Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair, Swimming in the pure quiet air! Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below Thy shadow o’er the vale moves slow; Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train As cool it comes along the grain. Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee In thy calm way […]

The day had been a day of wind and storm;– The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,– And stooping from the zenith bright and warm Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. I stood upon the upland slope, and cast My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, Where the vast […]

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature’s face, Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand’st, The […]

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air, Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, And the blue gentian flower, […]

I buckle to my slender side The pistol and the scimitar, And in my maiden flower and pride Am come to share the tasks of war. And yonder stands my fiery steed, That paws the ground and neighs to go, My charger of the Arab breed,– I took him from the routed foe. My mirror […]

When spring, to woods and wastes around, Brought bloom and joy again, The murdered traveller’s bones were found, Far down a narrow glen. The fragrant birch, above him, hung Her tassels in the sky; And many a vernal blossom sprung, And nodded careless by. The red-bird warbled, as he wrought His hanging nest o’erhead, And […]

Ere, in the northern gale, The summer tresses of the trees are gone, The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, Have put their glory on. The mountains that infold, In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round, Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold, That guard the enchanted ground. I roam the […]

They talk of short-lived pleasure–be it so– Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace; Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, Makes the strong secret pangs of shame […]

When the radiant morn of creation broke, And the world in the smile of God awoke, And the empty realms of darkness and death Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath, And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame From the void abyss by myriads came,– In the joy of youth as they […]

Lament who will, in fruitless tears, The speed with which our moments fly; I sigh not over vanished years, But watch the years that hasten by. Look, how they come,–a mingled crowd Of bright and dark, but rapid days; Beneath them, like a summer cloud, The wide world changes as I gaze. What! grieve that […]

The sad and solemn night Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go. Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: […]

Oh fairest of the rural maids! Thy birth was in the forest shades; Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, Were all that met thy infant eye. Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, Were ever in the sylvan wild; And all the beauty of the place Is in thy heart and on thy face. […]

Ay! gloriously thou standest there, Beautiful, boundles firmament! That, swelling wide o’er earth and air, And round the horizon bent, With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, Dost overhang and circle all. Far, far below thee, tall old trees Arise, and piles built up of old, And hills, whose ancient summits freeze In the fierce […]

Come take our boy, and we will go Before our cabin door; The winds shall bring us, as they blow, The murmurs of the shore; And we will kiss his young blue eyes, And I will sing him, as he lies, Songs that were made of yore: I’ll sing, in his delighted ear, The island […]

When freedom, from the land of Spain, By Spain’s degenerate sons was driven, Who gave their willing limbs again To wear the chain so lately riven; Romero broke the sword he wore– “Go, faithful brand,” the warrior said, “Go, undishonoured, never more The blood of man shall make thee red: I grieve for that already […]

I stand upon my native hills again, Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky With garniture of waving grass and grain, Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie, While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, Where brawl o’er shallow beds the streams unseen. A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near, And ever […]

I cannot forget with what fervid devotion I worshipped the vision of verse and of fame. Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean, To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame. And deep were my musings in life’s early blossom, Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering long; How thrilled my young […]

Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew, There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru. Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air, Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair; And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook, As from the shrubby […]

Ay, thou art welcome, heaven’s delicious breath, When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a […]

Decolor, obscuris, vilis, non ille repexam Cesariem regum, non candida virginis ornat Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu. Sed nova si nigri videas miracula saxi, Tunc superat pulchros cultus et quicquid Eois Indus litoribus rubra scrutatur in alga. CLAUDIAN. I sat beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped With Newport coal, and as the flame […]