Sweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one, Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, In my heart's temple I suspend to thee These votive wreaths of withered memory. ...
Night, with all thine eyes look down! Darkness shed its holiest dew! When ever smiled the inconstant moon On a pair so true? Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light, Lest eyes see their own delight!...
1. The sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there...
How eloquent are eyes! Not the rapt poet's frenzied lay When the soul's wildest feelings stray Can speak so well as they. How eloquent are eyes! Not music's most impassioned note...
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne...
A gentle story of two lovers young, Who met in innocence and died in sorrow, And of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung Like curses on them; are ye slow to borrow The lore of truth from such a tale?...
Alas! this is not what I thought life was. I knew that there were crimes and evil men, Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen....
Wealth and dominion fade into the mass Of the great sea of human right and wrong, When once from our possession they must pass; But love, though misdirected, is among...
And that I walk thus proudly crowned withal Is that 'tis my distinction; if I fall, I shall not weep out of the vital day, To-morrow dust, nor wear a dull decay.
Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy Are swallowed up - yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,...
1. In the cave which wild weeds cover Wait for thine aethereal lover; For the pallid moon is waning, O'er the spiral cypress hanging And the moon no cloud is staining.
One sung of thee who left the tale untold, Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting; Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold, Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.
He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.
I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret Which overlooked a wide Metropolis - And in the temple of my heart my Spirit Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss The dust of Desolations [altar] hearth -...
I would not be a king - enough Of woe it is to love; The path to power is steep and rough, And tempests reign above. I would not climb the imperial throne; 'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun...
There is a warm and gentle atmosphere About the form of one we love, and thus As in a tender mist our spirits are Wrapped in the ... of that which is to us The health of life's own life -
Methought I was a billow in the crowd Of common men, that stream without a shore, That ocean which at once is deaf and loud; That I, a man, stood amid many more By a wayside..., which the aspect bore...