Rome: The Vatican-Sala Delle Muse

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1. While History's Muse While History’s Muse the memorial was keeping Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves, Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping, For hers was the story that blotted the leaves. But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright, When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame, She saw History write, […]...
2. Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song, Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent; Sing to the ear that doth thy […]...
3. To Mr. H. Lawes on His Airs Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas’ ears, committing short and long, Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after age thou shalt be writ the […]...
4. Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use, And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learnèd’s wing And […]...
5. Sonnet 38: How can my Muse want subject to invent How can my Muse want subject to invent While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight, For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou […]...
6. Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse. Wilt thou not haply say, “Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed, Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay, But […]...
7. Sonnet 13 XIII To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Aires. Harry whose tuneful and well measur’d Song First taught our English Musick how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas Ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look […]...
8. Rome at the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats Who, then, was Cestius, And what is he to me? – Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous One thought alone brings he. I can recall no word Of anything he did; For me he is a man who died and was interred To leave a pyramid Whose purpose was exprest Not with its first design, […]...
9. Sonnet 82: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse I grant thou wert not married to my Muse, And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook The dedicated words which writers use Of their fair subject, blessing every book. Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, Finding thy worth a limit past my praise, And therefore art enforced to seek anew Some fresher stamp […]...
10. The Halt Before Rome September 1867 Is it so, that the sword is broken, Our sword, that was halfway drawn? Is it so, that the light was a spark, That the bird we hailed as the lark Sang in her sleep in the dark, And the song we took for a token Bore false witness of dawn? Spread in the sight […]...
11. Farewell To The Muse Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy’s days, Young offspring of Fancy, ’tis time we should part; Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays, The coldest effusion which springs from my heart. This bosom, responsive to rapture no more, Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing; The […]...
12. Those Graves In Rome There are places where the eye can starve, But not here. Here, for example, is The Piazza Navona, & here is his narrow room Overlooking the Steps & the crowds of sunbathing Tourists. And here is the Protestant Cemetery Where Keats & Joseph Severn join hands Forever under a little shawl of grass And where […]...
13. Sonnet XLIV: Here Droops the Muse Here droops the muse! while from her glowing mind, Celestial Sympathy, with humid eye, Bids the light Sylph capricious Fancy fly, Time’s restless wings with transient flowr’s to bind! For now, with folded arms and head inclin’d, Reflection pours the deep and frequent sigh, O’er the dark scroll of human destiny, Where gaudy buds and […]...
14. Sonnet XLII: Oh! Canst Thou Bear Oh! can’st thou bear to see this faded frame, Deform’d and mangled by the rocky deep? Wilt thou remember, and forbear to weep, My fatal fondness, and my peerless fame? Soon o’er this heart, now warm with passion’s flame, The howling winds and foamy waves shall sweep; Those eyes be ever clos’d in death’s cold […]...
15. To Ellen, At The South The green grass is growing, The morning wind is in it, ‘Tis a tune worth the knowing, Though it change every minute. ‘Tis a tune of the spring, Every year plays it over, To the robin on the wing, To the pausing lover. O’er ten thousand thousand acres Goes light the nimble zephyr, The flowers, […]...
16. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...
17. Thief of the Moon Thief of the moon, thou robber of old delight, Thy charms have stolen the star-gold, quenched the moon – Cold, cold are the birds that, bubbling out of night, Cried once to my ears their unremembered tune – Dark are those orchards, their leaves no longer shine, No orange’s gold is globed like moonrise there […]...
18. TO HIS MUSE Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam? Far safer ’twere to stay at home; Where thou mayst sit, and piping, please The poor and private cottages. Since cotes and hamlets best agree With this thy meaner minstrelsy. There with the reed thou mayst express The shepherd’s fleecy happiness; And with thy Eclogues intermix: Some smooth and […]...
19. Ode to the Muse O, let me seize thy pen sublime That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme, The glowing pow’r, the magic art, Th’ extatic raptures of the Heart; Soft Beauty’s timid smile serene, The dimples of Love’s sportive mien; The sweet descriptive tale to trace; To picture Nature’s winning grace; To steal the tear from Pity’s eye; To […]...
20. To the Muse of Poetry EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see Each envious, waspish, jealous thing, Around its harmless venom fling, And dart its powerless fangs at THEE! Ne’er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing, To sweep the dark revengeful string; Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray, E’en from RINALDO’S glorious lay, Tho’ his transcendent Verse should twine About […]...
21. Ruins of Rome, by Bellay 1 Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest, But not your praise, the which shall never die Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest; If so be shrilling voice of wight alive May reach from hence to depth of darkest hell, Then let those deep Abysses open […]...
22. Brahma If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near, Shadow and sunlight are the same, The vanished gods to me appear, And one to me are shame and […]...
23. Tryst Somewhere thou awaitest, And I, with lips unkissed, Weep that thus to latest Thou puttest off our tryst! The golden bowls are broken, The silver cords untwine; Almond flowers in token Have bloomed, – that I am thine! Others who would fly thee In cowardly alarms, Who hate thee and deny thee, Thou foldest in […]...
24. RECIPROCAL INVITATION TO THE DANCE THE INDIFFERENT. COME to the dance with me, come with me, fair one! Dances a feast-day like this may well crown. If thou my sweetheart art not, thou canst be so, But if thou wilt not, we still will dance on. Come to the dance with me, come with me, fair one! Dances a feast-day […]...
25. The Venal Muse O muse of my heart, lover of palaces, Will you bring, when January lets loose its sleet And its black evenings without solace, An ember to warm my violet feet? What will revive your bruised shoulders, The nocturnal rays that pierce the shutters? When you cannot feel your palace, just your empty billfold, How will […]...
26. To the Muse Resign the rhapsody, the dream, To men of larger reach; Be ours the quest of a plain theme, The piety of speech. As monkish scribes from morning break Toiled till the close of light, Nor thought a day too long to make One line or letter bright: We also with an ardent mind, Time, wealth, […]...
27. Sonnet XXXVI Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one: So shall those blots that do with me remain Without thy help by me be borne alone. In our two loves there is but one respect, Though in our lives a separable spite, Which though it alter not love’s sole […]...
28. Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one; So shall those blots that do with me remain, Without thy help, by me be borne alone. In our two loves there is but one respect, Though in our lives a separable spite, Which, though it alter not love’s sole […]...
29. Rome: On the Palatine We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile, And passed to Livia’s rich red mural show, Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico, We gained Caligula’s dissolving pile. And each ranked ruin tended to beguile The outer sense, and shape itself as though It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow Of scenic frieze and pompous peristyle. […]...
30. The Lacking Sense Scene. A sad-coloured landscape, Waddon Vale I “O Time, whence comes the Mother’s moody look amid her labours, As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves? Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors, With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face, As of angel fallen from grace?” II – “Her look is but […]...
31. In The Foam Life swelleth in a whitening wave, And dasheth thee and me apart. I sweep out seaward: be thou brave. And reach the shore, Sweetheart. Beat back the backward-thrusting sea. Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart, Christ buffet the wild surge for thee Till thou’rt ashore, Sweetheart. Ah, now thy face grows dim apace, […]...
32. Rome: Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry Outskeleton Time’s central city, Rome; Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy. And cracking frieze and rotten metope Express, as though they were an open tome Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; “Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!” And yet within these ruins’ […]...
33. A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany In what torn ship soever I embark, That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark; What sea soever swallow me, that flood Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood; Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, Which, though they turn away […]...
34. To Life O life with the sad seared face, I weary of seeing thee, And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, And thy too-forced pleasantry! I know what thou would’st tell Of Death, Time, Destiny – I have known it long, and know, too, well What it all means for me. But canst thou not array […]...
35. PRESENCE ALL things give token of thee! As soon as the bright sun is shining, Thou too wilt follow, I trust. When in the garden thou walk’st, Thou then art the rose of all roses, Lily of lilies as well. When thou dost move in the dance, Then each constellation moves also; With thee and round […]...
36. THE MUSE'S MIRROR EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment, Follow’d a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking. Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger. Yet the stream call’d mockingly after her, saying: “What, truly! Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in […]...
37. Sonnet LXXXVIII When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side against myself I’ll fight, And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults conceal’d, wherein I am […]...
38. Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be disposed to set me light When thou shalt be disposed to set me light And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side, against myself I’ll fight, And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults concealed, wherein I am […]...
39. The Bridge of Lodi I When of tender mind and body I was moved by minstrelsy, And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi” Brought a strange delight to me. II In the battle-breathing jingle Of its forward-footing tune I could see the armies mingle, And the columns cleft and hewn III On that far-famed spot by Lodi Where Napoleon […]...
40. Stanzas Written On The Road Between Florence And Pisa Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? ‘Tis but as a dead […]...