English

Afraid of critics! an unworthy fear:
Great minds must learn their greatness and be bold.
Walk on thy way; bring forth thine own true thought;
Love thy high calling only for itself,
And find in working recompense for work,
And Envy's shaft shall whiz at thee in vain.
Despise not censure; weigh if it be just,
And if it be—amend, whate'er the thought
Of him who cast it. Take the wise man's praise,
And love thyself the more that thou couldst earn
Meed so exalted; but the blame of fools
Let it blow over like an idle whiff

Oh faithless world, and thy most faithless part,
A woman's heart!
The true shop of variety, where sits
Nothing but fits
And fevers of desire, and pangs of love,
Which toys remove.
Why was she born to please, or I to trust
Words writ in dust?
Suff'ring her eyes to govern my despair,
My pain for air,
And fruit of time rewarded with untruth,
The food of youth.
Untrue she was, yet I believed her eyes,
Instructed spies;
Till I was taught, that love was but a school
To breed a fool

Ah! why my heart is beating is more than I can tell,
At the hawthorn-bloom like incense in the air,
And the cuckoo in the woodland that is calling like a bell,
Like a cracked bell calling me to prayer;

But I think the ringing cuckoo, with its hard hysteric cry,
Is youth in the spring-movement of the blood,
And the richness of the blossom a reminder we must die,
While life is tasting exquisitely good.

Ah! the falling of the petals in the shivering silver night!
Ah! the turning wheel of years that will not stay!

The clouds are up, to sweep and tune
That inharmonious harp, the moon;
The north wind blows a harsh bassoon.

An old astrologer might say,
By signs, by portents whirled this way,
That earth was nearing her decay.

All apprehensions stir to-night
With fluttering issues infinite.
Conjunction, phantom, famine, blight;

The woodland shakes its agèd bones
And shrieks; beyond, in deeper tones
The ceremonial cypress groans;

And I, the microcosm of all,
Quake, shuddering, underneath the pall

Two Brothers, Jack and Tom by name,
To try their luck, to London came:
Their fortunes were indeed but small;
Some forty shillings! that was all,
Which they as frugally bestow'd,
In their expences on the road;
And many a scanty meal they made,
Nor were to drinking yet betray'd.

 One day the elder thus began,
“Tis necessary that some plan
We fix on, brother, as we go;
How we're to act, and what to do.
London, I've heard my Father say,
Is full of sharpers, who betray
The artless stranger——Let us then

How many ways deceit can find;
T'impole, alas! on human kind.

In antique dress, with length of beard,
Faustus, the conjurer, appear'd;
Austere his look; a taper wand
Most awful dignisy'd his hand:
With globes and telescopes around
His room proclaim'd his skill profound;
Loud was his fame, both far and near,
And all to Faustus would repair.
For wishing nymphs he soon would find
A husband wealthy, handsome, kind;
And for th' ambitious he would fix
A coronet, a coach and fix.

All who attentive read the papers,
Must sure observe what puffs and vapours,
Of this, and that, and that and this,
What is, and what is not amiss;
Of who is worst, and who is best,
Of who's despis'd, and who's carest,
What turns and windings round about,
Of who is in, and who is out:
Yet half these know not what they mean,
Much less who moves the state machine;
What ends they have, what quaint design,
To raise, depress, or undermine:
Why one's degraded to a clod,
Why one's exalted to a God.

When life comes to an end, two roads before thee are open;
To th' ideal this, that to eternity leads.
While time still permits, be sure thou choose the ideal,
Lest to death thou drift under the finger of fate.

He who with certainty, would find
The depth and scope of woman's mind,
Must judge not by external shew,
From what they say or what they do;
But he who'd construe all their airs,
Must do't as witches say their prayers.

A Miller once, an honest man!
(That's honest as a miller can)
Had a smart wife of goodly parts,
In homely necessary arts;
Could wash and scower, and brew, and bake,
Pies, puddings, tarts, and custards make;
Would smile and curtsey to her neighbours,

Pale thoughts, like drops of trembling dew,
By sunset of my hopes shot through;
Faint longings, colourless at noon,
But turned to beryls in the moon;

Ecstatic dreams; obscure desires,
Lit up by misty opal-fires;
Intensest visions, caught between
The flight of phantoms scarcely seen;

Within this featureless array
Of year by year and day by day,
I fix them, flashing, ere they pass,
And turn them into gems — or glass!

I string them, be they stone or paste,
I string them ere they fall to waste,