From “Samson Agonistes”
O LOSS of sight, of thee I must complain!
Blind among enemies, O, worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm...
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[Written in the Tower, the night before his probably unjust execution for treason]
MY prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my goodes is but vain hope of gain.
The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun;
And now I live, and now my life is done!...
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From “The Nice Valour,” Act III. Sc. 3.
HENCE, all ye vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There ’s naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see ’t
But only melancholy,
O, sweetest melancholy!Welcome, folded arms, and fixèd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,... -
From “King Henry VIII.,” Act III. Sc. 2.
CROMWELL, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let ’s dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And—when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull, cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of—... -
From “Tales of the Hall”
SIX years had passed, and forty ere the six,
When Time began to play his usual tricks:
The locks once comely in a virgin’s sight,
Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroaching white;
The blood, once fervid, now to cool began,
And Time’s strong pressure to subdue the man.
I rode or walked as I was wont before,... -
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... -
[Written in the spring of 1819, when suffering from physical depression, the precursor of his death, which happened soon after]
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’T is not through envy of thy happy lot,... -
Catskill Mountain House
WAVE after wave of greenness rolling down
From mountain top to base, a whispering sea
Of affluent leaves through which the viewless breeze
Murmurs mysteriously.And towering up amid the lesser throng,
A giant oak, so desolately grand,
Stretches its gray imploring arms to heaven
In... -
“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... -
Where are the swallows fled?
Frozen and dead
Perchance upon some bleak and stormy shore.
O doubting heart!
Far over purple seas
They wait, in sunny ease,
The balmy southern breeze
To bring them to their northern homes once more.Why must the flowers die?
Prisoned they lie...