Works

There falls with every wedding chime
A feather from the wing of Time.
You pick it up, and say 'How fair
To look upon its colors are!'
Another drops day after day
Unheeded; not one word you say....

I held her hand, the pledge of bliss,
Her hand that trembled and withdrew;
She bent her head before my kiss...
My heart was sure that hers was true.
Now I have told her I must part,...

When the buds began to burst,
Long ago, with Rose the First
I was walking; joyous then
Far above all other men,
Till before us up there stood
Britonferry's oaken wood,...

Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talk'd of by young men
As rather clever;
In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;...

I come to visit thee agen,
My little flowerless cyclamen;
To touch the hand, almost to press,
That cheer'd thee in thy loneliness.
What could thy careful guardian find
Of thee in form, of me in mind,...

Welcome, old friend! These many years
Have we lived door by door;
The fates have laid aside their shears
Perhaps for some few more.

I was indocile at an age
When better boys were taught,...

Barry! your spirit long ago
Has haunted me; at last I know
The heart it sprung from: one more sound
Ne'er rested on poetic ground.
But, Barry Cornwall! by what right...

Go then to Italy; but mind
To leave the pale low France behind;
Pass through that country, nor ascend
The Rhine, nor over Tyrol wend:
Thus all at once shall rise more grand...

You smil'd, you spoke, and I believ'd,
By every word and smile deceiv'd.
Another man would hope no more;
Nor hope I what I hop'd before:
But let not this last wish be vain;
Deceive, deceive me once again!

There is delight in singing, tho' none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight
In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone
And see the prais'd far off him, far above....

Come, Sleep! but mind ye! if you come without
The little girl that struck me at the rout,
By Jove! I would not give you half-a-crown
For all your poppy-heads and all your down.

Avon! why runnest thou away so fast?
Rest thee before that Chancel where repose
The bones of him whose spirit moves the world.
I have beheld thy birthplace, I have seen
Thy tiny ripples where they play amid...

Those who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings.
And, catching back some favourite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again....

Where art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seem'd to whisper near...

Against the groaning mast I stand,
The Atlantic surges swell,
To bear me from my native land
And Zoe's wild farewell.

From billow upon billow hurl'd
I can yet hear her say,...

Twenty years hence my eyes may grow
If not quite dim, yet rather so,
Still yours from others they shall know
Twenty years hence.

Twenty years hence though it may hap
That I be called to take a nap...

Various the roads of life; in one
All terminate, one lonely way
We go; and 'Is he gone?'
Is all our best friends say.

Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades;
Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.

Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil...

How many verses have I thrown
Into the fire because the one
Peculiar word, the wanted most,
Was irrecoverably lost!

Very true, the linnets sing
Sweetest in the leaves of spring:
You have found in all these leaves
That which changes and deceives,
And, to pine by sun or star,
Left them, false ones as they are....