Works

(While the procession passed at Ramesram)


Nearer and nearer cometh the car
Where the Golden Goddess towers,
Sweeter and sweeter grows the air
From a thousand trampled flowers....

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging a book I have made,...

The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,
Calling,
Of a meaningless monotony is palling
All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood.
May-blossom and blue bird's-eye flowers falling,...

Silent, silent night,
Quench the holy light
Of thy torches bright;

For possessed of Day
Thousand spirits stray
That sweet joys betray.

Why should joys be sweet
Used with deceit,...

Since first Thy Word awaked my heart,
Like new life dawning o'er me,
Where'er I turn mine eyes, Thou art,
All light and love before me.
Naught else I feel, or hear or see--
All bonds of earth I sever--...

My hut is built of stringy-bark, the window's calico,
The furniture a gin-case, one bush-table, and a bunk;
Thick as wheat on my selection does the towering timber grow,...

Since there is no escape, since at the end
My body will be utterly destroyed,
This hand I love as I have loved a friend,
This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;
Since there is no escape even for me...

Sing not of beauty's grace to me;
Its very name a story tells
Of doubly dark inconstancy,
Love falser than a hundred hells.

Its face is often but a screen
To hide a devil's heart of guile,...

A sword! A sword! Ah, give me a sword!
For the world is all to win.
Though the way be hard and the door be barred,
The strong man enters in.
If Chance or Fate still hold the gate,
Give me the iron key,...

This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain,
To run the twelvemonth's length again:
I see the old, bald-pated follow,
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow,
Adjust the unimpair'd machine,...

"And now," quoth the goddess, in accents jocose,
"Having got good materials, I'll brew such a dose
"Of Double X mischief as, mortals shall say,
"They've not known its equal for many a long day."...

Sleep now, O sleep now,
O you unquiet heart!
A voice crying 'Sleep now'
Is heard in my heart.

The voice of the winter
Is heard at the door.
O sleep, for the winter...

Slim adolescence that a nymph has stripped,
Peleus on Thetis stares.
Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid,
Love has blinded him with tears;
But Thetis' belly listens.
Down the mountain walls...

The snow lies deep, ice-fringes hem the thatch;
I knock my shoes, my Love lifts me the latch,
Shows me her eyes--O frozen stars, they shine
Kindly! I clasp her. Quick! her lips are mine.

'The play's the thing!' Hamlet.

Tavistock Hotel, Nov. 1839.
Dear Charles,
In reply to your letter, and Fanny's,
Lord Brougham, it appears, isn't dead, though Queen Anne is;...

Some future day when what is now is not,
When all old faults and follies are forgot,
And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away,
We'll meet again, upon some future day.
...

Sometimes even now I may
Steal a prisoner's holiday,
Slip, when all is worst, the bands,
Hurry back, and duck beneath
Time's old tyrannous groping hands,
Speed away with laughing breath...

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray...

I am afraid to-night,
We are too glad, too gay,
Our life too sweet, too bright
To last another day.

What hap, what chance can fall,
What sorrow come, what schism,
What loss, what cataclysm...

(See Note 1)

Yes, we love this land that towers
Where the ocean foams;
Rugged, storm-swept, it embowers
Many thousand homes.
Love it, love it, of you thinking,
Father; mother dear,...