Whence comest thou, shady lane? and why and how? Thou, where with idle heart ten years ago I wandered and with childhood's paces slow, So long unthought of, and remembered now. Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side I tread, and view thy orchard plots again With yellow fruitage hung,--and glimmering grain Standing or shocked through the thick...Learn More

Shall I decide it by a random shot? Our happy hopes, so happy and so good, Are not mere idle motions of the blood; And when they seem most baseless, most are not. A seed there must have been [up]on the spot Where the flowers grow, without it ne'er they could. The confidence of growth least understood Of some deep intuition was begot. What if...Learn More

That children in their loveliness should die Before the dawning beauty, which we know Cannot remain, has yet begun to go; That when a certain period has passed by, People of genius and of faculty, Leaving behind them some result to show, Having performed some function, should forego A task which younger hands can better ply, Appears entirely...Learn More

But whether in the uncoloured light of truth This inward strong assurance be, indeed, More than the self-willed arbitrary creed, Manhood's inheritor to the dream of youth; Whether to shut out fact because forsooth To live were insupportable unfreed, Be not or be the service of untruth; Whether this vital confidence be more Than his, who upon...Learn More

Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent, One-third departed of the mortal span, Carrying on the child into the man, Nothing into reality. Sails rent, And rudder broken,--reason impotent,-- Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare To do and to be done by, well content. So was it from the first, so is it yet; Yea,...Learn More

If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws What it at first as casually did make, Say what amount of ages it will take With tardy rare concurrences of laws, And subtle multiplicities of cause, The thing they once had made us to remake; May hopes dead-slumbering dare to reawake, E'en after utmost interval of pause? What revolutions must have passed,...Learn More

That there are better things within the womb Of Nature than to our unworthy view She grants for a possession, may be true: The cycle of the birthplace and the tomb Fulfils at least the order and the doom Of her, that has not ordinance to do More than to withdraw and to renew, To show one moment and the next resume: The law that we return from...Learn More

To see the rich autumnal tints depart, And view the fading of the roseate glow That veils some Alpine altitude of snow, To hear some mighty masterpiece of art Lost or destroyed, may to the adult heart, Impatient of the transitory show Of lovelinesses that but come and go, A positive strange thankfulness impart. When human pure perfections...Learn More

If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws What it at first as casually did make, Say what amount of ages it will take, With tardy rare concurrences of laws And subtle multiplicities of cause, The thing they once had made us to remake; May hopes dead slumbering dare to reawake Even after utmost interval of pause, What revolutions must have passed...Learn More

But if, as (not by what the soul desired Swayed in the judgment) wisest men have thought, And (furnishing the evidence it sought) Man's heart hath ever fervently required, And story, for that reason deemed inspired, To every clime, in every age, hath taught; If in this human complex there be aught Not lost in death, as not in birth acquired, O...Learn More

Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way, Bearing the liar's curse upon my head; Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed On food which does the present craving stay, But may be clean-denied me e'en today, And though 'twere certain, yet were ought but bread; Letting--for so they say, it seems, I said, And I am all too weak to disobey! Therefore for...Learn More

That children in their loveliness should die Before the dawning beauty, which we know Cannot remain, has yet begun to go; That when a certain period has passed by, People of genius and of faculty, Leaving behind them some result to show Having performed some function, should forgo The task which younger hands can better ply, Appears entirely...Learn More