Charade
COME from my first, ay, come!
The battle-dawn is nigh;
And the screaming trump and the thundering drum
Are calling thee to die!
Fight as thy father fought;
Fall as thy father fell;
Thy task is taught; thy shroud is wrought;
So forward and farewell!
Toll ye my second, toll!
Fling high...
My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But before I go, Tom Moore,
Here ’s a double health to thee!
Here ’s a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky ’s above me,
Here ’s a heart for every fate:
Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;...
The Odor of a rose: light of a star:
The essence of a flame blown on by wind,
That lights and warms all near it, bland and kind,
But aye consumes itself, as though at war
With what supports and feeds it;—from afar
It draws its life, but evermore inclined
To leap into the flame that makes men blind
Who seek the secret of all things that...
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a...
From “The Course of Time,” Book IV.
HE touched his harp, and nations heard entranced,
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And openèd new fountains in the human heart.
Where Fancy halted, weary in her flight,
In other men, his fresh as morning rose,
And soared untrodden heights, and seemed...
The Dreamy rhymer’s measured snore
Falls heavy on our ears no more;
And by long strides are left behind
The dear delights of womankind,
Who wage their battles like their loves,
In satin waistcoats and kid gloves,
And have achieved the crowning work
When they have trussed and skewered a Turk.
Another comes with stouter tread,...
A Trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun’s pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o’er Eildon’s triple height:
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye...
Take back into thy bosom, earth,
This joyous, May-eyed morrow,
The gentlest child that ever mirth
Gave to be reared by sorrow!
’T is hard—while rays half green, half gold,
Through vernal bowers are burning,
And streams their diamond mirrors hold
To Summer’s face returning—
To say we’re thankful that his sleep
...
A Poet’s Epitaph
STOP, mortal! Here thy brother lies,—
The poet of the poor.
His books were rivers, woods, and skies,
The meadow and the moor;
His teachers were the torn heart’s wail,
The tyrant, and the slave,
The street, the factory, the jail,
The palace,—and the grave!
Sin met thy brother...
On Receiving a Sprig of Heather in Blossom
NO more these simple flowers belong
To Scottish maid and lover;
Sown in the common soil of song,
They bloom the wide world over.
In smiles and tears, in sun and showers,
The minstrel and the heather,
The deathless singer and the flowers
He sang of live together.
Wild...
