Far out at sea—the sun was high,
While veered the wind, and flapped the sail—
We saw a snow-white butterfly
Dancing before the fitful gale,
Far out at sea!
The little wanderer, who had lost
His way, of danger nothing knew;
Settled awhile upon the mast,
Then fluttered o’er the waters blue,...
From “Amoretti.” Sonnet LXXV.
ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves, and washèd it away:
Agayne, I wrote it with a second hand;
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his prey.
Vayne man, say’d she, that doest in vayne assay
A mortall thing so to immortalize;
For I my selve shall like to this decay,
...
From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Canto V.
CALL it not vain:—they do not err,
Who say, that when the poet dies,
Mute nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;
Who say tall cliff, and cavern lone,
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm...
Sing thou my songs for me when I am dead!
Soul of my soul, some day thou wilt awake
To see the morning on the hilltops break,
And the far summits flame with rosy red—
But I shall wake not, though above my head
Armies should thunder; nor for Love’s sweet sake,
Though he the tenderest pilgrimage should make
Where I am lying...
From the German by Lord Bulwer-Lytton
“TAKE the world,” cried the God from his heaven
To men—“I proclaim you its heirs;
To divide it amongst you ’t is given:
You have only to settle the shares.”
Each takes for himself as it pleases,
Old and young have alike their desire:
The harvest the husbandman seizes;
Through the wood...
From the Latin by Dr. James Cranstoun
ORPHEUS, ’t is said, the Thracian lyre-strings sweeping,
Stayed the swift stream and soothed the savage brute;
Cithæron’s rocks, to Thebes spontaneous leaping,
Rose into walls before Amphion’s lute.
With dripping steeds did Galatea follow,
’Neath Ætna’s crags, lone Polyphemus’s song:
Is ’t...
Those were good times, in olden days,
Of which the poet has his dreams,
When gods beset the woodland ways,
And lay in wait by all the streams.
One could be sure of something then
Severely simple, simply grand,
Or keenly, subtly sweet, as when
Venus and Love went hand in hand.
Now I would give (such is my need)...
From “The Kaléder of Sheperdes,” 1528
HE that many bokes redys,
Cunnyinge shall he be.
Wysedome is soone caught;
In many leues it is sought:
But slouth, that no boke bought,
For reason taketh no thought;
His thryfte cometh behynde.
From “Edwin the Fair”
THIS life, and all that it contains, to him
Is but a tissue of illuminous dreams
Filled with book-wisdom, pictured thought and love
That on its own creations spends itself.
All things he understands, and nothing does.
Profusely eloquent in copious praise
Of action, he will talk to you as one
Whose wisdom lay...
It stands in a winding street,
A quiet and restful nook,
Apart from the endless beat
Of the noisy heart of Trade;
There ’s never a spot more cool
Of a hot midsummer day
By the brink of a forest pool,
Or the bank of a crystal brook
In the maples’ breezy shade,
Than the book-stall old and gray.
Here...
