C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Byron

A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,

And age, and sex, were in the market rang’d;

Each bevy with the merchant in his station:

Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly chang’d;

All save the blacks seem’d jaded with vexation,

From friends, and home, and freedom far estrang’d.

The negroes more philosophy display’d,—

Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay’d.

A light broke in upon my soul—

It was the carol of a bird;

It ceased—and then it came again

The sweetest song ear ever heard.

A little stream came tumbling from the height,

And struggling into ocean as it might.

Its bounding crystal frolick’d in the ray,

And gush’d from cliff to crag with saltless spray.

A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,

A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.

A man must serve his time to ev’ry trade,

Save censure; critics all are ready made:

Take hackney’d jokes from Miller, got by rote,

With just enough of learning to misquote;

A mind well skill’d to find or forge a fault,

A turn for punning—call it Attic salt—

Fear not to lie—’twill seem a lucky hit;

Shrink not from blasphemy—’twill pass for wit;

Care not for feeling, pass your proper jest—

And stand a critic, hated, yet caress’d.

A mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind

Of human sword in a friend’s hand.

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,

Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye

Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping

In sight, then lost amidst the forestry

Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping

On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy,

A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown

On a fool’s head—and there is London Town.

A paler shadow strews

Its mantle o’er the mountains; parting day

Dies like a dolphin, whom each pang imbues

With a new colour as it gasps away

The last still loveliest ’till—’tis gone—and all is grey.

A quiet conscience makes one so serene!

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded

That all the apostles would have done as they did.

A real spirit

Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;

An hour may lay it in the dust.

A tigress robb’d of young, a lioness,

Or any interesting beast or prey,

Are similes at hand for the distress

Of ladies who cannot have their own way.

A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,

A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,

Condemn’d to drudge, the meanest of the mean,

And furbish falsehoods for a magazine.

A young star, who shone

O’er life, too sweet an image for such gloss,

A lovely being scarcely form’d or moulded,

A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.

Above me are the Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls

Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,

And thron’d Eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls

The avalanche—the thunderbolt of snow!

All that expands the spirit, yet appals,

Gather round these summits, as to show

How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

Adieu, adieu! my native shore

Fades o’er the waters blue.

Ah, nut-brown partridges! ah, brilliant pheasants!

And ah, ye poachers!—’tis no sport for peasants.

Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways!

While boyish blood is mantling, who can ’scape

The fascination of thy magic gaze?

Ah! were I sever’d from thy side,

Where were thy friend and who my guide?

Years have not seen, Time shall not see

The hour that tears my soul from thee.

Alas! our young affections run to waste,

Or water but the desert.

All human history attests

That happiness for man—the hungry sinner—

Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner!

All is gentle; nought

Stirs rudely; but congenial with the night,

Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.

All that I know is, that the facts I state

Are true as truth has ever been of late.

All that the mind would shrink from, of excesses;

All that the body perpetrates, of bad;

All that we read, hear, dream, of man’s distresses;

All that the devil would do, if run stark mad;

All that defies the worst which pen expresses

All by which hell is peopled, or is sad

As hell—mere mortals who their power abuse—

Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.

All was prepared—the fire, the sword, the men

To wield them in their terrible array.

The army, like a lion from his den,

March’d forth with nerves and sinews bent to slay—

A human Hydra, issuing from its fen

To breathe destruction on its winding way,

Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain,

Immediately in others grew again.

All who joy would win

Must share it—happiness was born a twin.

An infant when it gazes on the light,

A child the moment when it drains the breast,

A devotee when soars the Host in sight,

An Arab with a stranger for a guest,

A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,

A miser filling his most hoarded chest,

Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping

As they who watch o’er what they love while sleeping.

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,

Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?

Gone—glimmering though the dream of things that were;

First in the race that led to glory’s goal,

They won, and pass’d away—Is this the whole?

And cast

O’er erring deeds and thoughts a heav’nly hue

Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they pass’d.

And gazed around them to the left and right

With the prophetic eye of appetite.

And glory long has made the sages smile;

’Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind—

Depending more upon the historian’s style

Than on the name a person leaves behind.

And her face so fair

Stirr’d with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy

I wanton’d with thy breakers.

And o’er that fair broad brow were wrought

The intersected lines of thought;

Those furrows, which the burning share

Of sorrow ploughs untimely there:

Scars of the lacerating mind,

Which the soul’s war doth leave behind.

And one by one in turn, some grand mistake

Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.

And rash enthusiasm in good society

Were nothing but a moral inebriety.

And then he danced—all foreigners excel

The serious Angles in the eloquence

Of pantomine—he danced, I say, right well

With emphasis, and also with good sense—

A thing in footing indispensable:

He danced without theatrical pretence,

Not like a ballet-master in the van

Of his drill’d nymphs, but like a gentleman.

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;

And the deep thunder peal on peal, afar

And near; the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering with white lips—“The foe! they come! they come!”

And these vicissitudes come best in youth;

For when they happen at a riper age,

People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth.

And wonder Providence is not more sage.

Adversity is the first path to truth:

He who hath proved war, storm or woman’s rage,

Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,

Has won the experience which is deem’d so weighty.

And though, as you remember, in a fit

Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,

I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,

Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,

Yet ’tis in vain such sallies to permit,

They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:

I “scotched, not killed” the Scotchman in my blood,

And love the land of “mountain and of flood.”

And to his eye

There was but one beloved face on earth,

And that was shining on him.

And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify

A woman; so she’s good, what does it signify?

And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but

The truth in masquerade.

Around her shone

The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the music breathing from her face;

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole;

And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul!

Around her shone

The nameless charms unmark’d by her alone.

The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the music breathing from her face,

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,

And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul.

Around his form his loose long robe was thrown,

And wrapt a breast bestowed on heaven alone.

As soon

Seek roses in December—ice in June,

Hope, constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;

Believe a woman or an epitaph,

Or any other thing that’s false, before

You trust in critics.

As winds come lightly whispering from the west,

Kissing, not ruffling the blue deep’s serene.

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!

The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft

Have felt that moment in its fullest power

Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft,

While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,

Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,

And not a breath crept through the rosy air,

And yet the forest leaves seem’d stirr’d with prayer.

Soft hour! which makes the wish and melts the heart

Of those who sail the seas, on the first day;

When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;

Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,

As the far bell of vesper makes him start,

Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay;

Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?

Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away

And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

Before decay’s effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.

But ’twas a public feast, and public day,

Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,

Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,

And everybody out of their own sphere.

But all have prices,

From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,

To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world’s tired denizen,

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless:

Minions of splendor shrinking from distress!

None that, with kindred consciousness endued,

If we were not, would seem to smile the less,

Of all that flatter’d, follow’d, sought and sued;

This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

But O ye lords of ladies intellectual,

Inform us truly, have they not henpecked you all?

But passion raves herself to rest, or flies;

And vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb

Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:

Pleasure’s pall’d victim! life-abhorring gloom

Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain’s unresting doom.

But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,

Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet,

Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth.

But sighs subside, and tears (e’en widows’) shrink,

Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow

So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,

Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!

Such diff’rence do a few months make. You’d think

Grief a rich field that never would lie fallow;

No more it doth; its ploughs but change their boys,

Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.

But these are foolish things to all the wise,

And I love wisdom more than she loves me;

My tendency is to philosophise

On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;

But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies,

What are we? and whence come we? what shall be

Our ultimate existence? What’s our present?

Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,

Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.

But, at sixteen, the conscience rarely gnaws

So much, as when we call our old debts in

At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil,

And find a deuced balance with the devil.

By heaven! it is a splendid sight to see

(For one who hath no friend, no brother there)

Their rival scarfs of mix’d embroidery,

Their various arms that glitter in the air!

What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair,

And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!

All join the chase, but few the triumph share;

The grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,

And havoc scarce for joy can number their array.

By those tresses unconfin’d,

Woo’d by every gentle wind;

By those lids whose jetty fringe

Kiss thy soft cheek’s blooming tinge;

By those wild eyes, like the roe,

Ah! hear my vow before I go—

My dearest life, I love thee!

Can I cease to love thee?—no!

Zoe mous s-as agapo.

Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,

And elegance was sprinkled o’er his figure;

Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm’d the ground,

And rather held in than put forth his vigor:

And then he had an ear for music’s sound,

Which might defy a crotchet critic’s rigor.

Such classic pas—sans flaws—set off our hero,

He glanced like a personified Bolero.

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded

That all the apostles would have done as they did.

Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land, from plain to mountain-cave,

Was Freedom’s home, or Glory’s grave;

Shrine of the mighty! can it be,

That this is all remains of thee?

Come, lay thy head upon my breast,

And I will kiss thee into rest.

Could we but keep our spirit to that height,

We might be happy; but the clay will sink

Its thoughts immortal.

Dark tree! still sad when others’ grief is fled,

The only constant mourner o’er the dead.

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,

And ponder well your subject, and its length;

Nor lift your load, before you’re quite aware

What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.

Death, so called, is a thing that makes men weep,

And yet a third of life is pass’d in sleep.

Deformity is daring;

It is its essence to o’ertake mankind

By heart and soul, and make itself the equal—

Ay, the superior of the rest. There is

A spur in its halt movements, to become

All that the others cannot, in such things

As still are free for both, to compensate

For stepdame Nature’s avarice at first.

Do proper homage to thine idol’s eyes,

But not too humbly, or she will despise

Thee and thy suit though told in moving tropes;

Disguise even tenderness, if thou art wise.

Does not the law of Heaven say blood for blood?

And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it.

Down to the dust! and as thou rott’st away,

Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.

Dreading that climax of all human ills,

The inflammation of his weekly bills.

Dreams in their development have breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy,

They have a weight upon our waking thoughts,

They take a weight from off our waking toils,

They do divide our being.

Ecclesiastes said that “all is vanity,”

Most modern preachers say the same, or show it

By their examples of true Christianity.

In short, all know, or very soon may know it.

Eternal Spirit of the chainless mind!

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,

For there thy habitation is the Heart—

The Heart which love of thee alone can bind;

And when thy sons to fetters are consign’d—

To fetters and the damp vault’s dayless gloom,

Their country conquers with their Martyrdom,

And Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind.

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass

In every fragment multiplies, and makes

A thousand images of one that was

The same, and still the more, the more it breaks.

Even to the delicacy of their hand

There was resemblance such as true blood wears.

Exhausting thought,

And hiving wisdom with each studious year.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root

Of life and sufferance make its firm abode

In bare and desolate bosoms: mute

The camel labors with the heaviest load,

And the wolf dies in silence: Not bestow’d

In vain should such examples be; if they,

Things of ignoble or of savage mood,

Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay

May temper it to bear—it is but for a day.

“Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!” he cried.

“Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,

But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,

Of its own thirst to see again thy shore.”

Fair Italy!

Thou art the garden of the world, the home

Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree,

Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste

More rich than other climes’ fertility;

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced

With an immaculate charm which cannot be defac’d.

Famished people must be slowly nursed,

And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.

Far along,

From peak to peak the rattling crags among,

Leaps the live thunder.

Fare thee well! and if for ever,

Still for ever, fare thee well.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been—

A sound which makes us linger;—yet—farewell.

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer

For other’s weal availed on high,

Mine will not all be lost in air

But waft thy name beyond the sky.

Farewell!

For in that word,—that fatal word,—howe’er

We promise—hope—believe,—there breathes despair.

Father of Light! great God of Heaven!

Hear’st thou the accents of despair?

Can guilt like man’s be e’er forgiven?

Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?

For Ennui is a growth of English root,

Though nameless in our language:—we retort

The fact for words, and let the French translate

That awful Yawn which Sleep cannot abate.

For Freedom’s battle once begun,

Bequeath’d by bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft is ever won.

For I am a weed,

Flung from the rock, on Ocean’s foam, to sail,

Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.

For through the south the custom still commands

The gentleman to kiss the lady’s hands.

Foul Superstition! howsoe’er disguised,

Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross,

For whatsoever symbol thou art prized,

Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss!

Who from true worship’s gold can separate thy dross?

Go—let thy less than woman’s hand

Assume the distaff—not the brand.

Hand to hand and foot to foot,

Nothing there save death, was mute;

Stroke and thrust, and flash, and cry

For quarter or for victory,

Mingle there with the volleying thunder.

Hark to the Boatswain’s call, the cheering cry!

While through the seaman’s hand the tackle glides;

Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by,

Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides,

And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides.

Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still,

Are howling from the mountain’s bosom:

There’s not a breath of wind upon the hill,

Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom:

Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.

Hark! to the hurried question of Despair:

“Where is my child?”—an Echo answers—“Where?”

Have not all past human beings parted,

And must not all the present, one day part?

He enter’d in his house—his home no more,

For without hearts there is no home;—and felt

The solitude of passing his own door

Without a welcome.

He fell upon whatever was offer’d, like

A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.

He had kept

The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o’er him wept.

He had then the grace, too rare in every clime,

Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,

A finish’d gentleman from top to toe.

He learn’d the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,

And how to scale a fortress or—a nunnery.

He sighed;—the next resource is the full moon,

Where all sighs are deposited; and now

It happen’d luckily, the chaste orb shone.

He smiles and sleeps!—sleep on

And smile, thou little, young inheritor

Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile!

Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering

And innocent!

He was the mildest manner’d man

That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat!

With such true breeding of a gentleman,

You never could divine his real thought.

He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find

Their loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds of snow;

He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

Must look down on the hate of those below.

Tho’ high above the sun of glory glow,

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,

Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow

Contending tempests on his naked head.

He who first met the Highland’s swelling blue,

Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue;

Hail in each crag a friend’s familiar face,

And clasp the mountain in his mind’s embrace.

He who hath bent him o’er the dead,

Ere the first day of death is fled—

The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,

(Before Decay’s effacing fingers,

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers)—

And mark’d the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that’s there.

He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

Must look down on the hate of those below.

Her eye (I am very fond of handsome eyes),

Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire

Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise

Flash’d an expression more of pride than ire,

And love than either; and there would arise,

A something in them which was not desire,

But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul,

Which struggled through and chasten’d down the whole.

Her glossy hair was clustered o’er a brow

Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth;

Her eyebrow’s shape was like the aërial bow,

Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,

Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,

As if her veins ran lightning.

Her overpowering presence made you feel

It would not be idolatry to kneel.

Her years

Were ripe, they might make six-and-twenty springs;

But there are forms which Time to touch forbears,

And turns aside his scythe to vulgar things.

Here and there some stern high patriot stood,

Who could not get the place for which he sued.

Here’s a sigh to those who love me,

And a smile to those who hate;

And whatever sky’s above me,

Here’s a heart for every fate.

His breast with wounds unnumber’d riven,

His back to earth, his face to heaven.

His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,

Of rhetoric, which the learn’d call “rigmarole.”

Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.

How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself!

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make

A conflict of its elements, and breathe

The breath of degradation and of pride,

Contending with low wants and lofty will,

Till our mortality predominates,

And men are—what they name not to themselves,

And trust not to each other.

How lovely he appears! his little cheeks

In their pure incarnation, vying with

The rose leaves strewn beneath them.

And his lips, too,

How beautifully parted! No; you shall not

Kiss him; at least not now; he will wake soon—

His hour of midday rest is nearly over.

How many a time have I

Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring

The wave all roughen’d; with a swimmer’s stroke

Flung the billows back from my drench’d hair,

And laughing from my lip the audacious brine

Which kiss’d it like a wine-cup rising o’er

The waves as they rose, and prouder still

The loftier they uplifted me.

I am not now

That which I have been.

I am the very slave of circumstance

And impulse—borne away with every breath.

I depart,

Whither I know not; but the hour’s gone by

When Albion’s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

I die,—but first I have possess’d,

And come what may, I have been bless’d.

I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest,

Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made

Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast

No permanent foundation can be laid.

I have a passion for the name of “Mary,”

For once it was a magic sound to me,

And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,

Where I beheld what never was to be.

I know that there are angry spirits

And turbulent mutterers of stifled treason,

Who lurk in narrow places, and walk out

Muffled to whisper curses to the night;

Disbanded soldiers, discontented ruffians,

And desperate libertines who brawl in taverns.

I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me, and to me

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum

Of human cities torture.

I live,

But live to die: and living, see no thing

To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,

A loathsome and yet all invincible

Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I

Despise myself, yet cannot overcome—

And so I live.

I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse

The tyrant’s wish, “that mankind only had

One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce;”

My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,

And much more tender on the whole than fierce;

It being (not now, but only while a lad)

That womankind had but one rosy mouth,

To kiss them all at once, from North to South.

I loved her from my boyhood; she to me

Was as a fairy city of the heart,

Rising like water-columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;

And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare’s art,

Had stamp’d her image in me.

I own my natural weakness; I have not

Yet learn’d to think of indiscriminate murder

Without some sense of shuddering; and the sight

Of blood, which spouts through hoary scalps, is not,

To me, a thing or triumph, nor the death

Of men surprised, a glory.

I say the sun is a most glorious sight,

I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late

I have sat up on purpose all the night,

Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate;

And so all ye, who would be in the right

In health and purse, begin your day to date

From daybreak, and when coffin’d at fourscore,

Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,

A palace and a prison on each hand;

I saw from out the wave her structure rise,

As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:

A thousand years their cloudy wings expand

Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

O’er the far times, when many a subject land

Look’d to the winged Lion’s marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

I want a hero: an uncommon want,

When every year and month sends forth a new one.

I wish’d but for a single tear,

As something welcome, new and dear,

I wish’d it then, I wish it still,

Despair is stronger than my will.

I’ve seen your stormy seas and stormy women,

And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

If we do but watch the hour,

There never yet was human power

Which could evade, if unforgiven,

The patient search and vigil long

Of him who treasures up a wrong.

In fact, there’s nothing makes me so much grieve,

As that abominable tittle-tattle,

Which is the cud eschew’d by human cattle.

In reading authors, when you find

Bright passages, that strike your mind,

And which, perhaps, you may have reason

To think on, at another season,

Be not contented with the sight,

But take them down in black and white;

Such a respect is wisely shown,

As makes another’s sense one’s own.

In that instant, o’er his soul

Winters of Memory seem’d to roll,

And gather in that drop of time

A life of pain, an age of crime.

O’er him who loves, or hates, or fears,

Such moment pours the grief of years.

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree,

And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,

And silent rows the songless gondolier;

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,

And music meets not always now the ear.

In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,

Save thine “incomparable oil,” Macassar!

It has a strange, quick jar upon the ear,

That cocking of a pistol, when you know

A moment more will bring the sight to bear

Upon your person, twelve yards off or so.

It is the hour when from the boughs

The nightingale’s high note is heard;

It is the hour when lovers’ vows

Seem sweet in every whispered word;

And gentle winds, and waters near,

Make music to the lonely ear.

Each flower the dews have lightly wet,

And in the sky the stars are met,

And on the wave is deeper blue,

And on the leaf a browner hue,

And in the heaven that clear obscure,

So softly dark, and darkly pure.

Which follows the decline of day,

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded

Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,

Which then seems as if the whole earth is bounded,

Circling all nature, hush’d, and dim, and still,

With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded

On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill

Upon the other, and the rosy sky

With one star sparkling through it like an eye.

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast

The fatal gift of beauty, which became

A funeral dower of present woes and past,

On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough’d by shame,

And annals graved in characters of flame.

Jack was embarrassed—never hero more,

And as he knew not what to say, he swore.

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel,

He nursed the pinion, which impell’d the steel.

Kill a man’s family, and he may brook it,

But keep your hands out of his breeches’ pocket.

Let’s not unman each other—part at once;

All farewells should be sudden, when forever,

Else they make an eternity of moments,

And clog the last sad sands of life with tears.

Like a lovely tree

She grew to womanhood, and between whiles

Rejected several suitors, just to learn

How to accept a better in his turn.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen;

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown!

Look how he laughs and stretches out his arms,

And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,

To hail his father: while his little form

Flutters as wing’d with joy. Talk not of pain!

The childless cherubs well might envy thee

The pleasures of a parent.

Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,

Its chambers desolate, its portals foul;

Yes, this was once ambition’s airy hall,

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.

Look on me in my sleep,

Or watch my watchings—come and sit by me!

My solitude is solitude no more,

But peopled with the furies;—I have gnash’d

My teeth in darkness till returning morn,

Then cursed myself till sunset;—I have pray’d

For madness as a blessing—’tis denied me.

Maid of Athens, ere we part,

Give, oh, give me back my heart!

Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,

And mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

Man is a carnivorous production,

And must have meals, at least one meal a day;

He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,

But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey;

Although his anatomical construction

Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,

Your laboring people think beyond all question,

Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion.

Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,

’Tis woman’s whole existence; man may range

The court, the camp, church, vessel, and the mart,

Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange;

Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart;

And few there are whom these cannot estrange;

Men have all these resources, we but one—

To love again, and be again undone.

Marriage, from love, like vinegar from wine—

A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time

Is sharpened from its high celestial flavor

Down to a very homely household savor.

May no marble bestow the splendor of woe,

Which the children of vanity rear;

No fiction of fame shall blazon my name,

All I ask—all I wish—is a tear.

May the grass wither from thy feet; the woods

Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust

A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God!

Men are the sport of circumstance, when

The circumstances seem the sport of men.

Mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,

The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth;

Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam,

Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;

They crown’d him long ago

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,

With a diadem of snow.

Must I consume my life—this little life,

In guarding against all may make it less?

It is not worth so much!—it were to die

Before my hour, to live in dread of death.

My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea:

But, before I go, Tom Moore,

Here’s a double health to thee!

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!

My pen is at the bottom of a page,

Which being finished, here the story ends;

’Tis to be wish’d it had been sooner done,

But stories somehow lengthen when begun.

My sole resources in the path I trod,

Were these—my bark—my sword—my love—my God.

The last I left in youth—He leaves me now—

And man but works His will to lay me low.

I have no thought to mock His throne with prayer,

Wrung from the coward crouching of despair;

It is enough—I breathe—and I can bear.

My spirit shrunk not to sustain

The searching throes of ceaseless pain;

Nor sought the self-accorded grave

Of ancient fool and modern knave.

My very chains and I grew friends,

So much a long communion tends

To make us what we are; even I

Regain’d my freedom with a sigh.

No words suffice the secret soul to show,

And truth denies all eloquence to woe.

None are so desolate but something dear,

Dearer than self, possesses or possess’d

A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.

Nor all that heralds rake from coffin’d clay,

Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme,

Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell

The tortures of that inward hell!

Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme,

Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

Not all the blood at Talavera shed,

Not all the marvels of Barossa’s fight,

Not Albuera lavish of the dead,

Have won for Spain her well-asserted right.

When shall her olive-branch be free from blight?

When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?

How many a doubtful day shall sink in night,

Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil,

And Freedom’s stranger-tree grow native of the soil!

Not much he kens, I ween, of woman’s breast,

Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs.

Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,

Smiles in her eyes, and simpers in her lips;

To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;

To some she curtsies, and to some she dips.

O thou beautiful

And unimaginable ether! and

Ye multiplying masses of increased

And still increasing lights! what are ye? what

Is this blue wilderness of interminable

Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen

The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden?

Is your course measur’d for ye? Or do ye

Sweep on in your unbounded revelry

Through an aërial universe of endless

Expansion,—at which my soul aches to think,—

Intoxicated with eternity?

O Time! the beautifier of the dead,

Adorner of the ruin, comforter

And only healer when the heart hath bled—

Time! the corrector where our judgments err,

The test of truth, love,—sole philosopher!

O Time! Why dost not pause? Thy scythe so dirty

With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew.

Reset it; shave more smoothly, also slower,

If but to keep thy credit as a mower.

O ye! who teach the ingenious youth of nations,

Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain,

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,

It mends their morals, never mind the pain.

O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,

Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,

Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,

Survey our empire, and behold our home!

Of all appeals,—although

I grant the power of pathos, and of gold,

Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling,—no

Methods more sure at moments to take hold,

Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow

More tender, as we every day behold,

Than that all-softening, overpow’ring knell,

The tocsin of the soul—the Dinner Bell.

Of all tales ’tis the saddest—and more sad,

Because it makes us smile.

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,

Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast;

Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so.”

Of all

The fools who flock’d to swell or see the show,

Who car’d about the corpse? The funeral

Made the attraction, and the black the woe;

There throbb’d not there a thought which pierc’d the pall.

Oh ye, who teach th’ ingenuous youth of nations—

Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain—

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions;

It mends their morals; never mind the pain.

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see

What Heaven hath done for this delicious land!

Oh, God! it is a fearful thing

To see the human soul take wing

In any shape, in any mood!

Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried?

Oh! in that future let us think

To hold each heart the heart that shares;

With them the immortal waters drink,

And, soul in soul, grow deathless theirs!

Oh! nature’s noblest gift—my grey goose quill:

Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,

Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,

That mighty instrument of little men!

Oh! too convincing—dangerously dear—

In woman’s eye the unanswerable tear!

That weapon of her weakness she can wield,

To save, subdue—at once her spear and shield.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined!

No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet,

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed

That knows his rider.

One struggle more, and I am free

From pangs that rend my heart in twain;

One last long sigh to love and thee,

Then back to busy life again.

Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,

While ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.

Out upon Time! it will leave no more

Of the things to come than the things before!

Out upon Time! who forever will leave

But enough of the past for the future to grieve.

Parting day

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues

With a new color at it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till—’tis gone—and all is gray.

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,

To build a college, or to found a race,

An hospital, a church—and leave behind

Some dome surmounted by his meagre face,

Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind

Even with the very ore which makes them base;

Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,

Or revel in the joys of calculation.

Perhaps the early grave

Which men weep over may be meant to save.

“Petticoat influence” is a great reproach,

Which e’en those who obey would fain be thought

To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;

But since beneath it upon earth we’re brought

By various joltings of life’s hackney coach,

I for one venerate a petticoat—

A garment of mystical sublimity,

No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

Stops with the shore.

Romances paint at full length people’s wooings,

But only give a bust of marriages:

For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,

There’s nothing wrong in a connubial kiss.

Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife,

He would have written sonnets all his life?

Self-defence is a virtue,

Sole bulwark of all right.

Shaggy shade

Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp

Nods to the storm.

She bears her down majestically near,

Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier.

She had resolved that be should travel through

All European climes, by land or sea,

To mend his former morals, and get new,

Especially in France and Italy,

(At least this is the thing most people do).

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellow’d to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

She walks the waters like a thing of life,

And seems to dare the elements to strife.

She was a good deal shock’d; not shock’d at tears.

For women shed and use them at their liking;

But there is something when man’s eye appears

Wet, still more disagreeable and striking.

She was a soft landscape of mild earth,

Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet,

Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,

Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it

Than are your mighty passions.

She was his life,

The ocean to the river of his thoughts,

Which terminated all.

Ships, wealth, general confidence—

All were his;

He counted them at break of day,

And when the sun set! where were they?

Shrine of the mighty! can it be,

That this is all remains of thee?

Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal’s tints,

With all the kind mendacity of hints,

While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles,

A thread of candor with a web of wiles;

A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,

To hide her bloodless heart’s soul-harden’d scheming;

A lap of lies, a face formed to conceal;

And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:

With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,

A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.

So bright the tear in Beauty’s eye,

Love half regrets to kiss it dry;

So sweet the blush of Bashfulness,

Even Pity scarce can wish it less!

So do the dark in soul expire,

Or live like scorpion girt by fire;

So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,

Unfit for earth, undoom’d for heaven,

Darkness above, despair beneath,

Around it flame, within it death.

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,

I think I must take up with avarice.

So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,

Fix’d statue on the pedestal of scorn!

So sweet the blush of bashfulness

Even pity scarce can wish it less.

So the struck eagle stretch’d upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View’d his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing’d the shaft that quivered in his heart:

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel

He nurs’d the pinion which impelled the steel.

Society is now one polished horde,

Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.

Society itself, which should create

Kindness, destroys what little we had got:

To feel for none is the true social art

Of the world’s stoics—men without a heart.

Sofas ’twas half a sin to sit upon,

So costly were they; carpets, every stitch

Of workmanship so rare, they make you wish

You could glide o’er them like a golden fish.

Some hoisted out the boats, and there was one

That begged Pedrillo for an absolution,

Who told him to be damn’d,—in his confusion.

Some waltz; some draw; some fathom the abyss

Of metaphysics; others are content

With music; the most moderate shine as wits,

While others have a genius turn’d for fits.

Sooner shall this blue ocean melt to air,

Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea,

Than I resign thine image, Oh my fair!

Or think of anything, excepting thee.

Sorrow preys upon

Its solitude and nothing more diverts it

From its sad visions of the other world

Than calling it at moments back to this.

The busy have no time for tears.

Strange state of being! (for ’tis still to be)

Senseless to feel, and with seal’d eyes to see.

Such is your cold coquette, who can’t say “No,”

And won’t say “Yes,” and keeps you on and off-ing

On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow,

Then sees your heart wreck’d, with an inward scoffing.

Take time enough—all other graces

Will soon fill up their proper places.

That all-softening, overpowering knell,

The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell.

That anxious torture may I never feel,

Which doubtful, watches o’er a wandering heart.

O, who that bitter torment can reveal,

Or tell the pining anguish of that smart!

That awful pause, dividing life from death

Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,

Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!

A moment all will be life again.

****one moment more,

The death-cry drowning in the battle’s roar.

That music in itself, whose sounds are song,

The poetry of speech.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.

The best of remedies is a beefsteak

Against sea-sickness; try it, sir, before

You sneer, and I assure you this is true,

For I have found it answer—so may you.

The circle smil’d, then whisper’d, and then sneer’d;

The misses bridled, and the matrons frown’d;

Some hoped things might not turn out as they fear’d;

Some would not deem such women could be found;

Some ne’er believ’d one half of what they heard;

Some look’d perplex’d, and others look’d profound;

And several pitied, with sincere regret,

Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

The death-shot hissing from afar—

The shock—the shout—the groan of war—

Reverberate along that vale,

More suited to the shepherd’s tale:

Though few the numbers—theirs the strife,

That neither spares, nor speaks for life.

The devil hath not, in all his quiver’s choice,

An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

The drying up a single tear has more

Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.

The earth has nothing like a she epistle,

And hardly heaven—because it never ends.

I love the mystery of a female missal,

Which, like a creed, ne’er says all it intends.

*****You had better

Take care what you reply to such a letter.

The fall of waters! rapid as the light,

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;

The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,

And boil in endless torture; while the sweat

Of their great agony, wrung out from this

Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet

That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

And mounts in spray the skies, the thence again

Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,

With its unemptied clouds of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald:—how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,

Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent

With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

To the broad column which rolls on.

The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress.

The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven,

But changes, night and day, too, like the sky;

Now o’er it clouds and thunder must be driven,

And darkness and destruction as on high;

But when it hath been scorch’d and pierc’d and riven,

Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye

Pours forth, at last, the heart’s blood turn’d to tears.

The heart ran o’er

With silent worship of the great of old!—

The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule

Our spirits from their urns.

The hearts within thy valleys bred,

The fiery souls that might have led

Thy sons to deeds sublime,

Now crawl from cradle to the grave,

Slaves—nay, the bondsmen of a slave,

And callous, save to crime.

The image of Eternity—the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

The incessant fever of that arid thirst

Which welcomes as a well the clouds that burst

Above their naked heads, and feels delight

In the cold drenchings of the stormy night.

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!

Where burning Sappho loved and sung,

Where grew the arts of war and peace—

Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung!

Eternal summer gilds them yet,

But all, except their sun, is set.

The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the music breathing from her face,

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole—

And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul!

The morn is up again, the dewy morn,

With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,

Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,

And living as if earth contain’d no tomb,—

And glowing into day.

The mountains look on Marathon,

And Marathon looks on the sea;

And musing there an hour alone

I dream’d that Greece might still be free.

For standing on the Persians’ grave

I could not deem myself a slave.

The music, and the banquet, and the wine—

The garlands, the rose odors, and the flowers,

The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments—

The white arms and the raven hair—the braids,

And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace,

An India in itself, yet dazzling not.

The panting thirst, which scorches in the breath

Of those that die the soldier’s fiery death,

In vain impels the burning mouth to crave

One drop—one last—to cool it for the grave.

The quiet night, now dappling, ’gan to wane,

Dividing darkness from the dawning main.

The seventh day this; the jubilee of man:

London! right well thou know’st the day of prayer:

Then thy spruce citizen, wash’d artisan,

And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air:

The coach of hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair,

And humblest gig, through sundry suburbs whirl;

To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow, make repair;

Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl,

Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.

The silver light, which, hallowing tree and tower,

Sheds beauty and deep softness o’er the whole,

Breathes also to the heart, and o’er it throws

A loving languor which is not repose.

The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night,

And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,

From peak to peak the rattling crags among

Leaps the live thunder!

The sky

Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder,

In clouds that seem approaching fast, and show

In forked flashes a commanding tempest.

The sky

Spreads like an ocean hung on high,

Bespangled with those isles of light

So wildly, spiritually bright.

Whoever gaz’d upon them shining,

And turn’d to earth without repining,

Nor wish’d for wings to flee away,

And mix with their eternal ray?

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops

Of the snow-shining mountains—Beautiful!

I linger yet with nature, for the night

Hath been to me a more familiar face

Than that of man; and in her starry shade

Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learn’d the language of another world.

The tenor’s voice is spoilt by affectation,

And for the bass, the beast can only bellow;

In fact, he had no singing education,

An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow;

But being the prima donna’s near relation,

Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow,

They hired him, though to hear him you’d believe

An ass was practicing recitative.

The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree

I planted,—they have torn me, and I bleed:

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

The truly brave,

When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,

Are touched with a desire to shield and save—

A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods

Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave,

Now moved with pity; even as sometimes nods

The rugged tree unto the summer wind,

Compassion breathes along the savage mind.

The very first

Of human life must spring from woman’s breast:

Your first small words are taught you from her lips;

Your first tears quench’d by her, and your last sighs

Too often breath’d out in a woman’s hearing,

When men have shrunk from the ignoble care

Of watching the last hour of him who led them.

The wish, which ages have not yet subdued

In man, to have no master save his mood.

The wither’d frame, the ruin’d mind,

The wreck by passion left behind,

A shrivell’d scroll, a scatter’d leaf,

Sear’d by the autumn blast of grief!

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less

In company a very pleasant fellow,

Had been the favorite of full many a mess

Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;

And though his meaning they could rarely guess,

Yet still they deign’d to hiccup or to bellow

The glorious meed of popular applause,

Of which the first ne’er knows the second cause.

Then fare thee well, deceitful maid,

’Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee;

Nor hope nor memory yield their aid,

But time may teach me to forget thee.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—

Then shriek’d the timid, and stood still the brave,

Then some leap’d overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawn’d around her like a hell,

And down she suck’d with her the whirling wave,

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

There are things

Which make revenge a virtue by reflection,

And not an impulse of mere anger; though

The laws sleep, justice wakes, and injur’d souls

Oft do a public right with private wrong.

———there is a fire and motion of the soul,

But once kindled, quenchless evermore.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar.

There is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o’er the humblest grave;

But nations swell the funeral cry,

And Triumph weeps above the brave.

There is a temple in ruin stands,

Fashion’d by long forgotten hands:

Two or three columns, and many a stone,

Marble and granite, with grass o’ergrown!

There is given

Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,

A spirit’s feeling, and where he hath leant

His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power

And magic in the ruined battlement;

For which the palace of the present hour

Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.

There is nothing gives a man such spirits,

Leavening his blood as cayenne doth a curry,

As going at full speed—no matter where its

Direction be, so ’tis but in a hurry,

And merely for the sake of its own merits;

For the less cause there is for all this flurry,

The greater is the pleasure in arriving

At the great end of travel—which is driving.

There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea,

Which changeless rolls eternally;

So that wildest of waves, in their angriest mood,

Scarce break on the bounds of the land for a rood;

And the powerless moon beholds them flow,

Heedless if she come or go.

There was a general whisper, toss, and wiggle,

But etiquette forbade them all to giggle.

There was a laughing devil in his sneer,

That rais’d emotions both of rage and fear;

And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,

Hope withering fled, and mercy sigh’d farewell.

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then

Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.

There’s nothing in the world like etiquette

In kingly chambers, or imperial halls,

As also at the race and county balls.

There’s nought in this bad world like sympathy:

’Tis so becoming to the soul and face—

Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh,

And robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace.

They did not know how hate can burn

In hearts once changed from soft to stern;

Nor all the false and fatal zeal

The convert of revenge can feel.

They never fail who die,

In a great cause: the block may soak their gore,

Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs

Be strung to city gates and castle walls;—

But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years

Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,

They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts

Which overpower all others, and conduct

The world at last to freedom.

Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering

And innocent.

Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife,

He would have written sonnets all his life.

Think’st thou existence doth depend on time?

It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine

Have made my days and nights imperishable,

Endless, and all alike.

Think’st thou that I could bear to part

With thee, and learn to halve my heart?

*****

Years have not seen, time shall not see

The hour that tears my soul from thee.

Think’st thou there is no tyranny but that

Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice—

The weakness and the wickedness of luxury—

The negligence—the apathy—the evils

Of sensual sloth—produce ten thousand tyrants,

Whose delegated cruelty surpasses

The worst acts of one energetic master,

However harsh and hard in his own bearing.

Tho’ modest, on his unembarrass’d brow

Nature had written—“Gentleman.”

Thou material God!

And representative of the Unknown,

Who chose thee for His shadow! Thou chief star!

Centre of many stars!—which mak’st our earth

Endurable, and temperest the hues

And hearts of all who walk within thy rays!

Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the climes,

And those who dwell in them! for near or far,

Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,

Even as our outward aspects,—thou dost rise,

And shine and set in glory!

Thou need’st not answer; thy confession speaks,

Already redd’ning in thy guilty cheeks.

Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose.

This is true criticism, and you may kiss,

Exactly as you please, or not, the rod.

Thou who hast

The fatal gift of beauty.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure,

There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,

And marvel men should quit their easy chair,

The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace;

Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air,

And life, that bloated ease can never hope to snare.

Though thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit will not sleep;

There are shades that will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish.

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,

And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills

Like hail, to make a bloody diuretic;

Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills!

Thy plagues, thy famines, thy physicians, yet tick,

Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills,

Past, present, and to come; but all may yield

To the true portrait of one battle-field.

Thus, as the stream and ocean greet,

With waves that madden as they meet—

Thus join the bands whom mutual wrong,

And fate and fury drive along.

Thy day without a cloud hath pass’d,

And thou wert lovely to the last;

Extinguish’d not decay’d!

As stars that shoot along the sky

Shine brightest as they fall from high.

Thy fanes, thy temple, to the surface bow,

Commingling slowly with heroic earth,

Broke by the share of every rustic plough:

So perish monuments of mortal Birth,

To perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth.

Till taught by pain,

Men really know not what good water’s worth:

If you had been in Turkey or in Spain,

Or with a famish’d boat’s crew had your berth,

Or in the desert heard the camel’s bell,

You’d wish yourself where truth is—in a well.

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,—

Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

’Tis an old lesson; time approves it true,

And those who know it best, deplore it most;

When all is won that all desire to woo,

The paltry prize, is hardly worth the cost.

’Tis enough—

Who listens once will listen twice;

Her heart be sure is not of ice,

And one refusal no rebuff.

’Tis pity wine should be so deleterious,

For tea and coffee leave us much more serious.

’Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;

And all are to be sold, if you consider

Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features

Are bought up, others by a warlike leader;

Some by a place—as tend their years of natures;

The most by ready cash—but all have prices,

From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

’Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print;

A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in ’t.

’Tis pleasing to be school’d in a strange tongue

By female lips and eyes—that is, I mean,

When both the teacher and the taught are young,

As was the case, at least, where I have been;

They smile so when one’s right; and when one’s wrong

They smile still more.

’Tis said the lion will turn and flee

From a maid in the pride of her purity.

’Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;

’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

’Tis sweet to hear

At midnight, on the blue and moonlight deep,

The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier,

By distance mellow’d, o’er the waters sweep;

’Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;

’Tis sweet to listen as the night winds creep

From leaf to leaf; ’tis sweet to view on high

The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes

In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,

Purple and gushing; sweet are our escapes

From civic revelry to rural mirth;

Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps;

Sweet to the father is his first born’s birth;

Sweet is revenge—especially to women,

Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

’Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark

Bay deep-mouth’d welcome as we draw near home:

’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come:

’Tis sweet to be awaken’d by the lark,

Or lull’d by falling waters; sweet the hum

Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,

The lisp of children and their earliest words.

’Tis sweet to listen as the night winds creep

From leaf to leaf; ’tis sweet to view on high

The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

To aid thy mind’s development to watch

Thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see

Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch

Knowledge of objects—wonders yet to thee!

To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,

And print on thy soft cheek a parent’s kiss.

To no men are such cordial greetings given

As those whose wives have made them fit for heaven.

To the mind,

Which is itself, no changes bring surprise.

To what gulfs

A single deviation from the track

Of human duties leads!

’Twas a public feast and public day—

Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,

Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,

And everybody out of their own sphere.

’Twas strange—in youth all action and all life,

Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;

Woman—the field—the ocean—all that gave

Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,

In turn he tried—he ransack’d all below,

And found his recompense in joy or woe,

No tame trite medium; for his feelings sought

In that intenseness an escape from thought:

The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed

On that the feebler elements hath rais’d;

The rapture of his heart had look’d on high,

And ask’d if greater dwelt beyond the sky:

Chain’d to excess, the slave of such extreme,

How woke he from the wildness of that dream,

Alas! he told not—but he did awake

To curse the wither’d heart that would not break.

’Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down

Over the waste of waters; like a veil,

Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown

Of one whose hate is masked but to assail.

’Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh;

Oh, more than tears of blood can tell

When wrung from guilt’s expiring eye,

Are in the word farewell—farewell.

Tyranny

Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem

None rebels except subjects? The prince who

Neglects or violates his trust is more

A brigand than the robber-chief.

Upon her face there was the tint of grief,

The settled shadow of an inward strife,

And an unquiet drooping of the eye,

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.

Venice once was dear,

The pleasant place of all festivity,

The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.

War’s a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,

Unless her cause by right be sanctified.

We two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years.

We will renew the times of peace and justice,

Condensing in a fair free commonwealth;

Not rash equality, but equal rights,

Proportion’d like the columns of the temple

Giving and taking strength reciprocal,

And making firm the whole with grace and beauty;

So that no part could be removed without

Infringement of the general symmetry.

Well, well, the world must turn upon its axis,

And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,

And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,

And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails.

Were ’t the last drop in the well,

As I gasp’d upon the brink,

Ere my fainting spirit fell,

’Tis to thee that I would drink.

What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger

Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head,

And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger

Is all the rest about her.

What boots the oft-repeated tale of strife,

The feast of vultures, and the waste of life?

The varying fortune of each separate field,

The fierce that vanquish, and the faint that yield?

The smoking ruin and the crumbled wall?

In this the struggle was the same with all.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?

The heart’s bleed longest, and but heal to wear

That which disfigures it.

What exile from himself can flee?

To zones, though more and more remote,

Still, still pursues, where’er I be,

The blight of life—the demon Thought.

What gem hath dropp’d and sparkles o’er his chain?

The tear most sacred, shed for other’s pain,

That starts at once—bright—pure—from pity’s mine,

Already polish’d by the Hand Divine.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?

To view each loved one blotted from life’s page,

And be alone on earth as I am now.

What of them is left, to tell

Where they lie, and how they fell?

Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves:

But they live in the Verse that immortally saves.

Whatsoe’er thy birth,

Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.

When dinner has oppress’d one,

I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour

Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.

When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls—the world.

When friendship or love our sympathies move,

When truth in a glance should appear,

The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile,

But the test of affection’s a tear.

When knaves and fools combin’d o’er all prevail,

When justice halts, and right begins to fail,

E’en then the boldest start from public sneers,

Afraid of shame—unknown to other fears.

More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,

And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.

When Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.

Where is honor,

Innate and precept-strengthen’d, ’tis the rock

Of faith connubial: where it is not—where

Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities

Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,

Or sensual throbs convulse it.

“Where is the world?” cries Young, at eighty. “Where

The world in which a man was born?” Alas!

Where is the world of eight years past? ’Twas there—

I look for it—’tis gone, a globe of glass

Cracked, shivered, vanished, scarcely gazed on ere

A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.

Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings,

And dandies, all are gone on the wind’s wings.

Who doth not feel, until his failing sight

Faints into dimness with its own delight,

His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess,

The might—the majesty of Loveliness?

Who falls from all he knows of bliss,

Cares little into what abyss.

Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones;

Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.

With common men

There needs too oft the show of war to keep

The substance of sweet peace, and for a king,

’Tis sometimes better to be fear’d than lov’d.

With eyes that look’d into the very soul—

*****

Bright—and as black and burning as a coal.

Wives in their husbands’ absences grow subtler,

And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

Words are things; and a small drop of ink,

Falling like dew upon a thought, produces

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

Would you teach her to love?

For a time seem to rove;

At first she may frown in a pet;

But leave her awhile,

She shortly will smile,

And then you may win your coquette.

Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike

All phantasies, not even excepting mine:

A gray wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,

Make my soul pass the equinoctial line

Between the present and past worlds, and hover

Upon their airy confines, half-seas over.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate

Of men and empires,—’tis to be forgiven,

That in our aspirations to be great,

Our destinies o’erleap their mortal state,

And claim a kindred with you; for ye are

A beauty and a mystery, and create

In us such love and reverence from afar,

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

Years have not seen, Time shall not see,

The hour that tears my soul from thee.

Years steal

Fire from the mind, as vigour from the limb;

And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Yes—it was love—if thoughts of tenderness,

Tried in temptation, strengthen’d by distress,

Unmov’d by absence, firm in every clime,

And yet—oh more than all! untired by time,

Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile,

Could render sullen were she near to smile,

Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent

On her one murmur of his discontent;

Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part,

Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart;

Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove—

If there be love in mortals—this was love!

Yes—the same sin that overthrew the angels,

And of all sins most easily besets

Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature:

The vile are only vain; the great are proud.

“Yet doth he live!” exclaims th’ impatient heir,

And sighs for sables which he must not wear.

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,

For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

Yet still there whispers the small voice within,

Heard thro’ gain’s silence, and o’er glory’s din;

Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,

Man’s conscience is the oracle of God!

Yet, it is love—if thoughts of tenderness,

Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress,

Unmov’d by absence, firm in every clime,

And yet—oh! more than all!—untir’d by time.

Yon sun that sets upon the sea

We follow in his flight;

Farewell awhile to him and thee,

My native Land—Good-night!

Your thief looks

Exactly like the rest, or rather better;

’Tis only at the bar, and in the dungeon,

That wise men know your felon by his features.

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.

A drop of ink may make a million think.

A gilded halo hovering round decay.

A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love.

A pretty woman is a welcome guest.

A quill hath proved the noblest gift to man.

A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.

A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!

A thousand years scarce serves to form a State; an hour may lay it in the dust.

Adversity is the first path to truth.

Age shakes Athena’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.

Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy!

Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns.

Alas! the breast that inly bleeds has nought to fear from outward blow.

Alas! there is no instinct like the heart!

All is to be feared where all is to be lost.

All our advantages are those of fortune; birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents; and when we cry out against fate, it were well we should remember fortune can take naught save what she gave.

Ambiguous things that ape goats in their visage, women in their shape.

Among them, but not of them.

And both were young, and one was beautiful.

And mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

And not a breath crept through the rosy air, and yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

And the whole world would henceforth be a wider prison unto me.

And they were canopied by the blue sky, so cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, that God alone was to be seen in heaven.

And whispering, “I will ne’er consent”—consented.

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

Away! we know that tears are vain, that death ne’er heeds nor hears distress.

Battle’s magnificently stern array!

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life! the evening beam that smiles the clouds away and tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

Beautiful spirit, with thy hair of light and dazzling eyes of glory!

Before decay’s effacing fingers have swept the lines where beauty lingers.

Blood only serves to wash Ambition’s hands.

Born to be ploughed with years, and sown with cares, and reaped by Death, lord of the human soil.

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.

But still her lips refused to say, farewell; for in that word, that fatal word, howe’er we promise, hope, believe, there breathes despair.

By satire kept in awe, shrink from ridicule, though not from law.

Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away.

Circumstance, that unspiritual god and miscreator, makes and helps along our coming evils.

Cleverness and cunning are incompatible.

Constant thought will overflow in words unconsciously.

Danger levels man and brute, and all are fellows in their need.

Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.

Dead! God, how much there is in that little word!

Decayed in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.

Deep in my shut and silent heart.

Despair defies even despotism; there is that in my heart would make its way through hosts with leveled spears.

Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

Ennui is a growth of English root, though nameless in our language.

Eternity forbids thee to forget.

Every fool describes in these bright days his wondrous journey to some foreign court, and spawns his quarto, and demands your praise.

Experience has taught me that the only friends we can call our own, who can have no change, are those over whom the grave has closed; the seal of death is the only seal of friendship.

Experience, that chill touchstone whose sad proof reduces all things from their hue.

Fame is the thirst of youth.

Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies.

Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

For violets plucked, the sweetest showers will ne’er make grow again.

Formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and bored.

Friendship is love without his wings!

Glory long has made the sages smile; ’tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind.

Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar.

He makes a solitude and calls it peace!

He who is only just is cruel.

He who surpasses or subdues mankind must look down on the hate of those below.

Heart on her lip and soul within her eyes.

Heaven gives its favorites early death.

Heaven in sunshine will requite the kind.

Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest.

Her stature tall—I hate a dumpy woman.

Hide thy tears,—I do not bid thee not to shed them,—it were easier to stop Euphrates at its source than one tear of a true and tender heart.

His bold brow bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years, not their decrepitude.

His heart was one of those which most enamours us—wax to receive, and marble to retain.

How peaceful and how powerful is the grave!

How the giant element from rock to rock leaps with delirious bound!

I awoke one morning and found myself famous.

I loathe that low vice, curiosity.

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

Immortality o’ersweeps all pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peals, like the eternal thunder of the deep, into my ears this truth: Thou livest forever!

In aught that tries the heart, how few withstand the proof.

In her first passion, woman loves her lover; in all the others, all she loves is love.

In her starry shade of dim and solitary loveliness, I learn the language of another world.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

In that corroding secrecy which gnaws the heart to show the effect, but not the cause.

In woman’s eye the unanswerable tear.

It is solitude should teach us how to die.

It is strange, but true; for truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.

It is to be hoped that, with all the modern improvements, a mode will be discovered of getting rid of bores; for it is too bad that a poor wretch can be punished for stealing your pocket-handkerchief or gloves, and that no punishment can be inflicted on those who steal your time, and with it your temper and patience, as well as the bright thoughts that might have entered into your mind (like the Irishman who lost the fortune before he had got it), but were frightened away by the bore.

“Kiss” rhymes to “bliss” in fact, as well as verse.

Know ye not who would be free themselves must strike the blow? by their right arms the conquest must be wrought?

Knowledge is not happiness, and science but an exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.

Lord of himself,—that heritage of woe!

Love has made its best interpreter a sigh.

Love is old, old as eternity, but not outworn; with each new being born or to be born.

Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

Man’s conscience is the oracle of God!

Many a withering thought lies hid, not lost, in smiles that least befit those who wear them most.

Melancholy is a fearful gift. What is it but the telescope of truth!

Melancholy spreads itself betwixt heaven and earth, like envy between man and man, and is an everlasting mist.

Men are the sport of circumstances, when circumstances seem the sport of men.

Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

Methinks a being that is beautiful becometh more so as it looks on beauty, the eternal beauty of undying things.

Might shake the saintship of an anchorite.

Music arose with its voluptuous swell.

My native land, good-night!

Next to dressing for a rout or ball, undressing is a woe.

Night’s sepulchre.

No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed.

None are all evil.

O Rome! my country! city of the soul!

Oh for a forty-parson power!

Oh! Nature’s noblest gift—my gray-goose quill!

One hates an author that is all author; fellows in foolscap uniform turned up with ink.

One last long sigh to love and thee, then back to busy life again.

Parent of golden dreams—romance!

Passion raves herself to rest, or flies.

Prolonged endurance tames the bold.

Put himself upon his good behavior.

Ready money is Aladdin’s lamp.

Revenge is lost in agony, and remorse to rage succeeds.

Scandal has something so piquant, it is a sort of cayenne to the mind.

She turned to him and smiled, but in that sort which makes not others smile.

She was a good deal shocked,—not shocked at tears, for women shed and use them at their liking.

Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal’s tints with all the high mendacity of hints.

Sleep hath its own world, a boundary between the things misnamed death and existence.

Slight withal may be the things which bring back on the heart the weight which it would fling aside forever.

So let them ease their hearts with prate of equal rights, which man never knew.

So writhes the mind remorse hath riven.

Solitude has but one disadvantage—it is apt to give one too high an opinion of one’s self. In the world we are sure to be often reminded of every known or supposed defect we may have.

Soon or late love is his own avenger.

Sorrow is knowledge; they who know thee most must mourn the deepest over the fatal truth, the tree of knowledge is not that of life.

Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.

Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.

Suspicion is a heavy armor, and with its own weight impedes more than protects.

Sweet is revenge—especially to women.

Sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.

That curse shall be—forgiveness!

The best of prophets of the future is the past.

The bloom or blight of all men’s happiness.

The busy have no time for tears.

The deceptions which the two sexes play off upon each other bring as many ill-sorted couples into the bonds of Hymen as ever could be done by the arbitrary pairing of a legal matchmaker.

The dew of compassion is a tear.

The dewy morn, with breath all incense and with cheek all bloom.

The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul.

The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.

The feast of vultures, and the waste of life.

The heart will break, yet broken live on.

The light of love, the purity of grace, the mind, the music, breathing in her face.

The madness of the heart.

The many still must labor for the one! It is nature’s doom.

The mind, the music breathing from her face.

The night shows stars and women in a better light.

The nightingale, their only vesper-bell, sung sweetly to the rose the day’s farewell.

The only pleasure of fame is that it proves the way to pleasure; and the more intellectual our pleasure, the better for the pleasure and for us too.

The parted bosom clings to wonted home, if aught that’s kindred cheer the welcome hearth.

The poetry of speech.

The power of thought—the magic of the mind.

The precious porcelain of human clay.

The ship from Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads for him the fragrant produce of each trip.

The starlight dews all silently their tears of love instill.

The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell!

The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes, and feel for what their duty bids them do.

The truth in masquerade.

There comes forever something between us and what we deem our happiness.

There is a very life in our despair.

There is music in all things, if men had ears.

There is no future pang can deal that justice on the self-condemned he deals on his own soul.

There is no god but God!—to prayer—lo! God is great!

There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

There is no traitor like him whose domestic treason plants the poniard within the breast which trusted to his truth.

There is not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric; and pure invention is but the talent of a deceiver.

These blasted pines, wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, a blighted trunk upon a cursed root.

They truly mourn that mourn without a witness.

Think not I am what I appear.

Thou more than stone of the philosopher!

Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.

Thou true magnetic pole, to which all hearts point duly north, like trembling needles!

Though fame is smoke, its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.

Thus ever fade my fairy dreams of bliss.

Time, the corrector when our judgments err, the test of truth and love; sole philosopher, for all besides are sophists.

’T is a base abandonment of reason to resign our right of thought.

’Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home.

’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind; all are not fit with them to stir and toil.

To pass their lives on fountains and on flowers, and never know the weight of human hours.

To sanction vice and hunt decorum down.

To what gulfs a single deviation from the track of human duties leads!

Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface of this world all things are weighed by the false scale of custom.

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, thou nameless column with the buried base.

Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb!

Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep.

War, war is still the cry; “War even to the knife!”

We ne’er forget, tho’ there we are forgot.

What careth she for hearts when once possessed?

What exile from himself can flee?

What is the end of fame? it is but to fill a certain portion of uncertain paper.

When all is past, it is humbling to tread o’er the weltering field of the tombless dead.

When Youth and Pleasure meet to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Where are the forms the sculptor’s soul hath seized? In him alone. Can nature show as fair?

Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil.

Who falls from all he knows of bliss, cares little into what abyss.

Who listens once will listen twice; her heart be sure is not of ice, and one refusal no rebuff.

Who upon earth could live were all judged justly?

Whom the gods love die young, was said of yore.

Wisdom, knowledge, power,—all combined.

With just enough of learning to misquote.

With pleasure dragged he almost longed for woe.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven.

Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb.

Yes, Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay.

You have greatly ventured, but all must do so who would greatly win.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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