Of late two dainties were before me plac'd Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent, From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent That Gods might know my own particular taste:...
Hast thou from the caves of Golconda, a gem Pure as the ice-drop that froze on the mountain? Bright as the humming-bird's green diadem, When it flutters in sun-beams that shine through a fountain? ...
The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun, The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem, Though beautiful, cold, strange, as in a dream I dreamed long ago, now new begun....
No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years:...
As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete Was unto me, but why that I ne might Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight [As I suppose] had more of hertis ese Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese. - Chaucer...
Hush, hush! tread softly! hush, hush my dear! All the house is asleep, but we know very well That the jealous, the jealous old bald-pate may hear. Tho' you've padded his night-cap O sweet Isabel!...
I had a dove, and the sweet dove died; And I have thought it died of grieving: O, what could it grieve for? its feet were tied With a single thread of my own hand's weaving;...
Spirit here that reignest! Spirit here that painest! Spirit here that burneth! Spirit here that mourneth! Spirit! I bow My forehead low, Enshaded with thy pinions! Spirit! I look...
As Hermes once took to his feathers light, When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept, So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft...
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle South, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains....
As from the darkening gloom a silver dove Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light, On pinions that nought moves but pure delight, So fled thy soul into the realms above,...
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd, Sandals more interwoven and complete...
What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, In his immortal spirit, been as free As the sky-searching lark, and as elate....
Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well Would passion arm me for the enterprize:...
Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn; the laurelled peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;...
How many bards gild the lapses of time! A few of them have ever been the food Of my delighted fancy, I could brood Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime: And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,...
Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there Among the bushes half leafless, and dry; The stars look very cold about the sky, And I have many miles on foot to fare....
Oh! how I love, on a fair summer's eve, When streams of light pour down the golden west, And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest The silver clouds, far, far away to leave...