English

The world is heated seven times,
The sky is close above the lawn,
An oven when the coals are drawn.

There is no stir of air at all,
Only at times an inward breeze
Turns back a pale leaf in the trees.

Here the syringa's rich perfume
Covers the tulip's red retreat,
A burning pool of scent and heat.

The pallid lightning wavers dim
Between the trees, then deep and dense
The darkness settles more intense.

A hawk lies panting in the grass,
Or plunges upward through the air,

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man--
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,

With half the Western world at stake,
See Perry on the midland lake,
The unequal combat dare;
Unawed by vastly stronger pow'rs,
He met the foe and made him ours,
And closed the savage war.

Macdonough, too, on Lake Champlain,
In ships outnumbered, guns, and men,
Saw dangers thick increase;
His trust in God and virtue's cause
He conquer'd in the lion's jaws,
And led the way to peace.

To sing each valiant hero's name
Whose deeds have swelled the files of fame,
Requires immortal powers;

Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world
Weeps without cause in the world
Weeps over me.

Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
Laughs without cause in the night
Laughs at me.

Whoever wanders somewhere in the world
Wanders in vain in the world
Wanders to me.

Whoever dies somewhere in the world
Dies without cause in the world

Who reach their threescore years and ten,
—As I have mine, without a sigh,
Are either more or less than men—
———Not such am I.

I am not of them; life to me
—Has been a strange, bewildering dream,
Wherein I knew not things that be
———From things that seem.

I thought, I hoped, I knew one thing,
—And had one gift, when I was young—
The impulse and the power to sing,
———And so I sung.

To have a place in the high choir
—Of poets, and deserve the same—
What more could mortal man desire

Who kill'd John Keats?
‘I,’ says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
‘'Twas one of my feats.’

Who shot the arrow?
‘The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man),
Or Southey, or Barrow.’

Who builds of stone a shrine to bear his name,
Shall be forgot when months and years have flown;
Who writes his name upon the scroll of fame,
The centuries shall find to men unknown;
But who for fellow men endured the shame
Shall have eternal glory for his own.

Who builds of stone a shrine to bear his name,
—Shall be forgot when months and years have flown;
Who writes his name upon the scroll of fame,
—The centuries shall find to men unknown;
But who for fellow men endured the shame
—Shall have eternal glory for his own.

While yet the grapes were green, thou didst refuse me,
When they were ripe, didst proudly pass me by;
But do not grudge me still a single cluster,
Now that the grapes are withering and dry.

When you go out at early morn,
Your busy hands, sweet drudge, are bare;
For you must work, and none are there
To see with scorn—to feel with scorn.

And when the weekly wars begin,
Your arms are naked to the hilt,
And many a sturdy pail's a-tilt
To sheathe them in—to plunge them in.

For you at least can understand
That daily work is hard and stern,
That those who toil for bread must learn
To bare the hand—to spoil the hand.

But in the evening, when they dine,
And you behind each frequent chair

When Delia on the plain appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears
I would approach, but dare not move:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

Whene'er she speaks, my ravished ear
No other voice than hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

If she some other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleased before—