The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel, And the former called the latter 'Little Prig; Bun replied, 'You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together,...
Ah Fate, cannot a man Be wise without a beard? East, West, from Beer to Dan, Say, was it never heard That wisdom might in youth be gotten, Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten? ...
Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or great: Unknown to Cromwell as to me Was Cromwell's measure or degree; Unknown to him as to his horse,...
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?...
Long I followed happy guides, I could never reach their sides; Their step is forth, and, ere the day Breaks up their leaguer, and away. Keen my sense, my heart was young,...
The patient Pan, Drunken with nectar, Sleeps or feigns slumber, Drowsily humming Music to the march of time. This poor tooting, creaking cricket, Pan, half asleep, rolling over...
See yonder leafless trees against the sky, How they diffuse themselves into the air, And, ever subdividing, separate Limbs into branches, branches into twigs. As if they loved the element, and hasted...
There are beggars in Iran and Araby, SAID was hungrier than all; Hafiz said he was a fly That came to every festival. He came a pilgrim to the Mosque On trail of camel and caravan,...
Once I wished I might rehearse Freedom's paean in my verse, That the slave who caught the strain Should throb until he snapped his chain, But the Spirit said, 'Not so; Speak it not, or speak it low;...
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes; The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled,-- And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness,...
I said to heaven that glowed above, O hide yon sun-filled zone, Hide all the stars you boast; For, in the world of love And estimation true, The heaped-up harvest of the moon...
Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene;-- A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned queen; And the second, borrowed money,--though the smiling lender say...
Each spot where tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon field which stain Are moles of beauties Time hath slain.
Ill fits the abstemious Muse a crown to weave For living brows; ill fits them to receive: And yet, if virtue abrogate the law, One portrait--fact or fancy--we may draw;...