Works

Should man, with microscopic eye,
View the details of Nature's plan,
Into each nook and corner pry,
And needlessly the hidden scan?

Should he inspect each bud and flow'r,...

In Germany there lived an earl
Who had a charming niece:
And never gave the timid girl
A single moment's peace!
Whatever low and menial task
His fancy flitted through,
He did not hesitate to ask...

Love on a day, wise poets tell,
Some time in wrangling spent,
Whether the violets should excel,
Or she, in sweetest scent.

But Venus having lost the day,
Poor girls, she fell on you:...

We sat in the jury-box, twelve were we all,
And the clock was just pointing to ten in the hall,
His Lordship he bowed to the jury, and we
Bowed back to his Lordship as gravely as he.
...

I stand this way on cloudy winter days
From dawn to dusk and I soap heads,
Shave them and powder them and speak
Indifferent words, stupid, foolish.
Most heads are completely shut,...

Come then, brave men, from the Land of Lakes
With steady steps and cheers;
Our country calls, as the battle breaks,
On the Northwest Pioneers.
Let the eagle scream, and the bayonet gleam!...

Hymnus VIII. Kalendas Ianuarias


Quid est, quod artum circulum
sol iam recurrens deserit?
Christusne terris nascitur,
qui lucis auget tramitem?

Heu quam fugacem gratiam...

Lo! where youth and beauty lie,
Cold within the tomb!
As the spring's first violets die,
Withered in their bloom.
O'er the young and buried bride,
Let the cypress wave:...

Oh, lost, forever lost--no more
Shall Vesper light our dewy way
Along the rocks of Crissa's shore,
To hymn the fading fires of day;
No more to Tempe's distant vale
In holy musings shall we roam,...

Sea-born goddess, let me be
By thy son thus graced, and thee,
That whene'er I woo, I find
Virgins coy, but not unkind.
Let me, when I kiss a maid,
Taste her lips, so overlaid...

CANTO I.

Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at heaven; pity these have not...

I give to you these verses, that if in
Some future time my name lands happily
To bring brief pleasure to humanity,
The craft supported by a great north wind,

Your memory, like tales from ancient times,...

I have become very hairy all over my body.
I'm afraid they'll start hunting me because of my fur.

My multicolored shirt has no meaning of love,
it looks like an air photo of a railway station.
...

I heard a voice upon the window beat
And then grow dim, grow still.
Opening I saw the snowy sill
Marked with the robin's feet.
Chill was the air and chill
The thoughts that in my bosom beat.
...

I hear the oriole's always-grieving voice,
And the rich summer's welcome loss I hear
In the sickle's serpentine hiss
Cutting the corn's ear tightly pressed to ear.
And the short skirts of the slim reapers...

It was in her white skirts that he loved to see
her run straight through the branches and leaves, gracefully,
but still gauche, and hiding her leg from the light,...

I love you as I love the night's high vault
O silent one, 0 sorrow's lachrymal,
And love you more because you flee from me,
And temptress of my nights, ironically
You seem to hoard the space, to take to you...

Gaddi mi fece; il Ponte Vecchio sono;
Cinquecent' anni gia sull' Arno pianto
Il piede, come il suo Michele Santo
Pianto sul draco. Mentre ch' io ragiono
Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono...

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky
Burned like a heated opal through the air;
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie....

'Twas but for a moment--and yet in that time
She crowded the impressions of many an hour:
Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime,
Which waked every feeling at once into flower.
...