s: Or Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told


s: (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)


s: That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,


s: And her enchanted hair was the first gold.


s: And still she sits, young while the earth is old,


s: Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,


s: Till heart and body and life are in its hold.


s: The rose and poppy are her flowers: for where


s: Is he not found, O Lilith! whom shed scent


s: And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?


s: Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went


s: Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent,


s: And round his heart one strangling golden hair.


s: They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves,


s: And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay;


s: While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way.


s: I did not hear the birds about the eaves,


s: Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves:


s: Only my soul kept watch from day to day,


s: My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:--


s: Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves.


s: At length there came the step upon the stair,


s: Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air


s: First hour, first moment of your meeting me,


s: If bright or dim the season, it might be


s: That would not blossom yet for many a May.


s: It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;


s: First touch of hand in hand--Did one but know!


s: When you can no more hold me by the hand,


s: Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.


s: You tell me of our future that you planned:


s: It will be late to counsel then or pray.


s: For if the darkness and corruption leave


s: A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,


s: Better by far you should forget and smile


s: Than that you should remember and be sad.


s: Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;


s: Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth


s: With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.


s: She hath no questions, she hath no replies,


s: Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth


s: Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;


s: Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,


s: Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;


s: And when she wakes she will not think it long.


s: Above the painter's dream he set her face,


s: He touched the brown hair with a sense of gold,


s: What was alone as perfect, the sweet heart;


s: Knowledge most rare to her He did impart,


s: And filled with love and worship all her days.


s: And then God thought Him how it would be well


s: "Bring thou some minstrel now that he may tell


s: How fair and sweet a thing My hands have made."


s: Then at Love's call I came, bowed down my head,


s: Because the end of all seemed near, forsooth,--


s: Her gracious spirit, ever quick to ruth,


s: She came in with the twilight noiselessly,


s: She leaned above my wrecked and wasted youth;


s: I felt her presence, which I could not see.


s: "God keep you, my poor friend," I heard her say;


s: And then she kissed my dry, hot lips and eyes.


s: Kiss thou the next kiss, quiet Death, I pray;


s: Be instant on this hour, and so surprise


s: My spirit while the vision seems to stay;


s: Take thou the heart with the heart's Paradise.


s: On! leave the past to bury its own dead.


s: The past is naught to us, the present all.


s: What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed?


s: What need of ghosts to grace a festival?


s: I would not, if I could, those days recall,


s: Those days not ours.  For us the feast is spread,


s: The lamps are lit, and music plays withal.


s: Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid.


s: This island is our home.  Around it roar


s: Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits and seas.


s: What matter in what wreck we reached the shore,


s: So we both reached it?  We can mock at these.


s: Oh leave the past, if past indeed there be;


s: I would not know it; I would know but thee.


s: We paid for the first privilege of love.


s: These are the rains of April which have wet


s: Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move.


s: Now the green corn has sprouted.  Each new day


s: Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise,


s: The blade, the ear, the harvest--and our way


s: Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise.


s: We now compare our fortunes.  Each his store


s: Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain,


s: Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore,


s: Who weigh and touch and argue and complain--


s: Dear endless argument!  Yet sometimes we


s: Even as we argue kiss.  There! Let it be.


s: Were but my spirit loosed upon the air,--


s: By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind,


s: Set free to seek what most it longs to find,--


s: To no proud Court of Kings would I repair:


s: I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair,


s: When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind;


s: And one should greet me to my failings blind,


s: Content so I but shared his twilight there.


s: Nay! well I know he waits not as of old,--


s: I could not find him in the old-time place,--


s: Through worlds unknown, in strange celestial race,


s: Whose mystic round no traveller has told,


s: From star to star, until I see his face.


s: I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,


s: I shun the thought that lurks in all delight--


s: The thought of thee--and in the blue heaven's height,


s: Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng


s: This breast the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright


s: I must stop short of thee the whole day long.


s: But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,


s: When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,


s: And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,


s: Must doff my will as raiment laid away,--


s: With the first dream that comes with the first sleep


s: I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.


s: My love for thee doth march like armed men,


s: Along the army's front its banners shake;


s: Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain


s: It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain;


s: And now the trumpet makes the still air quake,


s: And now the thundering cannon doth awake


s: But, lo! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung:


s: Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender!


s: And, for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender!


s: O, bright the invader's path with tribute flowers,


s: While comrade flags flame forth on wall and towers!


s: But this I know, that when unto her face


s: She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space,


s: Then slowly falls--'tis I who feel that touch.


s: And when she sudden shakes her head, with such


s: A look, I soon her secret meaning trace.


s: So when she runs I think 'tis I who race.


s: Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch


s: I know not why, for that is a strange art--


s: I know not if I love her more than those


s: Who long her light have known; but for the rose


s: She covers in her hair, I'd give my heart.


s: I like her gentle hand that sometimes strays,


s: To find the place, through the same book with mine;


s: I like her feet; and O, those eyes divine!


s: And when we say farewell, perhaps she stays


s: Love-lingering--then hurries on her ways,


s: As if she thought, "To end my pain and thine."


s: I like her voice better than new-made wine;


s: And I like, too, the cloak I saw her wear,


s: And the red scarf that her white neck doth cover,


s: And well I like the door that she comes through;


s: I like the ribbon that doth bind her hair--


s: But then, in truth, I am that lady's lover,


s: And every new day there is something new.


s: By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:


s: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,


s: The strange low sobs that shook their common bed


s: Were called into her with a sharp surprise,


s: And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,


s: Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away


s: With muffled pulses.  Then as midnight makes


s: Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat


s: Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet


s: Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,


s: By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.


s: Like sculptured effigies they might be seen


s: Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;


s: Each wishing for the sword that severs all.


s: It ended, and the morrow brought the task.


s: Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in


s: By shutting all too zealous for their sin:


s: Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask.


s: But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had!


s: He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers:


s: And if their smiles encountered, he went mad,


s: And raged deep inward, till the light was brown


s: Before his vision, and the world forgot,


s: Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot.


s: A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown


s: He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove


s: And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.


s: This was the woman; what now of the man?


s: But pass him.  If he comes beneath a heel,


s: He shall be crushed until he cannot feel,


s: The rich light striking out from her on him!


s: Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim


s: Across the man she singles, leaving dark


s: All else!  Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair,


s: To plant a kiss?  Yet if I meet him there!


s: But she is mine!  Ah, no! I know too well


s: The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!


s: What soul would bargain for a cure that brings


s: And strike this rusty bosom with new stings!


s: Since on a gold-haired lady's eyeballs pure,


s: I looked with little prospect of a cure,


s: The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit.


s: Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy


s: Has decked the woman thus? and does her head


s: Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited?


s: Madam, you teach me many things that be.


s: That "Women still may love whom they deceive."


s: Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave,


s: In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour


s: Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow


s: Among the clicking coals.  Our library-bower


s: That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat


s: From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:


s: The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.


s: Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay


s: With us, and of it was our talk.  "Ah, yes!


s: Love dies!" I said: I never thought it less.


s: She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.


s: Then when the fire domed blackening, I found


s: Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift


s: Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:--


s: Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!


s: Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,


s: Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve


s: He views the rosy dawn.  In vain they weave


s: But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change.


s: He moves but in the track of his spent pain,


s: Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,


s: Binding him to the ground, with narrow range.


s: Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed.


s: Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth.


s: Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed:


s: But be no coward:--you that made Love bleed,


s: You must bear all the venom of his tooth!


s: How many a thing which we cast to the ground,


s: We grasp at all the wealth it is to them;


s: And by reflected light its worth is found.


s: Yet for us still 'tis nothing! and that zeal


s: This truth is little known to human shades,


s: How rare from their own instinct 'tis to feel!


s: They waste the soul with spurious desire,


s: That is not the ripe flame upon the bough.


s: Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells


s: Approaching midnight.  We have struck despair


s: Into two hearts.  O, look we like a pair


s: Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?


s: Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like,


s: Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave!


s: Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave;


s: Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,


s: And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand:


s: Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white.


s: If I the death of Love had deeply planned,


s: I never could have made it half so sure,


s: The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade?


s: 'Tis morning: but no morning can restore


s: The wrong is mixed.  In tragic life, God wot,


s: No villain need be!  Passions spin the plot:


s: We are betrayed by what is false within.


s: He found her by the ocean's moaning verge,


s: And she believed his old love had returned,


s: Which was her exultation, and her scourge.


s: She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed


s: The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry.


s: She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,


s: And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed.


s: She dared not say, "This is my breast: look in."


s: But there's a strength to help the desperate weak.


s: That night he learned how silence best can speak


s: The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.


s: Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.


s: "Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!" she said,


s: Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.


s: Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:


s: These two were rapid falcons in a snare,


s: Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.


s: They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:


s: But they fed not on the advancing hours:


s: Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.


s: Then each applied to each that fatal knife,


s: Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.


s: When hot for certainties in this our life!--


s: Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,


s: Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,


s: To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!


s: Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray,


s: My love of you leaps foaming in my breast,


s: Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray;


s: My heart bounds with the horses of the sea,


s: And plunges in the wild ride of the night,


s: Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee


s: That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight.


s: Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you,


s: Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,--


s: No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew,


s: But hale and hardy as the highland heather,


s: Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills,


s: Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills.


s: Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire


s: Of the last land!  There, waiting patiently,


s: One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,


s: See a slow light across the Stygian tide,


s: And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,


s: And tremble.  And I shall know that you have died.


s: And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,


s: Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,


s: Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam--


s: Most individual and bewildering ghost!--


s: And turn, and toss your brown delightful head


s: Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted,


s: I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.


s: (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)


s: I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;


s: Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;


s: And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;


s: And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;


s: And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;


s: And evening hush, broken by homing wings;


s: That live, we dead.  I would think of a thousand things,


s: Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,


s: One after one, like tasting a sweet food.


s: I have need to busy my heart with quietude.


s: Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,


s: Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.


s: You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;


s: Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,


s: When we are old, are old...."  "And when we die


s: All's over that is ours; and life burns on


s: Through other lovers, other lips," said I,


s: --"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"


s: "We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.


s: Life is our cry.  We have kept the faith!" we said;


s: "We shall go down with unreluctant tread


s: Rose-crowned into the darkness!"... Proud we were,


s: And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.


s: --And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.


s: Daughter of her whose face, and lofty name


s: Prenuptial, of old States and Cities speak,


s: Where lands of wine look north to peak on peak


s: Of the overwatching Alps: through her, you claim


s: Kinship with vanished Power, unvanished Fame;


s: And midst a world grown colorless and bleak


s: And in your hair the Titian tints of flame.


s: Daughter of England too, you first drew breath


s: Where our coy Springs to our coy Summers yield;


s: And you descend from one whose lance and shield


s: When the Plantagenet saw the avenger Death


s: Toward him spurring over Bosworth field.


s: If you had lived in that more stately time


s: When men remembered the great Tudor queen,


s: To noblest verse your name had wedded been,


s: And you for ever crowned with golden rhyme.


s: If, mid Lorenzo's Florence, made sublime


s: By Art's Re-Birth, you had moved, a Muse serene,


s: The mightiest limners had revealed your mien


s: To all the ages and each wondering clime.


s: Fled are the singers that from language drew


s: The mightiest limners sleep: and only He,


s: That which is fairer than all song--the grace


s: As may beseem the wandering harper's tongue,


s: Who of the glory of his Queen hath sung,


s: Outside her castle gates in wind and rain.


s: She, seated mid the noblest of her train,


s: In her great halls with pictured arras hung,


s: Through the forgetting night, and rung in vain.


s: He, with one word from her to whom he brings


s: The loyal heart that she alone can sway,


s: Would be made rich for ever; but he sings


s: Of queenhood too aloof, too great, to say


s: "Sing on, sing on, O minstrel"--though he flings


s: His soul to the winds that whirl his songs away.


s: I cast these lyric offerings at your feet,


s: There suffer them to rest, till even they,


s: By happy nearness to yourself, grow sweet.


s: He that hath shaped and wrought them holds it meet


s: That you be sung, not in some artless way,


s: But with such pomp and ritual as when May


s: Sends her full choir, the throned Morn to greet.


s: With something caught from your own lofty air,


s: With something learned from your own highborn grace,


s: Song must approach your presence; must forbear


s: All light and easy accost; and yet abase


s: Its own proud spirit in awe and reverence there,


s: Before the Wonder of your form and face.


s: I move amid your throng, I watch you hold


s: Converse with many who are noble and fair,


s: Yourself the noblest and the fairest there,


s: Reigning supreme, crowned with that living gold.


s: I talk with men whose names have been enrolled


s: With these one honor--your regard; and wear


s: And then I go from out your sphered light


s: Into a world which still seems full of You.


s: I know the stars are yonder, that possess


s: Their ancient seats, heedless what mortals do;


s: Had only heard you speak, beyond thick screen


s: Of leaves, in an old garden, when the sheen


s: Of morning dwelt on dial and ivied wall,


s: I think your voice had been enough to call


s: Yourself before me, in living vision seen,


s: So pregnant with your Essence had it been.


s: So charged with You, in each soft rise and fall.


s: At least I know, that when upon the night


s: With chanted word your voice lets loose your soul,


s: I am pierced, I am pierced and cloven, with Delight


s: That hath all Pain within it, and the whole


s: World's tears, all ecstasy of inward sight,


s: And the blind cry of all the seas that roll.


s: Twin songs there are, of joyance, or of pain;


s: When falls to earth a mist, a silver rain,


s: And mead and wold and the wide heaven rejoice,


s: In sorrowing prayer.  Then wanes the day; a voice


s: Trembles along the dusk, till peal on peal


s: It pierces every living heart that hears,


s: Pierces and burns and purifies like fire;


s: And all my soul seems healed, and lifted higher,


s: Nor could that jubilant song of day prevail


s: Like thine of tender grief, O nightingale.


s: Bow down, my song, before her presence high,


s: In that far world where you must seek her now;


s: But plain-set anguish of the breast or brow;


s: But now, while in her heaven she sits divine,


s: Turning, I tell the world my bitter moan,


s: Bidding it share its hopes and griefs with mine,


s: Versing not what I would, but what I must,


s: Wail of the wind, or sobbing of the wave;


s: Ah! say you raised my bowed head from the dust,


s: And held me backward from a willful grave;


s: Say this, and her sweet pity will approve,


s: And bind yet closer her dead bond of love.


s: Without, the chill rain falls, life dies away,


s: The dead leaves drip, and the fast-gathering gloom


s: First day of holy death, of sacred rest;


s: I kiss your brow, calm, beautiful and cold,


s: I lay my yearning arms across your breast,


s: Dear heart, I linger but a little space,


s: Sweet wife, I come to your new world ere long;


s: This lily--keep it till our next embrace,


s: While the mute Angel makes our love more strong,


s: While here I cling, in life's short agony,


s: Comes the New Year; wailing the north winds blow;


s: In her cold, lonely grave my dead love lies;


s: Dead lies the stiffened earth beneath the snow,


s: And blinding sleet blots out the desolate skies;


s: I stand between the living and the dead;


s: Hateful to me is life, hateful is death;


s: Her life was sad, and on that narrow bed


s: She will not turn, nor wake with human breath.


s: The struggle o'er, this one sweet faith have I--


s: Though life and death be dimly understood,


s: She loved me; I loved her; love cannot die;


s: Go then thy way with thine accustomed cheer,


s: Nor heed my churlish greeting, O New Year.


s: Like some lone miser, dear, behold me stand,


s: To count my treasures, and their worth extol:--


s: A last word penciled by that poor left hand;


s: Two kindred names on the same gentle scroll,


s: (I found it near your pillow,) traced below;


s: This little scarf you made, our latest pride;


s: That nestled in your bosom till you died;


s: But dearest to my heart, whereon it lies,


s: Is one warm tress of your luxuriant hair,


s: Still present to my touch, my lips, my eyes,


s: And even in your grave, beauteous and free


s: So sang I in the springtime of my years--


s: "There's nothing we can call our own but love;"


s: And even in death the deathless truth approve.


s: Oft have I seen the slow, the broadening river


s: Death is the call of love to love; the giver


s: Claims his own gift for some new mystery.


s: In boundless love divine the heavens are spread,


s: In wedded love is earth's divinest store,


s: And he that lives for love lives evermore;


s: Only in love can life's true path be trod;


s: Love is self-giving; therefore love is God.


s: This faith, at least, my wavering heart should hold,


s: But catch the gleam of glories yet untold.


s: Yea, even on earth, beloved, as love well knew,


s: Brief absence brought our fond returning kiss,


s: So let my soul to God's great world and you


s: Look onward with sweet pain of secret bliss;--


s: Your beauty thrills me from the bound of space,


s: And only Heaven shall give thee perfect grace;


s: Grant then, dear Lord, that all who love may be


s: How shall I tell the measure of my love?


s: 'Tis vain that I have given thee vows and tears,


s: Or striven in verse my tenderness to prove,


s: Or held thy hand in journeyings through the years;


s: Vain that I follow now with hastening feet,


s: And sing thy death, still murmuring in my song,


s: "Only for thee I would the strain were sweet,


s: Only for thee I would the words were strong;"


s: Vain even that I closed with death, and fought


s: Vain that I count a weary world as naught,


s: That I would die to bring thee back; I hear


s: God answer me from heaven, O angel wife--


s: "To prove thy love, live thou a nobler life."


s: Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,


s: To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:


s: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,


s: I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,


s: The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,


s: Those of my own life, who by turns had flung


s: A shadow across me.  Straightway I was 'ware,


s: Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;


s: And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--


s: Guess now who holds thee?"--"Death," I said.  But, there,


s: The silver answer rang,--"Not Death, but Love."


s: Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!


s: Our ministering two angels look surprise


s: Their wings in passing.  Thou, bethink thee, art


s: A guest for queens to social pageantries,


s: Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part


s: Of chief musician.  What hast thou to do


s: With looking from the lattice-lights at me,


s: A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through


s: The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?


s: The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--


s: And Death must dig the level where these agree.


s: Go from me.  Yet I feel that I shall stand


s: Without the sense of that which I forbore,--


s: Thy touch upon the palm.  The widest land


s: Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine


s: With pulses that beat double.  What I do


s: And what I dream include thee, as the wine


s: Must taste of its own grapes.  And when I sue


s: God for myself, He hears that name of thine,


s: And sees within my eyes the tears of two.


s: The face of all the world is changed, I think,


s: Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul


s: Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole


s: Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,


s: Was caught up into love, and taught the whole


s: Of life in a new rhythm.  The cup of dole


s: God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,


s: And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.


s: The name of country, heaven, are changed away


s: For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;


s: And this... this lute and song... loved yesterday,


s: (The singing angels know) are only dear,


s: Because thy name moves right in what they say.


s: And princely giver, who hast brought the gold


s: And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,


s: And laid them on the outside of the wall


s: Ungrateful, that for these most manifold


s: High gifts, I render nothing back at all?


s: Not so; not cold,--but very poor instead.


s: Ask God who knows.  For frequent tears have run


s: The colors from my life, and left so dead


s: And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done


s: Can it be right to give what I can give?


s: To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears


s: As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years


s: Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live


s: That this can scarce be right!  We are not peers


s: That givers of such gifts as mine are, must


s: Be counted with the ungenerous.  Out, alas!


s: I will not soil thy purple with my dust,


s: Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,


s: Nor give thee any love--which were unjust.


s: Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed


s: And worthy of acceptation.  Fire is bright,


s: Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light


s: Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:


s: And love is fire.  And when I say at need


s: I love thee... mark!... I love thee--in thy sight


s: With conscience of the new rays that proceed


s: Out of my face toward thine.  There's nothing low


s: In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures


s: Who love God, God accepts while loving so.


s: And what I feel, across the inferior features


s: Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show


s: How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.


s: Indeed this very love which is my boast,


s: And which, when rising up from breast to brow,


s: To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,--


s: This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,


s: I should not love withal, unless that thou


s: When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,


s: And love called love.  And thus, I cannot speak


s: Of love even, as a good thing of my own:


s: Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,


s: And placed it by thee on a golden throne,--


s: And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)


s: If thou must love me, let it be for naught


s: Except for love's sake only.  Do not say


s: "I love her for her smile--her look--her way


s: Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought


s: That falls in well with mine, and certes brought


s: A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--


s: For these things in themselves, Beloved, may


s: Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,


s: May be unwrought so.  Neither love me for


s: Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--


s: A creature might forget to weep, who bore


s: Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!


s: But love me for love's sake, that evermore


s: Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.


s: My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes


s: And strike up and strike off the general roar


s: Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats


s: Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour


s: From thence into their ears.  God's will devotes


s: Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.


s: How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?


s: Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?


s: A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine?


s: A grave, on which to rest from singing?  Choose.


s: I ring out to the full brown length and say


s: "Take it."  My day of youth went yesterday;


s: My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,


s: Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,


s: Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,


s: Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside


s: Through sorrow's trick.  I thought the funeral-shears


s: Would take this first, but Love is justified,--


s: Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,


s: The kiss my mother left here when she died.


s: Say over again, and yet once over again,


s: That thou dost love me.  Though the word repeated


s: Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it,


s: Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain,


s: Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.


s: By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain


s: Cry: "Speak once more--thou lovest!"  Who can fear


s: Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,


s: Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?


s: Say thou dost love me, love me, love me,--toll


s: The silver iterance!--only minding, Dear,


s: To love me also in silence with thy soul.


s: When our two souls stand up erect and strong,


s: Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,


s: Until the lengthening wings break into fire


s: At either curved point,--what bitter wrong


s: Can the earth do us, that we should not long


s: Be here contented?  Think.  In mounting higher,


s: Into our deep, dear silence.  Let us stay


s: Rather on earth, Beloved,--where the unfit


s: With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.


s: My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!


s: Against my tremulous hands which loose the string


s: And let them drop down on my knee to-night.


s: This said,--he wished to have me in his sight


s: Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring


s: To come and touch my hand... a simple thing,


s: Yet I wept for it!--this,... the paper's light...


s: Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed,


s: As if God's future thundered on my past.


s: This said, I am thine,--and so its ink has paled


s: With lying at my heart that beat too fast.


s: And this... O Love, thy words have ill availed,


s: If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!


s: First time he kissed me, he but only kissed


s: The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;


s: And ever since, it grew more clean and white,


s: Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "Oh, list,"


s: When the angels speak.  A ring of amethyst


s: I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,


s: Than that first kiss.  The second passed in height


s: The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,


s: Half falling on the hair.  O beyond meed!


s: That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,


s: With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.


s: In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,


s: I have been proud, and said, "My love, my own!"


s: How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.


s: I love thee to the depth and breadth and height


s: My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight


s: Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.


s: I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;


s: I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.


s: In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.


s: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose


s: With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,


s: Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,


s: I shall but love thee better after death.


s: Take them, Love, the book and me together;


s: Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.


s: These, the world might view--but one, the volume.


s: Who that one, you ask?  Your heart instructs you.


s: Did she live and love it all her lifetime?


s: Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory,


s: Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving--


s: Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's,


s: Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?


s: You and I would rather read that volume,


s: Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael,


s: Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre--


s: Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.


s: Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!"


s: Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.


s: Whom to please?  You whisper "Beatrice."


s: While he mused and traced it and retraced it,


s: Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for,


s: When, his left hand i' the hair o' the wicked,


s: Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,


s: Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,


s: Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,


s: Let the wretch go festering through Florence)--


s: (Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)


s: "Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."


s: Says the poet--"Then I stopped my painting."


s: Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.


s: While he softened o'er his outlined angel,


s: In they broke, those "people of importance":


s: What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?


s: This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not


s: (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language


s: Fit and fair and simple and sufficient--


s: Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.


s: None but would forego his proper dowry,--


s: Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,--


s: Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,


s: Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.


s: Wherefore?  Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!


s: He who smites the rock and spreads the water,


s: Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,


s: Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute,


s: While he smites, how can he but remember,


s: When they stood and mocked--"Shall smiting help us?"


s: When they drank and sneered--"A stroke is easy!"


s: When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,


s: Throwing him for thanks--"But drought was pleasant."


s: Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;


s: Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;


s: O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,


s: Carelessness or consciousness--the gesture.


s: For he bears an ancient wrong about him,


s: Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,


s: Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude--


s: "How shouldst thou of all men, smite, and save us?"


s: Guesses what is like to prove the sequel--


s: Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!


s: Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance,


s: Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.


s: Never dares the man put off the prophet.


s: Did he love one face from out the thousands,


s: (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,


s: Meant to save his own life in the desert;


s: (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)


s: Hoard and life together for his mistress.


s: Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,


s: Make you music that should all-express me;


s: This of verse alone, one life allows me;


s: Verse and nothing else have I to give you.


s: Other heights in other lives, God willing:


s: All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!


s: Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.


s: Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,


s: Lines I write the first time and the last time.


s: He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush,


s: Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,


s: Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,


s: Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets.


s: He who blows through bronze, may breathe through silver,


s: He who writes, may write for once as I do.


s: Enter each and all, and use their service,


s: Speak from every mouth,--the speech, a poem.


s: Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,


s: Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:


s: I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's,


s: Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.


s: Let me speak this once in my true person,


s: Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:


s: Pray you, lock on these my men and women,


s: Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!


s: Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.


s: Not but that you know me!  Lo, the moon's self!


s: Here in London, yonder late in Florence,


s: Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.


s: Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.


s: Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,


s: Perfect till the nightingales applauded.


s: Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,


s: Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,


s: Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,


s: What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?


s: Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,


s: All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),


s: She would turn a new side to her mortal,


s: Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman--


s: Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal--


s: When she turns round, comes again in heaven,


s: Proves she like some portent of an iceberg


s: Swimming full upon the ship it founders,


s: Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?


s: Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire


s: Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?


s: Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest,


s: Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.


s: Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,


s: When they ate and drank and saw God also!


s: What were seen?  None knows, none ever shall know.


s: Only this is sure--the sight were other,


s: Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,


s: God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures


s: Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,


s: This I say of me, but think of you, Love!


s: Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,


s: Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!


s: There, in turn I stand with them and praise you--


s: Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.


s: But the best is when I glide from out them,


s: Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,


s: Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,


s: Where I hush and bless myself with silence.


s: Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it,


s: Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!


s: Mary's Lamb                  Sarah Josepha Hale


s: Baby's Breakfast             Emilie Poulsson


s: Sephestia's Lullaby          Robert Greene


s: Rebecca's After-Thought      Elizabeth Turner


s: A Little Page's Song         William Alexander Percy


s: The World's Music            Gabriel Setoun


s: The Wind's Song              Gabriel Setoun


s: Child's Song in Spring       Edith Nesbit


s: Answer to a Child's Question Samuel Taylor Coleridge


s: The Cricket's Story          Emma Huntington Nason


s: Nurse's Song                 William Blake


s: October's Party              George Cooper


s: The Peddler's Caravan        William Brighty Rands


s: See'n Things                 Eugene Field


s: The Captain's Daughter       James Thomas Fields


s: Mary's Baby                  Shaemas OSheel


s: A Child's Song of Christmas  Marjorie L. C. Pickthall


s: A Visit from St. Nicholas    Clement Clarke Moore


s: The Children's Hour          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


s: A Child's Laughter           Algernon Charles Swinburne


s: Letty's Globe                Charles Tennyson Turner


s: Dove's Nest                  Joseph Russell Taylor


s: The Child's Heritage         John G. Neihardt


s: Children's Song              Ford Madox Hueffer


s: In the Children's Hospital   Alfred Tennyson


s: The Mother's Prayer          Dora Sigerson Shorter


s: For Charlie's Sake           John Williamson Palmer


s: The First Snow-fall          James Russell Lowell


s: The Child's Wish Granted     George Parsons Lathrop


s: Sonnets from "Mimma Bella"   Eugene Lee-Hamilton


s: Somebody's Child             Louise Chandler Moulton


s: To-morrow                    John Collins


s: The Old Man's Comforts       Robert Southey


s: The Year's End               Timothy Cole


s: An Old Man's Song            Richard Le Gallienne


s: Blossom where there blows"  Giles Fletcher


s: in My bosom"                Thomas Lodge


s: full of woes"               Samuel Daniel


s: Love's Perjuries             William Shakespeare


s: Love's Emblems               John Fletcher


s: Love's Horoscope             Richard Crashaw


s: something of the sea"       Charles Sedley


s: love is bought"             Isaac Pocock


s: winning"                    Thomas Campbell


s: ever"                       George Gordon Byron


s: A Woman's Shortcomings       Elizabeth Barrett Browning


s: "Love hath a Language"       Helen Selina Sheridan


s: ground"                     Alfred Tennyson


s: "When will Love Come"        Pakenham Beatty


s: Song of Eros from "Agathon"  George Edward Woodberry


s: Song, "Take it, love"        Richard Le Gallienne


s: the house of love"          Alfred Noyes


s: Upon Julia's Clothes         Robert Herrick


s: Jove bestows"               Thomas Carew


s: others Prize"               Mark Akenside


s: The Lover's Choice           Thomas Bedingfield


s: none of Beauty's daughters" George Gordon Byron


s: "Flowers I would Bring"      Aubrey Thomas de Vere


s: outward view"               Hartley Coleridge


s: lovely hair"                Charles Swain


s: not love her"               Robert Browning


s: The Henchman                 John Green1eaf Whittier


s: "Girl of the Red Mouth"      Martin MacDermott


s: The Lover's Song             Edward Rowland Sill


s: Ballade of My Lady's Beauty  Joyce Kilmer


s: loosened hair"              Bliss Carman


s: happy tread"                William Watson


s: said, 'is King of Kings'"   Rupert Brooke


s: Song, "How do I love you"    Irene Rutherford McLeod


s: Of Corinna's Singing         Thomas Campion


s: Men's are"                  Thomas Campion


s: your conquering eyes"       George Etherege


s: Long He would Love Her"     George Etherege


s: I'll Never Love Thee More    James Graham


s: To Althea, from Prison       Richard Lovelace


s: A Deposition from Beauty     Thomas Stanley


s: agree at last"              John Sheffield


s: "False though She be"        William Congreve


s: and over the earth"         James Thomson


s: with Me"                    Thomas Percy


s: Cavalier's Song              Robert Cunninghame-Graham


s: falsehood framed"           Richard Brinsley Sheridan


s: "Take back the Virgin Page"  Thomas Moore


s: The Wandering Knight's Song  John Gibson Lockhart


s: highroad"                   Dana Burnett


s: The Lady's "Yes"             Elizabeth Barrett Browning


s: daughter"                   Alfred Tennyson


s: and I can tarry"            Robert Browning


s: Kate Temple's Song           Mortimer Collins


s: were Gone"                  William Ernest Henley


s: To-day"                     John Bennett


s: To-day                       Benjamin R. C. Low


s: The Serf's Secret            William Vaughn Moody


s: Song, "Song is so old"       Hermann Hagedorn


s: it said"                    Walter Savage Landor


s: Love's Philosophy            Percy Bysshe Shelley


s: first"                      Robert Browning


s: in the land, my love"       Joaquin Miller


s: Sabina wakes"               William Congreve


s: "Come into the Garden, Maud" Alfred Tennyson


s: A Lover's Lullaby            George Gascoigne


s: secure his Treasure"        Matthew Prior


s: "Wouldn't You Like to Know"  John Godfrey Saxe


s: "Sing Heigh-ho"              Charles Kingsley


s: Don't                        James Jeffrey Roche


s: Time's Revenge               Walter Learned


s: back my Heart"              John Suckling


s: Muckle-Mou'd Meg             James Ballantine


s: whose hearts are free"      George Etherege


s: The Lover's Resolution       George Wither


s: I love"                     William Browne


s: fond Lover"                 John Suckling


s: luster see"                 Richard Brinsley Sheridan


s: Love's Spite                 Aubrey Thomas de Vere


s: "When I was One-and-Twenty"  Alfred Edward Housman


s: Love's Young Dream           Thomas Moore


s: "We'll go no More a Roving"  George Gordon Byron


s: amid the sounds dispersing" Aubrey Thomas de Vere


s: Field-path"                 Charles Swain


s: A Woman's Last Word          Robert Browning


s: Windle-straws                Edward Dowden


s: The Chess-board              Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton


s: white rapture"              Charles Hanson Towne


s: The Nymph's Song to Hylas    William Morris


s: garden, yea"                Arthur O'Shaughnessy


s: without the rose"           Arthur O'Shaughnessy


s: whose sacred wine"          Edward Coote Pinkney


s: A Woman's Thought            Richard Watson Gilder


s: Lies"                       Irene Rutherford McLeod


s: Love's Prisoner              Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer


s: "I heard a Soldier"          Herbert Trench


s: where are you roaming"      William Shakespeare


s: at land"                    Charles Sackville


s: parting lover"              Matthew Prior


s: rising morn"                Allan Ramsay


s: "My Nannie's Awa"            Robert Burns


s: The Sea-lands                Orrick Johns


s: The Palm-tree and the Pine   Richard Monckton Milnes


s: The Flower's Name            Robert Browning


s: A song of Parting            H. C. Compton Mackenzie


s: and fair the day"           William Morris


s: absence Conquers love"      Frederick William Thomas


s: the sunlight strong"        Richard Le Gallienne


s: Love's Rosary                Alfred Noyes


s: array"                      William Blake


s: Porphyria's Lover            Robert Browning


s: Affaire d'Amour              Margaret Deland


s: The Lass that Died of Love   Richard Middleton


s: Of Joan's Youth              Louise Imogen Guiney


s: There's Wisdom in Women      Rupert Brooke


s: Maid's Tragedy"             John Fletcher


s: from "Aella"                Thomas Chatterton


s: His dying child"            Thomas Campbell


s: The Maid's Lament            Walter Savage Landor


s: "She is Far from the Land"   Thomas Moore


s: Beauty's Bloom"             George Gordon Byron


s: Rosalind's Scroll            Elizabeth Barrett Browning


s: The King of Denmark's Ride   Caroline E. S. Norton


s: "O that 'Twere Possible"     Alfred Tennyson


s: rocky dells"                Emily Bronte


s: dearest"                    Christina Georgina Rossetti


s: Love's Resurrection Day      Louise Chandler Moulton


s: Janette's Hair               Charles Graham Halpine


s: waited"                     Ernest Dowson


s: The King's Ballad            Joyce Kilmer


s: Her Dwelling-place           Ada Foster Murray


s: The Wife from Fairyland      Richard Le Gallienne


s: garden"                     Maurice Baring


s: "My True-love Hath My Heart" Philip Sidney


s: Song, "O sweet delight"      Thomas Campion


s: I sat against her feet"     Algernon Charles Swinburne


s: buds unfold"                Florence Earle Coates


s: lover's breast"             George Meredith


s: Love among the Ruins         Robert Browning


s: Earl Mertoun's Song          Robert Browning


s: Mary Beaton's Song           Algernon Charles Swinburne


s: A Woman's Question           Adelaide Anne Procter


s: low song of night"          Hildegarde Hawthorne


s: medlar"                     Theophile Marzials


s: The Newly-wedded             Winthrop Mackworth Praed


s: Love's Calendar              William Bell Scott


s: The Land of Heart's Desire   Emily Huntington Miller


s: The Irish Wife               Thomas D'Arcy McGee


s: The Shepherd's Wife's Song   Robert Greene


s: "Truth doth Truth Deserve"   Philip Sidney


s: A Wife's Song                William Cox Bennett


s: The Sailor's Wife            William Julius Mickle


s: An Old Man's Idyl            Richard Realf


s: The Poet's Song to his Wife  Bryan Waller Procter


s: Sonnets from "Amoretti"      Edmund Spenser


s: Sonnets from "To Delia"      Samuel Daniel


s: Sonnets from "Idea"          Michael Drayton


s: Sonnets from "Diana"         Henry Constable


s: upon the Air"               Louise Chandler Moulton


s: Sonnets after the Italian    Richard Watson Gilder


s: Stanzas from "Modern Love"   George Meredith


s: Sonnets from "Thysia"        Morton Luce


s: God's World                  Edna St. Vincent Millay


s: Song, "Phoebus, arise"       William Drummond


s: Dawn-angels                  A. Mary F. Robinson


s: Night's Mardi Gras           Edward J. Wheeler


s: spring"                     Robert Browning


s: A Starling's Spring Rondel   James Cousins


s: Spring, from "In Memoriam"   Alfred Tennyson


s: Nature sees"                Robert Burns


s: Home Thoughts, from Abroad   Robert Browning


s: Corinna's Going a-Maying     Robert Herrick


s: Summer Longings              Denis Florence MacCarthy


s: To the Willow-tree           Robert Herrick


s: The Holly-tree               Robert Southey


s: "Woodman, Spare that Tree"   George Pope Morris


s: The Beech Tree's Petition    Thomas Campbell


s: The Brook's Song             Alfred Tennyson


s: White Azaleas                Harriet McEwen Kimball


s: Four-leaf Clover             Ella Higginson


s: Lessons from the Gorse       Elizabeth Barrett Browning


s: To the Man-of-War-Bird       Walt Whitman


s: Lament of a Mocking-bird     Frances Anne Kemble


s: merry lark                  Hartley Coleridge


s: The Wood-Dove's Note         Emily Huntington Miller


s: Harold's Pilgrimage"        George Gordon Byron


s: A Passer-by                  Robert Bridges


s: The Port o' Heart's Desire   John S. McGroarty


s: "How's My Boy"               Sydney Dobell


s: The Mariner's Dream          William Dimond


s: The Fisher's Widow           Arthur Symons


s: The Leadman's Song           Charles Dibdin


s: Coridon's Song               John Chalkhill


s: Wields"                     Ernest McGaffey


s: The Angler's Invitation      Thomas Tod Stoddart


s: The Angler's Wish            Izaak Walton


s: A Maine Trail                Gertrude Huntington McGiffert


s: The King's Highway           John S. McGroarty


s: Ballad of Low-lie-down       Madison Cawein


s: whispers"                   Georgiana Goddard King


s: "I'd be a Butterfly"         Thomas Haynes Bayly


s: "I'm not a Single Man"       Thomas Hood


s: The Belle of the Ball-room   Winthrop Mackworth Praed


s: My Mistress's Boots          Frederick Locker-Lampson


s: Nell Gwynne's Looking-Glass  Laman Blanchard


s: A Dialogue from Plato        Austin Dobson


s: The Ladies of St. James's    Austin Dobson


s: The Cure's Progress          Austin Dobson


s: A Ballad of Dead Ladies      Justin Huntly McCarthy


s: If I Were King               Justin Huntly McCarthy


s: The Poet and the Wood-louse  Helen Parry Eden


s: Throckmorton's Bullfinch    William Cowper


s: Geist's Grave                Matthew Arnold


s: Villon's Ballade             Andrew Lang


s: The World's Way              Thomas Bailey Aldrich


s: at Saint Praxed's Church    Robert Browning


s: The Deacon's Masterpiece     Oliver Wendell Holmes


s: The Philosopher's Scales     Jane Taylor


s: The V-a-s-e                  James Jeffrey Roche


s: Then Ag'in                   Sam Walter Foss


s: Women's Longing              John Fletcher


s: Woman's Will                 John Godfrey Saxe


s: Epigram                      Byron's epitaph for Pitt


s: The Willow-tree              William Makepeace Thackeray


s: The Jam-pot                  Rudyard Kipling


s: The Poster-girl              Carolyn Wells


s: The world is too much with us; late and soon,


s: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:


s: We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!


s: This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,


s: The winds that will be howling at all hours,


s: And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;


s: For this, for everything, we are out of tune;


s: It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be


s: So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,


s: Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;


s: Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;


s: Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.


s: Of this fair volume which we World do name,


s: If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,


s: Of him who it corrects, and did it frame,


s: We clear might read the art and wisdom rare;


s: Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame,


s: His justice which proud rebels doth not spare,


s: But silly we, like foolish children, rest


s: Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold,


s: Fair dangling ribbons, leaving what is best,


s: On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;


s: Or, if by chance we stay our minds on aught,


s: It is some picture on the margin wrought.


s: The bubbling brook doth leap when I come by,


s: Because my feet find measure with its call;


s: The birds know when the friend they love is nigh,


s: For I am known to them, both great and small.


s: The flower that on the lonely hillside grows


s: Expects me there when spring its bloom has given;


s: And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows,


s: And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven;


s: His ear shall catch each sound with new delight,


s: Each object wear the dress that then it wore;


s: Hear from his Father's lips that all is good.


s: In that new world toward which our feet are set,


s: Shall we find aught to make our hearts forget


s: Earth's homely joys and her bright hours of bliss?


s: Has heaven a spell divine enough for this?


s: For who the pleasure of the spring shall tell


s: When on the leafless stalk the brown buds swell,


s: When the grass brightens and the days grow long,


s: And little birds break out in rippling song?


s: O sweet the dropping eve, the blush of morn,


s: The starlit sky, the rustling fields of corn,


s: The soft airs blowing from the freshening seas,


s: The sunflecked shadow of the stately trees,


s: The mellow thunder and the lulling rain,


s: And little birds break out in rippling song!


s: O beauty manifold, from morn till night,


s: Dawn's flush, noon's blaze and sunset's tender light!


s: O fair, familiar features, changes sweet


s: Of her revolving seasons, storm and sleet


s: And golden calm, as slow she wheels through space,


s: From snow to roses,--and how dear her face,


s: When the grass brightens, when the days grow long,


s: What recompense have we, from thee removed?


s: One hope we have that overtops the whole,--


s: The hope of finding every vanished soul,


s: We love and long for daily, and for this


s: Gladly we turn from thee, and all thy bliss,


s: Even at thy loveliest, when the days are long,


s: And little birds break out in rippling song.


s: They boiled the sea, and piled the layers


s: Will never my winds go sleep in the west?


s: Will never my wheels which whirl the sun


s: Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.


s: Still through the night and through the livelong day


s: The infinite army marches on its remorseless way.


s: One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,


s: One lesson which in every wind is blown,


s: Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--


s: Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows


s: Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose,


s: Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.


s: Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,


s: Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,


s: Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,


s: Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;


s: Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil;


s: Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.


s: Leads by the hand her little child to bed,


s: And leave his broken playthings on the floor,


s: Still gazing at them through the open door,


s: Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;


s: Our playthings one by one, and by the hand


s: Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,


s: How far the unknown transcends the what we know.


s: Swings wide his windows new day after day,


s: To please the taste of passers up and down,--


s: His hoard of handy things of trite renown,


s: Of sweets and spices and of faint perfumes,


s: Of silks and prints,--and at the last illumes


s: His tiny panes to foil the evening's frown;


s: So Nature spreads her proffered treasures: such


s: As daily dazzle at the morning's rise,--


s: Fair show of isle and ocean merchandise,


s: Then, lest we like not these, in Dark's bazaars


s: She nightly tempts us with her store of stars.


s: To-day I have grown taller from walking with the trees,


s: The seven sister-poplars who go softly in a line;


s: And I think my heart is whiter for its parley with a star


s: That trembled out at nightfall and hung above the pine.


s: The call-note of a redbird from the cedars in the dusk


s: Woke his happy mate within me to an answer free and fine;


s: And a sudden angel beckoned from a column of blue smoke--


s: Lord, who am I that they should stoop--these holy folk of thine?


s: Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,


s: Within a valley where the Springtime spills


s: Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs:


s: Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows


s: With bramble-roses; and where Autumn fills


s: Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills


s: With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.


s: Here you may meet with Beauty.  Here she sits


s: Tuning a wood-thrush flute, remote, unseen;


s: Or when the storm is out, 'tis she who flits


s: From rock to rock, a form of flying spray,


s: Shouting, beneath the leaves' tumultuous green.


s: O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!


s: Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag


s: And all but cry with color!  That gaunt crag


s: To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!


s: World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!


s: As stretcheth me apart.  Lord, I do fear


s: Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.


s: No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.


s: Where birds their beaks like hammers wield,


s: Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed,


s: That she thy career may with roses spread:


s: The nightingales thy coming each where sing,


s: Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;


s: In larger locks than thou wast wont before,


s: Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.


s: This is the morn should bring unto this grove


s: My Love, to hear and recompense my love.


s: Shalt see, than those which by Peneus' streams


s: As thou, when two thou didst to Rome appear.


s: Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:


s: Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death.


s: Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels;


s: The fields with flowers are decked in every hue,


s: The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue:


s: And everything save her, who all should grace.


s: The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,


s: Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,--


s: Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,


s: Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.


s: Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,


s: I walk over the mountains and the waves,


s: My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves


s: Are filled with my bright presence, and the air


s: Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.


s: The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill


s: Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;


s: Good minds and open actions take new might,


s: I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers,


s: With their ethereal colors; the Moon's globe,


s: And the pure stars in their eternal bowers,


s: Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;


s: Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine,


s: Are portions of one power, which is mine.


s: I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven;


s: For grief that I depart they weep and frown:


s: What look is more delightful than the smile


s: With which I soothe them from the western isle?


s: Victory and praise in its own right belong.


s: The night was dark, though sometimes a faint star


s: A little while a little space made bright.


s: The night was dark and still the dawn seemed far,


s: When, o'er the muttering and invisible sea,


s: Slowly, within the East, there grew a light


s: Which half was starlight, and half seemed to be


s: The herald of a greater.  The pale white


s: Turned slowly to pale rose, and up the height


s: Of heaven slowly climbed.  The gray sea grew


s: Rose-colored like the sky.  A white gull flew


s: Straight toward the utmost boundary of the East


s: Where slowly the rose gathered and increased.


s: There was light now, where all was black before:


s: (Its flame being hidden by the garment's fold),--


s: The still air moves, the wide room is less dim.


s: More bright the East became, the ocean turned


s: Dark and more dark against the brightening sky--


s: Sharper against the sky the long sea line.


s: The hollows of the breakers on the shore


s: Were green like leaves whereon no sun doth shine,


s: Though sunlight make the outer branches hoar.


s: From rose to red the level heaven burned;


s: Then sudden, as if a sword fell from on high,


s: A blade of gold flashed on the ocean's rim.


s: Dawn--and a magical stillness: on earth, quiescence profound;


s: On the waters a vast Content, as of hunger appeased and stayed;


s: In the heavens a silence that seems not mere privation of sound,


s: Pale wandering souls that shun the light,


s: These clustered round the moon, but higher


s: Some held the Light, while those remaining


s: (Whose sound was Light) on earthly things.


s: O swift forerunners, rosy with the race!


s: Behind your blushing banners in the sky,


s: Daring invaders of Night's tenting-ground,--


s: How do ye strain on forward-bending foot,


s: With silence sandalled, so they weave their way,


s: And so they stand, with silence panoplied,


s: Chanting, through mystic symbollings of flame,


s: O changeless guardians!  O ye wizard firs!


s: What strenuous philter feeds your potency,


s: That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness.


s: What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite


s: What wind--but all the winds are yet afar,


s: And e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites,


s: That fleet before them, like their elfin locks,


s: Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet


s: Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep,


s: So range the firs, the constant, fearless ones.


s: Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait,


s: Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm,


s: And yet expectant, as who knows the dawn,


s: And all night thrills with memory and desire,


s: Searching in what has been for what shall be:


s: The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame.


s: Low in the valley lies the conquered rout


s: Of man's poor trivial turmoil, lost and drowned


s: Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled,


s: Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main.


s: And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch,


s: One great good limpid world--so still, so still!


s: For no sound echoes from its crystal curve


s: Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird


s: Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn,


s: And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn.


s: Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars!


s: Light, the revealer of dread beauty's face!


s: Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad!


s: Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst


s: Being and breath and potion!  Living soul


s: And all-informing heart of all that lives!


s: Save by its chanting: Light! and light! and light!


s: It grows in silence, as 'twere self-create,


s: Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield,


s: The holy, useless shield of long-past wars,


s: But lo! the east,--let none forget the east,


s: Pathway ordained of old where He should tread.


s: Through some sweet magic common in the skies


s: The rosy banners are with saffron tinct:


s: The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire,


s: Than clash of conquering arms, He comes!  He comes!


s: He holds his spear benignant, sceptrewise,


s: And strikes out flame from the adoring hills.


s: If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,


s: May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,


s: O Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun


s: Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,


s: Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat


s: With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,


s: As oft he rises, 'midst the twilight path


s: Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:


s: Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,


s: May not unseemly with its stillness suit,


s: And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,


s: And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,


s: Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake


s: Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile,


s: Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,


s: Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut


s: And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,


s: And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all


s: While Spring shall pour his showers, as of the wont,


s: And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!


s: While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,


s: Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,


s: Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,


s: It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;


s: Breathless with adoration; the broad sun


s: The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;


s: Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,


s: If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,


s: Thy nature is not therefore less divine:


s: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,


s: And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,


s: God being with thee when we know it not.


s: Skies to the West are stained with madder;


s: The sough of the pines is growing sadder;


s: From the meadow-lands sound the whippoorwills.


s: Skies to the East are streaked with golden;


s: Silver the hills where the moon climbs over.


s: In the cool of the evening, when the low sweet whispers waken,


s: Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far green hill?


s: In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden that He loveth,


s: They have veiled His lovely vesture with the darkness of a name!


s: In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an old story,


s: Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved with passion still...


s: Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green hill.


s: Spirit of Twilight, through your folded wings


s: And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings


s: "Is not this common earth a holy place?"


s: That sleeps, and waits a singer,--like a hymn


s: That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long,


s: Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim.


s: Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found


s: Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound.


s: These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all,


s: And the room's name is Mystery where you sit,


s: Woman whom we call Twilight, when night's pall


s: The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,


s: The ferries ply like shuttles in a loom,


s: To lights and bells that signal through the gloom


s: And like the brown soft flutter of the snow


s: The wide-winged sea-birds droop from closing skies,


s: Its turrets indistinctly touching night;


s: Like earth-born stars far fetched from faerie lands,


s: This is my hour,--when wonder springs anew


s: To see the towers ascending, pale and high,


s: This is my hour, between the day and night;


s: The sun has set and all the world is still,


s: This is my hour, between the sun and moon;


s: The little stars are gathering in the sky,


s: There is no sound but one bird's startled cry,--


s: The gardens and, far off, the meadow-land,


s: Are like the fading depths beneath a sea,


s: This is my hour, that you have called your own;


s: Touched by the wistful wonder in the air


s: In rain and twilight mist the city street,


s: Hushed and half-hidden, might this instant be


s: The street-lights blossom, star-wise, one by one;


s: Stands out--part column and part pyramid--


s: The dusk grows deeper, and on silver wings


s: Toward some sea-island, lost and beautiful,


s: "This is my hour," you breathe with quiet lips;


s: And filled with beauty, dreaming and devout,


s: We sit in silence, while our thoughts go out--


s: A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun,


s: A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow;


s: O'er the still radiance of the lake below.


s: Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow!


s: While every breath of eve that chanced to blow


s: Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west.


s: Emblem, methought, of the departed soul!


s: To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given,


s: Right onwards to the golden gates of heaven,


s: Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies,


s: And tells to man his glorious destinies.


s: My star that dartles the red and the blue!


s: Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:


s: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.


s: What matter to me if their star is a world?


s: Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.


s: Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,


s: When light rode high, and the dew was gone,


s: Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew


s: Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,


s: Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,


s: Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew,


s: Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,


s: Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed


s: Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,


s: While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,


s: That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!


s: Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife?--


s: If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?


s: Mysterious night!  Spread wide thy silvery plume!


s: Soft as swan's down, brood o'er the sapphirine


s: Breadth of still shadowy waters dark as wine;


s: Smooth out the liquid heavens that stars illume!


s: Come with fresh airs breathing the faint perfume


s: Of deep-walled gardens, groves of whispering pine;


s: Scatter soft dews, waft pure sea-scent of brine;


s: In sweet repose man's pain, man's love resume!


s: Deep-bosomed night!  Not here where down the marge


s: Marble with palaces those lamps of earth


s: Tremble on trembling blackness; nay, far hence,


s: There on the lake where space is lone and large,


s: And man's life lost in broad indifference,


s: Lilt thou the soul to spheres that gave her birth!


s: Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head


s: When truth that is, and truth that seems,


s: But perished young, like things of earth.


s: Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,


s: Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign


s: To parting friends;--such death be mine!


s: 'Twas His beloved child, His own first born;


s: Then all the works of darkness being done


s: Through countless aeons hopelessly forlorn,


s: Out to the very utmost verge and bourne,


s: God at the last, reluctant, made the sun.


s: He loved His darkness still, for it was old;


s: He grieved to see His eldest child take flight;


s: And when His Fiat Lux the death-knell tolled,


s: As the doomed Darkness backward by Him rolled,


s: And strewed it with the stars, and called it Night.


s: I heard the trailing garments of the Night


s: I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light


s: I felt her presence, by its spell of might,


s: The calm, majestic presence of the Night,


s: I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,


s: That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,


s: From the cool cisterns of the midnight air


s: The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,--


s: Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,


s: Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!


s: The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,


s: Like some great monarch with his train has passed.


s: The stars troop forth along the Milky Way,


s: On heaven's broad boulevard in pageants vast.


s: And things of earth, the hunted and outcast,


s: Come from their haunts and hiding-places; yea,


s: Even from the nooks and crannies of the mind


s: Visions uncouth and vagrant fancies start,


s: And specters of dead joy, that shun the light,


s: Each one, in form grotesque, playing its part


s: The old, old day comes up from sleeping,


s: When song of linnet and thrush is heard--


s: This is the time when sword-blades green,


s: In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts


s: Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,


s: O Spring, I know thee!  Seek for sweet surprise


s: But I have learnt the years, and know the yet


s: Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell


s: A year's procession of the flowers doth pass


s: And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know


s: Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear


s: In these young days you meditate your part;


s: I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers


s: And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall


s: O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases,


s: His purpose in his heart.  I watched, a space,


s: There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,


s: My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,


s: Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire


s: Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,


s: Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;


s: Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,


s: Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing--


s: The palm and may make country houses gay,


s: Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,


s: And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay--


s: The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,


s: Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,


s: In every street these tunes our ears do greet--


s: Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;


s: For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.


s: With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!


s: For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.


s: With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,


s: Bring orchis, bring the fox-glove spire,


s: To build and brood, that live their lives


s: The Spring returns!  What matters then that War


s: That Death ascends, man's most desired star,


s: That Darkness is his hope?  The Spring returns!


s: Triumphant through the wider-arched cope


s: The prisons of the mind, and man is free!


s: The beggar-garbed or over-bent with snows,


s: Feeling her touch, grows stronger limbed, and knows


s: The purple on his shoulders and is proud.


s: The Spring returns!  O madness beyond sense,


s: Breed in our bones thine own omnipotence!


s: When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,


s: And the brown bright nightingale amorous


s: For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,


s: Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,


s: With a clamor of waters, and with might;


s: Over the splendor and speed of thy feet;


s: For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,


s: Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.


s: Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,


s: Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?


s: O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,


s: Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!


s: For the stars and the winds are unto her


s: As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;


s: For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,


s: And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.


s: The light that loses, the night that wins;


s: And time remembered, is grief forgotten,


s: And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,


s: The full streams feed on flower of rushes,


s: The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes


s: From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;


s: And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,


s: Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,


s: Follows with dancing and fills with delight


s: The laughing leaves of the trees divide,


s: And screen from seeing and leave in sight


s: Her bright breast shortening into sighs;


s: The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,


s: To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare


s: The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.


s: And when the lark, 'tween light and dark,


s: And mounts and sings on flittering wings,


s: Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,


s: O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down


s: Through the clear windows of the morning, turn


s: Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!


s: The hills tell one another, and the listening


s: Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned


s: Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds


s: Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste


s: Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls


s: Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.


s: O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour


s: Thy golden crown upon her languished head,


s: Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee!


s: Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch


s: Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air


s: Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,


s: Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns


s: And there's a look about the leafless bowers


s: Yet still on every side we trace the hand


s: Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,


s: Or where, like those strange semblances we find


s: The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn,


s: As yet the turf is dark, although you know


s: A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,


s: Already, here and there, on frailest stems


s: In gardens you may note amid the dearth,


s: And near the snowdrop's tender white and green,


s: But many gleams and shadows needs must pass


s: And weeks go by, before the enamored South


s: Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn


s: At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by,


s: Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,


s: A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,


s: Bezide the wood-screened graegle's bell;


s: Where drushes' aggs, wi' sky-blue shell,


s: The thorns, while they do zing their zong


s: She's Queen, she's Queen of all the world


s: O welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh!


s: The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,


s: Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.


s: Welcome, O March! whose kindly days and dry


s: Make April ready for the throstle's song,


s: Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong!


s: Yea, welcome, March! and though I die ere June,


s: Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise,


s: Striving to swell the burden of the tune


s: That even now I hear thy brown birds raise,


s: O, what begetteth all this storm of bliss,


s: But Death himself, who, crying solemnly,


s: Even from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness,


s: Bids us, "Rejoice! lest pleasureless ye die.


s: Stretch forth your open hands, and, while ye live,


s: Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give."


s: Now are the winds about us in their glee,


s: Whirling the sands about his furious car,


s: Breaks the sealed magic of old Winter's dreams,


s: Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes


s: And, with a power by queenly Spring supplied,


s: With a wild love he seeks young Summer's charms


s: Lifting his shield between, he drives away


s: The ancient tyrant whom he boldly braves,


s: And, to his northern realm compelled to fly,


s: Melted are all his bands, o'erthrown his towers,


s: The braggart March stood in the season's door


s: With his broad shoulders blocking up the way,


s: Shaking the snow-flakes from the cloak he wore,


s: And from the fringes of his kirtle gray.


s: Near by him April stood with tearful face,


s: With violets in her hands, and in her hair


s: Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair,


s: Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.


s: She on the blusterer's arm laid one white hand,


s: But he would none of her soft blandishment,


s: Yet did she plead with tears none might withstand,


s: For even the fiercest hearts at last relent.


s: With one swift, crushing kiss her lips did greet.


s: Ah, poor starved heart!--for that one rude caress,


s: She cast her violets underneath his feet.


s: That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf


s: Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,


s: While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough


s: And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!


s: Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge


s: Leans to the field and scatters on the clover


s: Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--


s: That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over,


s: Lest you should think he never could recapture


s: And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,


s: All will be gay when noontide wakes anew


s: The buttercups, the little children's dower


s: --Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!


s: "Winter's done, and April's in the skies,


s: Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!"


s: Earth bade all her unseen children grow.


s: Laughed the running flurries of warm rain,


s: Laughed the life in every wandering root,


s: Laughed the tingling cells of bud and shoot.


s: Moon in heaven's garden, among the clouds that wander,


s: Crescent moon so young to see, above the April ways,


s: Whiten, bloom not yet, not yet, within the twilight yonder;


s: All my spinning is not done, for all the loitering days.


s: Oh, my heart has two wild wings that ever would be flying!


s: Oh, my heart's a meadow-lark that ever would be free!


s: Well it is that I must spin until the light be dying;


s: Well it is the little wheel must turn all day for me!


s: All the hill-tops beckon, and beyond the western meadows


s: Something calls me ever, calls me ever, low and clear:


s: A little tree as young as I, the coming summer shadows,--


s: The voice of running waters that I ever thirst to hear.


s: Oftentime the plea of it has set my wings a-beating;


s: Oftentimes it coaxes, as I sit in weary-wise,


s: Till the wild life hastens out to wild things all entreating,


s: And leaves me at the spinning-wheel, with dark, unseeing eyes.


s: Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,


s: Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her


s: The flowery May, who from her green lap throws


s: The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.


s: Thus we salute thee with our early song,


s: Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn


s: Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.


s: Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east,


s: Above an hour since: yet you not dressed;


s: And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin,


s: Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.


s: Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen


s: To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,


s: Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,


s: Against you come, some orient pearls unwept;


s: Till you come forth.  Wash, dress, be brief in praying:


s: Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying.


s: Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark


s: How each field turns a street, each street a park


s: Made green and trimmed with trees; see how


s: Or branch: each porch, each door, ere this,


s: Made up of white-thorn, neatly interwove;


s: As if here were those cooler shades of love.


s: And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;


s: But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.


s: There's not a budding boy or girl, this day,


s: But is got up, and gone to bring in May.


s: Some have despatched their cakes and cream


s: And some have wept, and wooed and plighted troth,


s: And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:


s: This night, and locks picked, yet we're not a-Maying.


s: Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,


s: And take the harmless folly of the time.


s: Then while time serves, and we are but decaying,


s: Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.


s: See the clear sun, the world's bright eye,


s: Come walk with me along this willowed lane,


s: Where, like lost coinage from some miser's store,


s: Glow, as the warm sun kisses them again!


s: Leads on the laughing Hours; for now is o'er


s: Long winter's trance.  No longer rise and roar


s: His forest-wrenching blasts.  The hopeful swain,


s: Along the furrow, sings behind his team;


s: Loud pipes the redbreast--troubadour of spring,


s: More blue the skies in lucent lakelets gleam;


s: And the glad earth, caressed by murmuring showers,


s: Wakes like a bride, to deck herself with flowers!


s: "What in all the world, in all the world," they say,


s: Is half so sweet, so sweet, is half so sweet as May?"


s: Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland,


s: Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.


s: With even stroke their scythes they swing,


s: The cattle graze, while, warm and still,


s: Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,


s: O, Father's gone to market-town, he was up before the day,


s: And Jamie's after robins, and the man is making hay,


s: And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill,


s: While mother from the kitchen-door is calling with a will:


s: "Polly!--Polly!--The cows are in the corn!


s: From all the misty morning air there comes a summer sound--


s: A murmur as of waters from skies and trees and ground.


s: The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo,


s: And over hill and hollow rings again the loud halloo:


s: Above the trees the honey-bees swarm by with buzz and boom,


s: And in the field and garden a thousand blossoms bloom.


s: Within the farmer's meadow a brown-eyed daisy blows,


s: And down at the edge of the hollow a red and thorny rose.


s: But Polly!--Polly!--The cows are in the corn!


s: While whistling up the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill.


s: First lets his fingers wander as they list,


s: And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:


s: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument


s: Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,


s: First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent


s: With our faint hearts the mountain strives;


s: Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;


s: The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,


s: The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,


s: At the devil's booth are all things sold,


s: Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;


s: Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:


s: 'Tis only God may be had for the asking;


s: Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,


s: An instinct within it that reaches and towers,


s: And, groping blindly above it for light,


s: The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,


s: And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean


s: The little bird sits at his door in the sun,


s: His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,


s: He sings to the wide world and she to her nest,--


s: In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?


s: Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,


s: Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;


s: Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,


s: No matter how barren the past may have been,


s: 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;


s: We sit in the warm shade and feel right well


s: How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;


s: We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing


s: That skies are clear and grass is growing;


s: That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,


s: That the robin is plastering his house hard by;


s: And if the breeze kept the good news back,


s: We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,


s: Concealing, half-revealing, things divine.


s: Scythes that swing in the grass and clover,


s: Something, still, they say as they pass;


s: Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?


s: Hush--'tis the lullaby Time is singing--


s: Hush, and heed not, for all things pass,


s: Hush, ah hush! and the Scythes are swinging


s: In meadows where the downy seeds are flying;


s: In faded gardens where the rose is dying.


s: The merry partridge drums in hidden places,


s: Where busy spiders spin their filmy laces.


s: And on the clustered grapes to purple turning;


s: Where the broad harvest-moon is redly burning.


s: And patriarch swallows call their flocks together


s: The fairer blossoms of a balmier weather.


s: That linger in the last flowers of September,


s: Of the dead summer they so well remember.


s: The squirrel eyes askance the chestnuts browning;


s: And hasten southward ere the skies are frowning.


s: And round about my temples fondly lingers,


s: Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.


s: And memory makes the summer doubly pleasant,


s: Passing the fairest glories of the present!


s: These are the days when birds come back,


s: Oh, days of beauty standing veiled apart,


s: With dreamy skies and tender, tremulous air,


s: The long brown fields--no longer drear and dull--


s: Burn with the glow of these deep-hearted hours.


s: Until the dry weeds seem more beautiful,


s: More spiritlike than even summer's flowers.


s: But yesterday the world was stricken bare,


s: Left old and dead in gray, enshrouding gloom;


s: Awakes the soul of vanished light and bloom?


s: Sharp with the clean, fine ecstasy of death,


s: A mightier wind shall strike the shrinking earth,


s: Wake the white wonder of the winter's birth.


s: In her wide Pantheon--her temple place--


s: Wrapped in strange beauty and new comforting,


s: We shall not miss the Summer's full-blown grace,


s: Nor hunger for the swift, exquisite Spring.


s: When late in summer the streams run yellow,


s: When berries are black and peaches are mellow,


s: But the heart of the sunflower is darker and sadder;


s: When the corn is in stacks on the slope of the hill,


s: And slides o'er the path the striped adder;


s: When butterflies flutter from clover to thicket,


s: Or wave their wings on the drooping leaf;


s: When the breeze comes shrill with the call of the cricket,


s: Grasshopper's rasp, and rustle of sheaf;


s: When high in the field the fern-leaves wrinkle,


s: And brown is the grass where the mowers have mown;


s: When low in the meadow the cow-bells tinkle,


s: And small brooks crinkle o'er stock and stone;


s: When heavy and hollow the robin's whistle


s: And shadows are deep in the heat of noon;


s: When the air is white with the down o' the thistle,


s: And the sky is red with the harvest moon;


s: O, then be chary, young Robert and Mary,


s: If the fiddle would play it must stop its tuning;


s: And they who would wed must be done with their mooning;


s: So let the churn rattle, see well to the cattle,


s: And pile the wood by the barn-yard gate!


s: Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!


s: Conspiring with him how to load and bless


s: With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;


s: To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,


s: And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;


s: To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells


s: With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,


s: And still more, later flowers for the bees,


s: Until they think warm days will never cease,


s: For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.


s: Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?


s: Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,


s: Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;


s: Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,


s: Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook


s: Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;


s: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep


s: Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.


s: Where are the songs of Spring?  Ay, where are they?


s: Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,


s: While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day


s: And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;


s: Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn


s: Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;


s: And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;


s: Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft


s: The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,


s: And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


s: Stand shadowless like Silence, listening


s: To silence, for no lonely bird would sing


s: Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright


s: With tangled gossamer that fell by night,


s: Where are the songs of Summer?--With the sun,


s: And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.


s: On panting wings through the inclement skies,


s: And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.


s: Where are the blooms of Summer?--In the West,


s: Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,


s: When the mild Eve by sudden Night is pressed


s: Like tearful Prosperine, snatched from her flowers,


s: Where is the pride of Summer,--the green prime,--


s: The many, many leaves all twinkling?--Three


s: On the mossed elm; three on the naked lime


s: Trembling,--and one upon the old oak-tree!


s: Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,


s: Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through


s: The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard,


s: The ants have brimmed their garners with ripe grain,


s: The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;


s: The swallows all have winged across the main;


s: Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.


s: She sits and reckons up the dead and gone,


s: Whilst all the withered world looks drearily,


s: In the hushed mind's mysterious far away,


s: Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last


s: O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded


s: Upon her forehead, and a face of care;--


s: To make her bower,--and enough of gloom;


s: If only for the rose that died, whose doom


s: Is Beauty's,--she that with the living bloom


s: Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:


s: Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,--


s: Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;


s: To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!


s: O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,


s: Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead


s: Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,


s: Yellow and black, and pale, and hectic red,


s: The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,


s: Each like a corpse within its grave, until


s: Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow


s: Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill


s: (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)


s: With living hues and odors plain and hill;


s: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;


s: Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,


s: Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,


s: Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,


s: Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread


s: On the blue surface of thine airy surge,


s: Like the bright hair uplifted from the head


s: Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge


s: The locks of the approaching storm.  Thou dirge


s: Of the dying year, to which this closing night


s: Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:  O hear!


s: Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams


s: Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,


s: Quivering within the wave's intenser day,


s: All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers


s: So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!  Thou


s: For whose path the Atlantic's level powers


s: Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below


s: The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear


s: Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,


s: And tremble and despoil themselves:  O hear!


s: If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;


s: If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;


s: A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share


s: The impulse of thy strength, only less free


s: The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,


s: As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed


s: Scarce seemed a vision--I would ne'er have striven


s: As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.


s: I fall upon the thorns of life!  I bleed!


s: A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed


s: One too like thee--tameless, and swift, and proud.


s: Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:


s: What if my leaves are falling like its own?


s: Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,


s: Sweet though in sadness.  Be thou, Spirit fierce,


s: Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,


s: Like withered, leaves, to quicken a new birth;


s: Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth


s: Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!


s: If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?


s: The warm sun is failing; the bleak wind is wailing;


s: The bare boughs are sighing; the pale flowers are dying;


s: On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,


s: And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.


s: The chill rain is falling; the nipped worm is crawling;


s: The rivers are swelling; the thunder is knelling


s: The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone


s: And make her grave green with tear on tear.


s: When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,


s: And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,


s: And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,


s: And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;


s: O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,


s: With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,


s: They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere


s: When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here--


s: Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,