The Voice
As the kindling glances, Queen-like and clear, Which the bright moon lances From her tranquil sphere At the sleepless waters Of a lonely mere, On the wild whirling waves, mournfully, mournfully, Shiver and die.
Youth and Calm
‘Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here, And ease from shame, and rest from fear. There’s nothing can dismarble now The smoothness of that limpid brow. But is a calm like this, in truth,
Consolation
Mist clogs the sunshine. Smoky dwarf houses Hem me round everywhere; A vague dejection Weighs down my soul. Yet, while I languish, Everywhere countless Prospects unroll themselves, And countless beings Pass countless moods. Far
Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam’st a
Obermann Once More
Glion? Ah, twenty years, it cuts All meaning from a name! White houses prank where once were huts. Glion, but not the same! And yet I know not! All unchanged The turf, the pines,
Mycerinus
‘Not by the justice that my father spurn’d, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturn’d, Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due; Fell this dread voice
The Song Of Empedocles
And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become?
Lines Written in Kensington Gardens
In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen’d by deep boughs on either hand; And at its end, to stay the eye, Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand! Birds here make song, each bird has
The Strayed Reveller
1 Faster, faster, 2 O Circe, Goddess, 3 Let the wild, thronging train 4 The bright procession 5 Of eddying forms, 6 Sweep through my soul! 7 Thou standest, smiling 8 Down on me!
The Last Word
Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last! Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans
A Wish
I ask not that my bed of death From bands of greedy heirs be free; For these besiege the latest breath Of fortune’s favoured sons, not me. I ask not each kind soul to
Quiet Work
One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity Of toil unsever’d
From the Hymn of Empedocles
IS it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat