Poetry quotes

Alas, no common sepulchre art thou, No habitation for the nameless dead, Green turf above, and crumbling dust below, Perchance some mute memorial at their head, But one vast fane where all unconscious sleep Earth’s old heroic forms in peaceful slumbers deep.

Thy dead are kings, thy dust are palaces,

Relics of nations thy memorial-stones: And the dim glories of departed days Fold like a shroud around thy withered bones: And o’er thy towers the wind’s half-uttered sigh Whispers, in mournful tones, thy silent elegy.

Glooms that go deep as thine I have not known: Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth. Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own:

Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth.

What mood wears like complexion to thy woe?— His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day, Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below?— Ah! thine was not the shelter, but the fray.

Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give—

Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope, Foreseen thy harvest⁠—yet proceed’st to live.

O meek anticipant of that sure pain Whose sureness gray-hair’d scholars hardly learn! What wonder shall time breed, to swell thy strain? What heavens, what earth, what sun shalt thou discern?

We count the hours: these dreams of ours, False and hollow, Shall we go hence and find they are not dead? Joys we dimly apprehend, Faces that smil’d and fled, Hopes born here, and born to end, Shall we follow?

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.

In the day’s life, whose iron round Hems us all in, he is not bound. He leaves his kind, o’erleaps their pen, And flees the common life of men. He escapes thence, but we abide.

Not deep the Poet sees, but wide.

The World in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love: Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy:—and were the scope Of these affections wider made, Man still would see, and see dismay’d, Beyond his passion’s widest range, Far regions of eternal change.

Rather, that heart, which burns in thee, Ask, not to amuse, but to set free. Be passionate hopes not ill resign’d For quiet, and a fearless mind. And though Fate grudge to thee and me The Poet’s rapt security,

Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from Chance, have conquer’d Fate.

They, winning room to see and hear, And to men’s business not too near, Through clouds of individual strife Draw homewards to the general Life. Like leaves by suns not yet uncurl’d; To the wise, foolish; to the world, Weak:

But be his My special thanks, whose even-balanc’d soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor Passion wild:

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole:

The mellow glory of the Attic stage; Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.

Paint that lilac kerchief, bound Her soft face, her hair around:

Tied under the archest chin Mockery ever ambush’d in.

Let the fluttering fringes streak All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek. Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

But in the world I learnt, what there Thou too wilt surely one day prove,

That will, that energy, though rare, Are yet far, far less rare than love.

Go, then! till Time and Fate impress This truth on thee, be mine no more! They will: for thou, I feel, not less Than I, wast destin’d to this lore.

Yes: in the sea of life enisl’d, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

We mortal millions live alone.

The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know.

But each day brings its petty dust Our soon-chok’d souls to fill,

And we forget because we must, And not because we will.

I struggle towards the light; and ye, Once-long’d-for storms of love! If with the light ye cannot be, I bear that ye remove.

For he pursued a lonely road, His eyes on Nature’s plan;

Neither made man too much a God, Nor God too much a man.

Strong was he, with a spirit free From mists, and sane, and clear; Clearer, how much! than ours: yet we Have a worse course to steer.

But we, brought forth and rear’d in hours Of change, alarm, surprise—

What shelter to grow ripe is ours? What leisure to grow wise?

Like children bathing on the shore, Buried a wave beneath, The second wave succeeds, before We have had time to breathe.

Like children bathing on the shore, Buried a wave beneath, The second wave succeeds, before We have had time to breathe.

Too fast we live, too much are tried,

Too harass’d, to attain Wordsworth’s sweet calm, or Goethe’s wide And luminous view to gain.

He who hath watch’d, not shar’d, the strife, Knows how the day hath gone;

He only lives with the world’s life Who hath renounc’d his own.

To thee we come, then. Clouds are roll’d Where thou, O Seer, art set; Thy realm of thought is drear and cold— The world is colder yet!

Aye, we would each fain drive At random, and not steer by rule! Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow’d in vain! Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive, We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;

Man cannot, though he would, live chance’s fool.

No! as the foaming swathe Of torn-up water, on the main, Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar On either side the black deep-furrow’d path Cut by an onward-labouring vessel’s prore, And never touches the ship-side again;

O air-born Voice! long since, severely clear, A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear. “

Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he Who finds himself, loses his misery.

”

for then I shall begin to find A thousand virtues in this hated time. Then I shall wish its agitations back, And all its thwarting currents of desire; Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack, And call this hurrying fever, generous fire,

And sigh that one thing only has been lent To youth and age in common⁠—discontent.

So far as I conceive the World’s rebuke To him address’d who would recast her new, Not from herself her fame of strength she took, But from their weakness, who would work her rue.

These hundred doctors try To preach thee to their school. We have the truth! they cry. And yet their oracle, Trumpet it as they will, is but the same as thine. Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears!

Man gets no other light, Search he a thousand years.

Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine! What makes thee struggle and rave? Why are men ill at ease?— ’Tis that the lot they have Fails their own will to please; For man would make no murmuring, were his will obey’d.

Born into life—in vain, Opinions, those or these, Unalter’d to retain The obstinate mind decrees; Experience, like a sea, soaks all-effacing in. Born into life—who lists May what is false hold dear, And for himself make mists Through which to see less clear;

The world is what it is, for all our dust and din.

Born into life—’tis we, And not the world, are new. Our cry for bliss, our plea, Others have urged it too; Our wants have all been felt, our errors made before.

Riches we wish to get, Yet remain spendthrifts still; We would have health, and yet Still use our bodies ill; Bafflers of our own prayers, from youth to life’s last scenes.

We would have inward peace, Yet will not look within;

We would have misery cease, Yet will not cease from sin; We want all pleasant ends, but will use no harsh means; We do not what we ought, What we ought not, we do, And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through;

Shall we, with temper spoil’d, Health sapp’d by living ill, And judgment all embroil’d By sadness and self-will, Shall we judge what for man is not true bliss or is? Is it so small a thing

To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done;

To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes; That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And, while we dream on this, Lose all our present state, And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?

With men thou canst not live, Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine; And being lonely thou art miserable, For something has impair’d thy spirit’s strength, And dried its self-sufficing fount of joy.

Thou canst not live with men nor with thyself⁠—

O sage! O sage!—Take then the one way left; And turn thee to the elements, thy friends, Thy well-tried friends, thy willing ministers, And say:—Ye servants, hear Empedocles, Who asks this final service at your hands!

Oh, that my soul were full of light as the stars! Oh, that it brooded over the world like the air! But no, this heart will glow no more! thou art A living man no more, Empedocles!

Nothing but a devouring flame of thought⁠— But a naked, eternally restless mind!

To the elements it came from Everything will return. Our bodies to earth, Our blood to water, Heat to fire, Breath to air. They were well born, they will be well entomb’d! But mind?

It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep. It hears a voice within it tell— “

Calm’s not life’s crown, though calm is well.

” ’Tis all perhaps which man acquires: But ’tis not what our youth desires.

She moves slow: her voice alone Hath yet an infantine and silver tone, But even that comes languidly: in truth,

She seems one dying in a mask of youth.

And now she will go home, and softly lay Her laughing children in their beds, and play Awhile with them before they sleep;

He too upon a wintry clime Had fallen—on this iron time Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. He found us when the age had bound Our souls in its benumbing round; He spoke, and loos’d our heart in tears.

He laid us as we lay at birth On the cool flowery lap of earth;

Smiles broke from us and we had ease. The hills were round us, and the breeze Went o’er the sun-lit fields again: Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. Our youth return’d:

But where will Europe’s latter hour Again find Wordsworth’s healing power? Others will teach us how to dare, And against fear our breast to steel:

Others will strengthen us to bear⁠— But who, ah who, will make us feel?

The cloud of mortal destiny, Others will front it fearlessly— But who, like him, will put it by?

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me, Scanning my face and the changes wrought there— Who, let me say, is this Stranger regards me, With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?

Vain is the effort to forget.

Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moonlit snow Of the high Alps, to which I go: But ah, not yet! not yet!

Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full,

and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d; But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

I saw him sensitive in frame, I knew his spirits low; And wish’d him health, success, and fame: I do not wish it now.

The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel with others give!

Calm, calm me more! nor let me die Before I have begun to live.

We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight will’d Can be through hours of gloom fulfill’d.

“Bright, else, and fast the stream of life may roll, And no man may the other’s hurt behold;

Yet each will have one anguish⁠—his own soul Which perishes of cold.

”

“Children of men! not that your age excel In pride of life the ages of your sires, But that you think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well, The Friend of man desires.”

A wanderer is man from his birth.

He was born in a ship On the breast of the River of Time; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

That the din will be more on its banks, Denser the trade on its stream, Flatter the plain where it flows, Fiercer the sun overhead. That never will those on its breast See an ennobling sight, Drink of the feeling of quiet again.

But what was before us we know not, And we know not what shall succeed.

Haply, the River of Time, As it grows, as the towns on its marge Fling their wavering lights On a wider statelier stream— May acquire, if not the calm Of its early mountainous shore, Yet a solemn peace of its own.

And sterner comes the roar Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone? Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! Clearness divine! Ye Heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and though so great, Are yet untroubled and unpassionate:

But I will rather say that you remain A world above man’s head, to let him see How boundless might his soul’s horizons be, How vast, yet of what clear transparency. How it were good to abide there, and breathe free.

How fair a lot to fill Is left to each man still.

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet. I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll. Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile;

I knew they liv’d and mov’d Trick’d in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet

The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love—doth a like spell benumb Our hearts—our voices?—must we too be dumb?

And that we should not see The buried stream, and seem to be Eddying about in blind uncertainty, Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life,

A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart that beats So wild, so deep in us, to know Whence our thoughts come and where they go.

And we have been on many thousand lines, And we have shown on each talent and power, But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;

Hardly had skill to utter one of all The nameless feelings that course through our breast, But they course on for ever unexpress’d.

And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well—but ’tis not true:

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

A man becomes aware of his life’s flow, And hears its winding murmur, and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race Wherein he doth for ever chase That flying and elusive shadow, Rest. An air of coolness plays upon his face, And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.

In summer, on the headlands, The Baltic Sea along, Sits Neckan with his harp of gold, And sings this plaintive song.

What poets feel not, when they make, A pleasure in creating, The world, in its turn, will not take Pleasure in contemplating.

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused With rain, where thick the crocus blows, Past the dark forges long disused, The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. The bridge is cross’d, and slow we ride, Through forest, up the mountain-side.

Not as their friend or child I speak! But as on some far northern strand, Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek In pity and mournful awe might stand Before some fallen Runic stone— For both were faiths, and both are gone.

Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.

Their faith, my tears, the world deride; I come to shed them at their side.

For the world cries your faith is now But a dead time’s exploded dream; My melancholy, sciolists say, Is a pass’d mode, an outworn theme—

As if the world had ever had A faith, or sciolists been sad.

Ah, if it be pass’d, take away, At least, the restlessness—the pain! Be man henceforth no more a prey To these out-dated stings again! The nobleness of grief is gone— Ah, leave us not the fret alone!

Ah, if it be pass’d, take away, At least, the restlessness—the pain! Be man henceforth no more a prey To these out-dated stings again!

The nobleness of grief is gone⁠— Ah, leave us not the fret alone!

But, if you cannot give us ease, Last of the race of them who grieve Here leave us to die out with these Last of the people who believe! Silent, while years engrave the brow; Silent—the best are silent now.

But, if you cannot give us ease, Last of the race of them who grieve Here leave us to die out with these Last of the people who believe! Silent, while years engrave the brow;

Silent⁠—the best are silent now.

Achilles ponders in his tent, The kings of modern thought are dumb; Silent they are, though not content, And wait to see the future come. They have the grief men had of yore, But they contend and cry no more.

For what avail’d it, all the noise And outcry of the former men? Say, have their sons obtain’d more joys, Say, is life lighter now than then?

The sufferers died, they left their pain; The pangs which tortured them remain.

What helps it now, that Byron bore, With haughty scorn which mock’d the smart, Through Europe to the Aetolian shore The pageant of his bleeding heart? That thousands counted every groan, And Europe made his woe her own?

Ye slumber in your silent grave! The world, which for an idle day Grace to your mood of sadness gave, Long since hath flung her weeds away.

The eternal trifler breaks your spell; But we⁠—we learnt your lore too well!

There may, perhaps, yet dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity. Sons of the world, oh, speed those years; But, till they rise, allow our tears!

“Fenced early in this cloistral round Of reverie, of shade, of prayer, How should we grow in other ground? How can we flower in foreign air?

Pass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease! And leave our desert to its peace!

”

Take heed lest men should say, Like some old miser, Rostam hoards his fame, And shuns to peril it with younger men.” And, greatly mov’d, then Rostam made reply:— “O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? Thou knowest better words than this to say.

What is one more, one less, obscure or fam’d, Valiant or craven, young or old, to me?

Are not they mortal, am not I myself? But who for men of naught would do great deeds? Come, thou shalt see how Rostam hoards his fame. But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms;

And a deep pity enter’d Rostam’s soul As he beheld him coming; and he stood, And beckon’d to him with his hand, and said:— “

O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft, And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold.

Heaven’s air is better than the cold dead grave. Behold me: I am vast, and clad in iron, And tried; and I have stood on many a field Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe:

He spoke: and Sohrab answer’d, on his feet:— “Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so.

I am no girl, to be made pale by words.

Yet this thou hast said well, did Rostam stand Here on this field, there were no fighting then. But Rostam is far hence, and we stand here. Begin:

Begin: thou art more vast, more dread than I, And thou art prov’d, I know, and I am young— But yet Success sways with the breath of Heaven. And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know.

For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, Pois’d on the top of a huge wave of Fate, Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall.

And whether it will heave us up to land, Or whether it will roll us out to sea, Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, We know not, and no search will make us know:

But first he would convince his stubborn foe— And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:— “Man, who art thou who dost deny my words?

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And Falsehood, while I liv’d, was far from mine.

I tell thee, prick’d upon this arm I bear That seal which Rostam to my mother gave, That she might prick it on the babe she bore.” He spoke: and all the blood left Rostam’s cheeks;

Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt Roll tumbling in the current o’er my head!” And, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:— “Desire not that, my father; thou must live.

For some are born to do great deeds, and live, As some are born to be obscur’d, and die.

Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, And reap a second glory in thine age. Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. But come: thou seest this great host of men Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these:

And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; And say—O son, I weep thee not too sore, For willingly, I know, thou met’st thine end.— But now in blood and battles was my youth, And full of blood and battles is my age;

And I shall never end this life of blood.

” Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:— “A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful Man! But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now: Not yet:

O Life unlike to ours! Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, And each half lives a hundred different lives;

Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.

Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven: and we, Vague half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose weak resolves never have been fulfill’d;

and we, Vague half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose weak resolves never have been fulfill’d; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;

Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day⁠—

Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?

This for our wisest: and we others pine, And wish the long unhappy dream would end, And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear;

With close-lipp’d Patience for our only friend, Sad Patience, too near neighbour to Despair:

But none has hope like thine. Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, Roaming the country side, a truant boy, Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, And every doubt long blown by time away.

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;

Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims,

Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife— Fly hence, our contact fear! Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend’s approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.

Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend’s approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.

Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade,

With a free onward impulse brushing through, By night, the silver’d branches of the glade— Far on the forest skirts, where none pursue, On some mild pastoral slope Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales, Freshen thy flowers, as in former years, With dew, or …

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew. In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too.

Her mirth the world required: She bath’d it in smiles of glee.

But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be.

“

Enough of tears, ye Gods, enough of wail! Not to lament in was Valhalla made.

If any here might weep for Balder’s death I most might weep, his Father; such a son I lose to-day, so bright, so lov’d a God.

“

Hermod the nimble, gild me not my death. Better to live a slave, a captur’d man, Who scatters rushes in a master’s hall, Than be a crown’d king here, and rule the dead.

And now I count not of these terms as safe To be fulfill’d, nor my return as sure, Though I be lov’d, and many mourn my death: For double-minded ever was the seed Of Lok, and double are the gifts they give.

And now I count not of these terms as safe To be fulfill’d, nor my return as sure, Though I be lov’d, and many mourn my death:

For double-minded ever was the seed Of Lok, and double are the gifts they give.

Howbeit, report thy message; and therewith, To Odin, to my Father, take this ring, Memorial of me, whether sav’d or no; And tell the Heaven-born Gods how thou hast seen Me sitting here below by Hela’s side, Crown’d, having honour among all the dead.”

“Thou doest well to chide me, Hoder blind. Truly thou say’st, the planning guilty mind Was Lok’s; the unwitting hand alone was thine.

But Gods are like the sons of men in this⁠— When they have woe, they blame the nearest cause.

Howbeit stay, and be appeas’d; and tell— Sits Balder still in pomp by Hela’s side, Or is he mingled with the unnumber’d dead?”

But, when immature death Beckons too early the guest From the half-tried banquet of life, Young, in the bloom of his days; Leaves no leisure to press, Slow and surely, the sweets Of a tranquil life in the shade;

Fuller for him be the hours! Give him emotion, though pain! Let him live, let him feel: I have lived!

Heap up his moments with life! Triple his pulses with fame!

chance finds no better way. Go thou into the city, and seek out Whate’er in the Messenian people stirs Of faithful fondness for their former king Or hatred to their present; in this last Will lie, my grandsire said, our fairest chance.

For tyrants make man good beyond himself;

Hate to their rule, which else would die away, Their daily-practis’d chafings keep alive. Seek this; revive, unite it, give it hope; Bid it rise boldly at the signal given.

So would have built you, in a few short years, A just, therefore a safe, supremacy. For well he knew, what you, his chiefs, did not—

How of all human rules the over-tense Are apt to snap; the easy-stretch’d endure.

— O gentle wisdom, little understood! O arts above the vulgar tyrant’s reach! O policy too subtle far for sense Of heady, masterful, injurious men! This good he meant you, and for this he died.

One son at least I spar’d, for still he lives.

Tyrants think him they murder not they spare.

Not much a tyrant thy free speech displays me.

Thy shame secures my freedom, not thy will.

Shame rarely checks the genuine tyrant’s will.

One merit, then, thou hast: exult in that.

Beware! from thee upbraidings I receive With pity, nay, with reverence; yet, beware! I know, I know how hard it is to think That right, that conscience pointed to a deed, Where interest seems to have enjoin’d it too.

Most men are led by interest; and the few Who are not, expiate the general sin,

Involv’d in one suspicion with the base. Dizzy the path and perilous the way Which in a deed like mine a just man treads, But it is sometimes trodden, oh! believe it. Yet how canst thou believe it? therefore thou Hast all impunity.

yet will that more solace bring To the chaf’d heart of Justice than to mine.— To hear another tumult in these streets, To have another murder in these halls, To see another mighty victim bleed— There is small comfort for a woman here.

A woman, O my friends, has one desire⁠— To see secure, to live with, those she loves.

Can Vengeance give me back the murdered? no! Can it bring home my child?

Air to his unwing’d form denies a way, And keeps its liquid solitudes unscal’d. Even Earth, whereon he treads, So feeble is his march, so slow, Holds countless tracts untrod. Antistrophe 1

But more than all unplumb’d, Unscaled, untrodden, is the heart of Man.

More than all secrets hid, the way it keeps. Nor any of our organs so obtuse, Inaccurate, and frail, As those with which we try to test Feelings and motives there.

Advising us a course which would, indeed, If follow’d, make their succour slack and null. A people is no army, train’d to fight, A passive engine, at their general’s will; And, if so us’d, proves, as thou say’st, unsure.

A people, like a common man, is dull, Is lifeless, while its heart remains untouch’d; A fool can drive it, and a fly may scare:

When it admires and loves, its heart awakes; Then irresistibly it lives, it works: A people, then, is an ally indeed; It is ten thousand fiery wills in one.

A fool can drive it, and a fly may scare: When it admires and loves, its heart awakes; Then irresistibly it lives, it works: A people, then, is an ally indeed;

It is ten thousand fiery wills in one.

Now I, if I invite them to run risk Of life for my advantage, and myself, Who chiefly profit, run no more than they— How shall I rouse their love, their ardour so?

Prudence is on the other side; but deeds Condemn’d by prudence have sometimes gone well.

Not till the ways of prudence all are tried, And tried in vain, the turn of rashness comes.

Thou leapest to thy deed, and hast not ask’d Thy kinsfolk and thy father’s friends for aid.

He had a hest, at least, and thou hast none.

The Gods command not where the heart speaks clear.

Thou wilt destroy, I see, thyself and us.

But in the pastoral Arcadia rear’d, With Cypselus our father, where we saw The simple patriarchal state of kings, Where sire to son transmits the unquestion’d crown, Unhack’d, unsmirch’d, unbloodied, and have learnt

That spotless hands unshaken sceptres hold.

Having learnt this, then, use thy knowledge now.

My final victory proves the Gods appeas’d.

O victor, victor, trip not at the goal!

Hatred and passionate Envy blind thine eyes.

What I have done is done; by my own deed, Neither exulting nor asham’d, I stand. Why should this heart of mine set mighty store By the construction and report of men?

Not men’s good-word hath made me what I am.

Alone I master’d power; and alone, Since so thou wilt, I dare maintain it still. Polyphontes goes out.

But that we know how every perilous feat Of daring, easy as it seems when done,

Is easy at no moment but the right.

Thou speakest well; but here, to give our eyes Authentic proof of what thou tell’st our ears, The conquerors, with the King’s dead body, come. Aepytus, Laias, and Arcas come in with the dead body of Polyphontes, followed by a crowd of the Messenians.

I know not; just, in either case, the stroke Which laid thee low, for blood requires blood: But yet, not knowing this, I triumph not Over thy corpse, triumph not, neither mourn;

For I find worth in thee, and badness too.

What mood of spirit, therefore, shall we call The true one of a man—what way of life His fix’d condition and perpetual walk? None, since a twofold colour reigns in all.

For I find worth in thee, and badness too. What mood of spirit, therefore, shall we call The true one of a man—what way of life His fix’d condition and perpetual walk?

None, since a twofold colour reigns in all.

But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth: That Justice, that sage Order, not alone Natural Vengeance, may maintain thine act, And make it stand indeed the will of Heaven.

“Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I Did that chance act of good, that one! Then went my way to kill and lie—

Forgot my good as soon as done.

“That germ of kindness, in the womb Of mercy caught, did not expire; Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom, And friends me in the pit of fire.

Love is the fountain of charm. How without charm wilt thou draw, Poet! the world to thy way? Not by the lightnings of wit! Not by the thunder of scorn! These to the world, too, are given; Wit it possesses, and scorn—

Charm is the poet’s alone.

Hollow and dull are the great, And artists envious, and the mob profane. We know all this, we know! Cam’st thou from heaven, O child Of light! but this to declare? Alas!

Charm is the glory which makes Song of the poet divine;

Love is the fountain of charm.

How without charm wilt thou draw, Poet! the world to thy way? Not by the lightnings of wit! Not by the thunder of scorn! These to the world, too, are given; Wit it possesses, and scorn— Charm is the poet’s alone.

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, I’ll stop, and say: “There were no succour here!

The aids to noble life are all within.

”

Had been; but at the end, to her pure soul All tie with all beside seem’d vain and cheap, And union before God the only care.

Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole;

Yet we her memory, as she pray’d, will keep, Keep by this: Life in God, and union there!

It stood; and sun and moonshine rain’d their light On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward roll’d the waves of fight Round Troy; but while this stood, Troy could not fall.

So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.

Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll; We visit it by moments, ah! too rare!

Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, And fluctuate ’twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, And fancy that we put forth all our life,

And never know how with the soul it fares.

Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, Upon our life a ruling effluence send; And when it fails, fight as we will, we die, And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.

Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, Upon our life a ruling effluence send; And when it fails, fight as we will, we die,

And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla’s name, And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks;

Once pass’d I blindfold here, at any hour, Now seldom come I, since I came with him. That single elm-tree bright Against the west—I miss it! is it gone? We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, Our friend, the Scholar-Gipsy, was not dead;

While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; And with the country-folk acquaintance made By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay’d. Ah me!

… longest day— When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor, With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May, And chestnut-flowers are strewn— So have I heard the cuckoo’s parting cry, From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:

The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, And stocks in fragrant blow;

The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?

Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, And stocks in fragrant blow;

But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see! See him come back, and cut a smoother reed, And blow a strain the world at last shall heed—

For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer’d thee.

Alack, for Corydon no rival now!— But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, Some good survivor with his flute would go, Piping a ditty sad for Bion’s fate;

’Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis, in reach of sheep-bells is my home! Then through the great town’s harsh, heart-wearying roar, Let in thy voice a whisper often come, To chase fatigue and fear:

Why faintest thou? I wander’d till I died.

Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. Dost thou ask proof? Our Tree yet crowns the hill, Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

’Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis, in reach of sheep-bells is my home! Then through the great town’s harsh, heart-wearying roar, Let in thy voice a whisper often come, To chase fatigue and fear: Why faintest thou? I wander’d till I died.

Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.

Dost thou ask proof? Our Tree yet crowns the hill, Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

“From David’s lips this word did roll, ’Tis true and living yet:

No man can save his brother’s soul,

Nor pay his brother’s debt.

“

Poor fragments of a broken world

Whereon we pitch our tent! Why were ye too to death not hurl’d When your world’s day was spent?

“The day I lived in was not mine—

Man gets no second day.

In dreams I saw the future shine, But ah, I could not stay!

The world but feels the present’s spell, The poet feels the past as well; Whatever men have done, might do, Whatever thought, might think it too.

What is it to grow old?

Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not this alone.

It is to spend long days

And not once feel that we were ever young.

It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.

Ask not my name, O friend! That Being only, which hath known each man From the beginning, can Remember each unto the end.

Creep into thy narrow bed,

Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast; Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!

Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still!

Thy memory lasts both here and there, And thou shall live as long as we. And after that—thou dost not care!

In us was all the world to thee.

Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, Even to a date beyond our own We strive to carry down thy name, By mounded turf, and graven stone.