Dear Reynolds, as last night I lay in bed, There came before my eyes that wonted thread Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances, That every other minute vex and please:...
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...
The Gothic looks solemn, The plain Doric column Supports an old Bishop and Crosier; The mouldering arch, Shaded o'er by a larch Stands next door to Wilson the Hosier.
Hast thou from the caves of Golconda, a gem Pure as the ice-drop that froze on the mountain? Bright as the humming-bird's green diadem, When it flutters in sun-beams that shine through a fountain? ...
No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years:...
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...
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd, Sandals more interwoven and complete...
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;...
O that a week could be an age, and we Felt parting and warm meeting every week, Then one poor year a thousand years would be, The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:...
Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric, How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroy'd? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze With those bright languid segments green, and prick...
As late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew From his lush clover covert; when anew Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;...
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,...
Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven, the domain Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun, The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun. Blue! 'Tis the life of waters: Ocean...
Here all the summer could I stay, For there's Bishop's teign And King's teign And Coomb at the clear Teign head Where close by the stream You may have your cream...
Where be ye going, you Devon maid? And what have ye there i' the basket? Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy, Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?
Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid! Give answer by thy voice, the sea-fowls' screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams? When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid?...
Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies For more adornment a full thousand years; She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dyes, And shap'd and tinted her above all Peers:...
O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind, Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars, To thee the spring will be a harvest-time....