I marvel how Nature could ever find space For so many strange contrasts in one human face: There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom. ...
There is a change and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart's door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need....
"Thou look'st upon me, and dost fondly think, Poet! that, stricken as both are by years, We, differing once so much, are now Compeers, Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink...
What way does the wind come? What way does he go? He rides over the water, and over the snow, Through wood, and through vale; and, o'er rocky height Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;...
Child of loud-throated War! the mountain Stream Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest Is come, and thou art silent in thy age; Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught...
Hast thou then survived Mild Offspring of infirm humanity, Meek Infant! among all forlornest things The most forlor, none life of that bright star, The second glory of the Heavens?Thou hast,...
I come, ye little noisy Crew, Not long your pastime to prevent; I heard the blessing which to you Our common Friend and Father sent. I kissed his cheek before he died; And when his breath was fled,...
Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown And spread as if ye knew that days might come When ye would shelter in a happy home, On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own,...
Well may'st thou halt and gaze with brightening eye! The lovely Cottage in the guardian nook Hath stirred thee deeply; with its own dear brook, Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!...
Advance, come forth from thy Tyrolean ground, Dear Liberty! stern Nymph of soul untamed; Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the mountains named! Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound...
Aerial Rock, whose solitary brow From this low threshold daily meets my sight; When I step forth to hail the morning light; Or quit the stars with a lingering farewell, how...
The Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair, Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty, To aid a covert purpose, cried "O ye Approaching Waters of the deep, that share...
Farewell, thou little Nook of mountain-ground, Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair Of that magnificent temple which doth bound One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare;...
Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold, While fluttering o'er this gay Recess, Pinions that fanned the teeming mould Of Eden's blissful wilderness, Did only softly-stealing hours...
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away. Vain sympathies! For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide;...
"Miserrimus," and neither name nor date, Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone; Nought but that word assigned to the unknown, That solitary word, to separate...
Ah! where is Palafox? Nor tongue no pen Reports of him, his dwelling or his grave! Does yet the unheard of vessel ride the wave? Or is she swallowed up, remote from ken Of pitying human nature? Once again...
Not a breath of air Ruffles the bosom of this leafy glen. From the brook's margin, wide around, the trees Are steadfast as the rocks; the brook itself, Old as the hills that feed it from afar,...
Genius of Raphael! if thy wings Might bear thee to this glen, With faithful memory left of things To pencil dear and pen, Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine, And all his majesty...
Alas! what boots the long laborious quest Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill; Or pains abstruse, to elevate the will, And lead us on to that transcendent rest...