Works

What shall I do with all the days and hours
That must be counted ere I see thy face?
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
Between this time and that sweet time of grace?
...

I shall come no more to the Cedar Hall,
The fairies' palace beside the stream;
Where the yellow sun-rays at morning fall
Through their tresses dark, with a mellow gleam.
...

The waterfall is calling me
With its merry gleesome flow,
And the green boughs are beckoning me,
To where the wild flowers grow:

I may not go, I may not go,
To where the sunny waters flow,...

Blame not my tears, love: to you has been given
The brightest, best gift, God to mortals allows;
The sunlight of hope on your heart shines from Heaven,
And shines from your heart, on this life and its woes.
...

Once more, once more into the sunny fields
Oh, let me stray!
And drink the joy that young existence yields
In a bright, cloudless day.

Once more let me behold the summer sky,
With its blue eyes,...

Good night, love!
May Heaven's brightest stars watch over thee!
Good angels spread their wings, and cover thee,
And through the night,
So dark and still,
Spirits of light
Charm thee from ill!...

Come where the white waves dance along the shore
Of some lone isle, lost in the unknown seas;
Whose golden sands by mortal foot before
Were never printed, - where the fragrant breeze,...

Spirit, bright spirit! from thy narrow cell
Answer me! answer me! oh, let me hear
Thy voice, and know that thou indeed art near!
That from the bonds in which thou'rt forced to dwell...

By the pure spring, whose haunted waters flow
Through thy sequester'd dell unto the sea,
At sunny noon, I will appear to thee:
Not troubling the still fount with drops of woe,...

Life wanes, and the bright sunlight of our youth
Sets o'er the mountain-tops, where once Hope stood.
Oh, Innocence! oh, Trustfulness! oh, Truth!
Where are ye all, white-handed sisterhood,...

It is the dawn! the rosy day awakes;
From her bright hair pale showers of dew she shakes,
And through the heavens her early pathway takes;
Why art thou sleeping?
...

Let me not die for ever, when I'm gone
To the cold earth! but let my memory
Live like the gorgeous western light that shone
Over the clouds where sank day's majesty.
Let me not be forgotten! though the grave...

'Tis only the nightingale's warbled strain,
That floats through the evening sky:
With his note of love, he replies again,
To the muezzin's holy cry;
As it sweetly sounds on the rosy air,...

To Y ---, with a bowl of Bohemian glass.


From rocky hills, where climbs the vine;
Where on his waves the wandering Rhine
Sees imaged ruins, towns and towers,...

Better trust all, and be deceived,
And weep that trust, and that deceiving;
Than doubt one heart, that if believed,
Had blessed one's life with true believing.

Oh, in this mocking world, too fast...

Farewell awhile, beautiful Italy!
My lonely bark is launched upon the sea
That clasps thy shore, and the soft evening gale
Breathes from thy coast, and fills my parting sail....

Walking by moonlight on the golden margin
That binds the silver sea, I fell to thinking
Of all the wild imaginings that man
Hath peopled heaven, and earth, and ocean with;...

Written among the ruins of the Sonnenberg.


Thou who within thyself dost not behold
Ruins as great as these, though not as old,
Can'st scarce through life have travelled many a year,...

You say you're glad I write - oh, say not so!
My fount of song, dear friend, 's a bitter well;
And when the numbers freely from it flow,
'Tis that my heart, and eyes, o'erflow as well.
...

Where is thy home in thy promised land?
Desolate and forsaken!
The stranger's arm hath seized thy brand,
Thou art bowed beneath the stranger's hand,
And the stranger thy birthright hath taken.
...