• There is delight in singing, though none hear
    Beside the singer; and there is delight
    In praising, though the praiser sit alone
    And see the praised far off him, far above.
    Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world’s,
    Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
    Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
    No man hath walked along our...

  •         UPON St. Michael’s Isle
            They laid him for awhile
    That he might feel the Ocean’s full embrace,
                And wedded be
                To that wide sea—
      The subject and the passion of his race.
        As Thetis, from some lovely underground
          Springing, she girds him round
            With lapping sound...

  •      I


         The clearest eyes in all the world they read

           With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true

           Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew

         Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed,

         As they the light of ages quick and dead,

           Closed now,...