Works

O my earliest love, who, ere I number'd
Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill!
Will a swallow - or a swift, or some bird -
Fly to her and say, I love her still?

Say my life's a desert drear and arid,...

O memory! that which I gave thee
To guard in thy garner yestreen -
Little deeming thou e'er could'st behave thee
Thus basely - hath gone from thee clean!
Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended...

Forever; 'tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deem'd it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?

Forever! What abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what...

Il. 1.


Sing, O daughter of heaven, of Peleus' son, of Achilles,
Him whose terrible wrath brought thousand woes on Achaia.
Many a stalwart soul did it hurl untimely to Hades,...

BOOK II.


Sweet, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm- winds,
Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling:...

IDYLL. VII.


Scarce midway were we yet, nor yet descried
The stone that hides what once was Brasidas:
When there drew near a wayfarer from Crete,
Young Lycidas, the Muses' votary....

OD. iii. 3.


The just man's single-purposed mind
Not furious mobs that prompt to ill
May move, nor kings' frowns shake his will
Which is as rock; not warrior-winds
...

FELICIA HEMANS.



Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath,
And stars to set: but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
...

Ere the morn the East has crimsoned,
When the stars are twinkling there,
(As they did in Watts's Hymns, and
Made him wonder what they were:)
When the forest-nymphs are beading...

Now the "rosy morn appearing"
Floods with light the dazzled heaven;
And the schoolboy groans on hearing
That eternal clock strike seven:-
Now the waggoner is driving...

OD. i. 9.


One dazzling mass of solid snow
Soracte stands; the bent woods fret
Beneath their load; and, sharpest-set
With frost, the streams have ceased to flow.
...

OD. iii. 18.


Wooer of young Nymphs who fly thee,
Lightly o'er my sunlit lawn
Trip, and go, nor injured by thee
Be my weanling herds, O Faun:

If the kid his doomed head bows, and...

OD. i. 14.

Yet on fresh billows seaward wilt thou ride,
O ship? What dost thou? Seek a hav'n, and there
Rest thee: for lo! thy side
Is oarless all and bare,
...

OD. i. 38.


Persian grandeur I abhor;
Linden-wreathed crowns, avaunt:
Boy, I bid thee not explore
Woods which latest roses haunt:

Try on nought thy busy craft...

OD. ii. 15.


Spouse of penniless Ibycus,
Thus late, bring to a close all thy delinquencies,
All thy studious infamy:-
Nearing swiftly the grave - (that not an early one) -...

OD. i. 11.


Seek not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall be;
Ask not of Chaldaea's science what God wills, Leuconoe:
Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast...

OD. iv. 13.


Lyce, the gods have listened to my prayer;
The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey,
And still would'st thou seem fair;
Still unshamed drink, and play,
...

OD. iii. 13.


Bandusia, stainless mirror of the sky!
Thine is the flower-crown'd bowl, for thee shall die,
When dawns again yon sun, the kid;
Whose budding horns, half-seen, half-hid,
...

OD. i. 24.


Unshamed, unchecked, for one so dear
We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir,
Melpomene, to whom thy sire
Gave harp, and song-notes liquid-clear!
...