But my face in the glass I'll serenely survey,
And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow; As this old worn-out stuff, which is threadbare to-day, May become everlasting to-morrow.
IFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met
I own to me 's a secret yet.
Life! we've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear
Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;
-Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not Good Night, but in some brighter clime
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S
UCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
-Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez-when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
ODE ON THE POETS
ARDS of Passion and of Mirth Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wonderous
And the parle of voices thunderous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, trancéd thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.
Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame ;
What doth strengthen and what maim:-
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new!
LL thoughts, all passions, all delights, Although, as this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruin'd tower.
The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve !
She lean'd against the arméd man,
The statue of the arméd knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve !
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I play'd a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story —
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;
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