Upon his battlements he stood, And downward gazed in joyous mood, On Samos' Isle, that owned his sway, "All this is subject to my yoke;" To Egypt's monarch thus he spoke,...
By love are blest the gods on high, Frail man becomes a deity When love to him is given; 'Tis love that makes the heavens shine With hues more radiant, more divine, And turns dull earth to heaven! ...
Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee; Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee? With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty,...
A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land, The priesthood's secret learning to explore, Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,...
Prate not to me so much of suns and of nebulous bodies; Think ye Nature but great, in that she gives thee to count? Though your object may be the sublimest that space holds within it,...
"I Have sacrificed all," thou sayest, "that man I might succor; Vain the attempt; my reward was persecution and hate." Shall I tell thee, my friend, how I to humor him manage?...
Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doomed to undergo, Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine the inner shrine to win,...
When o'er the chords thy fingers stray, My spirit leaves its mortal clay, A statue there I stand; Thy spell controls e'en life and death, As when the nerves a living breath...
Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving; And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too. Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservest...
Once wisdom dwelt in tomes of ponderous size, While friendship from a pocketbook would talk; But now that knowledge in small compass lies, And floats in almanacs, as light as cork,...
Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom, Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may deride That shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying,...
Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed, Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays; Yet 'tis not as depicted in thy breast Not as within thy soul's fair glass, its rays...
Wheresoever thou wanderest in space, thy Zenith and Nadir Unto the heavens knit thee, unto the axis of earth. Howsoever thou attest, let heaven be moved by thy purpose,...