These, to you now, O, more than ever now - Now that the Ancient Enemy Has passed, and we, we two that are one, have seen A piece of perfect Life Turn to so ravishing a shape of Death...
There is a world Life dreams of, long since lost: Invisible save only to the heart: That spreads its cloudy islands, without chart, Above the Earth,'mid oceans none has crossed:...
Here check we our career: Long books I greatly fear. I would not quite exhaust my stuff; The flower of subjects is enough. To me, the time is come, it seems, To draw my breath for other themes....
Beyond the moon, within a land of mist, Lies the dim Garden of all Dead Desires, Walled round with morning's clouded amethyst, And haunted of the sunset's shadowy fires;...
HOLD! hold, my good friends; for one moment, pray stop ye, I return ye my thanks, in the name of poor Hoppy. He's not the first person who never did write, And yet has been fed by a benefit-night....
I. On the first of the Feast of Feasts, The Dedication Day, When the Levites joined the Priests At the Altar in robed array, Gave signal to sound and say, ...
Hold! Prompter, hold! a word before your nonsense; I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience. My pride forbids it ever should be said, My heels eclips'd the honours of my head;...
We act by fits and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then pop down again. Let those who call us wicked change their sense; For never men lived more on Providence....
As Jupiter I made my court in vain; I'll now assume my native shape again. I'm weary to be so unkindly used, And would not be a god to be refused. State grows uneasy when it hinders love;...
'Enter' MRS. BULKLEY, 'who curtsies very low as beginning to speak. Then enter' MISS CATLEY, 'who stands full before her, and curtsies to the audience'.
Oft has our poet wish'd, this happy seat Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat: I wonder'd at his wish, but now I find He sought for quiet, and content of mind;...
Who dares affirm this is no pious age, When charity begins to tread the stage? When actors, who at best are hardly savers, Will give a night of benefit to weavers?...
After our 'sop's fable shown to-day, I come to give the moral of the play. Feign'd Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace: But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race:...
Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail, Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail. Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder'd through the pit; And this is all their equipage of wit....
A Poet once the Spartans led to fight, And made them conquer in the muse's right; So would our poet lead you on this day, Showing your tortured fathers in his play....
A thousand songs I might have made Of You, and only You; A thousand thousand tongues of fire That trembled down a golden wire To lamp the night with stars, to braid The morning bough with dew. ...
'Tis thus, by crystal fount, my muse hath sung, Translating into heavenly tongue Whatever came within my reach, From hosts of beings borr'wing nature's speech. Interpreter of tribes diverse,...