Works

Pompey, what fortune gives you back
To the friends and the gods who love you?
Once more you stand in your native land,
With your native sky above you.
Ah, side by side, in years agone,...

Signor, se vero '.


My Lord! if ever ancient saw spake sooth,
Hear this which saith: Who can, doth never will.
Lo! thou hast lent thine ear to fables still,...

1.

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is...

When you and I were younger the world was passing fair;
Our days were sped with laughter, our steps were free as air;
Life lightly lured us onward, and ceased not to unroll...

O Postumus, my Postumus, the years are gliding past,
And piety will never check the wrinkles coming fast,
The ravages of time old age's swift advance has made,...

Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears
Speak grief in you,
Who were but born
just as the modest morn
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
Alas, you have not known that shower
That mars a flower,...

What fate decreed, time now has made us see,
A renovation of the west by thee.
That preternatural fever, which did threat
Death to our country, now hath lost his heat,...

(On the Return of the "Ophir")

Most well-behaved little Prince, -
As the small boy
Who will one day be the Sovereign Lord
Of certain other small boys
In whom I am interested...

O you that were eyes and light to the King till he past away
From the darkness of life'
He saw not his daughter'he blest her: the blind King sees you to-day,
He blesses the wife.

Fair things are slow to fade away,
Bear witness you, that yesterday1
From out the Ghost of Pindar inyou
Roll'd an Olympian; and they say2

That here the torpid mummy wheat...

JOHN courts Perrette; but all in vain;
Love's sweetest oaths, and tears, and sighs
All potent spells her heart to gain
The ardent lover vainly tries:
Fruitless his arts to make her waver,...

"Give me only a fragment of earth beyond the earth's limits,"
So the godlike man said, "and I will move it with ease."
Only give me permission to leave myself for one moment,...

I pledge myself thro' thick and thin,
To labor still with zeal devout
To get the Outs, poor devils, in,
And turn the Ins, the wretches, out.

I pledge myself, tho' much bereft...

I have my laurel chaplet on my head
If, 'mongst these many numbers to be read,
But one by you be hugg'd and cherished.

Peruse my measures thoroughly, and where
Your judgment finds a guilty poem, there...

Once I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for Nature gazed so long,
Pleased with her work, that she forgot her tongue;...

I will not striue m' inuention to inforce,
With needlesse words your eyes to entertaine,
T' obserue the formall ordinarie course
That euerie one so vulgarly doth faine:...

Go then, if she, whose shade thou art,
No more will let thee soothe my pain;
Yet, tell her, it has cost this heart
Some pangs, to give thee back again.

Tell her, the smile was not so dear,...

As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones.
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scatter'd rhymes...

Will you feast with me, American People?
But what have I that shall seem good to you!

On my board are bitter apples
And honey served on thorns,
And in my flagons fluid iron,...

Begone, ye Critics, and restrain your spite,
Codrus writes on, and will for ever write,
The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on;...