Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist! I look into the chasms, and a shroud Vapourous doth hide them, just so much I wist Mankind do know of hell; I look o'erhead,...
High-mindedness, a jealousy for good, A loving-kindness for the great man's fame, Dwells here and there with people of no name, In noisome alley, and in pathless wood:...
Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen...
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told...
Great spirits now on earth are sojourning; He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing: He of the rose, the violet, the spring,...
To one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament....
Happy is England! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent: Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment...
Good Kosciusko, thy great name alone Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling; It comes upon us like the glorious pealing Of the wide spheres, an everlasting tone....
The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;...
Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye. Not like the formal crest of latter days: But bending in a thousand graceful ways;...
He is to weet a melancholy carle: Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair, As hath the seeded thistle when in parle It holds the Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair...
In after-time, a sage of mickle lore Yclep'd Typographus, the Giant took, And did refit his limbs as heretofore, And made him read in many a learned book, And into many a lively legend look;...
Not Aladdin magian Ever such a work began; Not the wizard of the Dee Ever such a dream could see; Not St. John, in Patmos' Isle, In the passion of his toil, When he saw the churches seven,...
In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them...
O come Georgiana! the rose is full blown, The riches of Flora are lavishly strown, The air is all softness, and crystal the streams, The West is resplendently clothed in beams.
Here all the summer could I stay, For there's Bishop's teign And King's teign And Coomb at the clear Teign head Where close by the stream You may have your cream...
Where be ye going, you Devon maid? And what have ye there i' the basket? Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy, Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?
Upon a Sabbath-day it fell; Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell That call'd the folk to evening prayer; The city streets were clean and fair From wholesome drench of April rains;...
St. Agnes' Eve Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold:...
What though while the wonders of nature exploring, I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend; Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring, Bless Cynthia's face, the enthusiast's friend: ...