Poetry Archives

Heart-affluence in discursive talk
  From household fountains never dry;
  The critic clearness of an eye,
That saw thro’ all the Muses’ walk;

Seraphic intellect and force
  To seize and throw the doubts of man;
  Impassion’d logic, which outran
The hearer in its fiery course;

High nature amorous of the good,
  But touch’d with no ascetic gloom;
  And passion pure in snowy bloom
Thro’ all the years of April blood;

A love of freedom rarely felt,
  Of freedom in her regal seat
  Of England; not the schoolboy heat,
The blind hysterics of the Celt;

And manhood fused with female grace
  In such a sort, the child would twine
  A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine,
And find his comfort in thy face;

All these have been, and thee mine eyes
  Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain,
  My shame is greater who remain,
Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.