Sonnet Xxx.
when to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancelled woe,
And...
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Jaffar, the Barmecide, the good vizier,
The poor man’s hope, the friend without a peer,
Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust;
And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust
Of what the good, and e’en the bad, might say,
Ordained that no man living from that day
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death.
All Araby and Persia held their... -
There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
O, the last ray of feeling and life must depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart!Yet it was not that Nature had shed o’er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
’T was not the soft magic of streamlet or... -
We have been friends together
In sunshine and in shade,
Since first beneath the chestnut-tree
In infancy we played.
But coldness dwells within thy heart,
A cloud is on thy brow;
We have been friends together,
Shall a light word part us now?We have been gay together;
We have laughed at little jests;
For... -
Too late I stayed,—forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours:
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!And who, with clear account, remarks
The ebbings of this glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks,
That dazzle as they pass?O, who to sober measurement
Time’s happy swiftness... -
A Happy bit hame this auld world would be
If men, when they ’re here, could make shift to agree,
An’ ilk said to his neighbor, in cottage an’ ha’,
“Come, gi’e me your hand,—we are brethren a’.”I ken na why ane wi’ anither should fight,
When to ’gree would make ae body cosie an’ right,
When man meets wi’ man, ’t is the best way ava,
To... -
When the black-lettered list to the gods was presented
(The list of what Fate for each mortal intends),
At the long string of ills a kind goddess relented,
And slipped in three blessings,—wife, children, and friends.In vain surly Pluto maintained he was cheated,
For justice divine could not compass its ends;
The scheme of man’s penance... -
God’s love and peace be with thee, where
Soe’er this soft autumnal air
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair!Whether through city casements comes
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,
Or, out among the woodland blooms,It freshens o’er thy thoughtful face,
...
Imparting, in its glad embrace,
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace! -
Sonnet Xxix.
when in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With... -
JENNY 1 kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I ’m weary, say I ’m sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I ’m growing old, but add—
Jenny kissed me!Note 1. “Jenny” was Mrs. Jane Welsh Carlyle. [back]...