Works

Though I thy Mithridates were,
Framed to defy the poison-dart,
Yet must thou fold me unaware
To know the rapture of thy heart,
And I but render and confess
The malice of thy tenderness.
...

Through narrow be that old Man's cares, and near,
The poor old Man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear....

As they draw to a close,
Of what underlies the precedent songs of my aims in them;
Of the seed I have sought to plant in them;
Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them;...

I am not poor, but I am proud,
Of one inalienable right,
Above the envy of the crowd,--
Thought's holy light.

Better it is than gems or gold,
And oh! it cannot die,...

The blight of life, the demon, Thought - BYRON.


With demon's shriek or angel's voice,
'Mid hellish gloom, or heav'nly light,
Thought haunts our path o'er land and sea,...

If all the harm that women have done
Were put in a bundle and rolled into one,
Earth would not hold it,
The sky could not enfold it,
It could not be lighted nor warmed by the sun;
Such masses of evil...

Though the bold wings of Poesy affect
The clouds, and wheel around the mountain tops
Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops
Well pleased to skim the plain with wild flowers deckt...

With each strong thought, with every earnest longing
For aught thou deemest needful to thy soul,
Invisible vast forces are set thronging
Between thee and that goal.
...

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee...

Flattered with promise of escape
From every hurtful blast,
Spring takes, O sprightly May! thy shape,
Her loveliest and her last.

Less fair is summer riding high
In fierce solstitial power,...

Of these years I sing,
How they pass and have pass'd, through convuls'd pains as through parturitions;...

Thoughts do not need the wings of words
To fly to any goal.
Like subtle lightnings, not like birds,
They speed from soul to soul.

Hide in your heart a bitter thought -...

By sound of name, and touch of hand,
Thro' ears that hear, and eyes that see,
We know each other in this land,
How little must that knowledge be?

How souls are all the time alone,...

When I am all alone
Envy me most,
Then my thoughts flutter round me
In a glimmering host;

Some dressed in silver,
Some dressed in white,
Each like a taper
Blossoming light;
...

I am glad when men of genius
Array a common thought,
In imperishable beauty
That it cannot be forgot.

The heart thoughts all bright and burnished
By high poetic art,...

'Tis but a box, of modest deal;
Directed to no matter where:
Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal -
Yes, I am blubbering like a seal;
For on it is this mute appeal,
"With care."
...

Here is the boundless ocean, there the sky,
O'er-arching broad and blue
Telling of God and heaven how deep, how high,
How glorious and true!

Upon the wave there is an anthem sweet,...

The summer winds is sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees;
And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees,
And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly,...

If some day this body of mine were burned
(It found no favour alas! with you)
And the ashes scattered abroad, unurned,
Would Love die also, would Thought die too?
But who can answer, or who can trust,...

I watched them from the window, thy children at their play,
And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away,
And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child's own buoyant gladness...