1. When passion’s trance is overpast, If tenderness and truth could last, Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, I should not weep, I should not weep! 2. It were enough to feel, to see, Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly, And dream the rest–and burn and be The secret […]

1. Fairest of the Destinies, Disarray thy dazzling eyes: Keener far thy lightnings are Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest, And the smile thou wearest Wraps thee as a star Is wrapped in light. 2. Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run, Or could the morning shafts of purest […]

1. One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. 2. I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept […]

… And many there were hurt by that strong boy, His name, they said, was Pleasure, And near him stood, glorious beyond measure Four Ladies who possess all empery In earth and air and sea, Nothing that lives from their award is free. Their names will I declare to thee, Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear, […]

BOYS SING: Night! with all thine eyes look down! Darkness! weep thy holiest dew! Never smiled the inconstant moon On a pair so true. Haste, coy hour! and quench all light, Lest eyes see their own delight! Haste, swift hour! and thy loved flight Oft renew! GIRLS SING: Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her! Holy […]

Wild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one Who staggers forth into the air and sun From the dark chamber of a mortal fever, Bewildered, and incapable, and ever Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain Of usual shapes, till the familiar train Of objects and of persons passed like things Strange as a dreamer’s mad […]

1. The sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening’s breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream. 2. There is no dew on […]

I would not be a king–enough Of woe it is to love; The path to power is steep and rough, And tempests reign above. I would not climb the imperial throne; ‘Tis built on ice which fortune’s sun Thaws in the height of noon. Then farewell, king, yet were I one, Care would not come […]

I am afraid these verses will not please you, but If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair The ministration of the thoughts that fill The mind which, like a worm whose life may share A portion of the unapproachable, Marks your creations rise as fast and fair […]

Our boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars, and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast, 5 Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. The stars burnt out in the pale […]

1. I pant for the music which is divine, My heart in its thirst is a dying flower; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine, Loosen the notes in a silver shower; Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain, I gasp, I faint, till they wake again. 2. Let me drink of the spirit […]

Methought I was a billow in the crowd Of common men, that stream without a shore, That ocean which at once is deaf and loud; That I, a man, stood amid many more By a wayside…, which the aspect bore Of some imperial metropolis, Where mighty shapes–pyramid, dome, and tower– Gleamed like a pile of […]

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow? When young and old, and strong and weak, Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,– In thy place–ah! well-a-day! We find the thing we fled–To-day.

ON KEATS, WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED– ‘Here lieth One whose name was writ on water. But, ere the breath that could erase it blew, Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter, Death, the immortalizing winter, flew Athwart the stream,–and time’s printless torrent grew A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name […]

Come, thou awakener of the spirit’s ocean, Zephyr, whom to thy cloud or cave No thought can trace! speed with thy gentle motion!

I faint, I perish with my love! I grow Frail as a cloud whose [splendours] pale Under the evening’s ever-changing glow: I die like mist upon the gale, And like a wave under the calm I fail.

Faint with love, the Lady of the South Lay in the paradise of Lebanon Under a heaven of cedar boughs: the drouth Of love was on her lips; the light was gone Out of her eyes–

If I walk in Autumn’s even While the dead leaves pass, If I look on Spring’s soft heaven,– Something is not there which was Winter’s wondrous frost and snow, Summer’s clouds, where are they now?

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

Great Spirit whom the sea of boundless thought Nurtures within its unimagined caves, In which thou sittest sole, as in my mind, Giving a voice to its mysterious waves–