Children are what the mothers are.
No fondest father’s fondest care
Can fashion so the infant heart
As those creative beams that dart,
With all their hopes and fears, upon
The cradle of a sleeping son.
His startled eyes with wonder see
A father near him on his knee,
Who wishes all the while to trace
The mother in his...
Where art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:
Then some one seemed to whisper near
That thou and I must part;
I doubted it; I felt no fear,
No weight upon the heart.
If aught befell it, Love was by
And rolled it off...
Ah what avails the sceptred race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
In his own image the Creator made,
His own pure sunbeam quickened thee, O man!
Thou breathing dial! since the day began
The present hour was ever marked with shade!
I Strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life,—
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
When hath wind or rain
Borne hard upon weak plant that wanted me,
And I (however they might bluster round)
Walkt off? ’T were most ungrateful; for sweet scents
Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts,
And nurse and pillow the dull memory
That would let drop without them her best stores.
They bring me tales of youth and tones of...
From “Gebir,” Book I.
I AM not daunted, no; I will engage.
But first, said she, what wager will you lay?
A sheep, I answered, add whate’er you will.
I cannot, she replied, make that return:
Our hided vessels in their pitchy round
Seldom, unless from rapine, hold a sheep.
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and they that...
THE Wisest of the wise
Listen to pretty lies,
And love to hear them told;
Doubt not that Solomon
Listened to many a one,—
Some in his youth, and more when he grew old.
I never sat among
The choir of Wisdom’s song,
But pretty lies loved I
As much...
How many verses have I thrown
Into the fire because the one
Peculiar word, the wanted most,
Was irrecoverably lost!
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,...
