Where are those honours, IDA! once your own, When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne? As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, Hail'd a Barbarian in her C'sar's place,...
The Sun, that seemed so mildly to retire, Flung back from distant climes a streaming fire, Whose blaze is now subdued to tender gleams, Prelude of night's approach with soothing dreams....
We are little brethren twain, Arbiters of loss and gain, Many to our counters run, Some are made, and some undone: But men find it to their cost, Few are made, but numbers lost....
Through all that year-scarred agony of height, Unblest of bough or bloom, to where expands His wandy circlet with his bladed bands Dividing every wind, or loud or light,...
In youth exalted high in air, Or bathing in the waters fair, Nature to form me took delight, And clad my body all in white. My person tall, and slender waist, On either side with fringes graced;...
This is the reed the dead musician dropped, With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden; The prompt allegro of its music stopped, Its melodies unbidden.
As a forlorn soul waiting by the Styx Dimly expectant of lands yet more dim, Might peer afraid where shadows change and mix Till the dark ferryman shall come for him. ...
Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud....
I love to look on a scene like this, Of wild and careless play, And persuade myself that I am not old And my locks are not yet gray; For it stirs the blood in old man's heart, And makes his pulses fly,...
While cruel Nero only drains The moral Spaniard's ebbing veins, By study worn, and slack with age, How dull, how thoughtless is his rage! Heighten'd revenge he should have took,...
So! the fierce acid licks the silver clean, Unwonted plain the superscription's seen Round the cleared head; the metal, virgin-bright, Shines a mild Moon to the Sun candle-light....
She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers' touch...