Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
These hoards of wealth you can unlock at will.
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.
The childhood of today is the manhood of tomorrow.
This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.
Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her.
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost.
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Hope smiled when your nativity was cast, Children of Summer!
But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover.
But to a higher mark than song can reach, Rose this pure eloquence.
Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach.
Faith is, necessary to explain anything, and to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil.
Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary men.
To be a Prodigal’s favourite,-then, worse truth, A Miser’s pensioner,-behold our lot!
Meek Nature’s evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth.
The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Because the good old rule Sufficeth them,-the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.