Works

Ah what avails the sceptred race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,...

Beautiful spoils! borne off from vanquish'd death!
Upon my heart's high altar shall ye lie,
Mov'd but by only one adorer's breath,
Retaining youth, rewarding constancy.

There is a mountain and a wood between us,
Where the lone shepherd and late bird have seen us
Morning and noon and eventide repass.
Between us now the mountain and the wood...

The tongue of England, that which myriads
Have spoken and will speak, were paralyz'd
Hereafter, but two mighty men stand forth
Above the flight of ages, two alone;
One crying out,...

She I love (alas in vain!)
Floats before my slumbering eyes:
When she comes she lulls my pain,
When she goes what pangs arise!
Thou whom love, whom memory flies,
Gentle Sleep! prolong thy reign!...

Soon, O Ianthe! life is o'er,
And sooner beauty's heavenly smile:
Grant only (and I ask no more),
Let love remain that little while.

Tell me not things past all belief;
One truth in you I prove;
The flame of anger, bright and brief,
Sharpens the barb of Love.

Ternissa! you are fled!
I say not to the dead,
But to the happy ones who rest below:
For, surely, surely, where
Your voice and graces are,
Nothing of death can any feel or know....

Remain, ah not in youth alone,
Though youth, where you are, long will stay,
But when my summer days are gone,
And my autumnal haste away.
"Can I be always by your side?"...

The chrysolites and rubies Bacchus brings
To crown the feast where swells the broad-vein'd brow,
Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings,
They who have coveted may covet now.
...

'Artemidora! Gods invisible,
While thou art lying faint along the couch,
Have tied the sandal to thy veined feet,
And stand beside thee, ready to convey
Thy weary steps where other rivers flow....

Life (priest and poet say) is but a dream;
I wish no happier one than to be laid
Beneath a cool syringa's scented shade,
Or wavy willow, by the running stream,
Brimful of moral, where the dragon-fly,...

Smiles soon abate; the boisterous throes
Of anger long burst forth;
Inconstantly the south-wind blows,
But steadily the north.

Thy star, O Venus! often changes
Its radiant seat above,...

The fault is not mine if I love you too much,
I loved you too little too long,
Such ever your graces, your tenderness such,
And the music the heart gave the tongue.
...

The gates of fame and of the grave
Stand under the same architrave.

Rhaicos was born amid the hills wherefrom
Gnidos the light of Caria is discern'd
And small are the white-crested that play near,
And smaller onward are the purple waves....

Now thou art gone, tho' not gone far,
It seems that there are worlds between us;
Shine here again, thou wandering star!
Earth's planet! and return with Venus.

At times thou broughtest me thy light...

I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,...

The wisest of the wise
Listen to pretty lies
And love to hear them told;
Doubt not that Solomon
Listen'd to many a one,
Some in his youth, and more when he grew old.

I never was among...

One day, when I was young, I read
About a poet, long since dead,
Who fell asleep, as poets do
In writing--and make others too.
But herein lies the story's gist,
How a gay queen came up and kist...