The world's a room of sickness, where each heart
Knows its own anguish and unrest;
The truest wisdom there, and noblest art,
Is his, who skills of comfort best;
Whom by the softest step and gentlest tone
Enfeebled spirits own,
And love to raise the languid eye,
When, like an angel's wing, they feel him fleeting by:-

FEEL only--for in silence gently gliding
Fain would he shun both ear and sight,
'Twixt Prayer and watchful Love his heart dividing,
A nursing-father day and night.

There is much in life that makes me sorry as I journey
down life’s way.
And I seem to see more pathos in poor human
Lives each day.
I’m sorry for the strong brave men, who shield
the weak from harm,
But who, in their own troubled hours find no
Protecting arm.

I’m sorry for the victors who have reached
success, to stand
As targets for the arrows shot by envious failure’s
hand.
I’m sorry for the generous hearts who freely
shared their wine,
But drink alone the gall of tears in fortune’s

THAT time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold--
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang,
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after Sunset fadeth in the West,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

WHEN our two souls stand up erect and strong,
   Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
   Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curving point,--what bitter wrong
Can the earth do us, that we should not long
   Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
   The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
   Rather on earth, Beloved--where the unfit

'TIS NOT thy flowing hair of orient gold,
Nor those bright eyes, like sapphire gems that glow;
Nor cheek of blushing rose, nor breast of snow,
The varying passions of the heart could hold:

Those locks, too soon, shall own a silv'ry ray,
Those radiant orbs their magic fires forego;
Insatiate TIME shall steal those tints away,
Warp thy fine form, and bend thy beauties low:

But the rare wonders of thy polish'd MIND
Shall mock the empty menace of decay;
The GEM, that in thy SPOTLESS BREAST enshrin'd,

I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong,
When golden hairs shall change to silver wire,
And those bright rays that kindle all this fire
Shall fail in force, their working not so strong;
Then Beauty, now the burden of my song,
Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire,
Must yield up all to tyrant Time's desire;
Then fade those flowers which deckt her pride so long.
When, if she grieve to gaze her in her glass
Which then presents her winter-wither'd hue,
Go you, my verse, go tell her what she was,

Cupid Conjured

Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack
To wound her heart, whose eyes have wounded me,
And suffer'd her to glory in my wrack,
Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee:
By hellish Styx, by which the Thund'rer swears,
By thy fair mother's unavoided power,
By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears
When she was rapt to the infernal bower,
By thine own loved Psyche, by the fires
Spent on thine alters flaming up to heav'n,
By all true lovers' sighs, vows, and desires,

Raising my hopes on hills of high desire,
Thinking to scale the heaven of her heart,
My slender means presum'd too high a part;
Her thunder of disdain forc'd me retire,
And threw me down to pain in all this fire
Where, lo, I languish in so heavy smart,
Because th'attempt was far above my art;
Her pride brook'd not poor souls should come so nigh her.
Yet I protest my high aspiring will
Was not to dispossess her of her right;
Her sovereignty should have remained still;
I only sought the bliss to have her sight.

Charm'd by thy suffrage, shall I yet aspire
(All inauspicious as my fate appears,
By troubles darken'd, that encrease with years,)
To guide the crayon, or to touch the lyre?
Ah me!---the sister Muses still require
A spirit free from all intrusive fears,
Nor will they deign to wipe away the tears
Of vain regret, that dim their sacred fire.
But when thy envied sanction crowns my lays,
A ray of pleasure lights my languid mind,
For well I know the value of thy praise;
And to how few, the flattering meed confin'd,

Whether the Turkish new moon minded be
To fill his horns this year on Christian coast;
How Poles' right king means, with leave of host,
To warm with ill-made fire cold Muscovy;

If French can yet three parts in one agree;
What now the Dutch in their full diets boast;
How Holland hearts, now so good towns be lost,
Trust in the shade of pleasing Orange tree;

How Ulster likes of that same golden bit
Wherewith my father once made it half tame;
If in the Scotch court be no welt'ring yet: