Great spirits now on earth are sojourning:
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn’s summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel’s wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom’s sake:
And lo! whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael’s...
-
-
By B. R. Haydon
WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He, with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined
Before the sovran thought of his own mind,
And very meek with... -
JUST 1 for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed;
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple,... -
April, 1860
goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease.
But one such death remained to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb—
We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb.When Byron’s eyes were shut in death,
We bowed our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like... -
Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave!
When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst thou then?
To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave,
The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men?Not Milton’s keen, translunar music thine;
Not Shakespeare’s cloudless, boundless human view;
Not Shelley’s flush of rose on peaks divine;
Nor... -
Back to the flower-town, side by side,
The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
Freedom and spring.The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free;
All things but one.In many a tender wheaten plot
Flowers that were dead... -
On His First Visit to the West
COME as artist, come as guest,
Welcome to the expectant West,
Hero of the charmèd pen,
Loved of children, loved of men.
We have felt thy spell for years;
Oft with laughter, oft with tears,
Thou hast touched the tenderest part
Of our inmost, hidden heart.
We have fixed our eager gaze
On... -
Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health
On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;Till one arose, and from...
-
CHIEF in thy generation born of men
Whom English praise acclaimed as English born,
With eyes that matched the world-wide eyes of morn
For gleam of tears or laughter, tenderest then
When thoughts of children warmed their light, or when
Reverence of age with love and labor worn,
Or godlike pity fired with godlike scorn,
Shot through them... -
O Gentler Censor of our age!
Prime master of our ampler tongue!
Whose word of wit and generous page
Were never wroth except with Wrong.Fielding—without the manner’s dross,
Scott—with a spirit’s larger room,
What Prelate deems thy grave his loss?
What Halifax erects thy tomb?But, may be, He—who could so draw
The...