Works

If this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track;
If freedom, set, will rise again,
And virtue, flown, come back;
Woe to the purblind crew who fill
The heart with each day's care;...

If thou wouldst have me sing and play,
As once I played and sung,
First take this time-worn lute away,
And bring one freshly strung.
Call back the time when pleasure's sigh...

When Paderewski is forgot,
Our children's children, like as not,
Will worship in the Hall of Fame,
Some great piano-maker's name.

"I have no power to change you
or explain your ways
Never believe a man can change a woman
Those men are pretenders
who think
that they created woman
from one of their ribs...

I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church;
Winds of autumn! - as I walk'd the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch'd sighs, up above, so mournful;...

I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
Of gold and gear,
Nor jewels fine,
Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything.
Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstone I may hear...

I know a place where summer strives
With such a practised frost,
She each year leads her daisies back,
Recording briefly, "Lost."

But when the south wind stirs the pools...

I know not in what place again I'll meet
The face I love - but there is not a street
In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,
Without my finding you, with those great eyes;...

She twirled the string of golden beads,
That round her neck was hung, - -
My grandsire's gift; the good old man
Loved girls when he was young;
And, bending lightly o'er the cord,
And turning half away,...

Hence vain deluding joyes,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bested,
Or fill the fix'd mind with all your toyes;
Dwell in some idle brain,...

I.

O mesto bambino col capo chinato,
Rispondi; rispondi. Che fece Renato?
Fu vinto Morello? Fu salvo Lindoro?
Rispondi; rispondi! - Son padre di loro.


II.
...

Gaddi mi fece; il Ponte Vecchio sono;
Cinquecent' anni gia sull' Arno pianto
Il piede, come il suo Michele Santo
Pianto sul draco. Mentre ch' io ragiono
Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono...

I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,

And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,...

I.

Ti saluto, Margherita
Fior di vita, ... ti saluto!
Sei la speme del mattino,
Sei la gioja del giardino.


II.

Ti saluto, Rosignolo
Nel tuo duolo, ... ti saluto!...

I often wish'd that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a-year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood....

1 Though Artemisia talks, by fits,
Of councils, classics, fathers, wits;
Reads Malebranche, Boyle, and Locke:
Yet in some things methinks she fails--
'Twere well if she would pare her nails,...

1 Silence! coeval with eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing all, and all slept fast in thee.

2 Thine was the sway, ere heaven was form'd, or earth,...

Fair charmer, cease! nor make your voice's prize,
A heart resign'd, the conquest of your eyes:
Well might, alas! that threaten'd vessel fail,
Which winds and lightning both at once assail....

Whilst, in a dress that one might swear
The whole was made of woven air,
Pert Fashion spreads her senseless sway
Over the giddy and the gay
(Who think, by showing all their charms,...

Between Adam and me the great difference is,
Tho' a paradise each has been forced to resign,
That he never wore breeches, till turned out of his,
While for want of my breeches, I'm banisht from mine.