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Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not;
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,...

Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,...

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:...

True genius, but true woman! dost deny
The woman's nature with a manly scorn
And break away the gauds and armlets worn
By weaker women in captivity?
Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry...

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along
Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song!
And lik'st that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Diopeia's sprightlier airs...

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along
Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song!
And lik'st that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Diopeia's[2] sprightlier airs...

Verse. My God, I'm wounded by my sin,
And sore without, and sick within.
Ver. Chor. I come to Thee, in hope to find
Salve for my body and my mind.
Verse. In Gilead though no balm be found...

What though my harp and viol be
Both hung upon the willow tree?
What though my bed be now my grave,
And for my house I darkness have?
What though my healthful days are fled,...

Thou, by whom, freed from rules constrained and wrong,
On truth and nature once again we're placed,
Who, in the cradle e'en a hero strong,
Stiffest the serpents round our genius laced,...

Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave
The winds that lift the ocean wave,
The mountain stream that loops and swerves
Through my broad meadow's channelled curves
Should waft me on from bound to bound...

When one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;...

(See Note 53)

We welcome you this wondrous summer-day,
When childhood's dreams on earth are streaming,
To bloom and sing, to brighten and to pale;
A fairy-tale,...

To hear her sing - to hear her sing -
It is to hear the birds of Spring
In dewy groves on blooming sprays
Pour out their blithest roundelays.

It is to hear the robin trill...

Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,
If worth in me, or ought I do appear,
Who can of right better demand the same?
Then may your worthy self from whom it came.
The principle might yield a greater sum,...

Here's to her shadow!
May it mark the hours
Upon the sundial of her life--in flowers!

Alas! I can't, for tell me, how
Can I be gamesome, aged now?
Besides, ye see me daily grow
Here, winter-like, to frost and snow;
And I, ere long, my girls, shall see
Ye quake for cold to look on me.

For civil, clean, and circumcised wit,
And for the comely carriage of it,
Thou art the man, the only man best known,
Mark'd for the true wit of a million:
From whom we'll reckon. Wit came in but since...

Stand by the magic of my powerful rhymes
'Gainst all the indignation of the times.
Age shall not wrong thee; or one jot abate
Of thy both great and everlasting fate....

To this white temple of my heroes here,
Beset with stately figures everywhere
Of such rare saintships, who did here consume
Their lives in sweets, and left in death perfume,...

I can but name thee, and methinks I call
All that have been, or are canonical
For love and bounty to come near, and see
Their many virtues volum'd up in thee;
In thee, brave man! whose incorrupted fame...