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The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies,
And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs,
Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers,...

Oh, what is this which shines so bright,
And in the lonely place
Hangs out his small green lamp at night,
The dewy bank to grace!

It is a glow-worm, still and pale
It shines the whole night long,...

A STURGEON, once, a glutton famed was led
To have for supper - all, except the head.
With wond'rous glee he feasted on the fish;
And quickly swallowed down the royal dish....

As I lay awake in the white moonlight,
I heard a sweet singing in the wood -
'Out of bed,
Sleepyhead,
Put your white foot now,
Here are we,
'Neath the tree,
Singing round the root now!'
...

In God alone, the perfect end,
Wilt thou find thyself or friend.

All your wonderful inventions,
All your houses vast and tall,
All your great gun-fronted vessels,
Every fort and every wall,
With the passing of the ages,
They shall pass and they shall fall.
...

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.
...

"Can mothers of our English isle,
The pride of all the earth,
From any tribe of tender brutes,
A mother's duly learn?"
So to a shepherd of the Alps,
A guest of noble birth,...

The crooked paths go every way
Upon the hill - they wind about
Through the heather in and out
Of the quiet sunniness.
And there the goats, day after day,
Stray in sunny quietness,...

Once I held a well-carved brimming goblet,
In my two hands tightly clasp'd I held it,
Eagerly the sweet wine sipp'd I from it,
Seeking there to drown all care and sorrow.
...

Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.
...

The big bright Moon hung high and round,
In a densely darkened sky;
The tall pines swayed, and mocked, and groaned;
The mountains grew so high
That the Man-in-the-Moon came out and said,...

Mahadeva,* Lord of earth

For the sixth time comes below,

As a man of mortal birth,

Like him, feeling joy and woe.

Hither loves he to repair,

And his power behind to leave;...

Now I begin to know at last,
These nights when I sit down to rhyme,
The form and measure of that vast
God we call Poetry, he who stoops
And leaps me through his paper hoops
A little higher every time....

'Who comes?' The sentry's warning cry
Rings sharply on the evening air:
Who comes? The challenge: no reply,
Yet something motions there.

A woman, by those graceful folds;...

In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,
Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one
Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun
Rang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the wood...

PAT M'DURMER brought the tidings to the town of God-Forgotten :
'There are lively days before ye, commin Parlymint's dissolved!'
And the boys were all excited, for the State, of course, was 'rotten,'...

Noble be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.

Hail to the beings,
Unknown and glorious,
Whom we forebode!...

There was a lord that hight Maltete,
Among great lords he was right great,
On poor folk trod he like the dirt,
None but God might do him hurt.
Deus est Deus pauperum.
...

Last night, as one who hears a tragic jest,
I woke from dreams, half-laughing, half in tears;
Methought that I had journeyed in the spheres
And stood upon the Planet of the Blest!...