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Why art thou here, little, motherless one, -
Why art thou here in this bleak world alone?
With that innocent smile on thy beautiful brow,
What hath this stern world for such as thou?
...

To thee, O father of the stately peaks,
Above me in the loftier light to thee,
Imperial brother of those awful hills
Whose feet are set in splendid spheres of flame,...

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
...

Strange little spring, by channels past our telling,
Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling;
Through what blind ways, we know not whence
You darkling come to dance and dimple -
Strange little spring!...

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
...

Musician, with the bent and brooding face,
White brow and thunderous eyes: you are not playing
Merely the music that dead hand did trace.

Musician, with the lifted resolute face,...

Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,
Does murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about,
In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing,...

O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea,
Through all the miles that stretch between,
My thought must fly to rest on thee,
And would, though worlds should intervene.

Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks...

I read your name when you were strange to me,
Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;
I passed it vacantly, and did not see
Any great glory in the shape it wore.
...

The winds have grown articulate in thee,
And voiced again the wail of ancient woe
That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee,
The quivering moan of pale Andromache,...

Malicious insect, little vengeful bee,
With venom-sting thou'rt whirling round and round
A harmless head that ne'er meant wrong to thee,
And friendship's hand it is thou'dst wish to wound:...

Nay, seer, I do not doubt thy mystic lore,
Nor question that the tenor of my life,
Past, present and the future, is revealed
There in my horoscope. I do believe
That yon dead moon compels the haughty seas...

Seek not my name--it doth no virtue bear;
Seek, seek thine own primeval name to find--
The name God called when thy ideal fair
Arose in deeps of the eternal mind.
...

Thrice welcome here again, thou flutt'ring thing,
That gaily seek'st about the opening flower,
And opest and shutt'st thy gaudy-spangled wing
Upon its bosom in the sunny hour;...

Cowslip bud, so early peeping,
Warm'd by April's hazard hours;
O'er thy head though sunshine's creeping,
Close the threatening tempest lowers:
Trembling blossom, let me bear thee...

Solace of mine hours of anguish,
Peace-imparting View, when I,
Sick of Hindo-Sturm-und-Drang, wish
I could lay me down and die,

Very present help in trouble,
Never-failing anodyne...

The seed that wasteful autumn cast
To waver on its stormy blast,
Long o'er the wintry desert tost,
Its living germ has never lost.
Dropped by the weary tempest's wing,...

Italian bold, why wilt thou never cease
The fathers from their tombs to summon forth?
Why bring them, with this dead age to converse,
That stifled is by enemies and by sloth?...

My dear Sir, -
Oft in the stilly night
My thoughts fly
In your direction,
For oft in the stilly night
It is my unfortunate habit
To have uncomfortable dreams,
And the worst of them...

Old-fashioned uncouth measurer of the day,
I love to watch thy filtering burthen pass;
Though some there are that live would bid thee stay;
But these view reasons through a different glass...