While thus to love he gave his days In loyal worship, scorning praise, How spread their lures for him in vain Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain! He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
GRACE, Beauty and Caprice Build this golden portal;
Graceful women, chosen men,
Dazzle every mortal.
Their sweet and lofty countenance
His enchanted food
He need not go to them, their forms Beset his solitude.
He looketh seldom in their face, His eyes explore the ground,- The green grass is a looking-glass Whereon their traits are found. Little and less he says to them, So dances his heart in his breast; Their tranquil mien bereaveth him Of wit, of words, of rest.
Too weak to win, too fond to shun The tyrants of his doom,
The much deceived Endymion Slips behind a tomb.
GIVE to barrows, trays and pans Grace and glimmer of romance; Bring the moonlight into noon Hid in gleaming piles of stone; On the city's paved street
Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet; Let spouting fountains cool the air, Singing in the sun-baked square; Let statue, picture, park and hall, Ballad, flag and festival,
The past restore, the day adorn, And make to-morrow a new morn. So shall the drudge in dusty frock Spy behind the city clock Retinues of airy kings,
Skirts of angels, starry wings, His fathers shining in bright fables, His children fed at heavenly tables. 'Tis the privilege of Art
Thus to play its cheerful part,
Man on earth to acclimate
And bend the exile to his fate,
And, moulded of one element
With the days and firmament,
Teach him on these as stairs to climb, And live on even terms with Time; Whilst upper life the slender rill Of human sense doth overfill.
THE living Heaven thy prayers respect, House at once and architect, Quarrying man's rejected hours, Builds therewith eternal towers; Sole and self-commanded works, Fears not undermining days, Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks In reaction and recoil,
Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil; Forging, through swart arms of Offence, The silver seat of Innocence.
SPACE is ample, east and west, But two cannot go abreast,
Cannot travel in it two:
Yonder masterful cuckoo
Crowds every egg out of the nest, Quick or dead, except its own; A spell is laid on sod and stone, Night and Day were tampered with, Every quality and pith
Surcharged and sultry with a power That works its will on age and hour.
THIS is he, who, felled by foes,
Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: He to captivity was sold,
But him no prison-bars would hold: Though they sealed him in a rock, Mountain chains he can unlock: Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet; Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, But arched o'er him an honoring vault. This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark ways, arriving late, But ever coming in time to crown
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. He is the oldest, and best known,
More near than aught thou call 'st thy own,
Yet, greeted in another's eyes,
Disconcerts with glad surprise.
This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers,
Floods with blessings unawares.
Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine.
HIGH was her heart, and yet was well inclined, Her manners made of bounty well refined;
Far capitals and marble courts, her eye still seemed to see,
Minstrels and kings and high-born dames, and of the best that be.
WILT thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill.
EVERY thought is public, Every nook is wide;
Thy gossips spread each whisper, And the gods from side to side.
HE who has no hands
Perforce must use his tongue;
Foxes are so cunning
Because they are not strong.
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