Works

To-night retir'd the queen of heaven
With young Endymion stays:
And now to Hesper is it given
Awhile to rule the vacant sky,
Till she shall to her lamp supply
A stream of brighter rays.
...

I will not Kneel in front of you, executioner,
Even though I am your prisoner, I am a slave in your prison.
When my time comes — I will die. But be aware: I will die standing up,...

Who made love to me,
Imagin'd more than woman.

Fair lovely Maid, or if that Title be
Too weak, too Feminine for Nobler thee,
Permit a Name that more Approaches Truth:...

Not in the crowd of masqueraders gay,
Where coxcombs' wit with wondrous splendor flares,
And, easier than the Indian's net the prey,
The virtue of young beauties snares;
...

Thou'st dar'd too far; but, fury, now forbear
To give the least disturbance to her hair:
But less presume to lay a plait upon
Her skin's most smooth and clear expansion.
'Tis like a lawny firmament as yet,...

Stand up, you Strong! Touch glasses! To the Weak!
The Weak who fight: or habit or disease,
Birth, chance, or ignorance, or awful wreak
Of some lost forbear, who has drained the cup...

At morning, when the earth and sky
Are glowing with the light of spring,
We see thee not, thou humble fly!
Nor think upon thy gleaming wing.

But when the skies have lost their hue,...

When I have seen thy snow-white wing
From the blue wave at evening spring,
And show those scales of silvery white,
So gayly to the eye of light,
As if thy frame were formed to rise,...

A little more, a little less!--
O shadow-hunters pitiless,
Why then so eager, say!
What'er you leave the grave will take,
And all you gain and all you make,
It will not last a day!
...

O fountain of Bandusia!
Whence crystal waters flow,
With garlands gay and wine I'll pay
The sacrifice I owe;
A sportive kid with budding horns
I have, whose crimson blood...

OD. iii. 13.


Bandusia, stainless mirror of the sky!
Thine is the flower-crown'd bowl, for thee shall die,
When dawns again yon sun, the kid;
Whose budding horns, half-seen, half-hid,
...

And dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone,
(Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurl'd)
Still sit as on the fragment of a world;
Surviving all, majestic and alone?...

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean...

To the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;...

See and not see, and if thou chance t'espy
Some aberrations in my poetry,
Wink at small faults; the greater, ne'ertheless,
Hide, and with them their father's nakedness....

O thou who from the mountain's height
Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest thy Palmyra's ancient pride,...

Command the roof, great Genius, and from thence
Into this house pour down thy influence,
That through each room a golden pipe may run
Of living water by thy benizon;...

Girls, we love you, and love
Asks you to give again
That which draws it above,
Beautiful, without stain.

Give us weariless faith
In our Cause pure, passionate,
Dearer than life and death,...

(On their Proposal to Banish Barmaids)

May it please your Worships,
For years past, Glasgow has stood in the forefront
As a city given over to the small-pox
And magisterial reform....

When by the green-wood side, at summer eve,
Poetic visions charm my closing eye;
And fairy-scenes, that Fancy loves to weave,
Shift to wild notes of sweetest Minstrelsy;...