Life and Existence

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wanton’d with thy breakers.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses itself in tempests.

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow— Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased.

’Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give No hollow aid; alone—man with his God must strive.

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

Fame is the thirst of youth.

Did ye not hear it?—No! ’twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

Gone—glimmering through the dream of things that were.

A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!

For years fleet away with the wings of the dove.

Oft in the stilly night, Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me; The words of love then spoken; The cheerful hearts now broken.

Some banquet hall deserted, And all but he departed.

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonor’d his relics are laid.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

A poet lies, or that which once seemed he— Oh, lift a thought in prayer for S.T.C.! That he, who many a year, with toil of breath, Found death in life, may here find life in death.

Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud— We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light.