Cistercians might crack their sidesWith laughter, and exemption get,At sight of heroes clasping brides,And hearing–O the horn! the horn!The horn of their obstructive debt! But quit the stage, that note appliesFor sermons cosmopolitan,Hernani. Have we filched our prize,Forgetting . . .? O the horn! the horn!The horn of the Old Gentleman!

I Gracefullest leaper, the dappled fox-cubCurves over brambles with berries and buds,Light as a bubble that flies from the tub,Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds.Wavy he comes, woolly, all at his ease,Elegant, fashioned to foot with the deuce;Nature’s own prince of the dance: then he seesMe, and retires as if making excuse. II […]

I Projected from the bilious Childe,This clatterjaw his foot could setOn Alps, without a breast beguiledTo glow in shedding rascal sweat.Somewhere about his grinder teeth,He mouthed of thoughts that grilled beneath,And summoned Nature to her feudWith bile and buskin Attitude. II Considerably was the worldOf spinsterdom and clergy rackedWhile he his hinted horrors hurled,And she […]

Hawk or shrike has done this deedOf downy feathers: rueful sight!Sweet sentimentalist, inviteYour bosom’s Power to intercede. So hard it seems that one must bleedBecause another needs will bite!All round we find cold Nature slightThe feelings of the totter-knee’d. O it were pleasant with youTo fly from this tussle of foes,The shambles, the charnel, the […]

I Maimed, beggared, grey; seeking an alms; with nodOf palsy doing task of thanks for bread;Upon the stature of a God,He whom the Gods have struck bends low his head. II Weak words he has, that slip the nerveless tongueDeformed, like his great frame: a broken arc:Once radiant as the javelin flungRight at the centre […]

I The Tyrant passed, and friendlier was his eyeOn the great man of Athens, whom for foeHe knew, than on the sycophantic fryThat broke as waters round a galley’s flow,Bubbles at prow and foam along the wake.Solidity the Thunderer could not shake,Beneath an adverse wind still stripping bare,His kinsman, of the light-in-cavern look,From thought drew, […]

I How died Melissa none dares shape in words.A woman who is wife despotic lordsCount faggot at the question, Shall she live!Her son, because his brows were black of her,Runs barking for his bread, a fugitive,And Corinth frowns on them that feed the cur. II There is no Corinth save the whip and curbOf Corinth, […]

I Young captain of a crazy bark!O tameless heart in battered frame!Thy sailing orders have a mark,And hers is not the name. II For action all thine iron clanksIn cravings for a splendid prize;Again to race or bump thy planksWith any flag that flies. III Consult them; they are eloquentFor senses not inebriate.They trust thee […]

I Men the Angels eyed;And here they were wild waves,And there as marsh descried;Men the Angels eyed,And liked the picture bestWhere they were greenly dressedIn brotherhood of graves. II Man the Angels marked:He led a host through murk,On fearful seas embarked;Man the Angels marked;To think without a nay,That he was good as they,And help him […]

I Prince of Bards was old Aneurin;He the grand Gododin sang;All his numbers threw such fire in,Struck his harp so wild a twang; –Still the wakeful Briton borrowsWisdom from its ancient heat:Still it haunts our source of sorrows,Deep excess of liquor sweet! II Here the Briton, there the Saxon,Face to face, three fields apart,Thirst for […]

I The shepherd, with his eye on hazy South,Has told of rain upon the fall of day.But promise is there none for Susan’s drouth,That he will come, who keeps in dry delay.The freshest of the village three years gone,She hangs as the white field-rose hangs short-lived;And she and Earth are oneIn withering unrevived.Rain! O the […]

I Demeter devastated our good land,In blackness for her daughter snatched below.Smoke-pillar or loose hillock was the sand,Where soil had been to clasp warm seed and throwThe wheat, vine, olive, ripe to Summer’s ray.Now whether night advancing, whether day,Scarce did the baldness show:The hand of man was a defeated hand. II Necessity, the primal goad […]

I know him, February’s thrush,And loud at eve he valentinesOn sprays that paw the naked bushWhere soon will sprout the thorns and bines. Now ere the foreign singer thrillsOur vale his plain-song pipe he pours,A herald of the million bills;And heed him not, the loss is yours. My study, flanked with ivied firAnd budded beech […]

Day of the cloud in fleets! O dayOf wedded white and blue, that sailImmingled, with a footing rayIn shadow-sandals down our vale! –And swift to ravish golden meads,Swift up the run of turf it speeds,Thy bright of head and dark of heel,To where the hilltop flings on sky,As hawk from wrist or dust from wheel,The […]

Bursts from a rending East in flawsThe young green leaflet’s harrier, swornTo strew the garden, strip the shaws,And show our Spring with banner torn.Was ever such virago morn?The wind has teeth, the wind has claws.All the wind’s wolves through woods are loose,The wild wind’s falconry aloft.Shrill underfoot the grassblade shrews,At gallop, clumped, and down the […]

I Flowers of the willow-herb are wool;Flowers of the briar berries red;Speeding their seed as the breeze may rule,Flowers of the thistle loosen the thread.Flowers of the clematis drip in beard,Slack from the fir-tree youngly climbed;Chaplets in air, flies foliage seared;Heeled upon earth, lie clusters rimed. II Where were skies of the mantle stainedOrange and […]

At the coming up of Phoebus the all-luminous charioteer,Double-visaged stand the mountains in imperial multitudes,And with shadows dappled men sing to him, Hail, O Beneficent!For they shudder chill, the earth-vales, at his clouding, shudder to black;In the light of him there is music thro’ the poplar and river-sedge,Renovation, chirp of brooks, hum of the forest–an […]

A wind sways the pines,And belowNot a breath of wild air;Still as the mosses that glowOn the flooring and over the linesOf the roots here and there.The pine-tree drops its dead;They are quiet, as under the sea.Overhead, overheadRushes life in a race,As the clouds the clouds chase;And we go,And we drop like the fruits of […]

I Leave the uproar: at a leapThou shalt strike a woodland path,Enter silence, not of sleep,Under shadows, not of wrath;Breath which is the spirit’s bathIn the old Beginnings find,And endow them with a mind,Seed for seedling, swathe for swathe.That gives Nature to us, thisGive we her, and so we kiss. II Fruitful is it so: […]

I From twig to twig the spider weavesAt noon his webbing fine.So near to mute the zephyrs fluteThat only leaflets dance.The sun draws out of hazel leavesA smell of woodland wine.I wake a swarm to sudden stormAt any step’s advance. II Along my path is bugloss blue,The star with fruit in moss;The foxgloves drop from […]