From “The Fire-Worshippers”
FAREWELL,—farewell to thee, Araby’s daughter!
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea;)
No pearl ever lay under Oman’s green water
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.
O, fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till love’s witchery came,
Like the wind of the...
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There Simmer first unfald her robes
And there she langest tarry!
For there I took the last fareweel
O’ my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk!
How rich...
[Written in September, 1789, on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of his early love, Mary Campbell.]
THOU lingering star, with lessening ray,
That lov’st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher’st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
...
O Sing unto my roundelay!
O, drop the briny tear with me!
Dance no more at holiday;
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Black his hair as the winter night,
White his neck as the summer snow,
Ruddy his face as the morning light;
Cold...
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.
A Sacred Eclogue, in Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio
YE nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th’ Aonian maids,
Delight no more—O thou my voice inspire
Who touched Isaiah’s hallowed lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard...
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed—
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burthen of a sigh,
The falling of a tear—
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try—
Prayer...
From the German by John Wesley
THOU hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathomed no man knows,
I see from far thy beauteous light,
Inly I sigh for thy repose.
My heart is pained, nor can it be
At rest till it finds rest in thee.
Thy secret voice invites me still
The sweetness of thy yoke to prove,
And...
From “The Pleasures of Hope” 1
UNFADING Hope! when life’s last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return!
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
O, then thy kingdom comes! Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph...
The Bird that soars on highest wing
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing
Sings in the shade, where all things rest;
In lark and nightingale we see
What honor hath humility.
When Mary chose “the better part,”
She meekly sat at Jesus’ feet;
And Lydia’s gently opened heart
Was...
