I feel myself a stranger. For the sea

Doth sever me, alas! from those I love,

And day by day upon the shore I stand,

My soul still seeking for the land of Greece.

Alas for him! who friendless and alone,

Remote from parents and from brethren dwells;

From him grief snatches every coming joy

Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts

Revert for ever to his father's halls,

Where first to him the radiant sun unclos'd

The gates of heav'n; where closer, day by day,

Brothers and sisters, leagu'd in pastime sweet,

Around each other twin'd the bonds of love.

A useless life is but an early death.

We blame alike, who proudly disregard

Their genuine merit, and who vainly prize

Their spurious worth too highly.

He who is used

To act and to command, knows not the art,

From far, with subtle tact, to guide discourse

Through many windings to its destin'd goal.

A noble man by woman's gentle word

May oft be led.

Oh! be he king or subject, he's most blest,

Who in his home finds happiness and peace.

The kindness shown the wicked is not blest.

How blest is he who his progenitors

With pride remembers, to the list'ner tells

The story of their greatness, of their deeds,

And, silently rejoicing, sees himself

Link'd to this goodly chain! For the same stock

Bears not the monster and the demigod:

A line, or good or evil, ushers in

The glory or the terror of the world.

Many a dreadful fate of mortal doom,

And many a deed of the bewilder'd brain,

Dark night doth cover with her sable wing,

Or shroud in gloomy twilight.

The words of Heaven are not equivocal,

As in despair the poor oppress'd one thinks.

The gods require

On this wide earth the service of the good,

To work their pleasure.

This is the sharpest sorrow of my lot,

That, like a plague-infected wretch, I bear

Death and destruction hid within my breast;

That, where I tread, e'en on the healthiest spot,

Ere long the blooming faces round betray

The writhing features of a ling'ring death.

Love and courage are the spirit's wings

Wafting to noble actions.

Thus we pursue what always flies before;

We disregard the path in which we tread.

The gods avenge not on the son the deeds

Done by the father. Each, or good or bad,

Of his own actions reaps the due reward.

The parents' blessing, not their curse, descends.

Of what avail is prudence, if it fail

Heedful to mark the purposes of Heaven?

When the Powers on high decree

For a feeble child of earth

Dire perplexity and woe,

And his spirit doom to pass

With tumult wild from joy to grief,

And back again from grief to joy,

In fearful alternation;

They in mercy then provide,

In the precincts of his home,

Or upon the distant shore,

That to him may never fail

Ready help in hours of need,

A tranquil, faithful friend.

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