight to the throats of kings. ...
But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:...
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,...
Even as a dragon's eye that feels the stress Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp, So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:...
Now the light o' the west is a-turn'd to gloom, An' the men be at hwome vrom ground; An' the bells be a-zend'n all down the Coombe From tower, their mwoansome sound. An' the wind is still,...
Day hath put on his jacket, and around His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs,...
"We sow the fertile seed and then we reap it; We thresh the golden grain; we knead the bread. Others that eat are glad. In store they keep it, While we hunger outside with hearts like lead. Hallelujah! ...
Over two shadowless waters, adrift as a pinnace in peril, Hangs as in heavy suspense, charged with irresolute light, Softly the soul of the sunset upholden awhile on the sterile...
From out the hills where twilight stands, Above the shadowy pasture lands, With strained and strident cry, Beneath pale skies that sunset bands, The bull-bats fly. ...
The fervid breath of our flushed Southern May Is sweet upon the city's throat and lips, As a lover's whose tired arm slips Listlessly over the shoulder of a queen.
O thou bright Sun! beneath the dark blue line Of western distance that sublime descendest, And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline, Thy million hues to every vapour lendest,...
Here's the criminal's friend, delightful evening: come like an accomplice, with a wolf's loping: slowly the sky's vast vault hides each feature, and restless man becomes a savage creature. ...
Giordano, verily thy Pencil's skill Hath here portrayed with Nature's happiest grace The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill; And Dian gazing on the Shepherd's face In rapture, yet suspending her embrace,...
I laid my inventory at the hand Of Death, who in his gloomy arbour sate; And while he conned it, sweet and desolate I heard Love singing in that quiet land. He read the record even to the end -...
Said the Poet, I wouldn't maintain, As the mystical German has done, That the land, inexistent till then, To reward him then first saw the sun; And yet I could deem it was so,...
Since man has been articulate, Mechanical, improvidently wise, (Servant of Fate), He has not understood the little cries And foreign conversations of the small...