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 fulfill’d. With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the […]

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 the housetops shows The moon! and, lost behind her, fading dim Into the dewy dark obscurity Down at the far horizon’s rim, […]

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 there’s a something in this breast, To which thy light words bring no rest, […]

In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen’d by deep boughs on either hand; And at its end, to stay the eye, Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand! Birds here make song, each bird has his, Across the girdling city’s hum. How green under the boughs it is! How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! Sometimes a […]

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 he hears. Let those who will, if any, weep! There are worse plagues on earth […]

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 stream. As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. Whether he […]

The Scholar-Gipsy[1] 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 herbage shoot another head. But when the fields are still, And the tired men and dogs all gone to […]

Thyrsis[1] A MONODY, to commemorate the author’s friend, ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, who died at Florence, 1861. 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 the twisted […]

APRIL, 1850 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– We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb. When Byron’s eyes were shut in death, We bow’d our head and held our breath. He taught us little; but our soul […]

IN MEMORY OF EDWARD QUILLINAN 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, oftenest make us hard, Less modest, pure, and kind. Alas! yet […]

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 Atlantic wave, As though the wizard Merlin’s will Yet charm’d it from his forest-grave. Behind me on their grassy sweep, […]

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. Behind, that lovely mountain-line! While, by the strand, Cette, with its glistening houses white, Curves with the curving beach away To where […]

APRIL, 1855 Where, under Loughrigg, the stream Of Rotha sparkles through fields Vested for ever with green, Four years since, in the house Of a gentle spirit, now dead– Wordsworth’s son-in-law, friend– I saw the meeting of two Gifted women.[1] The one, Brilliant with recent renown, Young, unpractised, had told With a master’s accent her […]

NOVEMBER 1857 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 play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;–but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, Through the gathering darkness, […]

“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 afternoon, Shadow, and verdure, and cool. Trim Montmartre! the faint Murmur of Paris outside; Crisp everlasting-flowers, Yellow and black, on the graves. Half […]

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, Through forest, up the mountain-side. The autumnal evening darkens round, The wind is up, and drives the rain; While, hark! far down, with strangled […]

[1] NOVEMBER, 1849 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 baths[26] Mute in their meadows lone; The leaves are on the valley-paths, The mists are on the Rhone– The white mists rolling like a sea! […]

(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING) Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d’un monde? OBERMANN. Glion?—-Ah, twenty years, it cuts[1] 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 in their […]

Story Of The Drama 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; and he had for his wife, against her will, Merope, the widow of the murdered king. But Merope had […]

PERSONS 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 . ACT I. SCENE I Morning. A Pass in the forest region of Etna. CALLICLES (Alone, resting on a rock by the path.) The […]