O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy-
...
The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park and with him walked his troubles. And over his head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake surrounded by magnificent marble statuary.
He sat there pondering the water which poured from the mouths of the statues like thoughts flowing freely from a lover's imagination, and contemplating heavily his palace which stood upon a knoll like a birth-mark upon the cheek of a maiden. His fancy revealed to him the pages of his life's drama which he read with falling tears that veiled his eyes and prevented him from viewing man's feeble additions to Nature.
...
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the
...
Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?
Or say that now
...
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
...
1
We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.
...
"Aug." 10, 1911.
Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
...
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who died before the god of love was born.
I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
...
Not understood, we move along asunder;
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep
Not understood.
...
Upon this Primrose hill,
Where, if Heav'n would distil
A shower of rain, each several drop might go
To his own primrose, and grow manna so;
...
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watry glade,
Where grateful ScienceÊ still adores
Her Henry'sÊ holy shade;
And yeÊ that from the stately brow
...
NOT in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.
These, then, are thine oaths of passion ?
...
Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids
Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids;
I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise;
Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies?
...
And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
But all the Tartar camp along the stream
Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;
...
I never asked you to be perfect—did I?—
Though often I’ve called you sweet, in the invasion
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman,
...
THE FIRST BOOK
I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
...
Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
...
No. It's an impudent falsehood. Men did not
Invariably think the newer way Prosaic
mad, inelegant, or what not.
...
TO make the doubt clear, that no woman's true,
Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?
Thought I, but one had breathèd purest air ;
And must she needs be false, because she's fair?
...
Whatever is a cruel wrong,
Whatever is unjust,
The honest years that speed along
Will trample in the dust.
...
For Margot
Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings
...
DEDICATION
Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
...
O How may I ever express that secret word?
O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?
If I say that He is within me, the universe i...
...
O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
...
I was shocked and almost remained frozen
When saw reflection in mirror with faces in dozens
All bore deserted look remained barren
It frightened me as if I had descended from foreign
...
Out of childhood into manhood
Now had grown my Hiawatha,
Skilled in all the craft of hunters,
...
The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
...
ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.
SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.
...
Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:
...
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
...
'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul's as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
...
How careful was I, when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unusèd stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
...
Some are 'sorry' creatures.
They use that word so well;
I bet you've heard it often,
On this they dare not dwell.
...
The murmurs ebb; onto the stage I enter.
I am trying, standing in the door,
To discover in the distant echoes
...
BOOK I
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
...
Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide,
Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side --
Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,
...
I heard a padshah giving orders to kill a prisoner. The helpless
fellow began to insult the king on that occasion of despair, with
the tongue he had, and to use foul expressions according to the
saying:
...
I
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it--'twas no matter what he sald:
They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,
...
I know the face of Falsehood and her Tongue
Honeyed with unction, Plausible with guile,
Are dear to men, whom count me not among,
That owe their daily credit to her smile;
...
See you the towers, that, gray and old,
Frown through the sunlight's liquid gold,
Steep sternly fronting steep?
The Hellespont beneath them swells,
...
Said a Sov'reign to a Note,
In the pocket of my coat,
Where they met in a neat purse of leather,
"How happens it, I prithee,
...
What phantom is this that appears
Through the purple mist of the years,
Itself but a mist like these?
A woman of cloud and of fire;
...
The twentieth century has often fooled us.
We've been squeezed in by falsehood as by taxes.
The breath of life has denuded our ideas
as quickly as it strips a dandelion.
...
Away with your fictions of flimsy romance;
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.
...
CANTO 1
ARGUMENT
Angelica, whom pressing danger frights,
...
When the robust and Brass-bound Man commissioned first for sea
His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and "Mariner," said he,
"Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
...
'Hark! Lakshman! Hark, again that cry!
It is, - it is my husband's voice!
Oh hasten, to his succour fly,
...
London, hast thou accused me
Of breach of laws, the root of strife?
Within whose breast did boil to see,
So fervent hot, thy dissolute life,
...
Father
Have you spent the money I gave you to-day?
John
Ay, father I have.
...
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
...
Through Erin's Isle
To sport awhile
As Love and Valour wander'd,
With Wit, the sprite,
...
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT:
Palace-roof of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
...
'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'
Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and we
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices,
...
When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,
And life can shew no joy for me;
And I behold a yawning tomb,
Where bowers and palaces should be;
...
Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexpress'd,
And from its wages only to be guess'd
...
‘Bunko game’ makes love with ‘confidence trick’
Same they are, but do not know each other
By love do the job fast
As did it ‘back to back’ and ‘end to end’.
...
Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strain
Ere PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wall
I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,
When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,
...
So spake the Son of God; and Satan stood
A while as mute, confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;
...
They say, the human body is born soft and elastic;
and plants and trees are pliant and limber,
but after death, both becomes inflexible and rigid and
I have seen many people with rigid mind and inflexible attitude,
...
I am afraid of Failures………
I am afraid of Destiny……..
I am afraid of Death………
I am afraid of loosing you my love.
...
CXXVII
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
...
This entire creation is wonderful,
This is Beyond our perception
To evaluate every tiny particle,
His infinite creation is his kingdom
...
Any good step taken for development
This is first objected by few
Who are jealous and violent,
They stand against us to destroy,
...
The evening passes fast away,
'Tis almost time to rest;
What thoughts has left the vanished day,
What feelings, in thy breast?
...
Statue allégorique dans le goût de la Renaissance
Contemplons ce trésor de grâces florentines;
Dans l'ondulation de ce corps musculeux
...
THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QUEENE
Contayning
THE LEGENDE OF BRITOMARTIS
OR OF CHASTITIECANTO VI
...
Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
...
'How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
...
If from great nature's or our own abyss
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss--
But then 'twould spoil much good philosophy.
...
'Fairy!' the Spirit said,
And on the Queen of Spells
Fixed her ethereal eyes,
...
[A Report, though false, at that time generally believed.]
Fallen are thy towers, Byzantium! towers that stood
...
A Document of Unrest Time
************
The world is getting isolated,
Day by day and with quick change of face,
...
Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne'er forget;
And though we ne'er may meet again,
Remembrance will thy form retain.
...
No one claims to be great in front of him,
No one can write like him frequently,
He writes this creation as a lovely poem,
God's poem is greatest wonder we feel,
...
'The mist is resting on the hill;
The smoke is hanging in the air;
The very clouds are standing still:
A breathless calm broods everywhere.
...
I.
It matters not what place he drew
At first life's mortal breath,
...
Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
...
'O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!
To which those restless souls that ceaselessly
Throng through the human universe, aspire!
...
London, hast thou accused me
Of breach of laws, the root of strife?
Within whose breast did boil to see,
So fervent hot, thy dissolute life,
...
UP, laggards of Freedom! — our free flag is cast
To the blaze of the sun and the wings of the blast;
...
Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
...
I.
Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
...
|
Fake, fraud, hypocrisy, corruptions, falsehood
Are quite opposite to the truth
...
XXIV
The ship, call'd the most holy "Trinidada,"
...
They tell me, shaking their heads:
'You should be kinder... You are somehow-furious.'
I used to be kind. It didn’t last long.
Life was breaking me hitting me in the teeth.
...
Behold, even I, even I am Beatrice.
(Div. Com. Purg. xxx.)
OF Florence and of Beatrice
Servant and singer from of old,
...
The heart that once was rich with light,
And happy in your grace,
Now lieth cold beneath the scorn
That gathers on your face;
...
AND has my darling told a lie?
Did she forget that GOD was by?
That GOD, who saw the things she did,
From whom no action can be hid;
...
(THE GRAVEYARD OF SPOON RIVER. TWO VOICES ARE HEARD BEHIND A SCREEN DECORATED WITH DIABOLICAL AND ANGELIC FIGURES IN VARIOUS ALLEGORICAL RELATIONS. A FAINT LIGHT SHOWS DIMLY THROUGH THE SCREEN AS IF IT WERE WOVEN OF LEAVES, BRANCHES AND SHADOWS.)
FIRST VOICE
...
In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.
...
Fears are dying out in Russia
like the ghosts of bygone years,
and only like old women, here and there,
they still beg for alms on the steps of a church.
...
Poetry
(Song of Being)
Poetry is munching and chewing
...
Hark! Spring is coming. Her herald sings,
Cuckoo!
The air resounds and the woodland rings,
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
...
If you do not differentiate
Falsehood and truth in life,
You easily fall in trap
And illusion affects mind,
...
When first I met thee, warm and young,
There shone such truth about thee,
And on thy lip such promise hung,
I did not dare to doubt thee.
...
Thus did he speak, and they all held their peace throughout the
covered cloister, enthralled by the charm of his story, till presently
Alcinous began to speak.
"Ulysses," said he, "now that you have reached my house I doubt
...
I.
In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool,
There stood, or hover'd, tremulous in the air,
A faery city 'neath the potent rule
...