Along the shore the slimy brine-pits yawn,
Covered with thick green scum; the billows rise,
And fill them to the brim with clouded foam,
And then subside, and leave the scum again.
The ribbed sand is full of hollow gulfs,
Where monsters from the waters come and lie.
Great serpents bask at noon along the rocks,
To me no terror; coil on...
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Songs
how are songs begot and bred?
How do golden measures flow?
From the heart, or from the head?
Happy Poet, let me know.Tell me first how folded flowers
Bud and bloom in vernal bowers;
How the south wind shapes its tune,
The harper, he, of June.None may answer, none may know,...
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There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood’s sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will... -
The divan
a LITTLE maid of Astrakan,
An idol on a silk divan;
She sits so still, and never speaks,
She holds a cup of mine;
’T is full of wine, and on her cheeks
Are stains and smears of wine.Thou little girl of Astrakan,
I join thee on the silk divan:
There is no need to seek the land,
The rich bazaars... -
It is dark and lonesome here,
Beneath the windy eaves:—
The cold, cold ground my bed,
My coverlet dead leaves,
My only bedfellow
The rain that wets my sleeves!If it be day, or night,
I know not, cannot say,
For I am like a child
Who has lost his troubled way,
Till I see the white of the hoar-frost—... -
Not as when some great Captain falls
In battle, where his Country calls,
Beyond the struggling lines
That push his dread designsTo doom, by some stray ball struck dead:
Or, in the last charge, at the head
Of his determined men,
Who must be victors then.Nor as when sink the civic great,
The safer... -
The angel came by night
(Such angels still come down),
And like a winter cloud
Passed over London town;
Along its lonesome streets,
Where Want had ceased to weep,
Until it reached a house
Where a great man lay asleep;
The man of all his time
Who knew the most of men,
The soundest head and heart,... -
“there are gains for all our losses.”
So I said when I was young.
If I sang that song again,
’T would not be with that refrain,
Which but suits an idle tongue.Youth has gone, and hope gone with it,
Gone the strong desire for frame.
Laurels are not for the old.
Take them, lads. Give Senex gold.
What ’s an... -
“under the roots of the roses,
Down in the dark, rich mould,
The dust of my dear one reposes
Like a spark which night incloses
When the ashes of day are cold.”“Under the awful wings
Which brood over land and sea,
And whose shadows nor lift nor flee,—
This is the order of things,
And hath been from of old:... -
Last night, when my tired eyes were shut with sleep,
I saw the one I love, and heard her speak,—
Heard, in the listening watches of the night,
The sweet words melting from her sweeter lips:
But what she said, or seemed to say, to me
I have forgotten, though, till morning broke,
I kept repeating her melodious words.
Long, long may Jami’s...