•           “o frate mio! ciascuna e cittadina
      D’ una vera citta”…

  • For them, O God, who only worship Thee
    In fanes whose fretted roofs shut out the heavens,
    Let organs breathe, and chorded psalteries sound:
    But let my voice rise with the mingled noise
    Of winds and waters;—winds that in the sedge,
    And grass, and ripening grain, while nature sleeps,
    Practise, in whispered music, soft and low,
    Their sweet...

  • Keats
    o gold Hyperion, love-lorn Porphyro,
      Ill-fated! from thine orbëd fire struck back
    Just as the parting clouds began to glow,
      And stars, like sparks, to bicker in thy track!
    Alas! throw down, throw down, ye mighty dead,
      The leaves of oak and asphodel
    That ye were weaving for that honored head,—
      In vain, in vain, your...

  • A little blind girl wandering,
      While daylight pales beneath the moon,
    And with a brook meandering,
      To hear its gentle tune.

    The little blind girl by the brook,
      It told her something—you might guess,
    To see her smile, to see her look
      Of listening eagerness.

    Though blind, a never silent guide
      Flowed with her...

  • Fallen? how fallen? States and empires fall;
        O’er towers and rock-built walls,
    And perished nations, floods to tempests call
    With hollow sound along the sea of time:
        The great man never falls.
    He lives, he towers aloft, he stands sublime:
        They fall who give him not
    The honor here that suits his future name,—
        They...

  • Regent of song! who bringest to our shore
      Strains from the passionate land, where shapes of art
    Make music of the wind that passes o’er,
      Thou even here hast found the human heart;
    And in a thousand hearts thy songs repeat
    Their echoes, like remembered poesy sweet,
    Witching the soul to warble evermore.

    First seen, it seemed as if thy...

  • Would you hear of the River-Fight?
    It was two of a soft spring night;—
      God’s stars looked down on all,
    And all was clear and bright
    But the low fog’s chilling breath—
    Up the River of Death
      Sailed the Great Admiral.

    On our high poop-deck he stood,
      And round him ranged the men
    Who have made their birthright good...

  • Blue gulf all around us,
      Blue sky overhead—
    Muster all on the quarter,
      We must bury the dead!

    It is but a Danish sailor,
      Rugged of front and form;
    A common son of the forecastle,
      Grizzled with sun and storm.

    His name, and the strand he hailed from
      We know, and there ’s nothing more!
    But perhaps his...

  • They glare—those stony eyes!
      That in the fierce sun-rays
      Showered from these burning skies,
      Through untold centuries
    Have kept their sleepless and unwinking gaze.

    Since what unnumbered year
      Hast thou kept watch and ward,
    And o’er the buried Land of Fear
      So grimly held thy guard?
    No faithless slumber snatching,...

  • The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
      The soldier’s last tattoo;
    No more on Life’s parade shall meet
      That brave and fallen few.
    On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
      Their silent tents are spread,
    And Glory guards, with solemn round,
      The bivouac of the dead.

    No rumor of the foe’s advance
      Now swells upon the wind;...