I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold
How the voluminous billows roll and run,
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
All its loose-flowing garments into one,
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun
Pale reach of sands, and changes...
-
-
i am old and blind!
Men point at me as smitten by God’s frown;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind,
Yet am I not cast down.I am weak, yet strong;
I murmur not that I no longer see;
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,
Father Supreme! to Thee.
All-merciful One!
When men are... -
Prefixed to “Paradise Lost”
THREE Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the former two. -
“London, 1802”
milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower.
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners,... -
Oh bard! what though upon thy mortal eyes
There fell no glimmering ray of earthly light,
And the deep shadow of eternal night
Shut from thy gaze our lovely earth and skies,
Yet was it to thy spirit's vision given
To gaze upon the splendors of that shore...