Sweet wreck of loveliness! alas, how soon The sad brief summer of thy joys hath fled: How sorrows Friendship for thy hapless doom, Thy beauty faded, and thy hopes all dead....
Sweet songstress! whom the melancholy Muse With more than fondness loved, for thee she strung The lyre, on which herself enraptured hung, And bade thee through the world its sweets diffuse....
A noble Lady of the Italian shore Lovely and young, herself a happy bride, Commands a verse, and will not be denied, From me a wandering Englishman; I tore One sonnet, but invoke the muse once more...
O happy day, with seven-fold blessings set Amid thy hallowed hours, the memories dear Of childhood's holidays, and household cheer, When friends and kin in loving circle met,...
To this our world, to learning, and to heaven, Three nines there are, to every one a nine; One number of the earth, the other both divine; One woman now makes three odd numbers even....
Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer, And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace; Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?" Making withal some filthy antic face....
Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack To wound her heart whose eyes have wounded me And suffered her to glory in my wrack, Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee!...
When human touch (as monkish books attest) Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells, And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest;...
Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire, Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star! Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far, Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre...
High priest of Homer, not elect in vain, Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms behind Mix music with the rolling wheels that wind Slow through the labouring triumph of thy train:...
Chaotic crags are huddled east and west Dark, heavy crags, against a straitened sea That cometh, like a troubled soul in quest Of voiceless rest where never dwelleth rest,...
'There were but two, and we were forty! Yet,' The Captain wrote, 'that dauntless couple throve, And faced our wildering faces; and I said 'Lie to awhile!' I did not choose to let...
Where is the painter who shall paint for you, My Austral brothers, with a pencil steeped In hues of Truth, the weather-smitten crew Who gazed on unknown shores a thoughtful few...
'Tis holy ground! The silent silver lights And darks undreamed of, falling year by year Upon his sleep, in soft Australian nights, Are joys enough for him who lieth here...
The Roman Consul doomed his sons to die Who had betrayed their country. The stern word Afforded (may it through all time afford) A theme for praise and admiration high. Upon the surface of humanity...
This Spot, at once unfolding sight so fair Of sea and land, with yon grey towers that still Rise up as if to lord it over air Might soothe in human breasts the sense of ill,...
Fit retribution, by the moral code Determined, lies beyond the State's embrace, Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case She plants well-measured terrors in the road...
Ye brood of conscience Spectres! that frequent The bad Man's restless walk, and haunt his bed Fiends in your aspect, yet beneficent In act, as hovering Angels when they spread...
Ah, think how one compelled for life to abide Locked in a dungeon needs must eat the heart Out of his own humanity, and part With every hope that mutual cares provide;...
Yes, though He well may tremble at the sound Of his own voice, who from the judgment-seat Sends the pale Convict to his last retreat In death; though Listeners shudder all around,...