Swift through the eyes unto the heart within All lovely forms that thrall our spirit stray; So smooth and broad and open is the way That thousands and not hundreds enter in....
Swift through the eyes unto the heart within All lovely forms that thrall our spirit stray; So smooth and broad and open is the way That thousands and not hundreds enter in...
Love is not always harsh and deadly sin: If it be love of loveliness divine, It leaves the heart all soft and infantine For rays of God's own grace to enter in....
He who ordained, when first the world began, Time, that was not before creation's hour, Divided it, and gave the sun's high power To rule the one, the moon the other span:...
As pen and ink alike serve him who sings In high or low or intermediate style; As the same stone hath shapes both rich and vile To match the fancies that each master brings;...
When masters bind a slave with cruel chain, And keep him hope-forlorn in bondage pent, Use tames his temper to imprisonment, And hardly would he fain be free again....
It is with fire that blacksmiths iron subdue Unto fair form, the image of their thought: Nor without fire hath any artist wrought Gold to its utmost purity of hue....
I deemed upon that day when first I knew So many peerless beauties blent in one, That, like an eagle gazing on the sun, Mine eyes might fix on the least part of you....
What though long waiting wins more happiness Than petulant desire is wont to gain, My luck in latest age hath brought me pain, Thinking how brief must be an old man's bliss....
From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peace Eternal to a brief and hollow truce, How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose, Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses....
If love be chaste, if virtue conquer ill, If fortune bind both lovers in one bond, If either at the other's grief despond, If both be governed by one life, one will;...