I cannot liken thee to any flower,
As they of old, the master poets, chose
From fancy's bed, to meetly emblem those
...
Cast on the lily's cheek the rose's glow,
And while the world with morning dew is wet,
Inhale the fragrance of the violet,
...
White as this paper was my lady's mind
Ere with my bold and desecrating hand
I scrawled its face with characters that stand
...
Like to an aged poet who reviews
An early volume, once his secret pride,
With a distaste that scarcely can abide
...
If beauty is not an immortal thing,
And that fair casket, thy transcendent form,
Never again to throbbing life shall warm,
...
CCXL
So long have paused the strings across my lute,
So many streams of bitterness have
...
There is no greater sorrow, Dante said,
Than to remember happy days in grief.
But to remember? Is this sorrow chief?
...
Sweet sorceress, dear foe to every gift
God stored for action in my languid frame--
Gifts that, employed, might win a smile from fame,
...
O let me break my slavehood! Link by link
I rend my gyves; not calmly, but with cries
Of anguish, bloody hands and streaming eyes--
...
I do not merit it that thou shouldst stir
A step beyond the coldness of the shrine
My heart has built thee, nor one look incline
...