Works

Behold; the Balance in the sky
Swift on the wintry scale inclines:
To earthy caves the Dryads fly,
And the bare pastures Pan resigns.
Late did the farmer's fork o'erspread...

Far from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,
From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake,
Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore
We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar;...

(ON HIS TRANSLATION OF "THE ARABIAN NIGHTS")


Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad; but far
Eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears,
Cloud, rain, and splendour as of orient spears,...

("Enfants! Oh! revenez!")

[XXII, April, 1837]


Children, come back - come back, I say -
You whom my folly chased away
A moment since, from this my room,...

While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls...

I heard ye could cool heat, and came
With hope you would allay the same;
Thrice I have wash'd but feel no cold,
Nor find that true which was foretold.
Methinks, like mine, your pulses beat...

By Sylvia if thy charming self be meant;
If friendship be thy virgin vows' extent,
O! let me in Aminta's praises join,
Hers my esteem shall be, my passion thine.
When for thy head the garland I prepare,...

WRITTEN IN A COMMONPLACE BOOK, CALLED "THE BOOK OF FOLLIES;" IN WHICH EVERY ONE THAT OPENED IT WAS TO CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING.


This tribute's from a wretched elf,
Who hails thee, emblem of himself....

With triumph, this morning, oh Boston! I hail
The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail,
For they tell me I soon shall be wafted, in thee,
To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free,...

When factious rage to cruel exile drove
The queen of beauty,[1] and the court of love,
The Muses droop'd, with their forsaken arts,
And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts:...

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?...