I Hear the bells at eventide
Peal softly one by one,
Near and far off they break and glide;
Across the stream float faintly beautiful
The antiphonal bells of Hull;
The day is done, done, done,
The day is done.
The dew has gathered in the flowers,
Like tears from some unconscious deep:
The swallows...
From upland slopes I see the cows file by,
Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail,
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale
With moon-tipped dandelions; flickering high,
A peevish night-hawk in the western sky
Beats up into the lucent solitudes,
Or drops with griding wing; the stilly woods
Grow dark and deep, and gloom...
I Sit here and the earth is wrapped in snow,
And the cold air is thick with falling night:
I think of the still, dewy summer eves,
When cows came slowly sauntering up the lane,
Waiting to nibble at the juicy grass;
When the green earth was full of changing life,
When the warm wind blew soft, and slowly passed,
Caressing now and then some...
Star that bringest home the bee,
And sett’st the weary laborer free!
If any star shed peace, ’t is thou,
That send’st it from above,
Appearing when heaven’s breath and brow
Are sweet as hers we love.
Come to the luxuriant skies,
Whilst the landscape’s odors rise,
Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard,
And songs...
Spirit that breathest through my lattice: thou
That cool’st the twilight of the sultry day!
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the...
From “Paradise Lost,” Book IV.
NOW came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung.
Silence was pleased: now glowed the...
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 “Evangeline”
BEAUTIFUL was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.
Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden
...
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born:
Relieve my languish and restore the light;
With dark forgetting of my care, return,
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn
Without the torment of the night’s untruth...
From the Greek by George Chapman
From “The Iliad,” Book VIII.
THE WINDS transferred into the friendly sky
Their supper’s savor; to the which they sat delightfully,
And spent all night in open field; fires round about them shined.
As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high...
