Works

Take these flowers which, purple waving,
On the ruin'd rampart grew,
Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.

Warriors from the breach of danger...

When, casting many a look behind,
I leave the friends I cherish here--
Perchance some other friends to find,
But surely finding none so dear--

Haply the little simple page,...

What's fame with men, by custom of the nation,
Is call'd, in women, only reputation:
About them both why keep we such a pother?
Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

("Dans les vieilles for'ts.")

[X., April 20, 1837.]


Through ancient forests - where like flowing tide
The rising sap shoots vigor far and wide,
Mounting the column of the alder dark...

Not to lament that rival flame
Wherewith the heartless Glycera scorns you,
Nor waste your time in maudlin rhyme,
How many a modern instance warns you!

Fair-browed Lycoris pines away...

Grieve not, my Albius, if thoughts of Glycera may haunt you,
Nor chant your mournful elegies because she faithless proves;
If now a younger man than you this cruel charmer loves,...

Can you see me, Sasha?
I can see you....
A tentacle of the vast dawn is resting on your face
that floats as though detached
in a sultry and greenish vapor.
I cannot reach my hands to you......

Alas! he's cold!
Cold as the marble which his fingers wrought -
Cold, but not dead; for each embodied thought
Of his, which he from the Ideal brought
To live in stone,
Assures him immortality of fame....

Familiar with thy melody,
We go debating of its power,
As churls, who hear it hour by hour,
Contemn the skylark's minstrelsy--

As shepherds on a Highland lea
Think lightly of the heather flower...

Golden-hair'd Ally whose name is one with mine,
Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine,
Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine,
O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine,...

All ’round us sand. A chain of barracks,
Surrounded on all sides by barbed wire.
We’re just like beetles delving in our dunghills.
This is our lodging. This is where we’re mired....

I.

Dear little one with eyes so blue,
And silken ringlets of flaxen hair!
Oh, may life have in store for you
Something better than anguish and care!
Oh, may thy footsteps guided be...

E ach wish, my fairest child, I pen,
F or thee I write with earnest heart;
F or who shall say, that ere, again,
I shall behold thee; when we part
E 'en now the time is near, I start.
...

Come with me, little maid,
Nay, shrink not, thus afraid
I'll harm thee not!
Fly not, my love, from me
I have a home for thee
A fairy grot,
Where mortal eye
Can rarely pry,...

Into the world you came, and I was dumb,
Because "God did it," so the wise ones said;
I wonder sometimes "Did you really come?"
And "Are you truly . . . DEAD?"
...

I could wish you all who love,
That ye could your thoughts remove
From your mistresses, and be
Wisely wanton, like to me,
I could wish you dispossessed
Of that fiend that mars your rest,...

INSCRIBED IN "TALES OF THE OCEAN"

This first book that I ever knew
Was read aloud to me by you -
Friend of my boyhood, therefore take
It back from me, for old times' sake -...

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.

Since then how often hast thou prest...

Thee for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm, even as now the snow the winter-day declining;
Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat convulsive;...

I cannot look upon thy grave,
Though there the rose is sweet:
Better to hear the long wave wash
These wastes about my feet!

Shall I take comfort? Dost thou live
A spirit, though afar,...