O,blessed of the gods,Shield of the race of Rome,Are Faith and Fame at odds?Thy smile is Spring.—O,too long thou dost roam, From home. As a fond mother stands,Seeking with prayerful eyesO’er sea and sinuous sandsHer long-departed son,for…
Who chides the tears that weep so dear a head?Sorrowful Muse,for whom the father wedThe voice of waters to a cithern string,Teach thou my grief to sing. Ye sisters,Right and Honor,and forsoothUnshaken Loyalty,and naked Truth,Quintillius the peerless ye shall weep,Who…
Ah, Postumus, fleet-footed are the years! And what is Piety’s imploring glance To Age and Death, the dauntless charioteers? My friend, think not to buy deliverance With smoking centuries of hecatombs. It shall not profit…
The fetters of winter are shattered,shattered,And the limbs of the earth are free,—Spring,and the breeze that loveth the lea!And the old keels—gaping and tempest battered—Men roll them down to the sea. Lo,how the sweet new magic bewitchethThe hind with his…
Farewell,runaway snows! For the meadow is green,and the tree stands Clad in her beautiful hair.New life leavens the land! The river,once where the lea stands, Hideth and huggeth his lair.Beauty with shining limbs ’mid the Graces comes…
Blue water, and behind,Benevolent orange sky,And gentle sheep that troopFrom their huge fields of cloud,Hurrying, headed allHomeward across the heaven,Unto the western folds,Where stands upon a hill,Calling with gentle voice,One cheery shepherd-star. Stand still, O Shepherd! I,With many other feetAnd…
Within,a coldly echoing floor:a terrorOf narrow,naked walls,whitened and ghastly,Through whose grim hollowness,faint and incessant,Is heard a murmuring horror of fires communing.What flesh and blood,what hands and face,what beautyShrivels beneath the touch of flames caressing—Becomes obliterate in this awful furnace?What life…
On souls robbed of their birth-right’s better part,Born only in one world, through life to seeThis nether sphere alone—God’s pity be;Poor, purblind purchasers at life’s high mart.The Great Physician, lest the ravaged heartReveal itself in anguish, did decreeThe Lord of…
God make me the poet of simplicity, Force,and clearness. Help me to live Ever up to ever higher standards. Teach me to lay A strong,simple,big-rocked wall Firmly,the first of all, And…
God, Thine the hand that doth extend The booby prize of failure,and The victor’s chaplet in the end. God, Thine the hand. God,mine the power to die or live, To find the earth-fruit…
