Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is passed away.

Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.

She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight, A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilights too her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

The clouds that gather round the setting sun, Do take a sober colouring from an eye, That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.