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Aurora Leigh (excerpts)
[Book 1] I am like, They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth Of delicate features, -- paler, near as grave ; But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole, An
Proud Music of The Storm.
1 PROUD music of the storm! Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! You serenad
The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story
Hamelin town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its walls on either side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; But, when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred
Julian and Maddalo. a Conversation
PREFACE. The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme, The goats with the green leaves of budding Spring, Are saturated not--nor Love with tears.--VIRGIL'S "Gallus". I rode one evening with C
The Canterbury Tales. The Merchant's Tale.
THE PROLOGUE. "Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I have enough, on even and on morrow," Quoth the Merchant, "and so have other mo', That wedded be; I trow that it be so; For well I wot it f
Prince Athanase. a Fragment
PART 1. There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel, Had grown quite weak and gray before his time; Nor any could the restless griefs unravel Which burned within him, withering up his prime And
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us,--visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,-- Like moonbeams that behind
The Glove
"Heigho!" yawned one day King Francis, "Distance all value enhances. When a man's busy, why, leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: Faith, and at leisure once is he? Straightway he wants to be bus
The Canterbury Tales. The Manciple's Tale.
THE PROLOGUE. WEET ye not where there stands a little town, Which that y-called is Bob-up-and-down, Under the Blee, in Canterbury way? There gan our Hoste for to jape and play, And saide, "Sirs, what
92. Suppressed Stanzas of “The Vision”
WITH secret throes I marked that earth, That cottage, witness of my birth; And near I saw, bold issuing forth In youthful pride, A Lindsay race of noble worth, Fame
Paradise Lost: Book 04
O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud, Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, Came furious down to be revenged on men, Woe to the inhabitants on ear
An Essay on Man
EPISTLE I. OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE. AWAKE, my St John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply
To the Earl of Clare
Tu semper amoris Sis memor, et cari comitis ne abscedat imago. VAL. FLAC. 'Argonaut', iv. 36. Friend of my youth! when young we rov'd, Like striplings, mutually belov'd, With Friendship's pu
The Last Ride Together
I said--Then, dearest, since 'tis so, Since now at length my fate I know, Since nothing all my love avails, Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be
The Zucca
Summer was dead and Autumn was expiring, And infant Winter laughed upon the land All cloudlessly and cold;--when I, desiring More in this world than any understand, Wept o'er the beauty, which, like s
Darkness
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy Earth Swung blind and blackening i
How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through
Spontaneous Me.
SPONTANEOUS me, Nature, The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash, The
59. Death and Dr. Hornbook
SOME books are lies frae end to end, And some great lies were never penn’d: Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d, In holy rapture, A rousing whid at times to vend, And n
The Flight of the Duchess
You're my friend: I was the man the Duke spoke to; I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too; So here's the tale from beginning to end, My friend! Ours is a great wild country:
To a Knot of Ungenerous Critics
Rail on, Rail on, ye heartless crew! My strains were never meant for you; Remorseless Rancour still reveal, And damn the verse you cannot feel. Invoke those kindred passions' aid, Whose baleful stings
Oscar of Alva
How sweetly shines, through azure skies, The lamp of Heaven on Lora's shore; Where Alva's hoary turrets rise, And hear the din of arms no more! But often has yon rolling moon, On Alva's casques
The Raven
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one g
The Cry Of The Children
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleatin