Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
Ever to come up with dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;—
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapæsts throng;
One...
Cologne
IN Köln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches,—
I counted two-and-seventy stenches,
All well-defined and several stinks!
Ye nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks,...
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines...
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O’Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?—
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch-tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of...
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 1
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And...
O, It is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes
Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend’s fancy; or, with head bent low...
From the First Part of “Wallenstein,” Act III. Sc. 4.
WALLENSTEIN (in soliloquy). Is it possible?
Is ’t so? I can no longer what I would!
No longer draw back at my liking! I
Must do the deed, because I thought of it,
And fed this heart here with a dream...
Which Died before Baptism
“BE, rather than be called, a child of God,”
Death whispered!—with assenting nod,
Its head upon its mother’s breast,
The baby bowed, without demur—
Of the kingdom of the Blest
Possessor, not inheritor.
How seldom, Friend! a good great man inherits
Honor or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits.
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
For shame, dear Friend; renounce...
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,—
I in my arms the maiden clasping;
I could not tell the reason why,
But, O, I trembled like an aspen!
Her father’s love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man,—in...
