Poetry

"Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace."

"Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in!"

"Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws."

"Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind."

"Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true."

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die."

"He seems so near, and yet so far."

"Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds."

"He brought an eye for all he saw; He mixt in all our simple sports; They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts And dusty purlieus of the law."

"My blood an even tenor kept, Till on mine ear this message falls, That in Vienna's fatal walls God's finger touch'd him, and he slept."

"I wage not any feud with Death For changes wrought on form and face; No lower life that earth’s embrace May breed with him, can fright my faith. Eternal process moving on, From state to state the spirit walks; And these are but the shatter’d stalks, Or ruin’d chrysalis of one."

"O last regret, regret can die! No — mixt with all this mystic frame, Her deep relations are the same, But with long use her tears are dry."

"What hope is here for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshorten’d in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden’s locks; Or when a thousand moons shall waneA man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long-forgotten mind.But what of that? My darken’d ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise."

"Thy leaf has perished in the green, And while we breathe beneath the sun, The world which credits what is done Is cold to all that might have been."

"So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true?"

"And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne."

"And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance."

"O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me No casual mistress, but a wife, My bosom-friend and half of life; As I confess it needs must be."

"'So careful of the type?' but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing: all shall go.' 'Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death; The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.' And he, shall he,Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law — Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed —Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal'd within the iron hills?No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him. O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil."

"Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro’ darkness up to God,I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope."

"Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last — far off — at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream; but what am I? An infant crying in the night; An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry."

"O, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain."

"Hold thou the good: define it well: For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of Hell."

"Do we indeed desire the dead Should still be near us at our side? Is there no baseness we would hide? No inner vileness that we dread?"

"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."

"Even to the delicacy of their hand There was resemblance, such as true blood wears."

"But after being fired at once or twice, The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice."

"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."

"And her face so fair Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air."

"'Whom the gods love die young,' was said of yore, And many deaths do they escape by this."

"Perhaps the early grave Which men weep over may be meant to save."

"The precious porcelain of human clay."

"Some have accused me of a strange design Against the creed and morals of the land, And trace it in this poem every line: I don't pretend that I quite understand My own meaning when I would be very fine; But the fact is that I have nothing planned, Unless it were to be a moment merry — A novel word in my vocabulary."

"Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx; A mortal mother would on Lethe fix."

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep."

"Now my sere Fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque."

"But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean, We ponder deeply on each past emotion."

"While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel."

"Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end."

"Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns."

"Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things— Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer; Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast."

"Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, In nameless print—that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion Of getting into heaven the shortest way; My altars are the mountains and the ocean, Earth, air, stars,—all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the soul."

"Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love!"

"We learn from Horace, "Homer sometimes sleeps;" We feel without him: Wordsworth sometimes wakes."

"A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the "Excursion", Writ in a manner which is my aversion."

"Milton's the prince of poets—so we say; A little heavy, but no less divine."

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."

"Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"

"You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave — Think ye he meant them for a slave?"

"Fill high the cup with Samian wine!"