A Broken Appointment

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
--I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,

Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came

The Stars Are Mansions Built by Nature's Hand

The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand,
And, haply, there the spirits of the blest
Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest;
Huge Ocean shows, within his yellow strand,
A habitation marvellously planned,
For life to occupy in love and rest;
All that we see—is dome, or vault, or nest,
Or fortress, reared at Nature's sage command.
Glad thought for every season! but the Spring
Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart,
'Mid song of birds, and insects murmuring;
And while the youthful year's prolific art—


Anacreon

Reynolds, come, thy pencil prove,
Reynolds, come and paint my love,
Shadowed here her picture see
Shadowed by the muse and me.
The muse who knows 'twere rash to dare
From life to paint a form so fair,
For sure so many charms combine
Half Apelles' fate were thine.
Waving in the wanton air
Black and shining paint her hair;
Could with Life the canvas bloom
Thou mightst bid it breathe perfume.
Let her forehead smooth and clear
Through her shading locks appear,
As at eve the shepherd sees

The Foregoing Subject Resumed

Among a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's skill,
Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong
And dissolution and decay, the warm
And breathing life of flesh, as if already
Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced
With no mean earnest of a heritage
Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too,
With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture!
From whose serene companionship I passed

Malham Cove

Was the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground,
Tier under tier, this semicirque profound?
(Giants—the same who built in Erin's isle
That Causeway with incomparable toil!)—
O, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,
Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid
In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of IS and WAS ,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed

Incipient Madness

I crossed the dreary moor
In the clear moonlight: when I reached the hut
I entered in, but all was still and dark,
Only within the ruin I beheld
At a small distance, on the dusky ground
A broken pane which glittered in the moon
And seemed akin to life. There is a mood
A settled temper of the heart, when grief,
Become an instinct, fastening on all things
That promise food, doth like a sucking babe
Create it where it is not. From this time
That speck of glass was dearer to my soul
Than was the moon in heaven. Another time

Extract from a Prologue

Yet , even here, tho' Fiction rules the hour,
There shine some genuine smiles, beyond her power;
And there are tears, too—tears that Memory sheds
Even o'er the feast that mimic fancy spreads.
When her heart misses one lamented guest,
Whose eye so long threw light o'er all the rest!
There, there, indeed, the Muse forgets her task,
And drooping weeps behind Thalia's mask.

Forgive this gloom—forgive this joyless strain,
Too sad to welcome pleasure's smiling train.
But, meeting thus, our hearts will part the lighter,

To Music, to Becalm a Sweet-sick Youth

Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,
On this sick youth work your enchantments here:
Bind up his senses with your numbers, so,
As to entrance his paine, or cure his woe.
Fall gently, gently, and a while him keep
Lost in the civill Wildernesse of sleep:
That done, then let him, dispossest of paine,
Like to a slumbring Bride, awake againe.

To God, His Good Will

Gold I have none, but I present my need,
O Thou, that crown'st the will, where wants the deed.
Where Rams are wanting, or large Bullocks thighs,
There a poor Lamb's a plenteous sacrifice.
Take then his Vowes, who, if he had it, would
Devote to Thee, both incense, myrrhe, and gold,
Upon an Altar rear'd by Him, and crown'd
Both with the Rubie, Pearle, and Diamond.

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