Those were good times, in olden days,
Of which the poet has his dreams,
When gods beset the woodland ways,
And lay in wait by all the streams.
One could be sure of something then
Severely simple, simply grand,
Or keenly, subtly sweet, as when
Venus and Love went hand in hand.
Now I would give (such is my need)...
Of heavenly stature, but most human smile,
Gyved with our faults he stands,
Truth’s white and Love’s red roses tendering us,
Whose thorns are in his hands.
This is the end of the book
Written by God.
I am the earth he took,
I am the sod,
The wood and iron which he struck
With his sounding rod.
I am the reed that he blew:
Once quietly
By the riverside I grew,
Till one day he
Rooted me up and breathed a new
Delirium in me.
Would he had...
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...
THE Sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon’s transparent light:
The breath of the moist air is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,—
The winds’, the birds’, the ocean-floods’,—
The City’s voice itself...
The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy...
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...
Those were good times, in olden days,
Of which the poet has his dreams,
When gods beset the woodland ways,
And lay in wait by all the streams.
One could be sure of something then
Severely simple, simply grand,
Or keenly, subtly sweet, as when
Venus and Love went hand in hand.
Now I would give (such is my need)...
[A farmer’s daughter, during the rage for albums, handed to the author an old account-book ruled for pounds, shillings, and pence, and requested a contribution.]
THIS WORLD ’s a scene as dark as Styx, £ s. d.
Where hope is scarce worth 2 6
Our joys are borne so fleeting hence
That they are dear at 18
And yet to stay here most are...
The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him born.
Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A...
