Works

Still towards the steep Parnassian way
The moon-led pilgrims wend,
Ah, who of all that start to-day
Shall ever reach the end?

Year after year a dream-fed band
That scorn the vales below,...

I would not venture to dispraise or praise.
Too well I know the indifference which bounds
A poet in the narrow working-grounds
Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.
...

There was a moment when of you
A splendid hope I had to tell,
Believing "Here is one man who
Will serve our waiting country well."

I saw you sedulous and keen,
I heard the burning words you spoke....

Thou mighty lord and master of the lyre,
Unshorn Apollo, come and re-inspire
My fingers so, the lyric-strings to move,
That I may play and sing a hymn to Love.

Ph[oe]bus! when that I a verse
Or some numbers more rehearse,
Tune my words that they may fall
Each way smoothly musical:
For which favour there shall be
Swans devoted unto thee.

What prays the poet of enshrined Apollo?
What is he asking for with lifted hands,
Pouring a fresh libation from his flagon? -
Not fertile crop from rich Sardinian lands, -...

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature, of the politics of Nature, you have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;...

Though I have loved you well, I ween,
And you, too, fancied me,
Your heart hath too divided been
A constant heart to be.
And like the gay and youthful knight,
Who loved and rode away,...

My dear Sir, -
In the whole round
Of animated nature
I am acquainted
With nothing or nobody
Who is, generally speaking,
So gay, gaudy, and interesting
As yourself.
From my youth up...

Is reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.

You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?...

You call authority "a grievous thing."
With careless hands you snap the leading string,
And, for a frolic (so it seems to you),
Put off the old love, and put on the new.
...

Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
And at my casement sing,
Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.

Though I, alas! may ne'er enjoy
The promise in thy song;...

Sweet bottle-shaped flower of lushy red,
Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze,
Among the meadow's waving grasses spread,
Or 'neath the shade of hedge or clumping trees,...

Pale girl with russet hair,
Tatters in what you wear
Show us your poverty
And your beauty,

For me, poor poet, in
The frail and freckled skin
Of your young flesh
Is a sweetness.
...

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few,
But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries...

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few,
But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries...

Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem
Rather to patience prompted, than that prowl
Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud,
France, fam'd in all great arts, in none supreme....

Fuscus, whoso to good inclines,
And is a faultless liver,
Nor Moorish spear nor bow need fear,
Nor poison-arrowed quiver.

Ay, though through desert wastes he roam,
Or scale the rugged mountains,...

Call me no more, O gentle stream,
To wander through thy sunny dream,
No more to lean at twilight cool
Above thy weir and glimmering pool.

Surely I know thy hoary dawns,...

Tha bonny little pooasy! aw'm inclined
To tak thee wi' me:
But yet aw think if tha could spaik thi mind,
Tha'd ne'er forgie me;
For i' mi jacket button-hoil tha'd quickly dee,...