Poems by Year
1821-23 : 1824-26 : 1827-29 : 1830-32 : 1833-36

1830


My rubicund critic, my full-bellied mocker,
Ever ready to rail at my desolate muse,
Come here, and sit beside me for a while,
Let's see if we can find a bit of pleasure. . .
Look before you: a few squalid hovels,
Beyond, the black earth, a sloping plain,
And over all a thick line of grey clouds.
Where are the bright cornfields, forests, brooks?
Near the low fence in our yard
Two puny saplings stand to charm the gaze.
Only two. And one of them was stripped bare
By the autumn rain, and the other's leaves, sodden
And yellow, will pile up in a puddle with the first gust.
That's all. Not even a dog prowls in the road.
Oh, here comes a peasant, with two women behind him:
Bareheaded, a child's coffin under his arm;
From afar he shouts out to the priest's lazy son
To call his father and open up the church.
"Hurry up! We haven't got all day!"

dmt


1832


In a Beauty's Album

All harmony, all wondrous fairness,
Aloof from passions and the world,
She rests, with tranquil unawareness
In her triumphant beauty furled.
When, all about her, eyes hold muster,
Nor friends, nor rivals can be found,
Our other beauties' pallid round
Extinguished wholly by her luster.

And were you bound I know not where,
Be it to love's embraces bidden,
Or what choice vision you may bear
In heart's most private chamber hidden,--
Yet, meeting her, you will delay,
Struck by bemusement in mid-motion,
And pause in worshipful devotion
At beauty's sacred shrine to pray.

cn

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