From “The Giaour”
HE who hath bent him o’er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay’s effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose, that ’s there,
...
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From “Bitter Sweet”
THUS is it all over the earth!
That which we call the fairest,
And prize for its surpassing worth,
Is always rarest.Iron is heaped in mountain piles,
And gluts the laggard forges;
But gold-flakes gleam in dim defiles
And lonely gorges.The snowy marble flecks the land...
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Anonymous translation from the Latin
From Satire XIII.
THE SPARTAN rogue who, boldly bent on fraud,
Dared ask the god to sanction and applaud,
And sought for counsel at the Pythian shrine,
Received for answer from the lips divine,—
“That he who doubted to restore his trust,
And reasoned much, reluctant to be just,
Should for those... -
From “Cato,” Act V. Sc. 1.
SCENE.—CATO, sitting in a thoughtful posture, with Plato’s book on the Immortality of the Soul in his hand, and a drawn sword on the table by him.IT must be so—Plato, thou reasonest well!—
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
... -
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 “Childe Harold,” Canto II.
’T IS night, when Meditation bids us feel
We once have loved, though love is at an end:
The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal,
Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.
Who with the weight of years would wish to bend,
When Youth itself survives young Love and joy?
Alas! when... -
From “The Two Foscari”
HOW many a time have I
Cloven, with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughened; with a swimmer’s stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drenched hair,
And laughing from my lips the audacious brine,
Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising o’er
The waves as they arose, and prouder... -
From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean’s roar, but thy soft... -
From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
THE SKY is changed!—and such a change! O night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now... -
O, A DAINTY plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o’er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim;
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen...