The Vernal Age

Related poetry:

1. Lines Written by the Side of a River FLOW soft RIVER, gently stray, Still a silent waving tide O’er thy glitt’ring carpet glide, While I chaunt my ROUNDELAY, As I gather from thy bank, Shelter’d by the poplar dank, King-cups, deck’d in golden pride, Harebells sweet, and daisies pied; While beneath the evening sky, Soft the western breezes fly. Gentle RIVER, should’st thou […]...
2. TO THE MOON BUSH and vale thou fill’st again With thy misty ray, And my spirit’s heavy chain Castest far away. Thou dost o’er my fields extend Thy sweet soothing eye, Watching like a gentle friend, O’er my destiny. Vanish’d days of bliss and woe Haunt me with their tone, Joy and grief in turns I know, As […]...
3. Stanzas to Flora LET OTHERS wreaths of ROSES twine With scented leaves of EGLANTINE; Enamell’d buds and gaudy flow’rs, The pride of FLORA’S painted bow’rs; Such common charms shall ne’er be wove Around the brows of him I LOVE. Fair are their beauties for a day, But swiftly do they fade away; Each PINK sends forth its choicest […]...
4. Sappho I sigh at day-dawn, and I sigh When the dull day is passing by. I sigh at evening, and again I sigh when night brings sleep to men. Oh! it were far better to die Than thus forever mourn and sigh, And in death’s dreamless sleep to be Unconscious that none weep for me; Eased […]...
5. IV. To the River Wenbeck AS slowly wanders thy forsaken stream, Wenbeck! the mossy-scatter’d rocks among, In fancy’s ear still making plaintive song To the dark woods above: ah! sure I seem To meet some friendly Genius in the gloom, And in each breeze a pitying voice I hear Like sorrow’s sighs upon misfortune’s tomb. Ah! soothing are your quiet […]...
6. 104. The Lament O THOU pale orb that silent shines While care-untroubled mortals sleep! Thou seest a wretch who inly pines. And wanders here to wail and weep! With woe I nightly vigils keep, Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam; And mourn, in lamentation deep, How life and love are all a dream! I joyless view thy rays adorn […]...
7. The Faded Bouquet FAIR was this blushing ROSE of May, And fresh it hail’d morn’s breezy hour, When ev’ry spangled leaf look’d gay, Besprinkled with the twilight show’r; When to its mossy buds so sweet, The BUTTERFLY enamour’d flew, And hov’ring o’er the fragrant treat, Oft bath’d its silken wings in dew. SWEET was this PRIMROSE of the […]...
8. Sonnet XIV: Come, Soft Aeolian Harp Come, soft Aeolian harp, while zephyr plays Along the meek vibration of thy strings, As twilight’s hand her modest mantle brings, Blending with sober grey, the western blaze! O! prompt my Phaon’s dreams with tend’rest lays, Ere night o’er shade thee with its humid wings, While the lorn Philomel his sorrow sings In leafy cradle, […]...
9. Low Barometer The south-wind strengthens to a gale, Across the moon the clouds fly fast, The house is smitten as with a flail, The chimney shudders to the blast. On such a night, when Air has loosed Its guardian grasp on blood and brain, Old terrors then of god or ghost Creep from their caves to life […]...
10. COMING TO TERMS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA Why our son, why? Every morning the same dark chorus wakes me And I wonder how I am still alive. “Balance the forces of life and death” Is the Kleinian recipe for survival. “It is God’s will, life is meant to test us” My Christian heritage tells me. “Life is a vale of soul making” […]...
11. 200. Song-The Young Highland Rover LOUD blaw the frosty breezes, The snaws the mountains cover; Like winter on me seizes, Since my young Highland rover Far wanders nations over. Where’er he go, where’er he stray, May heaven be his warden; Return him safe to fair Strathspey, And bonie Castle-Gordon! The trees, now naked groaning, Shall soon wi’ leaves be hinging, […]...
12. LONGING WHAT pulls at my heart so? What tells me to roam? What drags me and lures me From chamber and home? How round the cliffs gather The clouds high in air! I fain would go thither, I fain would be there! The sociable flight Of the ravens comes back; I mingle amongst them, And follow […]...
13. The West Wind Beneath the forest’s skirts I rest, Whose branching pines rise dark and high, And hear the breezes of the West Among the threaded foliage sigh. Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of wo? Is not thy home among the flowers? Do not the bright June roses blow, To meet thy kiss at morning hours? And lo! […]...
14. A New Song Ah blame me not, Catcott, if from the right way My notions and actions run far. How can my ideas do other but stray, Deprived of their ruling North-Star? A blame me not, Broderip, if mounted aloft, I chatter and spoil the dull air; How can I imagine thy foppery soft, When discord’s the voice […]...
15. Ireland, Ireland Down thy valleys, Ireland, Ireland, Down thy valleys green and sad, Still thy spirit wanders wailing, Wanders wailing, wanders mad. Long ago that anguish took thee, Ireland, Ireland, green and fair, Spoilers strong in darkness took thee, Broke thy heart and left thee there. Down thy valleys, Ireland, Ireland, Still thy spirit wanders mad; All […]...
16. The Cow The friendly cow all red and white, I love with all my heart: She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart. She wanders lowing here and there, And yet she cannot stray, All in the pleasant open air, The pleasant light of day; And blown by all the winds that pass […]...
17. EVER AND EVERYWHERE FAR explore the mountain hollow, High in air the clouds then follow! To each brook and vale the Muse Thousand times her call renews. Soon as a flow’ret blooms in spring, It wakens many a strain; And when Time spreads his fleeting wing, The seasons come again. 1820.*...
18. Birth-Day Ode 02 Small is the new-born plant scarce seen Amid the soft encircling green, Where yonder budding acorn rears, Just o’er the waving grass, its tender head: Slow pass along the train of years, And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed. Anon it rears aloft its giant form, And spreads its broad-brown arms […]...
19. Affliction (III) My heart did heave, and there came forth, ‘O God’! By that I knew that thou wast in the grief, To guide and govern it to my relief, Making a sceptre of the rod: Hadst thou not had thy part, Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart. But since thy breath gave me both […]...
20. Stream And Sun At Glendalough Through intricate motions ran Stream and gliding sun And all my heart seemed gay: Some stupid thing that I had done Made my attention stray. Repentance keeps my heart impure; But what am I that dare Fancy that I can Better conduct myself or have more Sense than a common man? What motion of the […]...
21. Verses On A Butterfly Fair Child of Sun and Summer! we behold With eager eyes thy wings bedropp’d with gold; The purple spots that o’er thy mantle spread, The sapphire’s lively blue, the ruby’s red, Ten thousand various blended tints surprise, Beyond the rainbow’s hues or peacock’s eyes: Not Judah’s king in eastern pomp array’d, Whose charms allur’d from […]...
22. Down Time's quaint stream Down Time’s quaint stream Without an oar We are enforced to sail Our Port a secret Our Perchance a Gale What Skipper would Incur the Risk What Buccaneer would ride Without a surety from the Wind Or schedule of the Tide...
23. 329. Verses on the destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig AS on the banks o’ wandering Nith, Ae smiling simmer morn I stray’d, And traced its bonie howes and haughs, Where linties sang and lammies play’d, I sat me down upon a craig, And drank my fill o’ fancy’s dream, When from the eddying deep below, Up rose the genius of the stream. Dark, like […]...
24. Stanzas To A Lady, On Leaving England ‘Tis done – and shivering in the gale The bark unfurls her snowy sail; And whistling o’er the bending mast, Loud sings on high the fresh’ning blast; And I must from this land be gone, Because I cannot love but one. But could I be what I have been, And could I see what I […]...
25. A Farewel To America to Mrs. S. W I. ADIEU, New-England’s smiling meads, Adieu, the flow’ry plain: I leave thine op’ning charms, O spring, And tempt the roaring main. II. In vain for me the flow’rets rise, And boast their gaudy pride, While here beneath the northern skies I mourn for health deny’d. III. Celestial maid of rosy hue, O let me feel […]...
26. Envoi Fly, white butterflies, out to sea, Frail pale wings for the winds to try, Small white wings that we scarce can see Fly. Here and there may a chance-caught eye Note in a score of you twain or three Brighter or darker of tinge or dye. Some fly light as a laugh of glee, Some […]...
27. 342. Song-Sweet Afton FLOW gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes, Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise; My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen, Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear, […]...
28. The September Gale I’M not a chicken; I have seen Full many a chill September, And though I was a youngster then, That gale I well remember; The day before, my kite-string snapped, And I, my kite pursuing, The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat; For me two storms were brewing! It came as quarrels sometimes do, When […]...
29. For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand, He wakes lost echoes from song’s classic shore, And brings their crystal cadence back once more To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land Where God’s truth, cramped and fettered with a band Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore Of heroes and the men […]...
30. Richard It’s mid-winter and the sunrise knows it, and wakes me With a shudder; I’m just a man. For 5 cold mornings in a row, the beautiful pheasant Has come to our patio to steal some of the dry catfood, Sometimes right in front of my cat. The house is still, and I enjoy the Sunday […]...
31. The Meeting of the Waters There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. Yet it was not that nature had shed o’er the scene Her purest […]...
32. 198. Song-Braving Angry Winer's Storms WHERE, braving angry winter’s storms, The lofty Ochils rise, Far in their shade my Peggy’s charms First blest my wondering eyes; As one who by some savage stream A lonely gem surveys, Astonish’d, doubly marks it beam With art’s most polish’d blaze. Blest be the wild, sequester’d shade, And blest the day and hour, Where […]...
33. As a Beam O'er the Face of the Waters May Glow As a beam o’er the face of the waters may glow While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below, So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile, Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while. One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws Its bleak shade alike o’er our joys […]...
34. To His Mistress Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? Without thy light what light remains in me? Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. Thou art my life-if […]...
35. WITH A WATER-LILY SEE, dear, what thy lover brings; ‘Tis the flower with the white wings. Buoyed upon the quiet stream In the spring it lay adream. Homelike to bestow this guest, Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast; There its leaves the secret keep Of a wave both still and deep. Child, beware the tarn-fed stream; Danger, […]...
36. BROKEN CLAVECIN for every windי’s emotionless blast Brings shreds of feathers with their dance of loss Rotating leaves of faded rainbow-trees And bitter tide of petals outcast The eye undates the images it sees: The clouds overgrown with melted moss The shadows cleft and soaking in the sun The palms of longing fastened to the mast: This […]...
37. THE SAME [Written at night on the Kickelhahn, a hill In the forest of Ilmenau, on the walls of a little hermitage where Goethe composed the last act of his Iphigenia.] HUSH’D on the hill Is the breeze; Scarce by the zephyr The trees Softly are press’d; The woodbird’s asleep on the bough. Wait, then, and thou […]...
38. What Is Life? And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run, A mist retreating from the morning sun, A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream. Its length? A minute’s pause, a moment’s thought. And Happiness? A bubble on the stream, That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought. And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn, That […]...
39. Stanzas to the Rose SWEET PICTURE of Life’s chequer’d hour! Ah, wherefore droop thy blushing head? Tell me, oh tell me, hap’less flow’r, Is it because thy charms are fled? Come, gentle ROSE, and learn from me A lesson of Philosophy. Thy scented buds, LIFE’S joys disclose; They strew our paths with magic sweets; Where many a thorn like […]...
40. I Will Praise the Lord at All Times Winter has a joy for me, While the Saviour’s charms I read, Lowly, meek, from blemish free, In the snowdrop’s pensive head. Spring returns, and brings along Life-invigorating suns: Hark! the turtle’s plaintive song Seems to speak His dying groans! Summer has a thousand charms, All expressive of His worth; ‘Tis His sun that lights […]...