With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; In one another's being mingle-- See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea, What are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me? MUTABILITY The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay, What is this world's delight? Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship, too rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call. Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, SONG Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a weary night and day How shall ever one like me Spirit false! thou hast forgot All but those who need thee not. As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf, Thou with sorrow art dismayed; Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee, that thou art not near, And reproach thou wilt not hear. Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure, Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure, Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. I love all that thou lovest, Spirit of Delight! The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, And the starry night; Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born. I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost: I love waves, and winds, and storms, Everything almost Which is Nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery. I love tranquil solitude, And such society As is quiet, wise and good; Between thee and me What difference? but thou dost possess I love Love-though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee Thou art love and life! O come, Make once more my heart thy home. GOOD-NIGHT. « Good-Night! » No, love! the night is ill Then it will be good night. How were the night without thee good, The hearts that on each other beat TIME Unfathomable Sea, whose waves are years! And, sick of prey yet howling on for more, Unfathomable Sea? PENSIERI E SENTENZE VARIE The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. The cultivation of poetry is never more to be desired than at periods when, from an excess of the selfish and calculating principle, the accumulation of the materials of external life exceed the quantity of the power of assimilating them to the internal laws of human nature. The body has then become too unwieldy for that which animates it. Materialism is a seducing system to young and superficial minds. It allows its disciples to talk, and dispenses them from thinking. * * Among true and real friends, all is common. The man who has fewest bodily wants approaches nearest to the Divine Nature. Superstition, of whatever kind, whether All of us who are worth anything, spend All religions are good which make men good; and the way that a person ought to prove that his method of worshipping God is best, is for himself to be better than all other men. Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. It is impossible to compose except under the strong excitement of an assurance of finding sympathy in what you write. Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song, Obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. Every heart contains perfection's germ. How vainly seek The selfish for that happiness denied To aught but virtue! |