MUSE. Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre; The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar. To-night the Spring is born - the breeze takes fire. Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,...
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame...
What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? Is this the House of Israel, whose pride Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song?...
POET. My haunting grief has vanished like a dream, Its floating fading memory seems one With those frail mists born of the dawn's first beam, Dissolving as the dew melts in the sun.
Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies Behold the Spirit of the musky South, A creole with still-burning, languid eyes, Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth: Swathed in spun gauze is she,...
DON JOHN of AUSTRIA. JOSEF RIBERA, the Spagnoletto. LORENZO, noble young Italian artist, pupil of Ribera. DON TOMMASO MANZANO. LUCA, servant to Ribera. A GENTLEMAN....
Well-nigh two thousand years hath Israel Suffered the scorn of man for love of God; Endured the outlaw's ban, the yoke, the rod, With perfect patience. Empires rose and fell,...
A brackish lake is there with bitter pools Anigh its margin, brushed by heavy trees. A piping wind the narrow valley cools, Fretting the willows and the cypresses....
If the sudden tidings came That on some far, foreign coast, Buried ages long from fame, Had been found a remnant lost Of that hoary race who dwelt By the golden Nile divine,...
The Autumn promised, and he keeps His word unto the meadow-rose. The pure, bright lightnings herald Spring, Serene and glad the fresh earth shows. The rain has quenched her children's thirst,...
Oh, that the golden lyre divine Whence David smote flame-tones were mine! Oh, that the silent harp which hung Untuned, unstrung, Upon the willows by the river, Would throb beneath my touch and quiver...
Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar....
With heavy groans did I approach my friends, Heavy as though the mountains I would move. The flagon they were murdering; they poured Into the cup, wild-eyed, the grape's red blood....