Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead, Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou: Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe: Or time’s stern hand,...

Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead, Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou: Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe: Or time’s stern hand,...

There are, whose glory passeth not away⁠— Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade: Others there are as deathless full as they, Who for themselves a monument have made By their own crimes⁠—a less...

Yes, there are stories registered on high, Yes, there are stains time’s fingers cannot blot, Deeds that shall live when they who did them, die; Things that may cease, but never be forgot: Yet some the...

But thou, imperial City! that hast stood In greatness once, in sackcloth now and tears, A mighty name, for evil or for good, Even in the loneness of thy widowed years: Thou that hast gazed, as the wor...

Is thine the laurel-crown that greatness wreathes Round the wan temples of the hallowed dead⁠— Is it the blighting taint dishonour breathes In fires undying o’er the guilty head, Or the brief splendou...

Fain would we deem that thou hast risen so high Thy dazzling light an eagle’s gaze should tire; No meteor brightness to be seen and die, No passing pageant, born but to expire, But full and deathless ...

Yet stains there are to blot thy brightest page, And wither half the laurels on thy tomb; A glorious manhood, yet a dim old age, And years of crime, and nothingness, and gloom: And then that mightiest...

Thou wondrous chaos, where together dwell Present and past, the living and the dead, Thou shattered mass, whose glorious ruins tell The vanisht might of that discrownèd head: Where all we see, or do, ...

Thou solemn grave, where every step we tread Treads on the slumbering dust of other years; The while there sleeps within thy precincts dread What once had human passions, hopes, and fears; And memory’...

Alas, no common sepulchre art thou, No habitation for the nameless dead, Green turf above, and crumbling dust below, Perchance some mute memorial at their head, But one vast fane where all unconscious...

Thy dead are kings, thy dust are palaces, Relics of nations thy memorial-stones: And the dim glories of departed days Fold like a shroud around thy withered bones: And o’er thy towers the wind’s half-...

Yes, in such eloquent silence didst thou lie When the Goth stooped upon his stricken prey, And the deep hues of an Italian sky Flasht on the rude barbarian’s wild array: While full and ceaseless as th...

Twice, ere that day of shame, the embattled foe Had gazed in wonder on that glorious sight; Twice had the eternal city bowed her low In sullen homage to the invader’s might: Twice had the pageant of t...

Twice, from without thy bulwarks, hath the din Of Gothic clarion smote thy startled ear; Anger, and strife, and sickness are within, Famine and sorrow are no strangers here: Twice hath the cloud hung ...

Yet once again, stern Chief, yet once again, Pour forth the foaming vials of thy wrath: There lies thy goal, to miss or to attain, Gird thee, and on upon thy fateful path, The world hath bowed to Rome...

Therefore arise and arm thee! lo, the world Looks on in fear! and when the seal is set, The doom pronounced, the battle-flag unfurled, Scourge of the nations, wouldst thou linger yet? Arise and arm th...

Hast thou not marked on a wild autumn day When the wind slumbereth in a sudden lull, What deathlike stillness o’er the landscape lay, How calmly sad, how sadly beautiful; How each bright tint of tree,...

And thus, beneath the clear, calm vault of heaven In mournful loveliness that city lay, And thus, amid the glorious hues of even That city told of languor and decay: Till what at morning’s hour lookt ...

Soon was that stillness broken: like the cry Of the hoarse onset of the surging wave, Or louder rush of whirlwinds sweeping by Was the wild shout those Gothic myriads gave, As towered on high, above t...

Think ye it strikes too slow, the sword of fate, Think ye the avenger loiters on his way, That your own hands must open wide the gate, And your own voice guide him to his prey; Alas, it needs not; is ...

And were there none, to stand and weep alone, And as the pageant swept before their eyes To hear a dim and long forgotten tone Tell of old times, and holiest memories, Till fanciful regret and dreamy ...

Oh yes! if fancy feels, beyond to-day, Thoughts of the past and of the future time, How should that mightiest city pass away And not bethink her of her glorious prime, Whilst every chord that thrills ...

The trumpet swells yet louder: they are here! Yea, on your fathers’ bones the avengers tread, Not this the time to weep upon the bier That holds the ashes of your hero-dead, If wreaths may twine for y...

Alas! no wreaths are here. Despair may teach Cowards to conquer and the weak to die; Nor tongue of man, nor fear, nor shame can preach So stern a lesson as necessity, Yet here it speaks not. Yea, thou...

Though every holiest feeling, every tie That binds the heart of man with mightiest power, All natural love, all human sympathy Be crusht, and outraged in this bitter hour, Here is no echo to the sound...

That troublous night is over: on the brow Of thy stern hill, thou mighty Capitol, One form stands gazing: silently below The morning mists from tower and temple roll, And lo! the eternal city, as they...

Yes, there he stood, upon that silent hill, And there beneath his feet his conquest lay: Unlike that ocean-city, gazing still Smilingly forth upon her sunny bay, But o’er her vanisht might and humbled...

Breathe there not spirits on the peopled air? Float there not voices on the murmuring wind? Oh! sound there not some strains of sadness there, To touch with sorrow even a victor’s mind, And wrest one ...

Perchance his wandering heart was far away, Lost in dim memories of his early home, And his young dreams of conquest; how to-day Beheld him master of Imperial Rome, Crowning his wildest hopes: perchan...

New dreams of wide dominion, mightier, higher, Come floating up from the abyss of years; Perchance that solemn sight might quench the fire Even of that ardent spirit; hopes and fears Might well be min...

Perchance that wondrous city was to him But as one voiceless blank; a place of graves, And recollections indistinct and dim, Whose sons were conquerors once, and now were slaves: It may be in that des...

Alas! that fiery spirit little knew The change of life, the nothingness of power, How both were hastening, as they flowered and grew, Nearer and nearer to their closing hour: How every birth of time’s...

One little year; that restless soul shall rest, That frame of vigour shall be crumbling clay, And tranquilly, above that troubled breast, The sunny waters hold their joyous way: And gently shall the m...

Alas! far other thoughts might well be ours And dash our holiest raptures while we gaze: Energies wasted, unimproved hours, The saddening visions of departed days: And while they rise here might we st...

Beautiful city! If departed things Ever again put earthly likeness on, Here should a thousand forms on fancy’s wings Float up to tell of ages that are gone: Yea, though hand touch thee not, nor eye sh...

O! it is bitter, that each fairest dream Should fleet before us but to melt away; That wildest visions still should loveliest seem And soonest fade in the broad glare of day: That while we feel the wo...

A little while, alas! a little while, And the same world has tongue, and ear, and eye, The careless glance, the cold unmeaning smile, The thoughtless word, the lack of sympathy! Who would not turn him...

So pass we on. But oh! to harp aright The vanisht glories of thine early day, There needs a minstrel of diviner might, A holier incense than this feeble lay; To chant thy requiem with more passionate ...

High fate is theirs, ye sleepless waves, whose ear Learns Freedom’s lesson from your voice of fear; Whose spell-bound sense from childhood’s hour hath known Familiar meanings in your mystic tone: Soun...

Who taught this pleading to unpractis’d eyes? Who hid such import in an infant’s gloom? Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise? What clouds thy forehead, and fore-dates thy doom? Lo! sails that g...

“Not by the justice that my father spurn’d, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturn’d, Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks were due; Fell this late voi...

A region desolate and wild, Black, chafing water: and afloat, And lonely as a truant child In a waste wood, a single boat: No mast, no sails are set thereon; It moves, but never moveth on: And welters...

In the cedar shadow sleeping, Where cool grass and fragrant glooms Oft at noon had lur’d me, creeping From your darken’d palace rooms: I, who in your train at morning Stroll’d and sang with joyful min...

Thou, who dost dwell alone⁠— Thou, who dost know thine own⁠— Thou, to whom all are known From the cradle to the grave⁠— Save, oh, save. From the world’s temptations, From tribulations; From that fierc...

As the kindling glances, Queen-like and clear, Which the bright moon lances From her tranquil sphere At the sleepless waters Of a lonely mere, On the wild whirling waves, mournfully, mournfully, Shive...

Joy comes and goes: hope ebbs and flows, Like the wave. Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. Love lends life a little grace, A few sad smiles: and then, Both are laid in one cold place, In...

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill That to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footst...

Because thou hast believ’d, the wheels of life Stand never idle, but go always round: Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground, Mov’d only; but by genius, in the strife Of all its chafing torren...

Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control⁠— So men, unravelling God’s harmonious whole, Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours. Vain labour! Deep and ...

“O monstrous, dead, unprofitable world, That thou canst hear, and hearing, hold thy way. A voice oracular hath peal’d to-day, To-day a hero’s banner is unfurl’d. Hast thou no lip for welcome?” So I sa...

“In harmony with Nature”? Restless fool, Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee, When true, the last impossibility; To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool:⁠— Know, man hath all which Nat...

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure, At first imagin’d lay The sacred world; and by procession sure From those still deeps, in form and colour drest, Seasons alternating, and night and day, The lon...

Omit, omit, my simple friend, Still to enquire how parties tend, Or what we fix with foreign powers. If France and we are really friends, And what the Russian Czar intends, Is no concern of ours. Us n...

Artist, whose hand, with horror wing’d, hath torn From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung The prodigy of full-blown crime among Valleys and men to middle fortune born, Not innocent, indeed, y...

The Chorus: Well hath he done who hath seiz’d happiness. For little do the all-containing Hours, Though opulent, freely give. Who, weighing that life well Fortune presents unpray’d, Declines her minis...

O frivolous mind of man, Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts, Though man bewails you not, How I bewail you! Little in your prosperity Do you seek counsel of the Gods. Proud, ignorant, self-...

The portico of Circe’s palace. Evening. A Youth. Circe. The Youth: Faster, faster, O Circe, Goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul! Thou ...

Hussein: O most just Vizier, send away The cloth-merchants, and let them be, Them and their dues, this day: the King Is ill at ease, and calls for thee. The Vizier: O merchants, tarry yet a day Here i...

To die be given us, or attain! Fierce work it were, to do again. So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray’d At burning noon: so warriors said, Scarf’d with the cross, who watch’d the miles Of dust which wre...

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shoreward blow; Now the salt tides seawards flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ an...

Why, when the World’s great mind Hath finally inclin’d, Why, you say, Critias, be debating still? Why, with these mournful rhymes Learn’d in more languid climes, Blame our activity, Who, with such pas...

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize Those virtues, priz’d and practis’d by too few, But priz’d, but lov’d, but eminent in you, Man’s fundamental life: if to despise The barren optimistic sophistr...

Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem Rather to patience prompted, than that proud Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud, France, fam’d in all great arts, in none supreme. Seeing this Val...

Children (as such forgive them) have I known, Ever in their own eager pastime bent To make the incurious bystander, intent On his own swarming thoughts, an interest own; Too fearful or too fond to pla...

Who prop, thou ask’st, in these bad days, my mind? He much, the old man, who, clearest-soul’d of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,11 And Tmolus’ hill, and Smyrna’s bay, though blind. Much...

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson that in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties serv’d in one, Though the loud world proclaim their enmity⁠— Of Toil unsever’d from Tranquill...

Laugh, my Friends, and without blame Lightly quit what lightly came: Rich to-morrow as to-day Spend as madly as you may. I, with little land to stir, Am the exacter labourer. Ere the parting hour go b...

They are gone: all is still: Foolish heart, dost thou quiver? Nothing stirs on the lawn but the quick lilac shade. Far up gleams the house, and beneath flows the river. Here lean, my head, on this col...

Mist clogs the sunshine, Smoky dwarf houses Hem me round everywhere. A vague dejection Weighs down my soul. Yet, while I languish, Everywhere, countless Prospects unroll themselves, And countless bein...

Not in sunk Spain’s prolong’d death agony; Not in rich England, bent but to make pour The flood of the world’s commerce on her shore; Not in that madhouse, France, from whence the cry Afflicts grave H...

Again I see my bliss at hand; The town, the lake are here. My Marguerite smiles upon the strand13 Unalter’d with the year. I know that graceful figure fair, That cheek of languid hue; I know that soft...

Again I see my bliss at hand; The town, the lake are here. My Marguerite smiles upon the strand13 Unalter’d with the year. I know that graceful figure fair, That cheek of languid hue; I know that soft...

Ye storm-winds of Autumn Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle The gleam-lighted lake; Who cross to the hill-side Thin-sprinkled with farms, Where the high woods strip sadly Their yellowing ar...

My horse’s feet beside the lake, Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, Sent echoes through the night to wake Each glistening strand, each heath-fring’d bay. The poplar avenue was pass’d, And the roo...

We were apart: yet, day by day, I bade my heart more constant be; I bade it keep the world away, And grow a home for only thee: Nor fear’d but thy love likewise grew, Like mine, each day more tried, m...

Yes: in the sea of life enisl’d, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless ...

In this fair stranger’s eyes of grey Thine eyes, my love, I see. I shudder: for the passing day Had borne me far from thee. This is the curse of life: that not A nobler calmer train Of wiser thoughts ...

Ten years!⁠—and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high, The stream⁠—and do I linger here? The clouds are on the Oberland, The Jungfrau snows look faint...

In front the awful Alpine track Crawls up its rocky stair; The autumn storm-winds drive the rack Close o’er it, in the air. Behind are the abandon’d baths15 Mute in their meadows lone; The leaves are ...

What mortal, when he saw, Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend, Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly: “I have kept uninfring’d my nature’s law; The inly-written chart thou gavest me, To guide me...

True, we must tame our rebel will: True, we must bow to Nature’s law: Must bear in silence many an ill; Must learn to wail, renounce, withdraw. Yet now, when boldest wills give place, When Fate and Ci...

Weary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel’s prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o’er the starlit sea. And a look of passionate desire O’er the ...

Why each is striving, from of old, To love more deeply than he can? Still would be true, yet still grows cold? —Ask of the Powers that sport with man! They yok’d in him, for endless strife, A heart of...

When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence, From this poor present self which I am now; When youth has done its tedious vain expense Of passions that for ever ebb and flow; Shall I not joy youth’s...

So far as I conceive the World’s rebuke To him address’d who would recast her new, Not from herself her fame of strength she took, But from their weakness, who would work her rue. “Behold,” she cries,...

Empedocles Pausanias, a Physician Callicles, a young Harp-player The Scene of the Poem is on Mount Etna; at first in the forest region, afterwards on the summit of the mountain. A Pass in the forest r...

Empedocles Pausanias, a Physician Callicles, a young Harp-player The Scene of the Poem is on Mount Etna; at first in the forest region, afterwards on the summit of the mountain....

A Pass in the forest region of Etna. Morning. Callicles: Alone, resting on a rock by the path. The mules, I think, will not be here this hour. They feel the cool wet turf under their feet By the strea...

A Pass in the forest region of Etna. Morning. Callicles: Alone, resting on a rock by the path. The mules, I think, will not be here this hour. They feel the cool wet turf under their feet By the strea...

Noon. A Glen on the highest skirts of the woody region of Etna. Empedocles. Pausanias. Pausanias: The noon is hot; when we have cross’d the stream We shall have left the woody tract, and come Upon the...

Evening. The Summit of Etna. Empedocles: Alone!⁠— On this charr’d, blacken’d, melancholy waste, Crown’d by the awful peak, Etna’s great mouth, Round which the sullen vapour rolls⁠—alone! Pausanias is ...

Yes, now the longing is o’erpast, Which, dogg’d by fear and fought by shame, Shook her weak bosom day and night, Consum’d her beauty like a flame, And dimm’d it like the desert blast. And though the c...

Tristram: Is she not come? The messenger was sure. Prop me upon the pillows once again⁠— Raise me, my Page: this cannot long endure. Christ! what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! What lights wil...

Tristram: Is she not come? The messenger was sure. Prop me upon the pillows once again⁠— Raise me, my Page: this cannot long endure. Christ! what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! What lights wil...

Tristram: Raise the light, my Page! that I may see her.⁠— Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen! Long I’ve waited, long I’ve fought my fever: Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been. Iseult: Blame...

A year had flown, and o’er the sea away, In Cornwall, Tristram and queen Iseult lay; In King Marc’s chapel, in Tyntagel old: There in a ship they bore those lovers cold. The young surviving Iseult, on...

’Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here, And ease from shame, and rest from fear. There’s nothing can dismarble now The smoothness of that limpid brow. But is a calm like this, in truth, The crowning e...

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease. But one such death remain’d to come; The last poetic voice is dumb. What shall be said o’er Wordsworth’s tomb? When Byron’s...

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat Under the rustling poplars’ shade; Silent the swans beside us float: None speaks, none heeds⁠—ah, turn thy head. Let those arch eyes now softly shine, That...

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat Under the rustling poplars’ shade; Silent the swans beside us float: None speaks, none heeds⁠—ah, turn thy head. Let those arch eyes now softly shine, That...

Each on his own strict line we move, And some find death ere they find love. So far apart their lives are thrown From the twin soul which halves their own. And sometimes, by still harder fate, The lov...

Stop⁠—Not to me, at this bitter departing, Speak of the sure consolations of Time. Fresh be the wound, still-renew’d be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime. But, if the steadfast comman...

Vain is the effort to forget. Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moonlit snow Of the high Alps, to which I go: But ah, not yet! not yet! Vain is the agony of grief. ’Tis true, indeed,...

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again. For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant c...

A thousand knights have rein’d their steeds To watch this line of sand-hills run, Along the never-silent Strait, To Calais glittering in the sun: To look toward Ardres’ Golden Field Across this wide a...

I too have suffer’d: yet I know She is not cold, though she seems so: She is not cold, she is not light; But our ignoble souls lack might. She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, While we for hopele...

I must not say that thou wert true, Yet let me say that thou wert fair. And they that lovely face who view, They will not ask if truth be there. Truth⁠—what is truth? Two bleeding hearts Wounded by me...

The sea is calm to-night, The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the Straits;⁠—on the French coast, the light Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranq...

I saw him sensitive in frame, I knew his spirits low; And wish’d him health, success, and fame: I do not wish it now. For these are all their own reward, And leave no good behind; They try us, oftenes...

Rais’d are the dripping oars⁠— Silent the boat: the lake, Lovely and soft as a dream, Swims in the sheen of the moon. The mountains stand at its head Clear in the pure June night, But the valleys are ...

We, O Nature, depart: Thou survivest us: this, This, I know, is the law. Yes, but more than this, Thou who seest us die Seest us change while we live; Seest our dreams, one by one, Seest our errors de...

In this lone open glade I lie, Screen’d by deep boughs on either hand; And at its head, to stay the eye, Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand. Birds here make song, each bird has his, Acros...

We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight will’d Can be through hours of gloom fulfi...

The Master stood upon the mount, and taught. He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes; “The old law,” they cried, “is wholly come to naught! Behold the new world rise!” “Was it,” the Lord then said, “with...

A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the River of Time; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Rivets his gaze on the banks of the strea...

In the deserted moon-blanch’d street How lonely rings the echo of my feet! Those windows, which I gaze at, frown, Silent and white, unopening down, Repellent as the world:⁠—but see! A break between th...

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet. I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll. Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile; But...

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share?⁠— Since man woke on earth, he knows his story, But, before we woke on earth, we were. Long, long since, undower’d yet, ...

Moderate tasks and moderate leisure, Quiet living, strict-kept measure Both in suffering and in pleasure⁠— ’Tis for this thy nature yearns. But so many books thou readest, But so many schemes thou bre...

The thoughts that rain their steady glow Like stars on life’s cold sea, Which others know, or say they know⁠— They never shone for me. Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky, But they will not r...

Before Man parted for this earthly strand, While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, God put a heap of letters in his hand, And bade him make with them what word he could. And Man has turn’d them m...

In summer, on the headlands, The Baltic Sea along, Sits Neckan with his harp of gold, And sings his plaintive song. Green rolls beneath the headlands, Green rolls the Baltic Sea. And there, below the ...

What poets feel not, when they make, A pleasure in creating, The world, in its turn, will not take Pleasure in contemplating....

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused With rain, where thick the crocus blows, Past the dark forges long disused, The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. The bridge is cross’d, and slow we ride, Throug...

Down the Savoy valleys sounding, Echoing round this castle old, ’Mid the distant mountain-chalets Hark! what bell for church is toll’d? In the bright October morning Savoy’s Duke had left his bride. F...

Down the Savoy valleys sounding, Echoing round this castle old, ’Mid the distant mountain-chalets Hark! what bell for church is toll’d? In the bright October morning Savoy’s Duke had left his bride. F...

Upon the glistening leaden roof Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines. The stream goes leaping by. The hills are cloth’d with pines sun-proof. ’Mid bright green fields, below the pines, Stands the Chur...

So rest, for ever rest, O Princely Pair! In your high Church, ’mid the still mountain air, Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come. Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb From the rich painte...

And the first grey of morning fill’d the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hush’d, and still the men were plunged in sleep: Sohrab alone, he s...

Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill; Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes: No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, Nor the cropp’d herb...

Was it a dream? We sail’d, I thought we sail’d, Martin and I, down a green Alpine stream, Under o’erhanging pines; the morning sun, On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, On the red pinings of their...

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew. In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too. Her mirth the world required: She bath’d it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And ...

Hark! ah, the Nightingale! The tawny-throated! Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark⁠—what pain! O Wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, St...

Where I am, thou ask’st, and where I wended When my fleeting shadow pass’d from thee?⁠— Am I not concluded now, and ended? Have not life and love been granted me? Ask, where now those nightingales are...

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierc’d or clove; But in his breast...

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierc’d or clove; But in his breast...

Forth from the East, up the ascent of Heaven, Day drove his courser with the Shining Mane; And in Valhalla, from his gable-perch, The golden-crested Cock began to crow: Hereafter, in the blackest dead...

The Gods held talk together, group’d in knots, Round Balder’s corpse, which they had thither borne; And Hermod came down towards them from the gate. And Lok, the Father of the Serpent, first Beheld hi...

Where, under Loughrigg, the stream Of Rotha sparkles, the fields Are green, in the house of one Friendly and gentle, now dead, Wordsworth’s son-in-law, friend⁠— Four years since, on a mark’d Evening, ...

For him who must see many years, I praise the life which slips away Out of the light and mutely; which avoids Fame, and her less fair followers, envy, strife, Stupid detraction, jealousy, cabal, Insin...

Apollodorus says:⁠—“Cresphontes had not reigned long in Messenia when he was murdered, together with two of his sons. And Polyphontes reigned in his stead, he, too, being of the family of Hercules; an...

Apollodorus says:⁠—“Cresphontes had not reigned long in Messenia when he was murdered, together with two of his sons. And Polyphontes reigned in his stead, he, too, being of the family of Hercules; an...

Laias, uncle of Aepytus, brother of Merope Aepytus, son of Merope and Cresphontes Polyphontes, king of Messenia Merope, widow of Cresphontes, the murdered king of Messenia The Chorus, of Messenian mai...

Laias. Aepytus. Laias: Son of Cresphontes, we have reach’d the goal Of our night-journey, and thou see’st thy home. Behold thy heritage, thy father’s realm! This is that fruitful, fam’d Messenian land...

Coldly, sadly descends The autumn evening. The Field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither’d leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;⁠—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their...

Silent, the Lord of the world Eyes from the heavenly height, Girt by his far-shining train, Us, who with banners unfurl’d Fight life’ many-chanc’d fight Madly below, in the plain. Thus saith the Lord ...

Far on its rocky knoll descried Saint Michael’s chapel cuts the sky. I climb’d;⁠—beneath me, bright and wide, Lay the lone coast of Brittany. Bright in the sunset, weird and still, It lay beside the A...

The sandy spits, the shore-lock’d lakes, Melt into open, moonlit sea; The soft Mediterranean breaks At my feet, free. Dotting the fields of corn and vine, Like ghosts the huge, gnarl’d olives stand; B...

Saint Brandan sails the northern main; The brotherhoods of saints are glad. He greets them once, he sails again; So late!⁠—such storms!⁠—The Saint is mad! He heard, across the howling seas, Chime conv...

“Henri Heine”⁠—’tis here! That black tombstone, the name Carved there⁠—no more! and the smooth, Swarded alleys, the limes Touch’d with yellow by hot Summer, but under them still, In September’s bright...

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell?⁠— ’Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry Stormily sweet, his Titan agony; It was the sight of that Lord Arundel Who struck, in heat, the child he lo...

In Paris all look’d hot and like to fade. Brown in the garden of the Tuileries, Brown with September, droop’d the chestnut-trees. ’Twas dawn; a brougham roll’d through the streets and made Halt at the...

In Paris all look’d hot and like to fade. Brown in the garden of the Tuileries, Brown with September, droop’d the chestnut-trees. ’Twas dawn; a brougham roll’d through the streets and made Halt at the...

Unto a lonely villa in a dell Above the fragrant warm Provençal shore The dying Rachel in a chair they bore Up the steep pine-plumed paths of the Estrelle, And laid her in a stately room, where fell T...

Sprung from the blood of Israel’s scatter’d race, At a mean inn in German Aarau born, To forms from antique Greece and Rome uptorn, Trick’d out with a Parisian speech and face, Imparting life renew’d,...

’Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields, look’d thrice dispirited; I met a preacher there...

Crouch’d on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. Some labou...

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare! Christ, some one says, was human as we are; No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan; We live no more, when...

Foil’d by our fellow-men, depress’d, outworn, We leave the brutal world to take its way, And, Patience! in another life, we say, The world shall be thrust down, and we upborne! And will not, then, the...

Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius.⁠—But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, Our freedom for a little bread we...

“Yes, write it in the rock!” Saint Bernard said, “Grave it on brass with adamantine pen! ’Tis God himself becomes apparent, when God’s wisdom and God’s goodness are display’d, “For God of these his at...

He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save! So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect44 which cried: “Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, “Who sins, once w...

That son of Italy who tried to blow,45 Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song, In his light youth amid a festal throng Sate with his bride to see a public show. Fair was the bride, and on her front ...

In the bare midst of Anglesey they show Two springs which close by one another play, And, “Thirteen hundred years agone,” they say, “Two saints met often where those waters flow. “One came from Penmon...

“Oh could thy grave at home, at Carthage, be!”⁠— Care not for that, and lay me where I fall. Everywhere heard will be the judgment-call. But at God’s altar, oh! remember me. Thus Monica, and died in I...

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow Was the Palladium, high ’mid rock and wood; And Hector was in Ilium, far below, And fought, and saw it not, but there it stood! It stood; and sun and moonshi...

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla’s name, And from the roofs...

One morn as through Hyde Park we walk’d. My friend and I, by chance we talk’d Of Lessing’s famed Laocoön; And after we awhile had gone In Lessing’s track, and tried to see What painting is, what poetr...

I ask not that my bed of death From bands of greedy heirs be free; For these besiege the latest breath Of fortune’s favour’d sons, not me. I ask not each kind soul to keep Tearless, when of my death h...

Glion?⁠—Ah, twenty years, it cuts50 All meaning from a name! White houses prank where once were huts! Glion! but not the same, And yet I know not. All unchanged The turf, the pines, the sky! The hills...

Though the Muse be gone away, Though she move not earth to-day, Souls, erewhile who caught her word, Ah! still harp on what they heard....

The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the new-reap’d grain, Silent the sheaves! the ringing wain, The reaper’s cry, the d...

The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the new-reap’d grain, Silent the sheaves! the ringing wain, The reaper’s cry, the d...

The epoch ends, the world is still, The age has talk’d and work’d its fill⁠— The famous orators have done, The famous poets sung and gone, The famous men of war have fought, The famous speculators tho...

What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength⁠— Not our bloom only, but...

Youth rambles on life’s arid mount, And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, And brings the water from the fount, The fount which shall not flow again. The man mature with labour chops For the bright...

This sentence have I left behind: An aching body, and a mind Not wholly clear, nor wholly blind, Too keen to rest, too weak to find, That travails sore, and brings forth wind, Are God’s worst portion ...

This sentence have I left behind: An aching body, and a mind Not wholly clear, nor wholly blind, Too keen to rest, too weak to find, That travails sore, and brings forth wind, Are God’s worst portion ...

Ask not my name, O friend! That Being only, which hath known each man From the beginning, can Remember each unto the end....

Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast; Thou thyself must break at last. Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let th...

“Man is blind because of sin; Revelation makes him sure. Without that, who looks within, Looks in vain, for all’s obscure.” Nay, look closer into man! Tell me, can you find indeed Nothing sure, no mor...

The armless Vatican Cupid Hangs down his beautiful head; For the priests have got him in prison, And Psyche long has been dead. But see, his shaven oppressors Begin to quake and disband! And The Times...

To daily tasks we set our hand, And oft the spirit, pent at home, Breaks out and longs for Switzerland, Longs oftener yet and pines for Rome. I pass’d to-day o’er Walton Heath⁠— The coming spring-time...

I read in Dante how that horned light, Which hid Ulysses, waved itself and said: “Following the sun, we set our vessel’s head To the great main; pass’d Seville on the right “And Ceuta on the left; the...

Four years!⁠—and didst thou stay above The ground, which hides thee now, but four? And all that life, and all that love, Were crowded, Geist! into no more? Only four years those winning ways, Which ma...

What! for a term so scant Our shining visitant Cheer’d us, and now is pass’d into the night? Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old, The boon thy dedication-sign foretold,54 The presence of that gra...

Poor Matthias!⁠—Found him lying Fall’n beneath his perch and dying? Found him stiff, you say, though warm⁠— All convulsed his little form? Poor canary! many a year Well he knew his mistress dear; Now ...

What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news Post-haste to Cobham calls the Muse, From where in Farringford she brews The ode sublime, Or with Pen-bryn’s bold bard pursues A rival rhyme. Kai’s bracelet tail, Kai...

“After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, reigned over Egypt. He abhorred his father’s courses, and judged his subjects more justly than any of their kings had done.⁠—To him there came an oracle from...