Where is the man who has been tried and found strong and sound? Where is the friend of reason and of knowledge? I see only sceptics and weaklings. I see only prisoners in the durance of the senses,...
Long in the lap of childhood didst thou sleep, Think how thy youth like chaff did disappear; Shall life's sweet Spring forever last? Look up, Old age approaches ominously near....
Uplift the ponderous, golden mask of death, And let the sun shine on him as it did How many thousand years agone! Beneath This worm-defying, uncorrupted lid, Behold the young, heroic face, round-eyed,...
But yesterday the earth drank like a child With eager thirst the autumn rain. Or like a wistful bride who waits the hour Of love's mysterious bliss and pain. And now the Spring is here with yearning eyes;...
Air and sky are swathed in gold Fold on fold, Light glows through the trees like wine. Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss 'Neath his kiss, Breathless in a trance divine.
"Conquer the gloomy night of thy sorrow, for the morning greets thee with laughter. Rise and clothe thyself with noble pride, Break loose from the tyranny of grief. Thou standest alone among men,...
The shadow of the houses leave behind, In the cool boscage of the grove reclined, The wine of friendship from love's goblet drink, And entertain with cheerful speech the mind.
My friend spoke with insinuating tongue: "Drink wine, and thy flesh shall be made whole. Look how it hisses in the leathern bottle like a captured serpent." Oh fool! can the sun be forged into a cask stopped with...
My thoughts impelled me to the resting-place Where sleep my parents, many a friend and brother. I asked them (no one heard and none replied): "Do ye forsake me, too, oh father, mother?"...
Almighty! what is man? But flesh and blood. Like shadows flee his days, He marks not how they vanish from his gaze, Suddenly, he must die - He droppeth, stunned, into nonentity.
Unto the house of prayer my spirit yearns, Unto the sources of her being turns, To where the sacred light of heaven burns, She struggles thitherward by day and night.
O city of the world, with sacred splendor blest, My spirit yearns to thee from out the far-off West, A stream of love wells forth when I recall thy day, Now is thy temple waste, thy glory passed away....
I see it as it looked one afternoon In August, - by a fresh soft breeze o'erblown. The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon, A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon....
Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace, Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon. Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance, This I beseech thee in all tender love....
Will night already spread her wings and weave Her dusky robe about the day's bright form, Boldly the sun's fair countenance displacing, And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?...
My two-score years and ten are over, Never again shall youth be mine. The years are ready-winged for flying, What crav'st thou still of feast and wine?...
I give God thanks that I, a lean old man, Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains By austere penance and continuous toil, Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace...