Works

I saw thee once, I see thee now;
Thy pure young face, thy noble mien,
Thy truthful eyes, thy radiant brow;
All childlike, lovely, and serene;
Rapt in harmonious visions proud,...

Oh, serious eyes! how is it that the light,
The burning rays that mine pour into ye,
Still find ye cold, and dead, and dark, as night -
Oh, lifeless eyes! can ye not answer me?...

Was ever any face like this before,
So light a veiling for the soul within,
So pure and yet so pitiful for sin?
They say the soul will pass the Heavy Door,
And yearning upward, learn creation's lore,...

Oh flower-sweet face and bended flower-like head!
Oh violet whose purple cannot pale,
Or forest fragrance ever faint or fail,
Or breath and beauty pass among the dead!
Yea, very truly has the poet said,...

Carved in the silence by the hand of Pain,
And made more perfect by the gift of Peace,
Than if Delight had bid your sorrow cease,
And brought the dawn to where the dark has lain,...

Francesca's life that was a limpid flame
Agleam against the shimmer of a sword,
Which falling, quenched the flame in blood outpoured
To free the house of Rimino from shame,...

You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But have you known a dog to praise his fleas?

Oh, be not led away.
Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day.
The gay romances of song
Unto the spirit-life doth not belong.
Though far-between the hours
In which the Master of Angelic Powers...

As one, the secret lover of a queen,
Watches her move within the people's eye,
Hears their poor chatter as she passes by,
And smiles to think of what his eyes have seen;...

Thou who singest through the earth,
All the earth's wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever...

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,...

Of thy judicious Muse's sense,
Young Hinchinbroke so very proud is,
That Sacharissa and Hortense
She looks henceforth upon as dowdies.

Yet she to one must still submit,...

Minstrel, what have you to do
With this man that, after you,
Sharing not your happy fate,
Sat as England's Laureate?
Vainly, in these iron days,
Strives the poet in your praise,...

Still towards the steep Parnassian way
The moon-led pilgrims wend,
Ah, who of all that start to-day
Shall ever reach the end?

Year after year a dream-fed band
That scorn the vales below,...

I would not venture to dispraise or praise.
Too well I know the indifference which bounds
A poet in the narrow working-grounds
Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.
...

There was a moment when of you
A splendid hope I had to tell,
Believing "Here is one man who
Will serve our waiting country well."

I saw you sedulous and keen,
I heard the burning words you spoke....

Thou mighty lord and master of the lyre,
Unshorn Apollo, come and re-inspire
My fingers so, the lyric-strings to move,
That I may play and sing a hymn to Love.

Ph[oe]bus! when that I a verse
Or some numbers more rehearse,
Tune my words that they may fall
Each way smoothly musical:
For which favour there shall be
Swans devoted unto thee.

What prays the poet of enshrined Apollo?
What is he asking for with lifted hands,
Pouring a fresh libation from his flagon? -
Not fertile crop from rich Sardinian lands, -...

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature, of the politics of Nature, you have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;...