The Danube to the Severn gaveThe darken’d heart that beat no more;They laid him by the pleasant shore,And in the hearing of the wave. There twice a day the Severn fills;The salt sea-water passes by,And hushes half the babbling Wye,And makes a silence in the hills. The Wye is hush’d nor moved along,And hush’d my […]

Tis well; ’tis something; we may standWhere he in English earth is laid,And from his ashes may be madeThe violet of his native land. ‘Tis little; but it looks in truthAs if the quiet bones were blestAmong familiar names to restAnd in the places of his youth. Come then, pure hands, and bear the headThat […]

Thou comest, much wept for: such a breezeCompell’d thy canvas, and my prayerWas as the whisper of an airTo breathe thee over lonely seas. For I in spirit saw thee moveThro’ circles of the bounding sky,Week after week: the days go by:Come quick, thou bringest all I love. Henceforth, wherever thou may’st roam,My blessing, like […]

  What words are these have fall’n from me?Can calm despair and wild unrestBe tenants of a single breast,Or sorrow such a changeling be? Or doth she only seem to takeThe touch of change in calm or storm;But knows no more of transient formIn her deep self, than some dead lake That holds the shadow […]

To-night the winds begin to riseAnd roar from yonder dropping day:The last red leaf is whirl’d away,The rooks are blown about the skies; The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d,The cattle huddled on the lea;And wildly dash’d on tower and treeThe sunbeam strikes along the world: And but for fancies, which averThat all thy motions gently […]

Lo, as a dove when up she springsTo bear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe,Some dolorous message knit belowThe wild pulsation of her wings; Like her I go; I cannot stay;I leave this mortal ark behind,A weight of nerves without a mind,And leave the cliffs, and haste away O’er ocean-mirrors rounded large,And reach the glow […]

If one should bring me this report,That thou hadst touch’d the land to-day,And I went down unto the quay,And found thee lying in the port; And standing, muffled round with woe,Should see thy passengers in rankCome stepping lightly down the plank,And beckoning unto those they know; And if along with these should comeThe man I […]

Tears of the widower, when he seesA late-lost form that sleep reveals,And moves his doubtful arms, and feelsHer place is empty, fall like these; Which weep a loss for ever new,A void where heart on heart reposed;And, where warm hands have prest and closed,Silence, till I be silent too. Which weep the comrade of my […]

Calm is the morn without a sound,Calm as to suit a calmer grief,And only thro’ the faded leafThe chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold,And on these dews that drench the furze,And all the silvery gossamersThat twinkle into green and gold: Calm and still light on yon great plainThat […]

I hear the noise about thy keel;I hear the bell struck in the night:I see the cabin-window bright;I see the sailor at the wheel. Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife,And travell’d men from foreign lands;And letters unto trembling hands;And, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life. So bring him; we have idle dreams:This look of […]