Works

Though the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.

I
"Now give us lands where the olives grow,"
Cried the North to the South,
"Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow
Blow bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!"
Cried the North to the South.
...

The yesterday doth never smile,
The day goes drudging through the while,
Yet, in the name of Godhead, I
The morrow front, and can defy;
Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed,...

Written three hundred years since.

Be it right or wrong, these men among
On women do complayne;
Affyrmynge this, how that it is
A labour spent in vaine
To love them wele; for never a dele...

I.

The Nutcrackers sate by a plate on the table;
The Sugar-tongs sate by a plate at his side;
And the Nutcrackers said, "Don't you wish we were able
Along the blue hills and green meadows to ride?...

I

His simple truths did Andrew glean
Beside the babbling rills;
A careful student he had been
Among the woods and hills.
One winter's night, when through the trees...

[1]

The oak one day address'd the reed: -
'To you ungenerous indeed
Has nature been, my humble friend,
With weakness aye obliged to bend.
The smallest bird that flits in air...

Oak of Guernica! Tree of holier power
Than that which in Dodona did enshrine
(So faith too fondly deemed) a voice divine
Heard from the depths of its aerial bower...

But what "lady patron" as queen holds the sway;
Or sweeping, whose hoops in the street are most sweeping;
The burthen is not of this truth-telling lay,
That should in its reading the world set to weeping,...

(See Note 8)

... Oceanward I am ever yearning,
Where far it rolls in its calm and grandeur,
The weight of mountain-like fogbanks bearing,
Forever wandering and returning....

O singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!
...

i(A certain poet in outlandish clothes)
i(Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,)
i(Talked1 of his country and its people, sang)
i(To some stringed instrument none there had seen,)...

Scorn not the Old; 'twas sacred in its day,
A truth overpowering error with its might,
A light dispelling darkness with its ray,
A victory won, an intermediate height,...

("L'homme auquel on vous destina.")

[HERNANI, Act I.]


Listen. The man for whom your youth is destined,
Your uncle, Ruy de Silva, is the Duke
Of Pastrana, Count of Castile and Aragon....

There's a memory keeps a-runnin'
Through my weary head to-night,
An' I see a picture dancin'
In the fire-flames' ruddy light;
'Tis the picture of an orchard
Wrapped in autumn's purple haze,...

Thou beautiful Ash! thou art lowly laid,
And my eyes shall hail no more
From afar thy cool and refreshing shade,
When the toilsome journey's o'er.
The winged and the wandering tribes of air...

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze...

Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old,
Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own
Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold
Beneath me as it struggles. I behold...

A young and inexperienced mouse
Had faith to try a veteran cat, -
Raminagrobis, death to rat,
And scourge of vermin through the house, -
Appealing to his clemency
With reasons sound and fair....

To Monseigneur, The Duke De Bourgogne; Who Had Requested Of M. De La Fontaine A Fable Which Should Be Called "The Cat And The Mouse."

To please a youthful prince, whom Fame
A temple in my writings vows,...