Works

Last night I heard the plaintive whippoorwill,
And straightway Sorrow shot his swiftest dart.
I know not why, but it has chilled my heart
Like some dread thing of evil. All night long...

Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest,
With single rites the common debt to pay?
On some green headland fronting to the East
Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day....

We never joy enjoy to that full point
Regret doth wish joy had enjoy'd been,
Nor have the strength regret to disappoint
Recalling not past joy's thought, but its mien.
Yet joy was joy when it enjoy'd was...

Quand' io son tutto volto in quella parte.

HE FLIES, BUT PASSION PURSUES HIM.


When I reflect and turn me to that part
Whence my sweet lady beam'd in purest light,...

My footsteps press where, centuries ago,
The Red Men fought and conquered; lost and won.
Whole tribes and races, gone like last year's snow,
Have found the Eternal Hunting-Grounds, and run...

My love, and not I, is the egoist.
My love for thee loves itself more than thee;
Ay, more than me, in whom it doth exist,
And makes me live that it may feed on me.
In the country of bridges the bridge is...

Ah! why have I indulg'd my dazzled sight
With scenes in Hope's delusive mirror shown?
Scenes, that too seldom human Life has known
In kind accomplishment; - but O! how bright...

Son animali al mondo di s' altera.

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A MOTH.


Creatures there are in life of such keen sight
That no defence they need from noonday sun,...

THERE WAS A TIME - and that is all we know!
No record lives of their ensanguined deeds:
The past seems palsied with some giant blow,
And grows the more obscure on what it feeds....

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment...

Vergognando talor ch' ancor si taccia.

THE PRAISES OF LAURA TRANSCEND HIS POETIC POWERS.


Ashamed sometimes thy beauties should remain
As yet unsung, sweet lady, in my rhyme;...

Indefinite space, which, by co-substance night,
In one black mystery two void mysteries blends;
The stray stars, whose innumerable light
Repeats one mystery till conjecture ends;...

I do not wonder that the Druids built
Their sacred altars in the sacred groves.
Fit place to worship God. The native guilt
Of our poor weak humanity behoves
That we should set aside no little part...

Ceas'd is the rain; but heavy drops yet fall
From the drench'd roof; - yet murmurs the sunk wind
Round the dim hills; can yet a passage find
Whistling thro' yon cleft rock, and ruin'd wall....

Good Kosciusko, thy great name alone
Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;
It comes upon us like the glorious pealing
Of the wide spheres, an everlasting tone....

Apollo, at his crowded altars, tir'd
Of Votaries, who for trite ideas thrown
Into loose verse, assume, in lofty tone,
The Poet's name, untaught, and uninspir'd,...

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;...

The evening shines in May's luxuriant pride,
And all the sunny hills at distance glow,
And all the brooks, that thro' the valley flow,
Seem liquid gold. - O! had my fate denied...

When in the widening circle of rebirth
To a new flesh my travelled soul shall come,
And try again the unremembered earth
With the old sadness for the immortal home,...

Se l' onorata fronde, che prescrive.

TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE POETRY.


If the world-honour'd leaf, whose green defies
The wrath of Heaven when thunders mighty Jove,...