A Trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun’s pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o’er Eildon’s triple height:
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye...
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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... -
First bring me Raffael, who alone hath seen
In all her purity heaven’s virgin queen,
Alone hath felt true beauty; bring me then
Titian, ennobler of the noblest men;
And next the sweet Correggio, nor chastise
His little Cupids for those wicked eyes.
I want not Rubens’s pink puffy bloom,
Nor Rembrandt’s glimmer in a dusty room.
With... -
[Lord Bolingbroke]
From “An Essay on Man,” Epistle IV.
COME then, my friend! my genius! come along;
O master of the poet, and the song!
And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends,
To man’s low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Formed by thy... -
Is there a whim-inspirèd fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate 1 to seek, owre proud to snool; 2
Let him draw near,
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowd among,
That weekly this area throng;
O,... -
From “The Rape of the Lock,” Canto I.
AND now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar’s... -
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart that then was gay
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.And so ’t will be when I am...
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From “The Light of the Harem”
WHO has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere,
With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,
Its temples, and grottoes, and fountains as clear
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave?O, to see it at sunset,—when warm o’er the lake
Its splendor at parting a summer eve throws,
Like a bride,... -
Described in “Rhymes for the Nursery”
“HOW does the water
Come down at Lodore!”
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,... -
From “Italy”
THERE is a glorious City in the Sea.
The Sea is in the broad, the narrow streets,
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates. The path lies o’er the Sea,
Invisible; and from the land we went,
As to a floating City,—...