Works

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
'The Legend of Good Women,' long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath...

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:...

Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed,
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark,
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side...

Dust are our frames; and gilded dust, our pride
Looks only for a moment whole and sound;
Like that long-buried body of the king,
Found lying with his urns and ornaments,...

I.
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling...

What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,

Far'far'away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?...

O love, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,...

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower'but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,...

I.
'He is fled'I wish him dead'
He that wrought my ruin'
O the flattery and the craft
Which were my undoing . . .
In the night, in the night,
When the storms are blowing.

II....

'Frater Ave atque Vale'

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!
So they row'd, and there we landed''O venusta Sirmio!'
There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow,...

I.

O thou so fair in summers gone,
While yet thy fresh and virgin soul
Inform'd the pillar'd Parthenon,
The glittering Capitol;



II.
...

O thou most holy Friendship! wheresoe'er
Thy dwelling be'for in the courts of man
But seldom thine all-heavenly voice we hear,
Sweet'ning the moments of our narrow span;...

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;...

O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?

"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run;...

I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.

Eternal process moving on,...

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied past, and used
Within the present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought;

True love turn'd round on fixed poles,...

I.

My life is full of weary days,
But good things have not kept aloof,
Nor wander'd into other ways:
I have not lack'd thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.
...

I.
DOSN'T thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awa'y?
Proputty, proputty, proputty'that's what I 'ears 'em sa'y.
Proputty, proputty, proputty'Sam, thou's an ass for thy paa'ns:...

Wheer 'asta be'n saw long and me' liggin' 'ere alo'n?
Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, doctor's abe'n an' ago'n:
Says that I mo'nt 'a naw moor a'le: but I be'nt a fool:...

Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,...