1. I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the […]

1. From the forests and highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle bushes, The cicale above in the lime, And the lizards below […]

And like a dying lady, lean and pale, Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil, Out of her chamber, led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, The moon arose up in the murky East, A white and shapeless mass–

1. The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the Year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, Months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead […]

(The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baiae with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected […]

1. Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth,– And ever changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? 2. Thou chosen sister of the Spirit, That grazes on thee till in thee it pities…

1. Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere, All around, within, beneath, Above is death–and we are death. 2. Death has set his mark and seal On all we are and all we feel, On all we know and all we fear, … 3. First our pleasures die–and then Our hopes, […]

1. The fiery mountains answer each other; Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone; The tempestuous oceans awake one another, And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter’s throne, When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. 2. From a single cloud the lightening flashes, Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around, Earthquake is trampling […]

It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, Towards the end of the sunny month of June, When the north wind congregates in crowds The floating mountains of the silver clouds From the horizon–and the stainless sky Opens beyond them like eternity. All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds, The river, and the corn-fields, and […]

Amid the desolation of a city, Which was the cradle, and is now the grave Of an extinguished people,–so that Pity Weeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave, There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt, Agitates the […]

Thy look of love has power to calm The stormiest passion of my soul; Thy gentle words are drops of balm In life’s too bitter bowl; No grief is mine, but that alone These choicest blessings I have known. Harriet! if all who long to live In the warm sunshine of thine eye, That price […]

Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even: Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven. Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear thy friend’s ungentle […]

Thy dewy looks sink in my breast; Thy gentle words stir poison there; Thou hast disturbed the only rest That was the portion of despair! Subdued to Duty’s hard control, I could have borne my wayward lot: The chains that bind this ruined soul Had cankered then–but crushed it not.

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST.–Ecclesiastes. The pale, the cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn’s undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan […]

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly!–yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost for ever: Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood […]

Yet look on me–take not thine eyes away, Which feed upon the love within mine own, Which is indeed but the reflected ray Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown. Yet speak to me–thy voice is as the tone Of my heart’s echo, and I think I hear That thou yet lovest me; yet […]

1. Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed; Yes, I was firm–thus wert not thou;– My baffled looks did fear yet dread To meet thy looks–I could not know How anxiously they sought to shine 5 With soothing pity upon mine. 2. To sit and curb the soul’s mute rage Which preys upon itself alone; […]

1. The cold earth slept below, Above the cold sky shone; And all around, with a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow, The breath of night like death did flow Beneath the sinking moon. 2. The wintry hedge was black, The green grass was not seen, The birds did rest on […]

I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre, […]

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return: Childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, […]