Works

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.
She was a maiden City, bright and free;...

Anne's Eye is liken'd to the Sun,
From it such Beams of Beauty fall;
And this can be denied by none,
For like the Sun, it shines on All.

Then do not admiration smother,...

The Fear Of Death.


Thou! whose superior, and aspiring mind
Can leave the weakness of thy sex behind;
Above its follies, and its fears can rise,
Quit the low earth, and gain the distant skies:...

Wavered the foremost soldiers,--then fell back.
Fallen was their leader, and loomed right before
The sullen Prussian cannon, grim and black,
With lighted matches waving. Now, once more,...

Beautiful Boy--thy heavenward thoughts
Are pictured in thine eyes,
Thou hast no taint of mortal birth,
Thy communing is not of earth,
Thy holy musings rise:
Like incense kindled from on high,...

Round Thurlow's head in early youth,
And in his sportive days,
Fair Science pour'd the light of truth,
And Genius shed his rays.


See! with united wonder cried
The experienced and the sage,...

The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green
Above the spent heart, the Olympian head,
The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,
Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;...

Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may
The help which slackening Pity requires;
Nor deem that he perforce must go astray
Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires.


...

WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE
PRINCE OF WALES

I.

Welcome, welcome with one voice!
In your welfare we rejoice,
Sons and brothers that have sent,
From isle and cape and continent,...

I have passed the day 'mid the forest gay,
In its gorgeous autumn dyes,
Its tints as bright and as fair to the sight
As the hues of our sunset skies;
And the sun's glad rays veiled by golden haze,...

We speak of the world that passes away, -
The world of men who lived years ago,
And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow
Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.
...

To Egypt's king, who ruled beside
The reedy river's flow,
Came God's command, "Release, O king,
And let my people go."

The king's proud heart grew hard apace;
He marked the suppliant throng,...

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,...

When man first walked upright and soberly
Reflecting as he paced to and fro,
And no more swinging from wide tree to tree,
Or sheltered by vast boles from sheltered foe,...

"The voice of One hath spoken,
And the bended reed is bruised -
The golden bowl is broken,
And the silver cord is loosed."

Over the eyes of gladness
The lids of sorrow fall,...

Climbing a path which leads back never more
We heard behind his footsteps and his cheer;
Now, face to face, we greet him standing here
Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore...

'The poets pour us wine'
Said the dearest poet I ever knew,
Dearest and greatest and best to me.
You clamor athirst for poetry
We pour. 'But when shall a vintage be'...

Afflictions bring us joy in times to come,
When sins, by stripes, to us grow wearisome.

The Trojan swain had judged the great dispute,
And beauty's power obtain'd the golden fruit,
When Venus, loose in all her naked charms,
Met Jove's great daughter clad in shining arms,...

Pan loved his neighbour Echo - but that child
Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild
The bright nymph Lyda, and so three went weeping....