Category: Poetry
It was but some few nights ago I wandered down this quiet lane; I pray that I may never know The feelings then I felt, again. The leaves were shining all about, You might almost have seen them springing; I heard the cuckoo’s simple shout, And all the little birds were singing....
It was but some few nights ago I wandered down this quiet lane; I pray that I may never know The feelings then I felt, again. The leaves were shining all about, You might almost...
2. SCENE I._Adam._ Since that last evening we have fallen indeed! Yes, we have fallen, my Eve! O yes!— One, two, and three, and four;—the Appetite, The Enjoyment, the aftervoid, the thinki...
3. SCENE II._Adam._ Misery, oh my misery! O God, God! How could I ever, ever, could I do it? Whither am I come? where am I? O me, miserable! My God, my God, that I were back with Thee! O fo...
4. SCENE III._Adam._ My love, Blessed be this good day to thee indeed; Blessed the balm of joy unto thy soul. A sad unskilful nurse was I to thee; But nature teaches mothers, I perceive.
5. SCENE IV._Eve._ O Adam, it was I was godless then; But you were mournful, heavy, but composed. At times would somewhat fiercely bite your lip And pass your hand about your brow; but stil...
6. SCENE V._Adam._ Cain, beware! Strike not your brother! I have said, beware! A heavy curse is on this thing, my son. With doubt and fear, Terror and toil and pain already here, Let us no...
7. SCENE VI._Abel._ At times I could believe My father is no better than his son: If not as overbearing, proud and hard, Yet prayerless, worldly, almost more than Cain. Enlighten and conver...
8. SCENE VII._Cain._ Am I or am I not this which they think me? My mother loves me not; my brother Abel, Searing my heart, commends my soul to God; My father does not shun me—there’s my comf...
9. SCENE VIII._Adam._ These sacrificings, O my best beloved, These rites and forms which you have taught our boys, Which I nor practise nor can understand, Will turn, I trust, to good; but I...
10. SCENE IX._Cain._ What! fallen? so quickly down—so easily felled, And so completely? Why, he does not move. Will not he stir—will he not breathe again? Still as a log—still as his own dea...
11. SCENE X._Adam._ Abel is dead, and Cain—ah, what is Cain? Is he not even more than Abel dead? Well, we must hope in Seth. This merest man, This unambitious commonplace of life, Will afte...
12. SCENE XI._Eve._ ... For there are rites and holy means of grace Of God ordained for man’s eternal [weal]. With these, my son, address thyself to Him, And seek atonement from a gracious G...
13. SCENE XII._Adam._ My son, it is. And whether a dream, or if it were a dream, A transcript of an inward spiritual fact (As you suggest, and I allow, might be), Not the less true because it...
14. SCENE XIII._Adam._ My son, ’tis done, it was to be done; some good end Thereby to come, or else it had not been. Go, for it must be. Cain, I know your heart, You cannot be with us. Go, the...
15. SCENE XIV._Adam._ O Cain, the words of Adam shall be said; Come near and hear your father’s words, my son. I have been in the spirit, as they call it, Dreaming, which is, as others say, t...
16. SCENE I.—_The Piazza at Venice, 9 p.m. Dipsychus and the Spirit._Di._ The scene is different, and the place, the air Tastes of the nearer north; the people Not perfect southern lightness; wherefore, then, Should those old verses come into my...
17. SCENE II.—_The Public Garden._Di._ Assuredly, a lively scene! And, ah, how pleasant something green! With circling heavens one perfect rose Each smoother patch of water glows, Hence to where, o’er the full...
18. SCENE III.—_At the Hotel._Sp._ Come, then, And with my aid go into good society. Life little loves, ’tis true, this peevish piety; E’en they with whom it thinks to be securest— Your most religious, deli...
19. SCENE IV.—_On the Piazza._Di._ What does he mean? he’s wrong, I had done nothing. ’Twas a mistake—more his, I am sure, than mine. He is quite wrong—I feel it. Come, let us go.
20. SCENE V.—_The Lido._Sp._ What now? the Lido shall it be? That none may say we didn’t see The ground which Byron used to ride on, And do I don’t know what beside on. Ho, barca! here! and this light...
21. SCENE I.—_The interior Arcade of the Doge’s Palace._Sp._ Thunder and rain! O dear, O dear! But see, a noble shelter here, This grand arcade where our Venetian Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian A combination strange, but striki...
22. SCENE II.—_In a Gondola._Di._ Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah, What else is like the gondola? This level floor of liquid glass Begins beneath us swift to pass. It goes as though it went alone By some im...
23. SCENE III.—_The Academy at Venice.Verses! well, they are made, so let them go; No more if I can help. This is one way The procreant heat and fervour of our youth Escapes, in puff, in smoke, and shapeless words O...
24. SCENE IV.—_In St. Mark’s. Dipsychus alone.The Law! ’twere honester, if ’twere genteel, To say the dung-cart. What! shall I go about, And like the walking shoeblack roam the flags To see whose boots are dirtiest? Oh, the...
25. SCENE V.—_The Piazza at Night._Di._ There have been times, not many, but enough To quiet all repinings of the heart; There have been times, in which my tranquil soul, No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seem...
26. SCENE VI.—_On a Bridge._Di._ ’Tis gone, the fierce inordinate desire, The burning thirst for action—utterly; Gone, like a ship that passes in the night On the high seas: gone, yet will come again: Gon...
27. SCENE VII.—_At Torcello._ _Dipsychus alone._Di._ I had a vision; was it in my sleep? And if it were, what then? But sleep or wake, I saw a great light open o’er my head; And sleep or wake, uplifted to that light, Out of...
28. SCENE VIII.—_In the Piazza._Di._ Not for thy service, thou imperious fiend, Not to do thy work, or the like of thine; Not to please thee, O base and fallen spirit! But One Most High, Most True, whom witho...
29. SCENE IX.—_In the Public Garden._Di._ Twenty-one past—twenty-five coming on; One-third of life departed, nothing done. Out of the mammon of unrighteousness That we make friends, the Scripture is express. My Sp...
30. SCENE I.—_In London. Dipsychus in his Study._Dipsychus._ O God! O God! and must I still go on Doing this work—I know not, hell’s or thine; And these rewards receiving—sure not thine; The adulation of a foolish crowd, Half...
31. SCENE II.—_In Westminster Hall._1st Barrister._ They say the Lord Chief Justice is unwell; Did you observe how, after that decision Which all the world admired so, suddenly He became pale and looked in the ai...
32. SCENE III.—_Dipsychus in his own house, alone._Di._ She will come yet, I think, although she said She would go hence and die; I cannot tell. Should I have made the nation’s business wait, That I might listen to an old sad t...
33. CANTO I._Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,_ _Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,_ _Come, let us go,—to a land wherein gods of the old...
34. CANTO II._Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,_ _Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide?_ _Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we...
35. CANTO III._Yet to the wondrous St. Peter’s, and yet to the solemn Rotonda,_ _Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls,_ _Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty wo...
36. CANTO IV._Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander;_ _Weary, yet eager and sure, Where shall I come to my love?_ _Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Ita...
37. CANTO V._There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno,_ _Under Fiesole’s heights,—thither are we to return?_ _There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing wate...