Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes, Nibble their toast, and cool their tea with sighs, Or else forget the purpose of the night, Forget their tea, forget their appetite....
'Tis the witching hour of night, Orbed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten, Seeming with bright eyes to listen, For what listen they? For a song and for a charm,...
Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl! And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee, And let me call Heaven's blessing on thine eyes, And let me breathe into the happy air,...
Where's the Poet? show him! show him, Muses nine! that I may know him. 'Tis the man who with a man Is an equal, be he King, Or poorest of the beggar-clan Or any other wonderous thing...
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave A paradise for a sect; the savage, too, From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep Guesses at heaven; pity these have not...
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel! Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell Without some stir of heart, some malady;...
O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung Even into thine own soft-conched ear: Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see...
Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Doubled-lived in regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon;...
Of late two dainties were before me plac'd Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent, From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent That Gods might know my own particular taste:...
As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete Was unto me, but why that I ne might Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight [As I suppose] had more of hertis ese Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese. - Chaucer...
Spirit here that reignest! Spirit here that painest! Spirit here that burneth! Spirit here that mourneth! Spirit! I bow My forehead low, Enshaded with thy pinions! Spirit! I look...
As Hermes once took to his feathers light, When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept, So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft...
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle South, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains....
What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, In his immortal spirit, been as free As the sky-searching lark, and as elate....
Come hither all sweet Maidens soberly Down looking aye, and with a chasten'd light Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see,...
Who loves to peer up at the morning sun, With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, Let him with this sweet tale full often seek For meadows where the little rivers run;...
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,...
To one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament....
Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye. Not like the formal crest of latter days: But bending in a thousand graceful ways;...
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel! Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell Without some stir of heart, some malady;...