• Here is one leaf reserved for me,
    From all thy sweet memorials free;
    And here my simple song might tell
    The feelings thou must guess so well.
    But could I thus, within thy mind,
    One little vacant corner find,
    Where no impression yet is seen,
    Where no memorial yet has been,
    O, it should be my sweetest care
    To write my name...

  •  “On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year.“
    —MISSOLONGHI, JANUARY 23, 1824.    

    ’T IS time this heart should be unmoved,
      Since others it has ceased to move:
    Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
              Still let me love!

    My days are in the yellow leaf,
      The flowers and fruits of love are gone:
    The worm, the canker, and the...

  • During His Solitary Abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez

    I AM monarch of all I survey,—
      My right there is none to dispute;
    From the centre all round to the sea,
      I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
    O Solitude! where are the charms
      That sages have seen in thy face?
    Better dwell in the midst of alarms
      Than reign in this...

  • How many verses have I thrown
    Into the fire because the one
    Peculiar word, the wanted most,
    Was irrecoverably lost!

  • April, 1860
    goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
    Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease.
    But one such death remained to come;
    The last poetic voice is dumb—
    We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb.

    When Byron’s eyes were shut in death,
    We bowed our head and held our breath.
    He taught us little; but our soul
    Had felt him like...

  • My birth-day!—Oh beloved mother!

      My heart is with thee o'er the seas.

    I did not think to count another

      Before I wept upon thy knees—

    Before this scroll of absent years

    Was blotted with thy streaming tears.


    My own I do not care to check.

      I weep—albeit here alone—

    As if...

  •         I thought the Soul of Song had made

                This heart of mine her sepulchre;

            For all her golden dreams had fled,

                And I could win no note from her.

     

            But when for thee thou bid'st her sing,

                That spell dissolves her icy chain;

            She...

  • I am monarch of all I survey,

        My right there is none to dispute;

    From the center all round to the sea

        I am lord of the fowl and the brute.


    O solitude! where are the charms

        That sages have seen in thy face?

    Better dwell in the midst of alarms

        Than reign in this horrible...

  • Fortune! I thank thee: gentle Goddess! thanks!

    Not that my muse, tho' bashful, shall deny

    She would have thank'd thee rather, hadst thou cast

    A treasure in her way; for neither meed

    Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes

    And bowel-raking pains of emptiness,

    Nor noontide feast, nor ev'ning's cool...