Works

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:...

I.

Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven! - but thou, alas,
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire -
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,
And is, despite of war and wasting fire,...

I.

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,
And then we parted, - not as now we part,...

Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,
Not in those visions to the heart displaying
Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,...

I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break,
Or children make this merry sound?
...

Chloris, my friend, I pray you your misconduct to forswear;
The wife of poor old Ibycus should have more savoir faire.
A woman at your time of life, and drawing near death's door,...

It was Chrismus Eve, I mind hit fu' a mighty gloomy day--
Bofe de weathah an' de people--not a one of us was gay;
Cose you 'll t'ink dat 's mighty funny 'twell I try to mek hit cleah,...

Who is that calling through the night,
A wail that dies when the wind roars?
We heard it first on Shipley's Hill,
It faded out at Comingoer's.

Along five miles of wintry road...

Dark and dull night, flie hence away,
And give the honor to this day
That sees December turn'd to May.

- - - - - -

Why does the chilling winter's morne...

Saint Francis and Saint Benedight
Blesse this house from wicked wight;
From the night-mare and the goblin,
That is hight good fellow Robin;
Keep it from all evil spirits,...

Cold my heart, and poor, and low,
Like thy stable in the rock;
Do not let it orphan go,
It is of thy parent stock!
Come thou in, and it will grow
High and wide, a fane divine;...

But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing I cannot have more of him.
- HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS.


...

Christ, He requires still, wheresoe'er He comes
To feed or lodge, to have the best of rooms:
Give Him the choice; grant Him the nobler part
Of all the house: the best of all's the heart.

'Twas a score of years since I'd heard the pipes,
But the other night I heard them;
There are sweet old memories in my heart,
And the music woke and stirred them.

In the armories, at the big parade...

1. Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his helplessness the cunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and Kabbala.
...

Or beasts there have been chosen four

To come to Paradise,
And there with saints for evermore

They dwell in happy wise.

Amongst them all the Ass stands first;
...

AFTER THE BATTLE OF BADE, BENEATH THE CANOPY OF HEAVEN.


MAHOMET (Speaks).

Let the foeman sorrow o'er his dead,

Ne'er will they return again to light;...

Six among the courtiers favour'd
Fly before the Caesar's fury,
Who would as a god be worshipp'd,
Though in truth no god appearing,
For a fly prevents him ever
From enjoying food at table....

Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth...

Where are the cabalists, the insidious committees,
The panders who betray the idiot cities
For miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled,
Ignorant, soul-less, rich,
Smothered in fumes of pitch?
...