Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies: here I bequeathe
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see,
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame, to embassadors my ears;
To women, or the sea, my tears;
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
By making me serve her who had twenty...
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[The Ms. of this poem, which appeared in 1820, was said to have been found in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, near a perfect human skeleton. It was published in the Morning Chronicle. The author was never discovered, although a reward of fifty guineas was offered.]
BEHOLD this ruin! ’T was a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full.
This narrow cell... -
Modernized by Hugh Haliburton
Full oft I muse and hes in thocht.
THE PASSAGE of the speeding year,
And Fortune with her changing cheer,
Are ills on ilka hand contest;
We will not mourn for that, my dear,
But to be blythe we ’ll count it best.Fast as this warld fleets awa’
As fast her wheel does Fortune ca’,
At no... -
From “The Pleasures of Memory”
ETHEREAL power! who at the noon of night
Recall’st the far fled spirit of delight;
From whom that musing, melancholy mood
Which charms the wise, and elevates the good;
Blest Memory, hail! O grant the grateful muse,
Her pencil dipped in nature’s living hues,
To pass the clouds that round thy empire roll,... -
I Have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,—I... -
While sauntering through the crowded street,
Some half-remembered face I meet,Albeit upon no mortal shore
That face, methinks, has smiled before.Lost in a gay and festal throng,
I tremble at some tender song,—Set to an air whose golden bars
I must have heard in other stars.In sacred aisles I pause to share
The... -
Once before, this self-same air
Passed me, though I know not where.
Strange! how very like it came!
Touch and fragrance were the same;
Sound of mingled voices, too,
With a light laugh ringing through;
Some one moving,—here or there,—
Some one passing up the stair,
Some one calling from without,
Or a far-off childish shout... -
Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel’s psalm,... -
’t Is midnight’s holy hour,—and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o’er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell’s deep tones are swelling,—’t is the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud... -
From the Italian by Frank Sewall
From “Poesie”
GIVE to the wind thy locks; all glittering
Thy sea-blue eyes, and thy white bosom bared,
Mount to thy chariot, while in speechless roaring
Terror and Force before thee clear the way!
The shadow of thy helmet, like the flashing
Of brazen star, strikes through the trembling air.
The dust...