To Archimedes once a scholar came,“Teach me,” he said, “the art that won thy fame;–The godlike art which gives such boons to toil,And showers such fruit upon thy native soil;–The godlike art that girt the town when allRome’s vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!”“Thou call’st art godlike–it is so, in truth,And was,” replied the […]

Humanity’s bright image to impair.Scorn laid thee prostrate in the deepest dust;Wit wages ceaseless war on all that’s fair,–In angel and in God it puts no trust;The bosom’s treasures it would make its prey,–Besieges fancy,–dims e’en faith’s pure ray. Yet issuing like thyself from humble line,Like thee a gentle shepherdess is she–Sweet poesy affords her […]

Even the beauteous must die! This vanquishes men and immortals;But of the Stygian god moves not the bosom of steel.Once and once only could love prevail on the ruler of shadows,And on the threshold, e’en then, sternly his gift he recalled.Venus could never heal the wounds of the beauteous stripling,That the terrible boar made in […]

What wonder this?–we ask the lympid well,O earth! of thee–and from thy solemn wombWhat yieldest thou?–is there life in the abyss–Doth a new race beneath the lava dwell?Returns the past, awakening from the tomb?Rome–Greece!–Oh, come!–Behold–behold! for this!Our living world–the old Pompeii sees;And built anew the town of Dorian Hercules!House upon house–its silent halls once moreOpes […]

Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathersOf the immortal work, that through all time will survive!Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother’s own feature,‘Tis thy features it bears,–Nature,–thy features eterne!

I. Threefold is the march of timeWhile the future slow advances,Like a dart the present glances,Silent stands the past sublime. No impatience e’er can speed himOn his course if he delay;No alarm, no doubts impede himIf he keep his onward way;No regrets, no magic numbersWake the tranced one from his slumbers.Wouldst thou wisely and with […]

Two are the pathways by which mankind can to virtue mount upward;If thou should find the one barred, open the other will lie.‘Tis by exertion the happy obtain her, the suffering by patience.Blest is the man whose kind fate guides him along upon both!

Mighty art thou, because of the peaceful charms of thy presence;That which the silent does not, never the boastful can do.Vigor in man I expect, the law in its honors maintaining,But, through the graces alone, woman e’er rules or should rule.Many, indeed, have ruled through the might of the spirit and action,But then thou noblest […]

Three errors there are, that forever are foundOn the lips of the good, on the lips of the best;But empty their meaning and hollow their sound–And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.The fruits of existence escape from the claspOf the seeker who strives but those shadows to grasp– So long as man […]

Three words will I name thee–around and about,From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;But they had not their birth in the being without,And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!And all worth in the man shall forever be o’erWhen in those three words he believes no more. Man is […]

Hast thou the infant seen that yet, unknowing of the loveWhich warms and cradles, calmly sleeps the mother’s heart above–Wandering from arm to arm, until the call of passion wakes,And glimmering on the conscious eye–the world in glory breaks? And hast thou seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep?Buying with love that never sleeps […]

Nowhere in the organic or sensitive world ever kindlesNovelty, save in the flower, noblest creation of life.

[Dignities would be the better title, if the word were not so essentially unpoetical.] When the column of light on the waters is glassed,As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream;But wave after wave through the glory has passed,Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beamSo honors but mirror on mortals […]

Millions busily toil, that the human race may continue;But by only a few is propagated our kind.Thousands of seeds by the autumn are scattered, yet fruit is engenderedOnly by few, for the most back to the element go.But if one only can blossom, that one is able to scatterEven a bright living world, filled with […]

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,And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty.With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto the rock sublime,Where halts […]

Full many a shining wit one sees,With tongue on all things well conversing;The what can charm, the what can please,In every nice detail rehearsing.Their raptures so transport the college,It seems one honeymoon of knowledge. Yet out they go in silence whereThey whilom held their learned prate;Ah! he who would achieve the fair,Or sow the embryo […]

In cheerful faith that fears no illThe good man doth the world begin;And dreams that all without shall stillReflect the trusting soul within.Warm with the noble vows of youth,Hallowing his true arm to the truth; Yet is the littleness of allSo soon to sad experience shown,That crowds but teach him to recallAnd centre thought on […]

Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written,And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups;–Since o’er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able,Thou dost think that thy mind wonderful Nature can grasp.Thus the astronomer draws his figures over the heavens,So that he may with more ease traverse […]

Why are taste and genius so seldom met with united?Taste of strength is afraid,–genius despises the rein.

Majesty of the nature of man! In crowds shall I seek thee?‘Tis with only a few that thou hast made thine abode.Only a few ever count; the rest are but blanks of no value,And the prizes are hid ‘neath the vain stir that they make.