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 remain. They light me once, they hurry by; And never come again.

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, our spirit Roam’d, ere birth, the treasuries of God; Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit, Ask’d […]

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 tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the […]

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 our strength–decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every […]

A VARIATION 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 stream a channel grand, And sees not that the sacred drops Ran off and vanish’d out […]

LINES WRITTEN FOR MISS STORY’S ALBUM 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, that bright Apollo, Proclaims salvation at hand. “And what,” cries Cupid, “will save […]

“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 moral plan Clear prescribed, without your creed? “No, I nothing can perceive! Without that, all’s dark for men. That, or […]

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 them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still. They out-talk’d thee, hiss’d thee, tore […]

Thus saith the Lord to his own: “See ye the trouble below? Warfare of man from his birth! Too long let we them groan; Haste, arise ye, and go, Carry my peace upon earth!” Gladly they rise at his call, Gladly obey his command, Gladly descend to the plain. –Ah! How few of them all, […]

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

I The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the half-mown plain, Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, The mower’s cry, the dog’s alarms, All housed within the sleeping farms! The business of the day is done, The last-left haymaker is gone. And […]

One morn as through Hyde Park we walk’d, My friend and I, by chance we talk’d Of Lessing’s famed Laocooen; And after we awhile had gone In Lessing’s track, and tried to see What painting is, what poetry– Diverging to another thought, “Ah,” cries my friend, “but who hath taught Why music and the other […]

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.

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

Raised 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 flooded with haze. Rydal and Fairfield are there; In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead. So it is, […]

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 depart; Watchest us, Nature! throughout, Mild and inscrutably calm. Well for us that we change! Well […]

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 moonshine rain’d their light On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward roll’d the waves […]

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 nought, Behold the new world rise!” “Was it,” the Lord then said, “with scorn ye saw The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees? I say unto you, see ye […]

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 many times; made Greece, Rome, England, France;–yes, nor in vain essay’d Way after way, changes […]

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 sea and to the stars I send: “Ye who from my childhood up have calm’d me, […]