• From the Spanish by Edward Fitzgerald
    From “Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made of”

    AND yet—and yet—in these our ghostly lives,
    Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake,
    How if our waking life, like that of sleep,
    Be all a dream in that eternal life
    To which we wake not till we sleep in death?
    How if, I say, the senses we now trust...

  • ’t Was in the prime of summer time,
      An evening calm and cool,
    And four-and-twenty happy boys
      Came bounding out of school;
    There were some that ran, and some that leapt
      Like troutlets in a pool.

    Away they sped with gamesome minds
      And souls untouched by sin;
    To a level mead they came, and there
      They drave the...

  • DEAR love, for nothing less than thee

    Would I have broke this happy dream;
    It was a theme

    For reason, much too strong for fantasy.

    Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet

    My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.

    Thou art so true that thoughts of thee...

  • PHOEBUS, expell'd by the approaching night,

    Blush'd, and for shame clos'd in his bashful light,

    While I, with leaden Mopheus overcome,

    The Muse whom I adore, enter'd the room.

    Her hair, with looser curiosity,

    Did on her comely back dishevelle'd lie;

    Her eyes...

  • The nearest Dream recedes — unrealized —

    The Heaven we chase,

    Like the June Bee — before the School Boy,

    Invites the Race —

    Stoops — to an easy Clover —

    Dips — evades — teases — deploys —

    Then — to the Royal Clouds

    Lifts his light Pinnace —

    Heedless of the Boy —

    ...