From “Don Juan”
AVE MARIA! o’er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee!
Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour,
The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower
Or the faint...
From “Childe Harold,” Canto II.
’T IS night, when Meditation bids us feel
We once have loved, though love is at an end:
The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal,
Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.
Who with the weight of years would wish to bend,
When Youth itself survives young Love and joy?
Alas! when...
From “The Two Foscari”
HOW many a time have I
Cloven, with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughened; with a swimmer’s stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drenched hair,
And laughing from my lips the audacious brine,
Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising o’er
The waves as they arose, and prouder...
From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean’s roar, but thy soft...
From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
THE SKY is changed!—and such a change! O night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now...
From “Childe Harold,” Canto IV.
THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,...
From “Don Juan,” Canto II.
THEN rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave,—
Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawned around her like a hell,
And down she sucked with her the whirling wave,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,...
From “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto III.
SKY, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt and feeling, well may be
Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
Of your departing voices is the knoll
Of what in me is sleepless,—if I rest.
But where of...
My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But before I go, Tom Moore,
Here ’s a double health to thee!
Here ’s a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky ’s above me,
Here ’s a heart for every fate:
Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;...
From “The Bride of Abydos”
KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, and beams ever shine;
Where the light wings...
