Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to...

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or craggy mountains yield.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose...

    thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
    And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

    Far in thy realm withdrawn
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
    And glorious ages...

The Pastor sits in his easy-chair,
  With the Bible upon his knee.
From gold to purple the clouds in the west
  Are changing momently;
The shadows lie in the valleys below,
  And hide in the curtain’s fold;
And the page grows dim whereon he reads,...

There ’s a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot,—
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings;
  Rattle his bones over the stones!
  He ’s only a...

In a valley, centuries ago,
  Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender,
  Veining delicate and fibres tender;
Waving when the wind crept down so low.
  Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it,
  Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
  ...

  HAMELIN Town ’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover City;
  The river Weser, deep and wide,
  Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But when begins my ditty,
  Almost five hundred years ago,
  To see the...

A pilgrim am I, on my way
  To seek and find the Holy Land;
Scarce had I started, when there lay
  And marched round me a fourfold band:
    A smiling Joy, a weeping Woe,
    A Hope, a Fear, did with me go;
    And one may come, or one be gone;...