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So I, I am ashamed of my old life,Here in this saintly presence of days gone,Ashamed of my weak heart's unmeaning strife,Its loves, its lusts, its..

To--day I was at Milan, in such thoughtAs pilgrims bring who at faith's threshold stand,Still burdened with the sorrows they have brought,And vexed..

Yes, Italy is wise, a cultured prude,Stored with all maxims of a statelier age;These are her lessons for our northern blood,With its dark Saxon..

'Tis time I stepped from Horeb to the plain.Mountains, farewell. I need a heavier air.Youth's memories are not good for souls in pain,And each new..

Yet it is pitiful how friendships die,Spite of our oaths eternal and high vows.Some fall through blight of tongues wagged secretly,Some through..

The poets, every one, have sung of passion.But which has sung of friendship, man with man?Love seeks its price, but friendship has a fashionLarger to..

Youth is all valiant. He and I together,Conscious of strength, and unreproved of wrong,Strained at the world's conventions as a tetherToo weak to..

And what brave life it was we lived that tide,Lived, or essayed to live--for who shall sayYouth garners aught but its own dreams denied,Or handles..

How strangely now I come, a man of sorrow,Nor yet such sorrow as youth dreamed of, blind,But life's last indigence which dares not borrowOne garment..

And here too I, the latest fool of Time,Sad child of doubt and passionate desires,Touched with all pity, yet in league with crime,Watched the red..

Voltaire and Rousseau, these were thy twin priests,Proud Mother Nature, on thy opening day.The first with bitter gibes perplexed the feastsOf thy..

Unblest discovery of an age too real!They needed not the beauty of the Earth,Who held Heaven's hope for their supreme ideal,And found in worlds..

To Switzerland, the land of lakes and snow,And ancient freedom of ancestral type,And modern innkeepers, who cringe and bow,And venal echoes, and Pans..

Enough, dear Paris! We have laughed together,'Tis time that we should part, lest tears should come.I must fare on from winter and rough weatherAnd..

Therefore do thou at least arise and warn,Not folded in thy mantle, a blind seer,But naked in thy anger, and new--born,As in the hour when thy voice..

For lo! the nations, the imperial nationsOf Europe, all imagine a vain thing,Sitting thus blindly in their generations,Serving an idol for their God..

Gods, what a moral! Yet in vain I jest.The France which has been, and shall be again,Is the most serious, and perhaps the best,Of all the nations..

For thus it is. You flout at kings to--day.To--morrow in your pride you shall stoop lowTo a new tyrant who shall come your way,And serve him meekly..

Here therefore ends my sad soul's pilgrimage,In tears for sin and half--redeemed desire.She was unworthy her high martyr's rage,Or to be wholly..

Alas, that words like these should be but folly!Behold, the Boulevard mocks, and I mock too.Let us away and purge our melancholyWith the last..

To--day there is no cloud upon thy face,Paris, fair city of romance and doom!Thy memories do not grieve thee, and no traceLives of their tears for us..

And what strange sights have these threewindows seen,Mid bonnes and children, in the Tuileries!What flights of hero, Emperor and Queen,Since first I..

Dear royal France! I fix the happy yearAt forty--seven, because that Christmas--tideThere passed through Pau the Duke of Montpensier,Fresh from his..

Whence is our pleasure in things beautiful?We are not born with it, we do not know,By instinct of the eye or natural rule,That naked rocks are..

I will sit down awhile in dallianceWith my dead life, and dream that it is young.My earliest memories have their home in France,The chestnut woods of..