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I noticed people disappeared,
When but a little child, --
Supposed they visited remote,
Or settled regions wild.

Now know I they both visited
And settled regions wild,...

Here Stranger rest thee! from the neighbouring towers
Of Oxford, haply thou hast forced thy bark
Up this strong stream, whose broken waters here
Send pleasant murmurs to the listening sense:...

Art thou a Patriot Traveller? on this field
Did FALKLAND fall the blameless and the brave
Beneath a Tyrant's banners: dost thou boast
Of loyal ardor? HAMBDEN perish'd here,...

Here, shunning idleness at once and praise,
This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;
The glittering emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul and shining as her frame;...

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe
And storied urns record who rest below:...

Hopes what are they? Beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass;
Or a spider's web adorning
In a strait and treacherous pass.

What are fears but voices airy?...

Hast thou seen, with flash incessant,
Bubbles gliding under ice,
Bodied forth and evanescent,
No one knows by what device?

Such are thoughts! A wind-swept meadow
Mimicking a troubled sea,...

Pause, Traveller! whosoe'er thou be
Whom chance may lead to this retreat,
Where silence yields reluctantly
Even to the fleecy straggler's bleat;

Give voice to what my hand shall trace,...

Troubled long with warring notions
Long impatient of thy rod,
I resign my soul's emotions
Unto Thee, mysterious God!

What avails the kindly shelter
Yielded by this craggy rent,...

Not seldom, clad in radiant vest,
Deceitfully goes forth the Morn;
Not seldom Evening in the west
Sinks smilingly forsworn.

The smoothest seas will sometimes prove,
To the confiding Bark, untrue;...

Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed Urn,
Shoot forth with lively power at Spring's return;
And be not slow a stately growth to rear
Of pillars, branching off from year to year,...

Stranger! this hillock of mis-shapen stones
Is not a Ruin spared or made by time,
Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the Cairn
Of some old British Chief: 'tis nothing more...

This is the place where William's kingly power
Did from their poor and peaceful homes expel,
Unfriended, desolate, and shelterless,
The habitants of all the fertile track...

("Oh! n'insultez jamais une femme qui tombe.")

[XIV., Sept. 6, 1835.]


I tell you, hush! no word of sneering scorn -
True, fallen; but God knows how deep her sorrow....

It glads us much to be able to say,
That a meeting is fixt for some early day,
Of all such dowagers--he or she--
(No matter the sex, so they dowagers be,)
Whose opinions concerning Church and State...

Whenever I'm moving my furniture in
Or shifting my furniture out,
Which is nearly as often and risky as Sin
In these days of shifting about,
There isn't a stretcher, there isn't a stick,...

Whenever I'm moving my furniture in
Or shifting my furniture out,
Which is nearly as often and risky as Sin
In these days of shifting about,
There isn't a stretcher, there isn't a stick,...

Reading in my book this cold night,
I have forgotten to go to sleep.
The perfumes have died on the gilded bed-cover;
The last smoke must have left the hearth
When I was not looking....

Night hides our thefts, all faults then pardon'd be;
All are alike fair when no spots we see.
Lais and Lucrece in the night-time are
Pleasing alike, alike both singular:...

In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt....