That sermon, reverend Sir, which you have bought, To save your idle brain the toil of thought, You read in such a dull, lethargic tone, It seems almost as stupid as your own. ...
Thou able, boaster! Virgil to translate! Can'st thou, then, be so vain, so shallow-pated? To a far higher intellectual state, Coxcomb! thou must, thyself, be first translated.
Too long within the House has darkness dwelt, Egyptian darkness, by the nation felt; Therefore, though demagogues, whose deeds are ill, For blind debate might love that darkness still,...
Lo! Byron's tomb! Here, deeply pensive, scan The greatness, and the littleness of man. In timeless death here Freedom's Martyr sleeps, Whom, her lost Champion, Greece, desponding, weeps....
O all ye Sons of Taste! with raptured sight Behold this image of the God of light; Admire its whole, admire its every part; 'Tis sculpture's master-work, the boast of Art....
Crippled his limbs, and sightless are his eyes; I view the youth, and feel compassion rise. He sings! how sweet the notes! in pleased amaze I listen, listen, and admiring gaze....
Your book I've read: I would that I had not! For what instruction, pleasure, have I got? Amid that artful labyrinth of doubt Long, long I wander'd, striving to get out;...
What majesty! what elegance and grace! The form how perfect! how divine the face! In admiration rapt, I gazing stand: Is this a statue wrought by mortal hand? No! 'tis Apollo's self, methinks I see;...
O! should I ever dare profane With venal touch the hallow'd lyre, Let me be banish'd from the Muses' train; Ne'er let me feel their heart-ennobling fire! Unworthy of a Poet's glorious name,...
Come along, jolly Bacchus! no longer delay; See'st thou not how the table with bottles is crown'd? See'st thou not how thy votaries, impatient to pay Their devotion to thee, are all waiting around?...
Again has Time his annual circle run, And April ushers in my natal day: Since first my infant eyes beheld the sun, How many a year has swiftly roll'd away! Full half my thread of life the Fates have spun;...